UPDATE: The original No Man's Sky subreddit has reopened.
Mod Sporkicide said r0ugew0lf, who previously shut the /r/NoMansSkyTheGame subreddit after claiming it had become "a hate-filled wastehole of no actual discussion," will be taking "a break" and had passed control over.
Here's the announcement:
"I know the past few hours have been confusing. I've been reviewing the situation and working with /u/r0ugew0lf to determine the needs of this community and how the admins can help meet them. He's been an enormous help and I appreciate him working with us during a difficult time. He's going to take a break and has handed the reins over to me to get the subreddit restarted. I've extended invitations to some of the previous moderators to get things started and will likely be needing some additional help."
"At the core of things, this is a subreddit and a community centered around No Man's Sky. I'm asking everyone here to participate in good faith and leave any frustration with the recent situation at the door."
ORIGINAL STORY: under fire
The moderator responsible for the shut down of /r/NoMansSkyTheGame, r0ugew0lf, revealed the reasoning behind the questionable move in an announcement post.
"So I purged the subreddit," he stated. "It's become a hate-filled wastehole of no actual discussion. It's not what we intended it to be and I don't like providing a platform for hate. I'm sorry to everyone who used the subreddit as intended but you are now in the majority. I'm sure you can find a different place to discuss this game. It's not hard."
"This was my decision and mine alone. The other moderators tried to sway my opinion but cynicism got the best of me as usual," the mod added.
With that said, was the subreddit really so bad that it had to be shut down entirely? An archive of the page via WayBackMachine suggests that the move might have been more than a little unfair.
Sure, the first thing that will likely catch a viewer's eyes are the posts from disgruntled No Man's Sky players who are upset about the lack of updates from Hello Games and Murray. But that distaste is tepid compared to the fiasco that happened back in May when Kotaku reported that the game was getting delayed. Not only did some people respond in anger, but some of the more passionate members of the community actually issued death threats.
Compared to that incident (which could reasonably warrant a shut down), what's going on here actually comes off as reasonable discourse about a game that has failed to live up to (unfair) expectations. For example, one thread titled "On Exploration and No Man's Sky: Why No Man's Sky failed to engage and moving forward," the OP provides a fair analysis about the shortcomings of this game.
What's more, that criticism isn't unique to that thread either, as this has been a consistent topic of discussion ever since the game came out in August.
With that in mind, is there another reason why the subreddit was shut down? According to comments from community members and other mods, the general consensus is that r0ugew0lf was power-tripping and overstepped his bounds.
On the other hand, r0ugew0lf maintains the shut down was fair and pointed to a lack of moderator support as one of the reasons why things unfolded the way they did.
"Is it possible to get more moderator support?" he said in a follow-up statement. "We've been out here basically on our own dealing with a toxic community with little support from the admin's side. Moderator tools were always put on standstill after advertisements and AMAs. We've been waiting for a legitimate modmail overhall [sic] for longer than I've been a moderator, and we're only just now getting a beta that is very exclusive."
"Moderators seem to be a second thought behind making money here on this platform. I feel as if there could be much better support for your first line of defense against and general hate. Lately it feels as if Reddit is more about the publicity and adverting [sic]."
In the end, however, it doesn't matter what his reasoning was, as the subreddit is gone.
Fortunately, all is not lost. Just hours after the first subreddit shut down, a new one, titled r/no_mans_sky, emerged to take its place. What's more, the shutdown drew the attention of site admins, who, in a post, announced that they were looking into the matter and might possibly restore the original subreddit to its former state (presumably without r0ugew0lf as a moderator).
