Hello, I read your post on the history of r/visualnovels and I noticed it was from 2018 so I was wondering what your thoughts on the subreddit's current state are, if you don't mind talking about it.
First, a disclaimer. I’ve not been involved with /r/visualnovels for ~6 years, so I don’t have much insider knowledge and you shouldn’t take any of my commentary too seriously. With that out of the way, let’s do a history recap since my last post.
At the time of my 2018 subreddit history post, the subreddit was slowly being strangled by a mod team who was still operating under the old heavily-curated mindset, where non-news posts were ruthlessly removed, but without the balance of organising community events and engaging with the subreddit community, instead spending their time on Discord.
The following couple of years followed this same path. Occasionally there would be a post where folk complained about the overly-restrictive posting rules and lack of mod team engagement, to which a fresh mod member would be added with promises of change. Each new mod would follow a similar arc of engaging for a couple of months, but then wouldn’t be seen outside of Discord. (Shout out to Demeteloaf, the only mod who genuinely worked hard for the subreddit throughout his tenure. But one low-tier mod couldn’t overcome the impassive inertia of the rest of the mod team.)
This pattern finally broke in ~2020 when Nai got added as a mod. Nai (like insanityissexy) is one of the few people who had a vision for the community and the self-drive to make it happen (see his EVN dev community work). Whether his plan for a more EVN friendly subreddit would have been good or bad, or even feasible in the face of a userbase that was broadly impassive or hostile towards EVNs, is something I’ll skip over. Either way, Nai was left to be the face of change at a time when reddit as a whole was becoming more restrictive on “loli” content. Whether the “no sexualising the loli” rule Nai announced was merely following reddit’s rules, or a push towards catering towards EVNs (where “loli” content was rare, unlike Japanese VNs), I’ll leave to the reader to decide.
Regardless of the motivation, this was another rule on top of an already restrictive rule-set by a mod team that rarely engaged with the subreddit community. It angered both the loli-fans and those who felt this was yet another imposition by an out-of-touch mod team.
Cue Gambs.
I would never have guessed Gambs would come roaring back. He never expressed any interest in the subreddit when I was a mod, nor did he seem interested in VNs. He’d only read ~7 and that was years earlier.
It was an absolute rout of the old mod team. Even the friends they called in from Discord couldn’t offer more than a “maybe the mods will perform better in future?” defence in the face of a userbase utterly fed up with them. Again, a shout-out to Demeteloaf who stood by his principles and publicly stood up to Gambs’ takeover, but a solo mod can be dismissed easily. The rest of the mod team were far too used to hiding behind their mod powers to silence dissent to be able to sway public opinion against a mod who had more power than them.
Gambs clearly had no idea what he was doing though, as he threw mod powers at first users to profess agreement with his takeover. Fortunately the first two users were the right choice, SuperAnge and Tauros. Both old community members who genuinely cared about the subreddit.
They removed almost all of the posting restrictions, and put to rest the argument about whose fault the subreddit’s poor state was. I’d previously wondered whether Discord’s popularity was always going to doom the sub, but Ange and Tauros showed there was a lively subreddit community if only you let them post. /r/visualnovels ‘activity exploded, and the old mod’s attempt to recreate the former heavily-curated version on /r/vns died to inactivity.
As well as being wrong about Gambs’ return, I was also wrong about Gambs’ departure. I assumed he wouldn’t have any ongoing interest in the subreddit. He didn’t seem to read VNs any more, who would be care about the community? Well it turns out he’s addicted to drama as badly as I was during my depressed phase of life. While Gambs’ cloaked his behaviour as trolling, the litany of grievances he’d repeatedly bring up showed how sensitive he was towards criticism (yes, I’m aware of the irony of me calling out someone else for holding onto grievances). As someone who had similar issues, I genuinely believe Gambs needs the help of a therapist.
Regardless of the cause, Gambs was the source of repeated drama on the subreddit in the years since. Getting into disputes with former community members, translators, localisers, and now even VNDB. He tries to wield the subreddit as a weapon, directing them as those he’s upset with, but with limited success while Ange and Tauros were holding the line and limiting his drama posts. But if you oppose someone with ego issues, sooner or later you become their enemy, and eventually Ange and Tauros were removed. Shout out to Tauros who repeatedly opposed Gambs’ misbehaviour, knowing he’d be removed as a mod for it. It’s a shame Ange wouldn’t publicly back him up, likely the only well-liked community member who might have rallied the subreddit.
So that finally brings us to the current-day, a subreddit with minimal rules outside of criticising the dear-leader. On the positive side, the subreddit has never been more active. While I’m not into all the meme/image posts, there’s no denying the community as a whole likes them given their upvotes. This is more the direction I originally wanted to take the subreddit, giving it more freedom, but with one significant missing piece: I think the subreddit should be split. With the activity the sub gets now it should be possible to divide some activity, having a sub dedicated to discussions and another for news posts, perhaps splitting JVNs and EVNs while leaving the core sub as a free-for-all. That way those who want to engage in discussions or are fans of EVNs aren’t drowned out by JVN memes.
We tried this once with limited success when me and insa made /r/vnsuggest to redirect /r/visualnovels users who wanted VN recommendations, although in that case we also removed the original /r/visualnovels posts too.
In theory there’s already a split, /r/vns as a news/discussion hub has revived after Gambs continued drama forced regulars away, but the antagonism between the mod teams (or rather Gambs’ antagonism towards everyone else) means many user’s on /r/visualnovels aren’t aware of the alternative subs and so can’t make informed choices about where they subscribe.
Another approach could be to replicate /r/anime’s methods, where they have specific days for posting memes and a series of megathreads.
As for the future, I expect if the /r/visualnovels mods aren’t going to offer a more curated experiences for those who want it, others will try to create their own subs. But it’s unlikely Gambs would look upon that with approval and seek to stifle any mention of a successful alternative, so the userbase are stuck with the free for all on /r/visualnovels for the foreseeable future.
I’m not sure how useful any of my rambling has been, but I hope it’s been an amusing read. Obviously I have a bias against some of the old mods so you should factor that in.
P.S. Not directly subreddit related, but I think Gambs getting banned from Twitter is probably the best thing that could have happened for him. It massively limits his opportunity to spark drama and get himself into self-destructive fights. Fewer feuds is good for him and good for the subreddit.