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Posted by: Lokistaman
It seems to me that the moderators are fighting a losing battle in the Halo 3 Forum. Everyday there are massive amounts of repeated threads and spam, flaming and trolling. Therefore, the moderators should just turn a blind eye to the Halo 3 Forum. Let it go to waste; it will be much easier on everybody in the end. The mods wouldn't have to worry about moderating the Halo 3 Forum, and normal members could have free reign of the forum, something that no user would object to. This would be a great way to make everyone happy.
To start, this idea seems so far out-of-wack with common sense that I must question whether it is serious. But I will assume that it is because it's late at night and I am bored. So to get to it:
I must disagree with several of your contentions. First, the moderators are not "fighting a losing battle." The forum is well-moderated and although the problems you mention are indeed most prevalent in the H3 forum, the moderators keep a good eye on things and most of the threads that are the worst violations of the rules are locked and the worst members are blacklisted consistently. While the amount of bad posting in the forum is bound to increase as Halo 3's launch nears, I do not see this in itself as a reason to cease all moderation.
To this end, I highly disagree with you that most "normal members" would not object to a lack of forum moderation. Not only do the forum "regulars" love to discuss Halo 3, but most people new to bungie.net are joining so that they can head over to the Halo 3 forum to discuss the game. If the thread were a haven for spam, flames, and trolling, these new members would be deterred not only from the forum, but from the site itself. The more mature and regular members would avoid the forum as well, thus cutting off a very popular topic of discussion to the people who use the site the most. In that respect, you most certainly do not speak for the community in your erroneous contention that none of us would object to a lack of moderation in the Halo 3 forum.
But moreover, I think that you and indeed anyone who truly cares about seeing Bungie continue to make great video games and other products should affirmatively WANT to see the Halo 3 forum moderated.
This leads, inescapably, to a discussion of the purpose of the site and its forums. You must remember that to almost everybody in the world (quite literally), bungie.net is the face of Bungie Game Studios. For public relations reasons, it is most certainly in Bungie's best interests to have a site that is clean, welcoming, and enjoyable for the general public. A person who comes to the b.net forums and is flamed or spammed every time they try to talk about the next upcoming Bungie game might very realistically be deterred from visiting the site ever again and even from buying the game itself. Who wants to buy a game when they have been ridiculed for discussing it? As ash55 noted, ignoring the Halo 3 forum would defeat the purpose of having moderators.
Bungie has obviously made a business decision that they want their online image to be mature, simple, accessible, and well-managed. There may be a variety of reasons for keeping things mature and intelligent, but I can tell you that at least part of the reason is that the effort is appreciated by a majority of the Community -- those Bungie fans who will help to spread the word about Bungie (and word of mouth is the best form of advertising). The moderators are a big part of this goal, and none of us -- neither you nor I -- are in a position to question Bungie's business decisions.
It may be true that these goals all go towards increasing profits, but that is not necessarily a bad thing at all; what's good for Bungie is good for its fans, and if Bungie has more resources, it can better use its talent to create better products.
So to take this rather broad purpose and narrow it down to the specifics of your post, it becomes clear that Bungie's goals comport with the desires of the majority of the Community (making great video games). As a result, it is in Bungie's AND the community's interest to keep the most popular forum on Bungie more inviting, welcoming, mature, and intelligent.
Therefore, I disagree with your idea.