Woke wins: BattleTech fan civil war was brief and glorious

The word “woke” is not a pejorative despite the angry insecurity from some of the geek community, and the brief, decisive and glorious civil war on the 50,000-strong BattleTech fan Reddit was a timely reminder.

The drama started when the incumbent moderators deleted any mention of the Battletech Pride Anthology 2023, presumably in support of free speech and in protest at the cancel culture (<- sarcasm). Their homophobia was noticed, and the community reacted quickly.

Each of those moderators has now been removed, and as Polygon reports, the sub-Reddit’s founder, ddevil63, is back. The new rule one in the forum is BattleTech is for Everybody. 

Humbly, ddevil63 also added;

Yesterday was when I became aware of the removal of the Pride Anthology post and the rightfully deserved backlash. I have no moderation or community management experience but I’m trying my best to right any wrongs.

Sci-fi legend and BattleTech author Michael A. Stackpole is also on the record with the reminder that;

BattleTech has always been woke. Read the Warrior Trilogy. The anti-prejudice/anti-racism theme roads through all of it. 

Catalyst Game Labs, who make the BattleTech RPG and other games, also weighed in clearly and with strength. In a Reddit post, the publisher added;

To build safe and respectful communities for BattleTech, Shadowrun, Leviathans, and Board Gaming.

and then;

Let me be clear: BattleTech is for EVERYONE.

There are now more safe and respectful BattleTech communities than before. Catalyst has started its own sub-Reddit and is working with ddevil63 to coordinate between the two.

Freelancer Russell Zimmerman is on my community team, and has experience moderating safe communities. I asked him to take point on creating a subreddit and wrangling a mod team. Reddit is designed to be a community space, and our plan is to encourage and enable community members to moderate rather than us. It is not my intention to have this account be an active participant here. But to call this subreddit “official,” the community and moderation team will need to abide by the same community guidelines as our other spaces. Once those are finalized, we will communicate them with you.

I’m especially fond of this “works in progress” by SneakyZaku and shared on the new OfficialBattleTech community. 

Sneaky said;

Work in progress on the new ‘Pride-star’ im making, a celebration of Battletech’s inclusivity across the ages, starting with an Original box Thunderbolt and a Clan Invasion Mad Cat!