Forum Ninja

Official Ninja logo

Forum Ninjas are Bungie.net’s title for forum moderators. They help enforce Bungie’s Code of Conduct and work alongside the Forum Mentors with the Community, Player Support, and Web teams. Ninjas congregate in the mysterious, moderator-only group, HFCS.

Their work is mostly done in the shadows, removing bad actors from Bungie’s website whenever the Code of Conduct is broken. While they can be seen occasionally, they mostly work behind the scenes.

Historically, most Forum Ninjas have been community volunteers, but over the course of their 20-year history some Bungie contractors and employees have held the position.

History

On Nov. 14, 2001, Bungie.net relaunched and Yeroen (Max Hoberman) introduced the 7th Column, the “Official Bungie fan club and underground army.” It was established to help Bungie pave the way toward World Domination and foster development of the Bungie community.

As a part of the fan club, members could create their own Chapters (a.k.a Groups) with the intention that each Chapter having an interest and intent to host local, Bungie-related gaming LAN parties.

On March 12, Yeroen created “Chapter Founders,” a gathering place for all chapter administrators. It was here where "The Septagon" was born, a forum for chapter founders and active members of the Seventh Column to "Discuss ways to improve the Seventh Column and to help Bungie take over the world!"

To moderate these forums, Yeroen promoted a few Chapter members to become Forum Moderators. They served until the site relaunched in 2004 when The Septagon was recreated as its own forum. To congregate, "HFCS" was created as the new home for the moderators, now known as Forum Ninjas, and it’s been their home ever since.

When the Bungie.next beta launched in 2013, the Ninja's duties were greatly reduced. The intention of the Web Team was for the community to moderate their own experience, with the Ninjas only moderating the most severe Code of Conduct violations. In addition, bans became anonymously issued and unappealable, and the Ninjas could no longer pin or lock threads.

A few weeks after the relaunch, members from the Welcome Wagon group were invited to The Welcoming Committee to become the first Mentors, new moderators designed to help new users to the website and Destiny.

In January 2014, the Code of Conduct was revised and became the forum's rules, allowing the Ninjas to moderate the forums again and giving users an idea of what the Ninjas will ban moving forward. When Ninjas banned a post, it disappeared completely while keeping the Ninjas identity anonymous.

Bungie.net became multilingual on April 25, 2017, allowing users to sort the forums, news posts, and help article by language. While the Ninjas always had international moderators to always have a moderator active on the site, this was the first time where they purposely looked for, and added, non-English language moderators.

The website's Code of Conduct was updated on March 10, 2020, including the removal of political and religious discussion. At some point, auto-bannable words were introduced as well.

In June 2020, Mentors joined the Ninja's private group, HFCS, and were given additional powers.

Roles

Forum Ninja

• Status: Active
• Years Active: 2004-Present

  

  Forum Ninja Title Bar.

Master Forum Ninja Title Bar.

Master Forum Ninja

• Status: Inactive
• Years Active: 2004-2013

Tooling

Forum Ninjas have access to additional forum tools that regular users are unable to access.

Nina tools in 2004

2004-2007

In 2005, Yoozel gave details (upon request) about the tools that the Ninjas had:

• Forum Ninjas: Had the power to edit posts, pin threads, lock threads, and delete threads. They could also blacklist (a.k.a. ban) a person from the forums, but had no option to set how long it was for.
• Master Ninjas: Had all above powers, plus the ability to post/edit front page news, and adjust/edit blacklists.

Master Forum Ninjas were veteran Forum Ninjas who were trusted with more responsibility, including the abilities to permanently blacklist users, adjust ban lengths, hear appeals, and delete posts. The selection process for Master Forum Ninjas was a secret, but was thought to center upon activity levels and upholding of the forum rules.

2007-2011

After the "Day After Bungie Day" incident where one of the Ninja's accounts was hacked in 2007, leading to several users getting banned and many threads getting deleted, the Web Team restricted thread and post deletion to Master Ninjas only.

Over time, they also removed the ability for any Forum Ninja to post or edit front page news.

A preview of the moderation tool with a red "trust rating"

2011-2013

The "move" tool remained mostly unused after 2011 due to a bug that caused post-anchor issues when the move tool was used. The bug essentially scrambled the order of the posts within the thread, resulting in a few humorous and confusing threads as the bug was discovered. With Bungie.next on the horizon, the Web Team opted to not fix the bug.

On March 13, 2012, urk revealed that administrator-level accounts could view a user's "trust rating" as well as post pictures directly in posts. However, given that urk was known to troll users, it's possible this was a joke.

2013-Present

The Ninjas have the power to ban users, edit posts, lock threads, move threads, approve or remove Creations art submissions, ban Groups, ban LFG Fireteams, ban Clans, and more.

During the Bungie.net Beta, the Ninjas could also issue "global mutes" to users, posts, and threads, causing them needing to be expanded to be viewed.

Membership

The selection process to become a Forum Ninja has been a secret since their inception. However, Bungie's official guide regarding Community Volunteers does give general guidelines:

"Volunteer roles for Bungie are community-sourced and there is no official application process. We look for community members who demonstrate good judgment, teamwork, and integrity. We encourage those who may wish to join us to be active in the community by assisting others. If we have open seats available, we may invite you to join us at the table."

Prior to 2013, the Ninjas wrote an article that was publicly available from their HFCS group page, sharing the following information on how one becomes a Forum Ninja:

"Forum Ninjas are selected on a number of characteristics such as community involvement, length of time on Bungie.net, knowledge of Bungie and Bungie games and should have extensive knowledge of the English language along with proper grammar. If candidates meet these requirements, they may be potential Forum Ninja material and are abducted, sealed in a black room, beaten with a wet noodle and finally starved for seven days until they are released back into the world naked and confused or find themselves chained to a computer desk in Bungie’s mop closet."

Ninja History

Ninjas are normally recruited in batches and, historically, new Ninjas have been added approximately once per year, though not always. Below is a timeline of which Ninjas were recruited in each year:

Key

M	B	EB	MR
Master Forum Ninja*	Current Employee	Former Employee	Former Mentor
*Those who became a Master Forum Ninja between 2004-2013

2002 Bungie.net Forum Moderators for the Septagon (which was powered by the Chapter Founders group).

2002

In 2002, Bungie.net introduced two forums: The Underground, and The Septagon. The Septagon was powered by the Group Founders group, where Yeoren promoted a few members to become moderators in that forum. They served until the site relaunched in 2004 when The Septagon was recreated as its own forum. To congregate, "HFCS" was created as the new home for the moderators, now known as Forum Ninjas, and it’s been their home ever since.

• chris547 [Retired ~2004]
• gholsbane [Retired ~2004]
• mnemisis [Retired ~2004]
• stosh [B] [Retired ~2006]
• Vlad Dracula [Retired ~2004]

2003

• None

2004 — New Hawtness

• chris547 [Retired 2014]
• goweb [Retired 2017]
• MakaVeli4LIfe1 [Retired 2008]
• Recon Number 54 [M] [Retired 2016]
• Reiginko [Retired 2005]
• Shishka [EB] [Retired 2006]
• Sigma [Retired 2005]
• Yoozel [M] [Retired 2015]

2005

• Anton P Nym [M] [Retired 2014]
• dmbfan09 [Left 2006] [Rejoined 2010]
• GameJunkieJim [M] [Retired 2014]
• Great_Pretender (TGP) [M] [Retired 2012]
• impurity [Retired 2006]
• Ninja 0n Fire (Jeremiah) [B] [Retired 2010]
• Nosferatu_Soldie [M] [Retired 2014]
• VII Toast [Left 2007]

2006

• BobBQ [Retired 2017]
• Ghandi 2 [Retired 2007]
• just another fan [Left 2010] [Rejoined 2011]
• Pezza (Pezz) [Retired 2014]
• Senor Leche [Retired 2014]
• Skiptrace [EB] [Retired 2012]

2007 — New New Hawtness

• Achilles1108 [Left 2008] [Rejoined 2008]
• ash55 [Retired 2018]
• THE DON WAN [EX] [Retired 2014]
• evilcam [Left 2008] [Rejoined 2011]
• Gods Prophet [Retired 2015]
• nuchie [EB] [Retired]
• xTr1GGeR HaPPYx [Left 2008]

2008

• Achilles1108 [Rejoined] [Left 2010]
• Butane123 [Left 2011] [Rejoined 2012]
• Captain K Mart [Retired 2014]
• Duardo [M] [B]
• El Roboto [M] [Retired 2015]
• FoMan123 [M] [Retired 2019]
• Mr_Hand [EB] [Retired 2008]
• Nedus [Retired 2017]
• odmichael [Retired 2014]
• Qbix89 [M] [Retired 2015]
• Sir Fragula [Retired 2014]
• Skibur (THE CHIEF 87) [Retired 2010]
• The Slayer [M] [Retired 2015]

2009

• None

2010

• bobcast [Retired 2023]
• borrowedchief [Retired 2015]
• dazarobbo [Retired 2017]
• dmbfan09 [Rejoined] [Retired 2023]
• Dr Weird (DR WE1RD) [Retired 2017]
• Lord Revan [B] [Retired 2019]
• Old Papa Rich [Retired 2023]
• Predator5791 [Retired 2015]
• Tom T 117 [Retired 2012]
• True Underdog [EB] [Retired 2015]

2011 — The Darkness

• evilcam [Rejoined] [Retired 2015]
• just another fan [Rejoined] [Retired 2015]

2012

• Butane123 [Rejoined]

2013 — Bungie.next

• None

2014

• Index [Left 2017] [Rejoined 2017]
• irishfreak
• JBSpudster [Retired 2017]
• Prometheus25 [Retired 2016]
• Shacker [Retired 2019]

2015

• Atsumi [Retired 2023]
• Commander Scurvy (Mobi) [MR]
• DMHCook [Retired 2023]
• Froggie [Retired 2023]
• Makeshyft [MR]
• Spawn [MR]
• Takedown

2016 — Bungie.next Darker

• BaghdadBean [Retired 2023]
• MoonDawg [MR]
• onyx spartan
• Beewaxers [Retired 2017]

2017

• Dimitrios4
• Ecto1italia [Retired 2019]
• Fuzzle
• Index [Rejoined] [Retired 2023]
• MarcMarc [Retired 2019]
• Needless [Left 2021]
• Phoenix1710
• Plain Ben
• Psyperactive81 [Retired 2023]
• Seraphim Crypto [MR] [Died 2022]
• TheVanguardBR
• x MADMAX xxx [Left 2017]

2018

• machinimagames
• Pobreloko
• ZER0COOL [Retired 2023]

2019

• Eriena [MR]
• Fraser
• LA 2395
• Honz
• Luca270999
• Patrick
• Nikaophobos [Retired 2020]
• Steel Assassin

2020

• albertcarsan
• tchakael
• SirWinnipeck

2021

• Hagios

2022

• feniBBo
• Vasto Lorde
• Kafoo
• Lime Lyfe [MR] [Retired 2023]
• Times Vengeance [MR]
• EZ [MR]