9 ms·

Huge respect for Chris, and I'm very happy he's feeling that sense of relief. I took a shot at moderating a few smaller subreddits, and managed to find myself

by fein 11y ago

Huge respect for Chris, and I'm very happy he's feeling that sense of relief. I took a shot at moderating a few smaller subreddits, and managed to find myself hating every moment spent doing it. It sure makes the majority of internet look like selfish ingrates, even though it's usually just a vocal minority. I just stay away from Reddit now for the most part; primarily due to seeing the kind of place you get when the barrier for entry is non existent.

janny_throwaway 11y ago
>primarily due to seeing the kind of place you get when the barrier for entry is non existent. you think reddit's bad, try 4chan! I was 4chan "janitor" (lesser-mod) for 18 months or so and I agree, these sorts of positions really twist your perception of the community you're moderating. When you're buried in reports -- and these are 4chan reports, which means not just spam, but gore, cp, raids, etc. -- it becomes all too easy to dole out harsh penalties to people who may have just made an honest mistake. I essentially stopped browsing 4chan for fun; I saw it only through the lens of the janitor interface. Chris, to his credit, frequently expressed his gratitude to the volunteer staff for doing what he knew was a thankless, soul-crushing job. He wondered aloud why we didn't go volunteer our time at a puppy shelter or something instead. I'm sure he asked himself that question too. I'm no longer in that position; I outed myself as a janitor and was immediately terminated. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not really suited for these sorts of roles. Having access to privileged information and special powers makes me uncomfortable. The good news is that I've recently returned to 4chan as a regular, anonymous user, and I'm really enjoying it. I hope Chris experiences something similar. He deserves it.
- castratikron 11y ago
  Reminds me of the Mark Twain story "Two Ways of Seeing a River". You ought to check it out.
  - janny_throwaway 11y ago
    Lovely. Reminds me of this quote from Lorraine Daston: The marvel that stopped us in our tracks—an aurora borealis, cognate words in languages separated by continents and centuries, the peacock’s tail—becomes only an apparent marvel once explained. Aesthetic appreciation may linger…but composure has returned. We are delighted but no longer discombobulated; what was once an earthquake of the soul is subdued into an agreeable frisson.… The more we know, the less we wonder. I feel this personally when learning a new piece of music. All the gestalt beauty drains out as the song is reduced to a mountain to be conquered rather than a landscape to be appreciated. By the time I've memorized all the notes, a grim irony sets in: when I listen to a recording of the piece, I am no longer capable of hearing what I initially set out to replicate.
- irl_zebra 11y ago
  "not just spam, but gore, cp, raids, etc." (I'm assuming cp means children) "The good news is that I've recently returned to 4chan as a regular, anonymous user, and I'm really enjoying it." I've never visited the site, and really don't want to. So maybe I'm missing something, but why would you want to associate yourself with a place like that? It seems like even spending time there as an anonymous user would change your perception of the world for the worse. I see people post screenshots on Reddit sometimes and it seems pretty deviant.
  - puredemo 11y ago
    cp is photos of chris poole
  - aerovistae 11y ago
    I like to see it from the outside, where you only get linked to the "best of." 4Chan can be extremely hilarious sometimes; some of the funniest content I've seen on the internet is from 4Chan. But spending any real time there looking for that content, waiting for it, that's a waste in my eyes.
    - valarauca1 11y ago
      A lot of it is the anonymous culture, the idea that discussions can be based soley on the contents of message not the poster's history. This creates good content and interesting discussion. Its just learning to adjust your signal to noise filters.
    - LLWM 11y ago
      If you see the appeal as only "looking for content," we are glad you stay out.
    - ionised 11y ago
      I hate the ubiquitous use of the word 'content' to describe absolutely anything on the internet now. As if it belongs behind some kind of gate with locks that we should all feel priveleged to have had access to.
- mahranch 11y ago
  > you think reddit's bad, try 4chan! I honestly don't think the two are even comparable. Moderating a large subreddit on reddit is infinitely harder and more complex than 4chan. Some of the larger subreddits see more pageviews than the entirety of 4chan. Moving beyond that, moderators on 4chan are completely anonymous unless they choose to be known. This isn't the case with reddit. Moderators often have to have a long and tenured account history or else they don't really have a shot at being added onto a mod team in the first place. Very few subreddits, and no large ones, will add someone to their team without a history. This is important because with a history, you open yourself up to attacks. If you do something unpopular, you will get witch-hunted by reddit's masses. I speak from personal experience. People will call your house, your loved ones, send pizzas or worse. You're literally walking on eggshells 24/7, 365 days of the year. And then even if you do everything right, if someone has it out for you, it doesn't matter. They'll still figure out who you are and harass you. It's an added dynamic that just doesn't exist with moderation on 4chan. Moderating a large subreddit on reddit (a large default, like /r/Pics, /r/Funny, /r/Worldnews, etc) is probably the toughest moderating job on the internet right now. And what makes it tough are the millions upon millions of users. On 4chan, you're literally a janitor. On reddit, you're a janitor and you're also responsible for community building and everything that comes along with that. It's your community and if you don't build it, nobody will come.
  - comrh 11y ago
    > This is important because with a history, you open yourself up to attacks. Which is why I set up a script a few months ago to delete my account history every month. The amount of doxing I saw on reddit made me nervous.
    - ossreality 11y ago
      There's a userscript for this, it just needs a tweak to be active on HTTPS pages.
    - flashman 11y ago
      This has limited utility since people are archiving comments in real time and uploading them to Big Query https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9869871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9869871 Here's the realtime comments feed - add .xml, .json or .rss to change the format: https://www.reddit.com/comments https://www.reddit.com/comments
- 1337biz 11y ago
  When I first visited /b/ I felt like finally having found my virtual home. It is just no limits, do whatever you like, without consequences and as long as it is original and twisted enough you will find others to play along. It is so rare to find such a place which is willing to challenge any conventional, good / bad thinking but instead is completely unafraid of offending anyone. Other than clearly illegal stuff there seemed never any intentional censorship in place. Chris seemed to have an incredible backbone to stand for that principle - until Gamergate happened.
- viraptor 11y ago
  I'm really curious, could you say how does 4chan recruit moderators? Normally in online communities you'd have get some frequent users invested in the forum and upgrade them in status. This of course fails for 4chan where you can't see who's a regular, or who has a good history. So how does it work? Are mods usually moot's friends from real world, or some other community?
  - astrange 11y ago
    Mods are promoted from the janitor team, who apply for the job themselves.
- chris_wot 11y ago
  I was a Wikipedia admin, three times. If you have a tendency towards depression, steer clear of that site. It matters not a jot what you actually do there, you will eventually be burned. (In case you are wondering what I did for Wikipedia, I rewrote most of their USA PATRIOT Act article over a two year period, established the Wikipedia Admin Noticeboard, created the [cutation needed] tag, in the early days kept their Wikipdia In The Press page up to date (eventually this became irrelevant), encouraged Australian Wikipedians to write up about their own country and areas, fought trolls, helped influence a number of policies, and did a remarkable amount of blocking of truly awful people whilst attempting to maintain clans encourage civil discourse on the project.)
  - iopq 11y ago
    Oh my god, [citation needed] was so sorely needed in the early days. I believe there was something similar like [weasel words] but it didn't fit the bill most of the time, because it only applied to "some people say X" instead of the article just stating "X is a fact"
yeukhon 11y ago
To be honest, this happens to almost every single Internet forum / community when you open up to strangers. You make up rules, no one obeys. You punish them, they don't care. Sometimes too much rules push people away. Keeping spammers out, keeping post quality up and consistent are just too much work. I was a supermod for some really famous forum for several years. Geesh. It was tough, and when I quit I was only 17. But it was fun to talk to other mods who are in different ages and from different parts of the world. It gave me a lesson of how to work with people as a team, how to deal with troublemakers, and also how to "promote business." After all, your goal is make your forum popular and sustainable.

by fein 11y ago

janny_throwaway 11y ago

>primarily due to seeing the kind of place you get when the barrier for entry is non existent. you think reddit's bad, try 4chan! I was 4chan "janitor" (lesser-mod) for 18 months or so and I agree, these sorts of positions really twist your perception of the community you're moderating. When you're buried in reports -- and these are 4chan reports, which means not just spam, but gore, cp, raids, etc. -- it becomes all too easy to dole out harsh penalties to people who may have just made an honest mistake. I essentially stopped browsing 4chan for fun; I saw it only through the lens of the janitor interface. Chris, to his credit, frequently expressed his gratitude to the volunteer staff for doing what he knew was a thankless, soul-crushing job. He wondered aloud why we didn't go volunteer our time at a puppy shelter or something instead. I'm sure he asked himself that question too. I'm no longer in that position; I outed myself as a janitor and was immediately terminated. I've come to the conclusion that I'm not really suited for these sorts of roles. Having access to privileged information and special powers makes me uncomfortable. The good news is that I've recently returned to 4chan as a regular, anonymous user, and I'm really enjoying it. I hope Chris experiences something similar. He deserves it.

castratikron 11y ago
Reminds me of the Mark Twain story "Two Ways of Seeing a River". You ought to check it out.
- janny_throwaway 11y ago
  Lovely. Reminds me of this quote from Lorraine Daston: The marvel that stopped us in our tracks—an aurora borealis, cognate words in languages separated by continents and centuries, the peacock’s tail—becomes only an apparent marvel once explained. Aesthetic appreciation may linger…but composure has returned. We are delighted but no longer discombobulated; what was once an earthquake of the soul is subdued into an agreeable frisson.… The more we know, the less we wonder. I feel this personally when learning a new piece of music. All the gestalt beauty drains out as the song is reduced to a mountain to be conquered rather than a landscape to be appreciated. By the time I've memorized all the notes, a grim irony sets in: when I listen to a recording of the piece, I am no longer capable of hearing what I initially set out to replicate.
irl_zebra 11y ago
"not just spam, but gore, cp, raids, etc." (I'm assuming cp means children) "The good news is that I've recently returned to 4chan as a regular, anonymous user, and I'm really enjoying it." I've never visited the site, and really don't want to. So maybe I'm missing something, but why would you want to associate yourself with a place like that? It seems like even spending time there as an anonymous user would change your perception of the world for the worse. I see people post screenshots on Reddit sometimes and it seems pretty deviant.
- puredemo 11y ago
  cp is photos of chris poole
- aerovistae 11y ago
  I like to see it from the outside, where you only get linked to the "best of." 4Chan can be extremely hilarious sometimes; some of the funniest content I've seen on the internet is from 4Chan. But spending any real time there looking for that content, waiting for it, that's a waste in my eyes.
  - valarauca1 11y ago
    A lot of it is the anonymous culture, the idea that discussions can be based soley on the contents of message not the poster's history. This creates good content and interesting discussion. Its just learning to adjust your signal to noise filters.
  - LLWM 11y ago
    If you see the appeal as only "looking for content," we are glad you stay out.
  - ionised 11y ago
    I hate the ubiquitous use of the word 'content' to describe absolutely anything on the internet now. As if it belongs behind some kind of gate with locks that we should all feel priveleged to have had access to.
mahranch 11y ago
> you think reddit's bad, try 4chan! I honestly don't think the two are even comparable. Moderating a large subreddit on reddit is infinitely harder and more complex than 4chan. Some of the larger subreddits see more pageviews than the entirety of 4chan. Moving beyond that, moderators on 4chan are completely anonymous unless they choose to be known. This isn't the case with reddit. Moderators often have to have a long and tenured account history or else they don't really have a shot at being added onto a mod team in the first place. Very few subreddits, and no large ones, will add someone to their team without a history. This is important because with a history, you open yourself up to attacks. If you do something unpopular, you will get witch-hunted by reddit's masses. I speak from personal experience. People will call your house, your loved ones, send pizzas or worse. You're literally walking on eggshells 24/7, 365 days of the year. And then even if you do everything right, if someone has it out for you, it doesn't matter. They'll still figure out who you are and harass you. It's an added dynamic that just doesn't exist with moderation on 4chan. Moderating a large subreddit on reddit (a large default, like /r/Pics, /r/Funny, /r/Worldnews, etc) is probably the toughest moderating job on the internet right now. And what makes it tough are the millions upon millions of users. On 4chan, you're literally a janitor. On reddit, you're a janitor and you're also responsible for community building and everything that comes along with that. It's your community and if you don't build it, nobody will come.
- comrh 11y ago
  > This is important because with a history, you open yourself up to attacks. Which is why I set up a script a few months ago to delete my account history every month. The amount of doxing I saw on reddit made me nervous.
  - ossreality 11y ago
    There's a userscript for this, it just needs a tweak to be active on HTTPS pages.
  - flashman 11y ago
    This has limited utility since people are archiving comments in real time and uploading them to Big Query https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9869871 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9869871 Here's the realtime comments feed - add .xml, .json or .rss to change the format: https://www.reddit.com/comments https://www.reddit.com/comments
1337biz 11y ago
When I first visited /b/ I felt like finally having found my virtual home. It is just no limits, do whatever you like, without consequences and as long as it is original and twisted enough you will find others to play along. It is so rare to find such a place which is willing to challenge any conventional, good / bad thinking but instead is completely unafraid of offending anyone. Other than clearly illegal stuff there seemed never any intentional censorship in place. Chris seemed to have an incredible backbone to stand for that principle - until Gamergate happened.
viraptor 11y ago
I'm really curious, could you say how does 4chan recruit moderators? Normally in online communities you'd have get some frequent users invested in the forum and upgrade them in status. This of course fails for 4chan where you can't see who's a regular, or who has a good history. So how does it work? Are mods usually moot's friends from real world, or some other community?
- astrange 11y ago
  Mods are promoted from the janitor team, who apply for the job themselves.
chris_wot 11y ago
I was a Wikipedia admin, three times. If you have a tendency towards depression, steer clear of that site. It matters not a jot what you actually do there, you will eventually be burned. (In case you are wondering what I did for Wikipedia, I rewrote most of their USA PATRIOT Act article over a two year period, established the Wikipedia Admin Noticeboard, created the [cutation needed] tag, in the early days kept their Wikipdia In The Press page up to date (eventually this became irrelevant), encouraged Australian Wikipedians to write up about their own country and areas, fought trolls, helped influence a number of policies, and did a remarkable amount of blocking of truly awful people whilst attempting to maintain clans encourage civil discourse on the project.)
- iopq 11y ago
  Oh my god, [citation needed] was so sorely needed in the early days. I believe there was something similar like [weasel words] but it didn't fit the bill most of the time, because it only applied to "some people say X" instead of the article just stating "X is a fact"

yeukhon 11y ago

To be honest, this happens to almost every single Internet forum / community when you open up to strangers. You make up rules, no one obeys. You punish them, they don't care. Sometimes too much rules push people away. Keeping spammers out, keeping post quality up and consistent are just too much work. I was a supermod for some really famous forum for several years. Geesh. It was tough, and when I quit I was only 17. But it was fun to talk to other mods who are in different ages and from different parts of the world. It gave me a lesson of how to work with people as a team, how to deal with troublemakers, and also how to "promote business." After all, your goal is make your forum popular and sustainable.