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> Once you've deemed a community so harmful that you don't want people accidentally stumbling into it, why go out of your way to allow it to exist behind a curt

> Once you've deemed a community so harmful that you don't want people accidentally stumbling into it, why go out of your way to allow it to exist behind a curtain, instead of just outright banning it (unless you want to support it discreetly). Perhaps this is a way to sidestep claims of censorship. Deleting subs can embolden some community themes and messages by allowing them to play victim of censorship and bolster claims of conspiracy via attacks from left/right/government/lizard people. So let them carry on while alerting people of what lies ahead.

stingraycharles 6y ago
This is most definitely the case. The outrage inside Reddit is massive when there are signs of censorship, even if it’s just a very vocal minority: they set the tone. Keeping this group of people happy, while at the same time trying to maintain a somewhat “clean” site, is a delicate balancing act. I am certain that quarantined subreddits is a result of this.
TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
It also keeps people from flooding into the rest of Reddit. When /r/fatpeoplehate was banned, their users flooded and spammed most other subreddits.
- slg 6y ago
  It is naive to think these bad users currently stay confined to their hateful communities. They use the rest of the site too. There is even an argument to be made that the rest of the site could be improved by banning these hateful communities, decreasing the value these users get from the site, and thereby decreasing the likelihood that these users will continue to use the rest of Reddit.
  - fatbird 6y ago
    The sibling comment to yours links to the study of users from /r/fatpeoplehate and what happened to them. Short version: most of them stayed, and behaved better in better moderated subreddits. The implied conclusion is that a very significant part of noxious community behaviour is situational.
- sfkdjf9j3j 6y ago
  For what its worth, researchers have actually studied this specific case (r/fatpeoplehate) and concluded the exact opposite: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf
  - pas 6y ago
    Interesting. That's a very fancy study, but the second set of graphs show nothing. While of course the text says that everything went just fine.

stingraycharles 6y ago

This is most definitely the case. The outrage inside Reddit is massive when there are signs of censorship, even if it’s just a very vocal minority: they set the tone. Keeping this group of people happy, while at the same time trying to maintain a somewhat “clean” site, is a delicate balancing act. I am certain that quarantined subreddits is a result of this.

TheAdamAndChe 6y ago

It also keeps people from flooding into the rest of Reddit. When /r/fatpeoplehate was banned, their users flooded and spammed most other subreddits.

slg 6y ago
It is naive to think these bad users currently stay confined to their hateful communities. They use the rest of the site too. There is even an argument to be made that the rest of the site could be improved by banning these hateful communities, decreasing the value these users get from the site, and thereby decreasing the likelihood that these users will continue to use the rest of Reddit.
- fatbird 6y ago
  The sibling comment to yours links to the study of users from /r/fatpeoplehate and what happened to them. Short version: most of them stayed, and behaved better in better moderated subreddits. The implied conclusion is that a very significant part of noxious community behaviour is situational.
sfkdjf9j3j 6y ago
For what its worth, researchers have actually studied this specific case (r/fatpeoplehate) and concluded the exact opposite: http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf
- pas 6y ago
  Interesting. That's a very fancy study, but the second set of graphs show nothing. While of course the text says that everything went just fine.