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>where participating in one community automatically bans you from other communities This absolutely does happen. I got banned from /r/offmychest, for example,
by omanom 6y ago
>where participating in one community automatically bans you from other communities
This absolutely does happen.
I got banned from /r/offmychest, for example, despite never commenting or submitting anything to that subreddit.
When I asked for a reason for the ban, I was told there is a tool that mods can use which will automatically ban accounts who "participate" in specific subreddits that the moderator deems "bad".
The rest of their reply to me was: "We are automatically banning participants in specific abusive hatereddits that have systematically harmed this support community."
Alongside /r/offmychest, I was also banned from /r/blacklivesmatter, /r/depression, /r/relationships, and who knows what other ones because I got tired of trying to find out. Literally never interacted with any of these in any way, yet I'm already banned from them...
>regardless of the content and context of your reputation
If they had bothered looking at the "content and context" of my singular, years-old comment then they would have realized I was actually criticizing the subreddit in question (and its users) rather than supporting them. Instead, I was preemptively banned from multiple communities.
- abstractbarista 6y agoWow, that's insanely sad.
- Arathorn 6y agoI'd argue there's a huge responsibility on the folks writing moderation tools like this to ensure they don't have adverse side-effects like this. In the sci-fi Matrix reputation world, I can absolutely see somebody curating a reputation list called #bad-people:example.com which they prime by finding every user ID in every room they don't like and blanket assigning them -1000 reputation. If then a moderator was dumb enough to subscribe to #bad-people:example.com and use it to impose a ban list on their rooms, then I'd hope that their community would arch an eyebrow at the crassness and treat them like a rogue moderator and either get them removed, or fork and go elsewhere... assuming that it's possible to visualise the filters which have been put in place. There's a huge responsibility on the tool author to ensure that the users can see what filters are in place, and what they do, and encourage the user to challenge them - but again, hopefully, the market will vote with its feet and users will adopt the best tools available, and avoid being trapped under primitive moderation systems like the ones you refer to here. tl;dr: we need better, morally relative reputation systems - rather than zero reputation system. liberal plurality >> anarchy ;)
- omanom 6y ago>there's a huge responsibility on the folks writing moderation tools like this I'm fatalistic in my opinion that all moderation tools would eventually end up in situations like this. The Rise of The Power-User just feels too inevitable to me. Once you have power-users you start to have clashing of egos. Once you have egos, you start to have censorship (as opposed to moderation).
- girvo 6y agoI honestly think it’s an unsolvable problem, via technical means anyway. As it seems to speak to the fundamental nature of human relationships and communities. God I hope I’m wrong, though!
- phone8675309 6y ago> I'd argue there's a huge responsibility on the folks writing moderation tools like this to ensure they don't have adverse side-effects like this. With all due respect, this is a naive take: the tools that are used on reddit for autobanning people from subreddits based on subreddits they've posted in are designed strictly to de-legitimize voices not in ideological lockstep with their own. >If then a moderator was dumb enough to subscribe to #bad-people:example.com and use it to impose a ban list on their rooms, then I'd hope that their community would arch an eyebrow at the crassness and treat them like a rogue moderator and either get them removed, or fork and go elsewhere The issue with forks is that they either unify the community (a successful fork) or completely divide the community (ffmpeg versus libav). It is more likely that such a system will divide communities and encourage infighting rather than consensus. Question: did you ask anyone with experience with community building and community dynamics about this proposed reputation system, and if so, what were their comments?
- kixiQu 6y agoWhether they have the effect of "[de-legitimizing] voices not in ideological lockstep with their own", the stated goal is often to prevent brigading. If you don't think that's a real problem, don't think that people are seeking solutions in good faith, or don't think these solutions are effective, please say that.
- bluntfang 6y agoSeems like a sane way to handle brigading. I'm 100% sure /r/blacklivesmatter don't want people who post in /r/the_donald to participate. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences.
- omanom 6y agoSo a single comment I made multiple years ago that was in criticism of /r/the_donald was actually "brigading" and worthy of a ban across multiple unrelated communities?
- jonfw 6y agoSeems like a sane way to polarize people and build the perception that BLM is a partisan political movement more than a social one.
- bluntfang 6y agoSure, I guess it's pretty political when Donald Trump advocates for racism in spite of anti-racist movements like black lives matter.
- omanom 6y agoTo reiterate what you're saying in case you just had a typo or something, you're advocating for blanket censorship regardless of context. Is that correct?