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"People instinctively recognize that while you may have to schlep thought he muck to find those gems, it is still important to have an "anything goes place"."

by Steko 15y ago

"People instinctively recognize that while you may have to schlep thought he muck to find those gems, it is still important to have an "anything goes place"." I do not think many people "instinctively recognize" this. What I do "instinctively recognize" is that as sites like this mainstream they uniformly clean up "the muck" and that any "creative gems" lost because the community no longer tolerates everything are a tiny price to pay. Whatever "creative gems" went on in /r/jailbait or /r/n*ggerjailbait we can only speculate... "People will feel betrayed when they put time and effort into making the community what it is, and suddenly the rules are changed on them -- all their effort has been co-opted or may be co-opted, for something they don't want. It feels slimy." What feels slimy is finding out the popular site you like is chummy with scum like Violentacrez the guy who started 90% of the worst of the worst subreddits. I got news for you, the tiny minority of pedosympathizers on reddit are not what made the site what it is. We aren't "coopting their effort", we're taking a break from construction to clean up a mess we didn't have time to focus on until now.

pyre 15y ago
The point people are making is that once we start making judgement calls like this there will be more and more calls from the community to make more judgement calls to increase the net and shutdown other types of sub-reddits that they disagree with. Much in the same way that once we give the government a censorship filter on the Internet to 'stop child pornography,' they've got their foot in the door to censor other things as well. Building censorship infrastructure to shut down the websites of people we don't like might not be palatable, but once that infrastructure is already in place, all we have to do is add to the list of banned sites. It becomes so much easier to cross that line when we're standing right next to it, than if we make sure to give it a wide berth. I'm not saying that I disagree with the shutting down of these sub-reddits -- especially since it seems to only make sense for consistencies sake since they shutdown /r/jailbait already -- but let's not act like this doesn't come with possible consequences.
- Steko 15y ago
  "The point people are making is that once we start making judgement calls like this" You act like there's a real choice here. The other choice was Reddit goes out of business. Reddit made the obvious choice. "there will be more and more calls from the community to make more judgement calls to increase the net and shutdown other types of sub-reddits that they disagree with." Welcome to the real world. Oh you let kids in your site? Kids have parents. Parents demand standards for places their kids go. Want to startup a reddit clone with no standards? Have at it! Let us know how it works out for you. "Much in the same way that once we give the government a censorship filter on the Internet" It's also the case that once you set up an infrastructure to prosecute murderers it becomes easier for the government to move from arresting people for murder to hey let's just arrest some people we don't like for reason XYZ. That's not a legitimate argument for not having an infrastructure to prosecute murderers though.
  - sophacles 15y ago
    Welcome to the real world. Oh you let kids in your site? Kids have parents. Parents demand standards for places their kids go. Want to startup a reddit clone with no standards? Have at it! Let us know how it works out for you. You know, perhaps it's ok for us to suggest the parents do the parenting, and let us grown ups hang out at the reddit? Oh wait, right its actually just a strawman argument so you can be the morality police for the world. Sorry for the confusion. It's also the case that once you set up an infrastructure to prosecute murderers it becomes easier for the government to move from arresting people for murder to hey let's just arrest some people we don't like for reason XYZ. That's not a legitimate argument for not having an infrastructure to prosecute murderers though. It is however a fantastic reason to talk about the potential consequences of that infrastructure, and perhaps to arrange for safeguards against the unwanted scenarios. This is what some of us are trying to do here while you are clamoring to (extending the metaphor) put everyone in jail who may one day murder someone.
    - Steko 15y ago
      "so you can be the morality police for the world. Sorry for the confusion." If your post were a New Yorker cartoon I'd have the perfect caption for it. I'm not the morality police, I'm pointing out that morality exists and reddit, as a community was not above that. I'm dreadfully sorry if you're only now finding out that community morality exists and that there are commercial consequences for for-profit private businesses who ignore that in the real world. As has been pointed out ad nauseum reddit is easily cloneable. If you think all the world needs is a place where the timeless insights of the people that brought us /r/jailbait, and "how to rape your daughter" threads can shine without the "morality police" ever being called on the party have at it. "This is what some of us are trying to do here while you are clamoring to (extending the metaphor) put everyone in jail who may one day murder someone." Bullshit. Let me clear up this analogy. I'm saying we have a rule against murder and it's a good rule. You're saying it's a dangerous rule that will lead us down the road to serfdom. We can debate whether the rule is good (not all rules are as clear cut as the one we have for murder). I don't think you will win on those merits though re: this reddit policy. There's a rule at most community pools that you don't crap or piss in the pool. Somehow this hasn't led to widescale pool tyranny, it's pretty much just a rule not to piss in the pool. Just because there's a slope doesn't mean anyone is going to slip down it.
Helianthus 15y ago
This is the morality police attitude, satisfied that its ideal of justice has been served and unable to recognize the subtlety of the argument.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

by Steko 15y ago

pyre 15y ago

The point people are making is that once we start making judgement calls like this there will be more and more calls from the community to make more judgement calls to increase the net and shutdown other types of sub-reddits that they disagree with. Much in the same way that once we give the government a censorship filter on the Internet to 'stop child pornography,' they've got their foot in the door to censor other things as well. Building censorship infrastructure to shut down the websites of people we don't like might not be palatable, but once that infrastructure is already in place, all we have to do is add to the list of banned sites. It becomes so much easier to cross that line when we're standing right next to it, than if we make sure to give it a wide berth. I'm not saying that I disagree with the shutting down of these sub-reddits -- especially since it seems to only make sense for consistencies sake since they shutdown /r/jailbait already -- but let's not act like this doesn't come with possible consequences.

Steko 15y ago
"The point people are making is that once we start making judgement calls like this" You act like there's a real choice here. The other choice was Reddit goes out of business. Reddit made the obvious choice. "there will be more and more calls from the community to make more judgement calls to increase the net and shutdown other types of sub-reddits that they disagree with." Welcome to the real world. Oh you let kids in your site? Kids have parents. Parents demand standards for places their kids go. Want to startup a reddit clone with no standards? Have at it! Let us know how it works out for you. "Much in the same way that once we give the government a censorship filter on the Internet" It's also the case that once you set up an infrastructure to prosecute murderers it becomes easier for the government to move from arresting people for murder to hey let's just arrest some people we don't like for reason XYZ. That's not a legitimate argument for not having an infrastructure to prosecute murderers though.
- sophacles 15y ago
  Welcome to the real world. Oh you let kids in your site? Kids have parents. Parents demand standards for places their kids go. Want to startup a reddit clone with no standards? Have at it! Let us know how it works out for you. You know, perhaps it's ok for us to suggest the parents do the parenting, and let us grown ups hang out at the reddit? Oh wait, right its actually just a strawman argument so you can be the morality police for the world. Sorry for the confusion. It's also the case that once you set up an infrastructure to prosecute murderers it becomes easier for the government to move from arresting people for murder to hey let's just arrest some people we don't like for reason XYZ. That's not a legitimate argument for not having an infrastructure to prosecute murderers though. It is however a fantastic reason to talk about the potential consequences of that infrastructure, and perhaps to arrange for safeguards against the unwanted scenarios. This is what some of us are trying to do here while you are clamoring to (extending the metaphor) put everyone in jail who may one day murder someone.
  - Steko 15y ago
    "so you can be the morality police for the world. Sorry for the confusion." If your post were a New Yorker cartoon I'd have the perfect caption for it. I'm not the morality police, I'm pointing out that morality exists and reddit, as a community was not above that. I'm dreadfully sorry if you're only now finding out that community morality exists and that there are commercial consequences for for-profit private businesses who ignore that in the real world. As has been pointed out ad nauseum reddit is easily cloneable. If you think all the world needs is a place where the timeless insights of the people that brought us /r/jailbait, and "how to rape your daughter" threads can shine without the "morality police" ever being called on the party have at it. "This is what some of us are trying to do here while you are clamoring to (extending the metaphor) put everyone in jail who may one day murder someone." Bullshit. Let me clear up this analogy. I'm saying we have a rule against murder and it's a good rule. You're saying it's a dangerous rule that will lead us down the road to serfdom. We can debate whether the rule is good (not all rules are as clear cut as the one we have for murder). I don't think you will win on those merits though re: this reddit policy. There's a rule at most community pools that you don't crap or piss in the pool. Somehow this hasn't led to widescale pool tyranny, it's pretty much just a rule not to piss in the pool. Just because there's a slope doesn't mean anyone is going to slip down it.

Helianthus 15y ago

This is the morality police attitude, satisfied that its ideal of justice has been served and unable to recognize the subtlety of the argument.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]