12 ms·

This is why I’m excited for the Reddit third party apps change. In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s alr

This is why I’m excited for the Reddit third party apps change. In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Even the smaller subs catch the contagion year over year. I’ve been a Redditor since before the narwhal baconed at midnight. I miss the Reddit that was good. I’m excited to see what replaces it.

Takennickname 3y ago
You comment is flagged. Guess the mods here are no different lol. Anyway, for me, "Narwhal baconed at midnight" was when I realized the site was overrun was kids. Slow decline while obsessively looking for alternatives since then.
DirectorKrennic 3y ago
[flagged]
- drumhead 3y ago
  Its any view that they dont find acceptable however mild they may be. If you dont fit into their political world view you're likely to be banned. Discussion unless you subscribe the dominant viewpoints is almost impossible on reddit. Say something the majority dont like and you're downvoted into oblivion or banned. Literally the only place left where you can speak your mind without censure is sadly 4chan.
  - DirectorKrennic 3y ago
    > Say something the majority dont like and you're downvoted into oblivion So? That's how every society works everywhere. Don't disturb the peace. You are an adult. You're entitled to your opinion, but you should have the courage of your convictions. Reddit is no different from other social media platforms in this regard, even HN.
    - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
      Downvotes are not a productive means of communication. If you have problems with my views be an adult and oppose my views rationally. Otherwise ignore me and move on. Having any form of social credit score that can be abused to silence others is quite literally a pillar of authoritarianism and de-incentivizes the free flow of ideas if they disagree with established groupthink. It doesn’t matter if the majority believes it to be true. At one time the majority believed the Earth to be flat. Thankfully HN doesn’t fall into this hole as deeply as Reddit, due in part to the steeper requirements to participate in downvoting and simply how varied the opinions are here. Not to mention HN doesn’t have a cabal of “powermods” forcing subreddits to follow their own agenda.
      - fodkodrasz 3y ago
        Guess you haven’t criticized Californian way of business and was banned by d*** for it yet. Nothing of value lost with the user full of internet-points. Though I’m no reddit user (never was), so it may be really worse there, but this was already too much bullshit for my post-communist easter-european taste.
    - replygirl 3y ago
      We can take things in stride at the same time as wishing for a more enlightened discourse
    - CoastalCoder 3y ago
      > So? The issue is that we lose a forum for clearly examining and correcting our own beliefs, be they popular or unpopular. This is the echo-chamber effect, and it's the antithesis of curious discussion.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      That's not how for example newspapers work. They will publish opinion pieces from people and with opinions that they themselves strongly disagree with, because they see it as their duty to promote freedom of speech and a healthy public debate. Or parliament debates, where representatives for smaller parties get to have their say on equal terms as the big dogs. Some countries even force radio and TV stations to air a certain amount of time to each candidate for their propaganda before an election (which can be hundreds of people).
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    If people on 4chan don't like what you say, your post dies after about 15 minutes so I don't understand what your point about that is. Which is worse, your post literally disappearing, or having a big negative number next to it. Which is less censorship?
- matthew9219 3y ago
  [dead]
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  Evidently I sympathize with reprehensible views about some group… although it’s not clear precisely which group or which views, even to myself. Suffice it to say I’m deplorable though, otherwise I wouldn’t be complaining.
- replygirl 3y ago
  Some recent things I was downvoted to oblivion on: - Mentioning buses in a thread about road wear - Warning people talking about vigilante justice that intentionally tricking/luring someone into committing a crime makes you an accomplice - Telling fellow trans people they can't equate Jim Crow with gendered bathroom stigma - Reminding fellow queer people that Anheuser-Busch are just trying to sell more beer
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - replygirl 3y ago
      I don't think any of the positions I listed are contrarian, they were all in response to questions openly posed to the subs, and I felt I gave my comments soberly and in good faith as a member of each community. On the note about queer communities: I get why queer people are sensitive because I'm a trans woman with a nonbinary streak and I was oversensitive in my first few years after coming out. My experience living out+proud all over the country for the past decade, lining up with the experience of other queer people in my life, is that that sensitivity is largely motivated by self-loathing and fear that our communities reinforce, and that one of the best things you can do as a queer person is learn to love yourself. Once you do learn to love yourself, you can see that life is actually really good for queer people--many less marginalized groups are falling over themselves to support us, our married couples average the highest household income of any other family unit when controlling for other factors, tokenistic representation and marketing are booming, and despite what the news cycle will tell you things are by-and-large improving in the legal domain. Had one bathroom incident in New York a few years back, dealt with sexual assault and groping in the early 2010s, 10 years later I'm still visibly trans and road tripping around the rural South making friends will all sorts of strangers in unexpected places. You can apply the same logic to all sorts of other social groups and formations, internet conservatives included. The disingenous way to state the truth is that internet communities in all corners of society are full of pedantic snowflakes who need to touch grass.
veave 3y ago
[flagged]
philistine 3y ago
[flagged]
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  “You must be fun at parties”, “awwwkard”, “okaaaaay”, “tell us what you really think”… It’s just a way to dismiss a point. Reddit has controversial subreddits, the vast majority of which were closed down. That’s neither here nor there. I’m not looking for a pleasant subreddit for racists. I’m looking for a subreddit for my local hometown where the default assumption isn’t that it’s populated by racists. I’m looking for a subreddit for posting Star Trek memes where the default assumption is that I’m not interested in depriving trans people of their right to exist. The problem with Reddit and its mods is that the defaults are way out of wack. It’s always war-time and anybody who isn’t quoting from the latest propaganda film is a commie-nazi.
- CoastalCoder 3y ago
  > You must be fun at parties. FYI,this can come across as an ad hominem attack.
  - WJW 3y ago
    Oh don't worry, they know.
radarsat1 3y ago
I don't know about the social justice issues, but I've found that a growing problem with reddit is what I'll summarize as "the rules". I admit I'm much more of a lurker than a contributor, but I do post things from time to time. Comments fairly frequently in technical forums, and posts much less frequently, but when they are, they are either: 1) to show a project I did, or 2) to ask a technical question. Basically all of these use cases are more and more an exercise in frustration. I've been using the site for at least a decade, but I can't remember having so much trouble using it until quite recently. The last several posts, let's say during 2023, I've made get either manually or auto-removed. Every single subreddit no matter how small has its own, different, set of "rules" and if you don't memorize them you get your post removed. These rules are often very antisocial, in my opinion. For example, in one forum that I read very often, I never post anything because I only like to post my own work, as I consider such work to be "original content" -- I'm not one to spend my time scouring the internet for other people's work to share, instead I like to share when I've got something to share, right? Seems natural enough to me anyway. Well, I posted a project that I spent 2 months developing, yes as part of the startup I work for but it was a for-fun April-fools type project, intended to amuse. Banned. Immediately. For "self promotion". (There were literally no ads in it or anything, just a website with a fun interaction, and the startups logo in the corner.) Thanks guys. Guess I'll take my ball and go home. Apparently they prefer reposted nonsense to original contributions? Bizarre, backwards.. Another example, someone was asking where they could go for some discussions on a certain topic, so naturally I responded to point to some other subreddits. Immediate auto-remove due to "posting links to other subreddits". Really? So, like, they have rules against hyperlinking? That thing that is at the foundation of the web? Similarly I posted a question to a Python forum, actually quite an advanced question about an interesting phenomenon I noticed related to async generators -- auto-removed. Told to repost it in LearnPython. Great. Did so, got a bunch of beginner replies, as I expected, instead of the in-depth discussion I was hoping for. Now, I understand that these rules and bots exist for a reason .. mainly one reason actually, which is to fight spam. But enough is enough. At what point does spam fighting become intrusive to normal, community sharing of ideas? To be honest, this has gotten me so down regarding reddit that I'm considering just not using the site any more, as it's gotten quite boring because I can barely contribute without jumping through hoops. Trying to post or share something is just depressing because either it breaks some rule, or people jump all over it with negative comments. It just doesn't feel like it's worth the effort anymore. Does anyone else have this experience, or is it just me?
kristiandupont 3y ago
>every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Nobody on Reddit has called me any of those things.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- iopq 3y ago
  Me neither, they just banned me for posting on subs they didn't like
  - shmel 3y ago
    I was banned from many subs just for being subbed to the "wrong" ones. I haven't even posted there.
- TheCaptain4815 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - malfist 3y ago
    > Personally, I'm working on a reddit bot to spam the site/pm users with the truth I hope that is sarcasm. Consent is important, and spamming people with whatever pet theory you've decided is the "truth" is certainly not the actions of a moral person.
    - TheCaptain4815 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - vore 3y ago
        Well, good luck with that. Surely this strategy will work great.
      - myko 3y ago
afavour 3y ago
I’ve also been a Redditor for well over a decade. While I miss the days when it was a smaller niche site (before the Digg implosion it was basically a nerdier, smaller Digg) I still use and enjoy the site plenty today. I have never been accused of being a racist transphobe whatever, if that’s your number one issue with the site maybe some inward reflection is in order? Just don’t get involved in political flamewars, they serve absolutely no purpose for anyone involved.
- Takennickname 3y ago
  My friend. Of course you don't know what he is talking about. When you ask a fish what is water? It doesn't know. It was surrounded by it it's whole life. When you ask a reddit mod what is bias? It doesn't know. It was surrounded by it its whole life.
- david38 3y ago
  The old “if the issue doesn’t affect me, it’s probably something with you.”
  - wlesieutre 3y ago
    The person they're replying to was the one who said "every user" so I'm not going to fault them for saying "hasn't been my experience" I've not run into that either and I've been on reddit since before digg v4
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  I got banned from /r/CanadaCoronavirus for saying at the time we didn't yet know how many doses and on what schedule of the vaccine would be needed. Banned. That's anti-vaxx propaganda on my part, evidently. I messaged the mods to explain that I was triple-vaxxed and what I said was not only factually correct, it wasn't even controversial. The mods patiently replied that anti-vaxx trolls like me will be reported to reddit to have my entire account banned "for harassment" if I contact them again. What inward reflection do I need? This is just one of myriad examples with mods who don't actually read or process the content about which they're banning people.
whyenot 3y ago
I’ve been using Reddit for 14+ years and while the site has changed, mostly for the worse, in the past few years. “It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy.” Moderators (excepting automod) are human, and like all of us they sometimes make mistakes, some may have biases or having a bad day. I have not seen what you are describing.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Sometimes groups of people making occasional mistakes, none of which are related to any other. And sometimes groups tend to become pathological, such that no one joining the group is just "someone making occasional mistakes". Groups become like that for various reasons, but one of the qualities that seems most problematic tends to be "authority with minimal or no effective oversight". This is why most police departments are just cesspits of anti-human torment and oppression. If reddit mods aren't murdering people, I'd chalk that up to the fact that they aren't given sidearms, fetters, and a mandate to patrol the streets. > I have not seen what you are describing. Cops never see anything worrisome either. You know, until some 11 yr old is shot in his own home after putting his hands up. Reddit mods probably have it better in that reporters don't really go out of their way to put their abuses in the headlines.
btreecat 3y ago
As someone who used to mod, jfc you're clearly one of the folks who was a problem if that's your opening position. I know that had you stepped up to help out one of your favorite subs, you'd have a different lense. You comment is v clearly just ignorant.
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  Case in point
- adamrezich 3y ago
  "that's just what a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy would say!", basically?
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - marginalia_nu 3y ago
      Most fringe political ideologies do to some extent. It turns out it's hard to compel people to act or vote if they're feeling content and safe. So you make them feel indignant and under threat.
    - unsupp0rted 3y ago
      And yet every person who is literally oppressed is not a Nazi, nor am I one. Not that I’d equate the decline and fall of quality interactions on Reddit with “oppression”.
    - conradfr 3y ago
      Well yeah they are, for good reasons.
    - paulddraper 3y ago
      Every nazi also drinks water.
  - 3y ago
anaganisk 3y ago
Eventually if anything is popular enough it attracts, advertisers, corporations, govts, spammers, influencers and what not. It's true from Reddit, to AI and crypto. Enjoy stuff while it's new, even if all the apps reroute to a new backend, it will still be the same again. Probably not instantly but eventually.
comte7092 3y ago
> It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. I’ve literally never had this problem. And I’ve commented on a multitude of subreddits for years. Curious to see some concrete examples where your comments were framed in this manner.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
I think quality contributors have been evaporating from Reddit for a fairly long time in a dead sea fashion, leaving a place that's effectively inhospitable. I left in 2018 or there-around. Probably stayed too long, in retrospect. 10+ year account, moderated multiple subreddits and a pillar of the community type figure in a few others. On some level it felt like each election cycle dug deeper trenches until the entire website looked like the battle of Verdun. This wasn't exclusively an American phenomenon either. The same thing happened on several national subreddits. I also got the sense that the reddit members cultivated a sort of creeping depression that was really allowed to fester on some subreddits essentially all about exchanging thoughts of hopelessness and doom. This was before Covid. I can't imagine it got better those years. Granted, Reddit was wallowing in "forever alone"-memes even 15 years ago, but it feels like the darkness of that abyss got darker as the years passed. I've looked back a few times but I've immediately turned heel as I saw what a toxic dumpster fire it's turned into. Like it isn't as obvious if you've been in it, but jesus f christ on pogo stick is it ever clear to see when you've been away for a couple of years.
myko 3y ago
> all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Weird, I've been put off of reddit because of the prevalence of transphobes, homophobes, and racists who inundate so many threads. I wish there were better mods to remove those folks from the site.
- nailer 3y ago
  Do you feel that people outside Reddit are often racist and transphobic?
  - myko 3y ago
    No
1270018080 3y ago
Users with this attitude all moved to Voat where they did silly transphobe nazi homophobe things. In order for a social media site to grow in quality beyond 4chan-tier users, they have to implement strong moderation. HN is doing the same thing.
babypuncher 3y ago
I'm not quite so optimistic. The great Digg migration was something of a perfect storm. Digg shot themselves in the foot, yes, but Reddit was already up-and-coming and viewed as the most viable alternative. There isn't really a viable alternative to Reddit yet.
bigbillheck 3y ago
> I miss the Reddit that was good. Reddit was never good.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jonny_eh 3y ago
If people keep telling you that you're racist then maybe you're…
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  ...commenting innocuously on a massive social network among college-age North American kids in 2023
  - jonny_eh 3y ago
    Reddit mods aren't predominately NA college kids.
glonq 3y ago
I almost agree. Some subreddits are echo chambers of woke nonsense. Others are echo chambers of different nonsense. Others seem mostly fine. It's less about the wokeness and more about the ability for a handful of mods to hijack popular topics and create an unecessarily unpleasant/unproductive experience for their communities. I'll leave ineffective admins, lack of original content, spam, karma, bots, misinformation, automod, and monetization as separate points of discussion :P
mort96 3y ago
I mean the racist transphobe nazi homophobes is probably the group I'm the most happy are getting banned... There are so many examples of mods power tripping, and you chose to use the banning of nazis as your example?
Affric 3y ago
> In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. I have always been pretty left wing (have been a member of and organised for a range of left wing political parties) but Reddit was what very much moderated by belief in 99% of left wing politicians and would be politicians. If the kinds who rise to the top of subreddits ever saw power in our societies we would see the terror and widespread violence. There's a performative aesthetic idea of what being left wing is based on positions on issues, knowledge, rather than an actual mindset and series of real beliefs about what is the right thing to do. It comes down to what I had always seen as the territory of the right but now realise that people of any political persuasion can do it: 1. Blame the system for your own problems 2. Other your enemies and make their problems personal failings 3. Claim that justice would be their destruction rather than their rehabilitation And for social media companies these lonely, angry, miserable people drive huge amounts of engagement. Reddit has huge governance issues as a community that stems from the fact that the corporate leadership cannot serve two masters. In retrospect when they did the big slow down on the "hot" algorithm was the moment it could not be saved.
raxxorraxor 3y ago
> It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense It really reached an insane degree on the official subs at least. There are some karma farmers that certainly are human that post and post the ever same topics, but the quality of many submissions really dropped significantly. And I compare that to the former reddit quality, which was optimized for mass instead of quality. Today it looks like some form of propaganda spam. Perhaps a result of news outlets copying more than before. Reddit should have build on its strengths. It was better for discussion than Twitter or Tiktok. Not too deep, but at least you could find new ideas. Now they used the platform to consolidated opinions and killed the advantages that formerly differentiated the platform.
FeepingCreature 3y ago
I think this comment thread is hilarious because it's pretty much filled with two groups: - commenters who are the problem according to the other half - moderators who are the problem according to the other half.
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  Well summarized. And to expand, I would complain equally about moderators OR commenters for whom the answer to "this is a comment I disagree with" is "this commenter is obviously an -ist or -ic who must be banned".

Takennickname 3y ago

You comment is flagged. Guess the mods here are no different lol. Anyway, for me, "Narwhal baconed at midnight" was when I realized the site was overrun was kids. Slow decline while obsessively looking for alternatives since then.

DirectorKrennic 3y ago

[flagged]

drumhead 3y ago
Its any view that they dont find acceptable however mild they may be. If you dont fit into their political world view you're likely to be banned. Discussion unless you subscribe the dominant viewpoints is almost impossible on reddit. Say something the majority dont like and you're downvoted into oblivion or banned. Literally the only place left where you can speak your mind without censure is sadly 4chan.
- DirectorKrennic 3y ago
  > Say something the majority dont like and you're downvoted into oblivion So? That's how every society works everywhere. Don't disturb the peace. You are an adult. You're entitled to your opinion, but you should have the courage of your convictions. Reddit is no different from other social media platforms in this regard, even HN.
  - tourmalinetaco 3y ago
    Downvotes are not a productive means of communication. If you have problems with my views be an adult and oppose my views rationally. Otherwise ignore me and move on. Having any form of social credit score that can be abused to silence others is quite literally a pillar of authoritarianism and de-incentivizes the free flow of ideas if they disagree with established groupthink. It doesn’t matter if the majority believes it to be true. At one time the majority believed the Earth to be flat. Thankfully HN doesn’t fall into this hole as deeply as Reddit, due in part to the steeper requirements to participate in downvoting and simply how varied the opinions are here. Not to mention HN doesn’t have a cabal of “powermods” forcing subreddits to follow their own agenda.
    - fodkodrasz 3y ago
      Guess you haven’t criticized Californian way of business and was banned by d*** for it yet. Nothing of value lost with the user full of internet-points. Though I’m no reddit user (never was), so it may be really worse there, but this was already too much bullshit for my post-communist easter-european taste.
  - replygirl 3y ago
    We can take things in stride at the same time as wishing for a more enlightened discourse
  - CoastalCoder 3y ago
    > So? The issue is that we lose a forum for clearly examining and correcting our own beliefs, be they popular or unpopular. This is the echo-chamber effect, and it's the antithesis of curious discussion.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    That's not how for example newspapers work. They will publish opinion pieces from people and with opinions that they themselves strongly disagree with, because they see it as their duty to promote freedom of speech and a healthy public debate. Or parliament debates, where representatives for smaller parties get to have their say on equal terms as the big dogs. Some countries even force radio and TV stations to air a certain amount of time to each candidate for their propaganda before an election (which can be hundreds of people).
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  If people on 4chan don't like what you say, your post dies after about 15 minutes so I don't understand what your point about that is. Which is worse, your post literally disappearing, or having a big negative number next to it. Which is less censorship?
matthew9219 3y ago
[dead]
unsupp0rted 3y ago
Evidently I sympathize with reprehensible views about some group… although it’s not clear precisely which group or which views, even to myself. Suffice it to say I’m deplorable though, otherwise I wouldn’t be complaining.
replygirl 3y ago
Some recent things I was downvoted to oblivion on: - Mentioning buses in a thread about road wear - Warning people talking about vigilante justice that intentionally tricking/luring someone into committing a crime makes you an accomplice - Telling fellow trans people they can't equate Jim Crow with gendered bathroom stigma - Reminding fellow queer people that Anheuser-Busch are just trying to sell more beer
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - replygirl 3y ago
    I don't think any of the positions I listed are contrarian, they were all in response to questions openly posed to the subs, and I felt I gave my comments soberly and in good faith as a member of each community. On the note about queer communities: I get why queer people are sensitive because I'm a trans woman with a nonbinary streak and I was oversensitive in my first few years after coming out. My experience living out+proud all over the country for the past decade, lining up with the experience of other queer people in my life, is that that sensitivity is largely motivated by self-loathing and fear that our communities reinforce, and that one of the best things you can do as a queer person is learn to love yourself. Once you do learn to love yourself, you can see that life is actually really good for queer people--many less marginalized groups are falling over themselves to support us, our married couples average the highest household income of any other family unit when controlling for other factors, tokenistic representation and marketing are booming, and despite what the news cycle will tell you things are by-and-large improving in the legal domain. Had one bathroom incident in New York a few years back, dealt with sexual assault and groping in the early 2010s, 10 years later I'm still visibly trans and road tripping around the rural South making friends will all sorts of strangers in unexpected places. You can apply the same logic to all sorts of other social groups and formations, internet conservatives included. The disingenous way to state the truth is that internet communities in all corners of society are full of pedantic snowflakes who need to touch grass.

veave 3y ago

[flagged]

philistine 3y ago

[flagged]

unsupp0rted 3y ago
“You must be fun at parties”, “awwwkard”, “okaaaaay”, “tell us what you really think”… It’s just a way to dismiss a point. Reddit has controversial subreddits, the vast majority of which were closed down. That’s neither here nor there. I’m not looking for a pleasant subreddit for racists. I’m looking for a subreddit for my local hometown where the default assumption isn’t that it’s populated by racists. I’m looking for a subreddit for posting Star Trek memes where the default assumption is that I’m not interested in depriving trans people of their right to exist. The problem with Reddit and its mods is that the defaults are way out of wack. It’s always war-time and anybody who isn’t quoting from the latest propaganda film is a commie-nazi.
CoastalCoder 3y ago
> You must be fun at parties. FYI,this can come across as an ad hominem attack.
- WJW 3y ago
  Oh don't worry, they know.

radarsat1 3y ago

I don't know about the social justice issues, but I've found that a growing problem with reddit is what I'll summarize as "the rules". I admit I'm much more of a lurker than a contributor, but I do post things from time to time. Comments fairly frequently in technical forums, and posts much less frequently, but when they are, they are either: 1) to show a project I did, or 2) to ask a technical question. Basically all of these use cases are more and more an exercise in frustration. I've been using the site for at least a decade, but I can't remember having so much trouble using it until quite recently. The last several posts, let's say during 2023, I've made get either manually or auto-removed. Every single subreddit no matter how small has its own, different, set of "rules" and if you don't memorize them you get your post removed. These rules are often very antisocial, in my opinion. For example, in one forum that I read very often, I never post anything because I only like to post my own work, as I consider such work to be "original content" -- I'm not one to spend my time scouring the internet for other people's work to share, instead I like to share when I've got something to share, right? Seems natural enough to me anyway. Well, I posted a project that I spent 2 months developing, yes as part of the startup I work for but it was a for-fun April-fools type project, intended to amuse. Banned. Immediately. For "self promotion". (There were literally no ads in it or anything, just a website with a fun interaction, and the startups logo in the corner.) Thanks guys. Guess I'll take my ball and go home. Apparently they prefer reposted nonsense to original contributions? Bizarre, backwards.. Another example, someone was asking where they could go for some discussions on a certain topic, so naturally I responded to point to some other subreddits. Immediate auto-remove due to "posting links to other subreddits". Really? So, like, they have rules against hyperlinking? That thing that is at the foundation of the web? Similarly I posted a question to a Python forum, actually quite an advanced question about an interesting phenomenon I noticed related to async generators -- auto-removed. Told to repost it in LearnPython. Great. Did so, got a bunch of beginner replies, as I expected, instead of the in-depth discussion I was hoping for. Now, I understand that these rules and bots exist for a reason .. mainly one reason actually, which is to fight spam. But enough is enough. At what point does spam fighting become intrusive to normal, community sharing of ideas? To be honest, this has gotten me so down regarding reddit that I'm considering just not using the site any more, as it's gotten quite boring because I can barely contribute without jumping through hoops. Trying to post or share something is just depressing because either it breaks some rule, or people jump all over it with negative comments. It just doesn't feel like it's worth the effort anymore. Does anyone else have this experience, or is it just me?

kristiandupont 3y ago

>every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Nobody on Reddit has called me any of those things.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
iopq 3y ago
Me neither, they just banned me for posting on subs they didn't like
- shmel 3y ago
  I was banned from many subs just for being subbed to the "wrong" ones. I haven't even posted there.
TheCaptain4815 3y ago
[flagged]
- malfist 3y ago
  > Personally, I'm working on a reddit bot to spam the site/pm users with the truth I hope that is sarcasm. Consent is important, and spamming people with whatever pet theory you've decided is the "truth" is certainly not the actions of a moral person.
  - TheCaptain4815 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - vore 3y ago
      Well, good luck with that. Surely this strategy will work great.
    - myko 3y ago

afavour 3y ago

I’ve also been a Redditor for well over a decade. While I miss the days when it was a smaller niche site (before the Digg implosion it was basically a nerdier, smaller Digg) I still use and enjoy the site plenty today. I have never been accused of being a racist transphobe whatever, if that’s your number one issue with the site maybe some inward reflection is in order? Just don’t get involved in political flamewars, they serve absolutely no purpose for anyone involved.

Takennickname 3y ago
My friend. Of course you don't know what he is talking about. When you ask a fish what is water? It doesn't know. It was surrounded by it it's whole life. When you ask a reddit mod what is bias? It doesn't know. It was surrounded by it its whole life.
david38 3y ago
The old “if the issue doesn’t affect me, it’s probably something with you.”
- wlesieutre 3y ago
  The person they're replying to was the one who said "every user" so I'm not going to fault them for saying "hasn't been my experience" I've not run into that either and I've been on reddit since before digg v4
unsupp0rted 3y ago
I got banned from /r/CanadaCoronavirus for saying at the time we didn't yet know how many doses and on what schedule of the vaccine would be needed. Banned. That's anti-vaxx propaganda on my part, evidently. I messaged the mods to explain that I was triple-vaxxed and what I said was not only factually correct, it wasn't even controversial. The mods patiently replied that anti-vaxx trolls like me will be reported to reddit to have my entire account banned "for harassment" if I contact them again. What inward reflection do I need? This is just one of myriad examples with mods who don't actually read or process the content about which they're banning people.

whyenot 3y ago

I’ve been using Reddit for 14+ years and while the site has changed, mostly for the worse, in the past few years. “It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy.” Moderators (excepting automod) are human, and like all of us they sometimes make mistakes, some may have biases or having a bad day. I have not seen what you are describing.

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Sometimes groups of people making occasional mistakes, none of which are related to any other. And sometimes groups tend to become pathological, such that no one joining the group is just "someone making occasional mistakes". Groups become like that for various reasons, but one of the qualities that seems most problematic tends to be "authority with minimal or no effective oversight". This is why most police departments are just cesspits of anti-human torment and oppression. If reddit mods aren't murdering people, I'd chalk that up to the fact that they aren't given sidearms, fetters, and a mandate to patrol the streets. > I have not seen what you are describing. Cops never see anything worrisome either. You know, until some 11 yr old is shot in his own home after putting his hands up. Reddit mods probably have it better in that reporters don't really go out of their way to put their abuses in the headlines.

btreecat 3y ago

As someone who used to mod, jfc you're clearly one of the folks who was a problem if that's your opening position. I know that had you stepped up to help out one of your favorite subs, you'd have a different lense. You comment is v clearly just ignorant.

unsupp0rted 3y ago
Case in point
adamrezich 3y ago
"that's just what a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy would say!", basically?
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - marginalia_nu 3y ago
    Most fringe political ideologies do to some extent. It turns out it's hard to compel people to act or vote if they're feeling content and safe. So you make them feel indignant and under threat.
  - unsupp0rted 3y ago
    And yet every person who is literally oppressed is not a Nazi, nor am I one. Not that I’d equate the decline and fall of quality interactions on Reddit with “oppression”.
  - conradfr 3y ago
    Well yeah they are, for good reasons.
  - paulddraper 3y ago
    Every nazi also drinks water.
- 3y ago

anaganisk 3y ago

Eventually if anything is popular enough it attracts, advertisers, corporations, govts, spammers, influencers and what not. It's true from Reddit, to AI and crypto. Enjoy stuff while it's new, even if all the apps reroute to a new backend, it will still be the same again. Probably not instantly but eventually.

comte7092 3y ago

> It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. I’ve literally never had this problem. And I’ve commented on a multitude of subreddits for years. Curious to see some concrete examples where your comments were framed in this manner.

marginalia_nu 3y ago

I think quality contributors have been evaporating from Reddit for a fairly long time in a dead sea fashion, leaving a place that's effectively inhospitable. I left in 2018 or there-around. Probably stayed too long, in retrospect. 10+ year account, moderated multiple subreddits and a pillar of the community type figure in a few others. On some level it felt like each election cycle dug deeper trenches until the entire website looked like the battle of Verdun. This wasn't exclusively an American phenomenon either. The same thing happened on several national subreddits. I also got the sense that the reddit members cultivated a sort of creeping depression that was really allowed to fester on some subreddits essentially all about exchanging thoughts of hopelessness and doom. This was before Covid. I can't imagine it got better those years. Granted, Reddit was wallowing in "forever alone"-memes even 15 years ago, but it feels like the darkness of that abyss got darker as the years passed. I've looked back a few times but I've immediately turned heel as I saw what a toxic dumpster fire it's turned into. Like it isn't as obvious if you've been in it, but jesus f christ on pogo stick is it ever clear to see when you've been away for a couple of years.

myko 3y ago

> all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. Weird, I've been put off of reddit because of the prevalence of transphobes, homophobes, and racists who inundate so many threads. I wish there were better mods to remove those folks from the site.

nailer 3y ago
Do you feel that people outside Reddit are often racist and transphobic?
- myko 3y ago
  No

1270018080 3y ago

Users with this attitude all moved to Voat where they did silly transphobe nazi homophobe things. In order for a social media site to grow in quality beyond 4chan-tier users, they have to implement strong moderation. HN is doing the same thing.

babypuncher 3y ago

I'm not quite so optimistic. The great Digg migration was something of a perfect storm. Digg shot themselves in the foot, yes, but Reddit was already up-and-coming and viewed as the most viable alternative. There isn't really a viable alternative to Reddit yet.

bigbillheck 3y ago

> I miss the Reddit that was good. Reddit was never good.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jonny_eh 3y ago

If people keep telling you that you're racist then maybe you're…

unsupp0rted 3y ago
...commenting innocuously on a massive social network among college-age North American kids in 2023
- jonny_eh 3y ago
  Reddit mods aren't predominately NA college kids.

glonq 3y ago

I almost agree. Some subreddits are echo chambers of woke nonsense. Others are echo chambers of different nonsense. Others seem mostly fine. It's less about the wokeness and more about the ability for a handful of mods to hijack popular topics and create an unecessarily unpleasant/unproductive experience for their communities. I'll leave ineffective admins, lack of original content, spam, karma, bots, misinformation, automod, and monetization as separate points of discussion :P

mort96 3y ago

I mean the racist transphobe nazi homophobes is probably the group I'm the most happy are getting banned... There are so many examples of mods power tripping, and you chose to use the banning of nazis as your example?

Affric 3y ago

> In a few years nobody will remember that this is what precipitated the fall of Reddit. It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense, ruled by all-powerful mods to whom every user is a racist transphobe nazi homophobe enemy. I have always been pretty left wing (have been a member of and organised for a range of left wing political parties) but Reddit was what very much moderated by belief in 99% of left wing politicians and would be politicians. If the kinds who rise to the top of subreddits ever saw power in our societies we would see the terror and widespread violence. There's a performative aesthetic idea of what being left wing is based on positions on issues, knowledge, rather than an actual mindset and series of real beliefs about what is the right thing to do. It comes down to what I had always seen as the territory of the right but now realise that people of any political persuasion can do it: 1. Blame the system for your own problems 2. Other your enemies and make their problems personal failings 3. Claim that justice would be their destruction rather than their rehabilitation And for social media companies these lonely, angry, miserable people drive huge amounts of engagement. Reddit has huge governance issues as a community that stems from the fact that the corporate leadership cannot serve two masters. In retrospect when they did the big slow down on the "hot" algorithm was the moment it could not be saved.

raxxorraxor 3y ago

> It’s already turned into an echo-chamber of nonsense It really reached an insane degree on the official subs at least. There are some karma farmers that certainly are human that post and post the ever same topics, but the quality of many submissions really dropped significantly. And I compare that to the former reddit quality, which was optimized for mass instead of quality. Today it looks like some form of propaganda spam. Perhaps a result of news outlets copying more than before. Reddit should have build on its strengths. It was better for discussion than Twitter or Tiktok. Not too deep, but at least you could find new ideas. Now they used the platform to consolidated opinions and killed the advantages that formerly differentiated the platform.

FeepingCreature 3y ago

I think this comment thread is hilarious because it's pretty much filled with two groups: - commenters who are the problem according to the other half - moderators who are the problem according to the other half.

unsupp0rted 3y ago
Well summarized. And to expand, I would complain equally about moderators OR commenters for whom the answer to "this is a comment I disagree with" is "this commenter is obviously an -ist or -ic who must be banned".