6 ms·

R/Java bans Kevin Bourrillion because he mentioned another programming language

53 points by stiltzkin 2y ago

ryan1010 2y ago
[dead]
silisili 2y ago
Just stop using Reddit, pretty simple. Their mod system is a complete joke.
- Simulacra 2y ago
  This. I would be much more inclined to use Reddit if they would hire professional moderators, and were all required to stand by a certain code of ethics and conduct. Right now every sub Reddit is just someone's little fiefdom to play with, and power trip.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
richwater 2y ago
Reddit is a cesspool moderated by literal high schoolers and unemployed people.
- sumoboy 2y ago
  History repeats like the old seo directories such as dmoz, mods just on these power trips where common sense doesn't apply.
- throwaway_1more 2y ago
  Ouch that hurt! I am unemployed right now and eating from my severance and 401k!
- threeseed 2y ago
  Don’t forget companies, PR agencies and government actors. Israeli and Russian governments have unquestionably had influence over certain subreddits. Worldnews for the former.
paxys 2y ago
Sounds like the average Reddit experience. This is exactly why such communities should remain on open newsgroups rather than Reddit/Discord/Slack or whatever other flavor-of-the-month service people want to switch over to for their shiny UI.
- sk11001 2y ago
  Reddit will be 19 years old next month, it’s not flavor of the month.
  - mplewis9z 2y ago
    Chocolate’s been around a while too, but it can still be the flavor of the month.
  - paxys 2y ago
    Digg is 19 years old as well, and was significantly more popular than Reddit at its peak. Where is it now? Or Myspace? Or Tumblr? Or Google+? Or Twitter? Any open forum that is private and profit-focused is eventually going to destroy itself. Reddit is not an exception, especially after its recent IPO. How long do you think it will be before investors are no longer content with losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year and want more monetization and more user-hostile features built in?
    - echelon 2y ago
      > Any open forum that is private and profit-focused is eventually going to destroy itself. Reddit is not an exception. Facebook is still around. If we count the date commercial dial-up was first available (1992) to the Facebook launch date (2004), Facebook has been around for the majority of most people's internet experience. I think you have the wrong mental model of this. Rather, when a community wins and reaches steady state, it becomes entrenched and almost impossible to dislodge. Google+ tried to suck the air out of the room for Facebook and it failed.
      - paxys 2y ago
tptacek 2y ago
I can imagine existing conditions on a programming language subreddit that would lead to that rule. Comparative debates about programming languages spread like kudzu, overtaking everything else. If you're trying to have a discussion forum that is just about programming in the Java programming language --- that's a reasonable thing to want! --- then sharply prohibiting discussions about JVM languages might be especially necessary, since the interop between those languages makes it so easy to pull the other languages into the discussion.
- th0ma5 2y ago
  The fear in my mind is like with Julia where you have zealotry masquerading as insight, and a culture where if you disagree with the true believers you must simply be not informed.
code_runner 2y ago
[flagged]
ecshafer 2y ago
I doubt there are any Java expert group or platform group members that are going to be as religious as a reddit moderator. In the conversations I've had with members I know of those cohorts, they've always been very open about say Scala doing something better than Java, or Clojure doing x as an improvement.
skilled 2y ago
That ban reason was pretty snarky too! And such entitlement permeates pretty much all of Reddit, outside of the very few communities that self-regulate (or at least try to) similarly to how HN does.
__s 2y ago
follow up thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/1chohts/please_let_it_go_now https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/1chohts/please_let_it...
m0llusk 2y ago
Now that "card" view is aggressively forced on users Reddit is more than ever a tool for advertisers. Users, especially those who contribute content, don't have any direct relationship with the business model and are being squeezed out.
- Simulacra 2y ago
  There are a number of browser extensions that break that. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/extensions-to-transform-your-reddit-experience/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/extensions-to-transform-your-r...
dagmx 2y ago
While the ban and rule are stupid beyond belief, I just want to make a note that Kevin is now unbanned and is asking people NOT to harass the mods https://www.reddit.com/r/java/s/45sghfd8J8 https://www.reddit.com/r/java/s/45sghfd8J8
- bun_terminator 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - terr-dav 2y ago
    Are you advocating for harassment?
    - bun_terminator 2y ago
      I'm advocating for these people to go away and let people do their thing. They're a burden on society.
      - mschuster91 2y ago
        While few things are more annoying than Reddit mods on a power trip - since Reddit-the-company doesn't do any more moderation than what they're legally required to (=CSAM, violence, nation-specific hate speech laws), a subreddit without moderation will quickly either devolve into outright anarchy (r/worldnews) and completely lose its focus, or it will become completely overrun with spammers and scammers.
        bun_terminator 2y ago
        People keep repeating that, but every social space quality correlates inversely with censorship ("moderation"). And this occurrence (and the thousands of similar per day) have nothing todo with spammers and scammers. I invite everyone to look at: https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/java/new/ https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/java/new/ I'd say they remove about 90% of everything?
mrpound 2y ago
reddit is inhabited by the world's biggest losers
- impossiblefork 2y ago
  Only the moderators of the big subreddits. The users that aren't bots are largely reasonably normal people.
  - jimbob45 2y ago
    Yeah, there's sort of a bell curve to the ideal reddits where everything in the middle is totally serviceable. However, too small and the mods become overwhelmed and have to overban/overmod to keep up. Too large and the mods get powerhungry and ban in accordance with their own political values.
    - impossiblefork 2y ago
      Yes, although I think the latter is carefully organised, probably by well-funded groups. E.g. /r/worldnews have 36 million subscribers, and I think it has more influence than even big newspapers, and this is controlled by anonymous moderators, who for all we know can be a team working for the same organisation.
- phone8675309 2y ago
  Hey, Stack Overflow is pretty high up there now
- threeseed 2y ago
  X for me takes the crown these days. Dominated by crypto grifters, Musk sycophants and engagement farmers. At least Reddit isolated those to certain subreddits.
  - stiltzkin 2y ago
    Reddit is highly censored and can get you banned easily unlike X.
mikequinlan 2y ago
Belongs in https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/, not Hacker News.
- echelon 2y ago
  This is a major issue on today's internet. This is one of the most pertinent topics we could discuss. I think there are several technical means of getting around this. The BlueSky protocol allows for end-users to opt-in to their own moderation preferences. The Reddit methodology sucks, and at its scale I believe it is causing societal harm.
- stiltzkin 2y ago
  This is relevant and many do not use Reddit.
swozey 2y ago
Wild that he was unbanned considering the typical experience with mods who are in the wrong on reddit is that the next mod who gets your PM that typically goes something like, "Hi, this conversation was misread/construed by the mod that banned me. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was $doingGoodThingNotAgainstRules if you could re-instate me. Thank you," is usually met with a double-down where mod2 just defends mod1 and suspends you for a month or reports you to admins for a perma-ban. As a former ircop who went out of my way to be helpful to ... the absolute sludge of EFnet, and then you have great mods like dang, and other forum mods it's very frustrating that reddit mods nearly always assume the absolute worst about someones intentions and are nearly always incredibly rude. I guarantee that /r/java gets nowhere near the amount of reports/spam/etc that we got on EFnet in the 90-2000s. But we also weren't anonymous mods and had reputations to maintain. A lot of IRCops were Ops because we peered our servers to EFnet and we didn't want to be desynced. Obviously this guy was able to get a ton of attention brought to this so pretty clear how he scooted back in, glad they loosened up here.
em1sar 2y ago
[dead]

53 points by stiltzkin 2y ago

ryan1010 2y ago

[dead]

silisili 2y ago

Just stop using Reddit, pretty simple. Their mod system is a complete joke.

Simulacra 2y ago
This. I would be much more inclined to use Reddit if they would hire professional moderators, and were all required to stand by a certain code of ethics and conduct. Right now every sub Reddit is just someone's little fiefdom to play with, and power trip.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

richwater 2y ago

Reddit is a cesspool moderated by literal high schoolers and unemployed people.

sumoboy 2y ago
History repeats like the old seo directories such as dmoz, mods just on these power trips where common sense doesn't apply.
throwaway_1more 2y ago
Ouch that hurt! I am unemployed right now and eating from my severance and 401k!
threeseed 2y ago
Don’t forget companies, PR agencies and government actors. Israeli and Russian governments have unquestionably had influence over certain subreddits. Worldnews for the former.

paxys 2y ago

Sounds like the average Reddit experience. This is exactly why such communities should remain on open newsgroups rather than Reddit/Discord/Slack or whatever other flavor-of-the-month service people want to switch over to for their shiny UI.

sk11001 2y ago
Reddit will be 19 years old next month, it’s not flavor of the month.
- mplewis9z 2y ago
  Chocolate’s been around a while too, but it can still be the flavor of the month.
- paxys 2y ago
  Digg is 19 years old as well, and was significantly more popular than Reddit at its peak. Where is it now? Or Myspace? Or Tumblr? Or Google+? Or Twitter? Any open forum that is private and profit-focused is eventually going to destroy itself. Reddit is not an exception, especially after its recent IPO. How long do you think it will be before investors are no longer content with losing hundreds of millions of dollars every year and want more monetization and more user-hostile features built in?
  - echelon 2y ago
    > Any open forum that is private and profit-focused is eventually going to destroy itself. Reddit is not an exception. Facebook is still around. If we count the date commercial dial-up was first available (1992) to the Facebook launch date (2004), Facebook has been around for the majority of most people's internet experience. I think you have the wrong mental model of this. Rather, when a community wins and reaches steady state, it becomes entrenched and almost impossible to dislodge. Google+ tried to suck the air out of the room for Facebook and it failed.
    - paxys 2y ago

tptacek 2y ago

I can imagine existing conditions on a programming language subreddit that would lead to that rule. Comparative debates about programming languages spread like kudzu, overtaking everything else. If you're trying to have a discussion forum that is just about programming in the Java programming language --- that's a reasonable thing to want! --- then sharply prohibiting discussions about JVM languages might be especially necessary, since the interop between those languages makes it so easy to pull the other languages into the discussion.

th0ma5 2y ago
The fear in my mind is like with Julia where you have zealotry masquerading as insight, and a culture where if you disagree with the true believers you must simply be not informed.

code_runner 2y ago

[flagged]

ecshafer 2y ago

I doubt there are any Java expert group or platform group members that are going to be as religious as a reddit moderator. In the conversations I've had with members I know of those cohorts, they've always been very open about say Scala doing something better than Java, or Clojure doing x as an improvement.

skilled 2y ago

That ban reason was pretty snarky too! And such entitlement permeates pretty much all of Reddit, outside of the very few communities that self-regulate (or at least try to) similarly to how HN does.

__s 2y ago

follow up thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/1chohts/please_let_it_go_now https://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/1chohts/please_let_it...

m0llusk 2y ago

Now that "card" view is aggressively forced on users Reddit is more than ever a tool for advertisers. Users, especially those who contribute content, don't have any direct relationship with the business model and are being squeezed out.

Simulacra 2y ago
There are a number of browser extensions that break that. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/extensions-to-transform-your-reddit-experience/ https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/extensions-to-transform-your-r...

dagmx 2y ago

While the ban and rule are stupid beyond belief, I just want to make a note that Kevin is now unbanned and is asking people NOT to harass the mods https://www.reddit.com/r/java/s/45sghfd8J8 https://www.reddit.com/r/java/s/45sghfd8J8

bun_terminator 2y ago
[flagged]
- terr-dav 2y ago
  Are you advocating for harassment?
  - bun_terminator 2y ago
    I'm advocating for these people to go away and let people do their thing. They're a burden on society.
    - mschuster91 2y ago
      While few things are more annoying than Reddit mods on a power trip - since Reddit-the-company doesn't do any more moderation than what they're legally required to (=CSAM, violence, nation-specific hate speech laws), a subreddit without moderation will quickly either devolve into outright anarchy (r/worldnews) and completely lose its focus, or it will become completely overrun with spammers and scammers.
      - bun_terminator 2y ago
        People keep repeating that, but every social space quality correlates inversely with censorship ("moderation"). And this occurrence (and the thousands of similar per day) have nothing todo with spammers and scammers. I invite everyone to look at: https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/java/new/ https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/java/new/ I'd say they remove about 90% of everything?

mrpound 2y ago

reddit is inhabited by the world's biggest losers

impossiblefork 2y ago
Only the moderators of the big subreddits. The users that aren't bots are largely reasonably normal people.
- jimbob45 2y ago
  Yeah, there's sort of a bell curve to the ideal reddits where everything in the middle is totally serviceable. However, too small and the mods become overwhelmed and have to overban/overmod to keep up. Too large and the mods get powerhungry and ban in accordance with their own political values.
  - impossiblefork 2y ago
    Yes, although I think the latter is carefully organised, probably by well-funded groups. E.g. /r/worldnews have 36 million subscribers, and I think it has more influence than even big newspapers, and this is controlled by anonymous moderators, who for all we know can be a team working for the same organisation.
phone8675309 2y ago
Hey, Stack Overflow is pretty high up there now
threeseed 2y ago
X for me takes the crown these days. Dominated by crypto grifters, Musk sycophants and engagement farmers. At least Reddit isolated those to certain subreddits.
- stiltzkin 2y ago
  Reddit is highly censored and can get you banned easily unlike X.

mikequinlan 2y ago

Belongs in https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/, not Hacker News.

echelon 2y ago
This is a major issue on today's internet. This is one of the most pertinent topics we could discuss. I think there are several technical means of getting around this. The BlueSky protocol allows for end-users to opt-in to their own moderation preferences. The Reddit methodology sucks, and at its scale I believe it is causing societal harm.
stiltzkin 2y ago
This is relevant and many do not use Reddit.

swozey 2y ago

Wild that he was unbanned considering the typical experience with mods who are in the wrong on reddit is that the next mod who gets your PM that typically goes something like, "Hi, this conversation was misread/construed by the mod that banned me. Sorry for the misunderstanding. I was $doingGoodThingNotAgainstRules if you could re-instate me. Thank you," is usually met with a double-down where mod2 just defends mod1 and suspends you for a month or reports you to admins for a perma-ban. As a former ircop who went out of my way to be helpful to ... the absolute sludge of EFnet, and then you have great mods like dang, and other forum mods it's very frustrating that reddit mods nearly always assume the absolute worst about someones intentions and are nearly always incredibly rude. I guarantee that /r/java gets nowhere near the amount of reports/spam/etc that we got on EFnet in the 90-2000s. But we also weren't anonymous mods and had reputations to maintain. A lot of IRCops were Ops because we peered our servers to EFnet and we didn't want to be desynced. Obviously this guy was able to get a ton of attention brought to this so pretty clear how he scooted back in, glad they loosened up here.

em1sar 2y ago

[dead]