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I have no problem with the notion that those running reddit suffer from extreme cognitive dissonance over this issue. They've been acting in extremely odd ways

I have no problem with the notion that those running reddit suffer from extreme cognitive dissonance over this issue. They've been acting in extremely odd ways for some time now. Actions like the banning of subreddits for the actions of a few bad actors belie the notion that this is how you and they describe it.

CamperBob2 11y ago
You were modded down, but I don't know why. On what planet does it make sense to ban /r/fatpeoplehate while permitting /r/CoonTown? If you don't have a coherent content policy -- and no sane person could argue that Reddit does -- then you're better off with none at all.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  I've been modded down rather interestingly in this thread. Clearly someone has a beef with my observations.
- mcphage 11y ago
  What? Clearly both should be banned, but banning one is much better than banning neither.
  - CamperBob2 11y ago
    No, it isn't. Given that there was no blatantly illegal content involved, there are only two possible reasons for not treating these two subreddits the same. Either the admins are a) clueless nitwits who don't know what's going on with their own site, or b) sympathetic to one but not the other. Which do you believe is the correct explanation? Can you see any other possibilities?
    - mcphage 11y ago
      If you're in my house, I'm going to hold you to a much higher standard than "not blatantly illegal". If you resent Reddit doing the same, well, the Internet isn't lacking for dank underbellies.
      - CamperBob2 11y ago
        So I'm allowed to hold Klan meetings in your house, as long as I don't make fun of any overweight minorities? Because that's what the admins have basically said, by their actions.
        mcphage 11y ago
        > Because that's what the admins have basically said, by their actions. Nope, the Reddit admins just haven't closed those subreddits yet. But they will. They've closed the child porn subreddits, they've closed the revenge porn subreddits, they've closed the hate groups that bleed out into the larger internet. r/coontown will be closed, too. It hasn't yet, which is a shame, but if you read into that fact that the reddit admins approve of it, then be prepared to be disappointed in a few months when it gets closed, too.
    - foiboitoi 11y ago
      Funny how you're getting downvoted for stating the obvious.
      - CamperBob2 11y ago
        I probably sound more vested in the issue than I am. I probably also sound like I'm piling on with unhelpful feedback at a difficult time. I don't intend either -- I'm just a bit perplexed at why some forms of controversial, hate-oriented, and/or immature speech are considered OK on Reddit while others aren't.
      - mcphage 11y ago
        They're getting downvoted for stating that it would be better if r/fatpeoplehate was still active on Reddit.
        CamperBob2 11y ago
        You do have an active imagination, I'll give you that much credit.
  - danielweber 11y ago
    No, because it leads to an incoherent policy. Reddit's original policy, for better or for worse, was "anything that isn't illegal." They had to add one or two things to that over the years but they stuck to that. Reddit's policy then became, unofficially, "trust us to get rid of the crap." That sounds fine, but it has problems: 1. it's not the original policy. HN has a "trust us" policy and it works great but it's always had that. HN has never been billed as "come say what you want." Changing the policy is a bait and switch to the old community. 2. It was never admitted to. While switching to the new policy, the official line was that the old policy was still in place. 3. It requires positive social capital. Remember Philip Greenspun's infamous article describing the VCs at ArsDigita as "a group of nursery school children who've stolen a Boeing 747 and are now flipping all the switches trying to get it to take off"[1]? That's what the reddit admin has been like for months, and it leads to negative social capital. Some guy was shadowbanned but didn't know it for years, patiently posting in subreddits all along. The CEO didn't use the company's only product. If you've ever experienced a dysfunctional internet community -- and who hasn't -- you recognize the patterns of decisions made in a hurry to stop whomever is immediately yelling at you and then trying to justify it with whatever they can cobble together afterwards, and that explanation will be completely unsuitable for the next crisis which will require yet another made up explanation. [1] http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/ http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/
    - aiiane 11y ago
      Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good isn't great either.
      - danielweber 11y ago
        This isn't responsive to anything I said. It's a response to a different comment that says "they should only get rid of all toxic communities, not just some of them." Building a community requires trust from the community members, especially the community members who are volunteers donating their time to help the long-term health of it. If the people in charge consistently act like they don't know what the fuck they are doing the volunteers quickly feel put upon. The hardest part of managing a user community is dealing with all the users.
  - venomsnake 11y ago
    Why they should be banned? You know that you can just stay away.
- amyjess 11y ago
  FPH was targeting individuals for harassment. The subreddit was filled with photographs that were either a) creepshots taken off the street without the subject's permission and b) friends-only Facebook posts shared with the public without the subject's permission (which is a violation of Facebook's TOS). Then, on top of that, they were harassing imgur staff members for enforcing their ToS. CoonTown, as disgusting as it is, wasn't doing that, at least not in the sheer volumes of numbers FPH was. Most of that sub consisted of making racist statements about news articles and misinterpreted statistics.
  - CamperBob2 11y ago
    Sorry, I don't buy it. Was anything happening in FPH illegal? If not, then there's no rational basis for treating it any differently than any other hate-oriented subreddit. If there were in fact some legal concerns, then I stand corrected.
    - zardeh 11y ago
      Reddits stated policy was to remove harassment (and harrassing subs). So fph harrassed users and broke that policy. Coontown, while also racist and imo worse, stays in its box, doesn't brigade, doesn't target specific people, and generally just says racist stuff about news articles and posts memes.
- DanBC 11y ago
  Fatpeople hate was banned for brigading - for actions not ideas - because fatpeople hate would link to real world people and real world profiles and thousands over users would visit and vote and hundreds of users would leave harassing messages. Ellen got so much shot for the "we're banning actions not ideas" quote (in this thread even) yet here's an example of it being used - leaving absolutely vile subs live because they don't brigade and banning subs when they do brigade and she's getting shit for that too.
  - makomk 11y ago
    They did, but I don't think most people realised that FPH brigaded because the details didn't make it into the news and weren't mentioned in the admin response. So for anyone who didn't dig deeply into it themselves, it looked like the admins had just banned it at random. Then rather than explaining it, the admins made a bullshit PR non-statement about how they were "banning actions not ideas". Really badly handled.
    - dvanduzer 11y ago
      And... The fact that /r/CoonTown apparently wasn't brigading and therefore was left alone for free speech reasons is... not really badly handled? Pick.

CamperBob2 11y ago

You were modded down, but I don't know why. On what planet does it make sense to ban /r/fatpeoplehate while permitting /r/CoonTown? If you don't have a coherent content policy -- and no sane person could argue that Reddit does -- then you're better off with none at all.

oldmanjay 11y ago
I've been modded down rather interestingly in this thread. Clearly someone has a beef with my observations.
mcphage 11y ago
What? Clearly both should be banned, but banning one is much better than banning neither.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  No, it isn't. Given that there was no blatantly illegal content involved, there are only two possible reasons for not treating these two subreddits the same. Either the admins are a) clueless nitwits who don't know what's going on with their own site, or b) sympathetic to one but not the other. Which do you believe is the correct explanation? Can you see any other possibilities?
  - mcphage 11y ago
    If you're in my house, I'm going to hold you to a much higher standard than "not blatantly illegal". If you resent Reddit doing the same, well, the Internet isn't lacking for dank underbellies.
    - CamperBob2 11y ago
      So I'm allowed to hold Klan meetings in your house, as long as I don't make fun of any overweight minorities? Because that's what the admins have basically said, by their actions.
      - mcphage 11y ago
        > Because that's what the admins have basically said, by their actions. Nope, the Reddit admins just haven't closed those subreddits yet. But they will. They've closed the child porn subreddits, they've closed the revenge porn subreddits, they've closed the hate groups that bleed out into the larger internet. r/coontown will be closed, too. It hasn't yet, which is a shame, but if you read into that fact that the reddit admins approve of it, then be prepared to be disappointed in a few months when it gets closed, too.
  - foiboitoi 11y ago
    Funny how you're getting downvoted for stating the obvious.
    - CamperBob2 11y ago
      I probably sound more vested in the issue than I am. I probably also sound like I'm piling on with unhelpful feedback at a difficult time. I don't intend either -- I'm just a bit perplexed at why some forms of controversial, hate-oriented, and/or immature speech are considered OK on Reddit while others aren't.
    - mcphage 11y ago
      They're getting downvoted for stating that it would be better if r/fatpeoplehate was still active on Reddit.
      - CamperBob2 11y ago
        You do have an active imagination, I'll give you that much credit.
- danielweber 11y ago
  No, because it leads to an incoherent policy. Reddit's original policy, for better or for worse, was "anything that isn't illegal." They had to add one or two things to that over the years but they stuck to that. Reddit's policy then became, unofficially, "trust us to get rid of the crap." That sounds fine, but it has problems: 1. it's not the original policy. HN has a "trust us" policy and it works great but it's always had that. HN has never been billed as "come say what you want." Changing the policy is a bait and switch to the old community. 2. It was never admitted to. While switching to the new policy, the official line was that the old policy was still in place. 3. It requires positive social capital. Remember Philip Greenspun's infamous article describing the VCs at ArsDigita as "a group of nursery school children who've stolen a Boeing 747 and are now flipping all the switches trying to get it to take off"[1]? That's what the reddit admin has been like for months, and it leads to negative social capital. Some guy was shadowbanned but didn't know it for years, patiently posting in subreddits all along. The CEO didn't use the company's only product. If you've ever experienced a dysfunctional internet community -- and who hasn't -- you recognize the patterns of decisions made in a hurry to stop whomever is immediately yelling at you and then trying to justify it with whatever they can cobble together afterwards, and that explanation will be completely unsuitable for the next crisis which will require yet another made up explanation. [1] http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/ http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/
  - aiiane 11y ago
    Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good isn't great either.
    - danielweber 11y ago
      This isn't responsive to anything I said. It's a response to a different comment that says "they should only get rid of all toxic communities, not just some of them." Building a community requires trust from the community members, especially the community members who are volunteers donating their time to help the long-term health of it. If the people in charge consistently act like they don't know what the fuck they are doing the volunteers quickly feel put upon. The hardest part of managing a user community is dealing with all the users.
- venomsnake 11y ago
  Why they should be banned? You know that you can just stay away.
amyjess 11y ago
FPH was targeting individuals for harassment. The subreddit was filled with photographs that were either a) creepshots taken off the street without the subject's permission and b) friends-only Facebook posts shared with the public without the subject's permission (which is a violation of Facebook's TOS). Then, on top of that, they were harassing imgur staff members for enforcing their ToS. CoonTown, as disgusting as it is, wasn't doing that, at least not in the sheer volumes of numbers FPH was. Most of that sub consisted of making racist statements about news articles and misinterpreted statistics.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  Sorry, I don't buy it. Was anything happening in FPH illegal? If not, then there's no rational basis for treating it any differently than any other hate-oriented subreddit. If there were in fact some legal concerns, then I stand corrected.
  - zardeh 11y ago
    Reddits stated policy was to remove harassment (and harrassing subs). So fph harrassed users and broke that policy. Coontown, while also racist and imo worse, stays in its box, doesn't brigade, doesn't target specific people, and generally just says racist stuff about news articles and posts memes.
DanBC 11y ago
Fatpeople hate was banned for brigading - for actions not ideas - because fatpeople hate would link to real world people and real world profiles and thousands over users would visit and vote and hundreds of users would leave harassing messages. Ellen got so much shot for the "we're banning actions not ideas" quote (in this thread even) yet here's an example of it being used - leaving absolutely vile subs live because they don't brigade and banning subs when they do brigade and she's getting shit for that too.
- makomk 11y ago
  They did, but I don't think most people realised that FPH brigaded because the details didn't make it into the news and weren't mentioned in the admin response. So for anyone who didn't dig deeply into it themselves, it looked like the admins had just banned it at random. Then rather than explaining it, the admins made a bullshit PR non-statement about how they were "banning actions not ideas". Really badly handled.
  - dvanduzer 11y ago
    And... The fact that /r/CoonTown apparently wasn't brigading and therefore was left alone for free speech reasons is... not really badly handled? Pick.