In a move that isn't particularly surprising given their lack of support for intellectual diversity to date, Reddit has introduced outright bans to replace its shadow banning policy.
Reddit has introduced an "Account Suspension" feature that will replace Shadowbanning for non-spammers, though previously shadowbanned accounts are not going to be automatically unbanned.
A post on July 28, 2015 by Reddit admin /u/krispykrackers explains the basics of Shadowbanning, a tool initially created to counteract spammers by hiding their content without letting them know their account had been shadowbanned. However, this was Reddit's only tool for an account-wide ban, and it has since been used on people other than spammers as well.
Account Suspension will be more straightforward and transparent than a Shadowban. An F.A.Q. page (sic) linked in the announcement post states that only Reddit administrators will be able to apply suspensions, which can be temporary or permanent. Permanent suspensions will result in a message about the account's status being added to that account's userpage.
See, I'm a veteran. This means I was willing to take a bullet for the right of my countrymen to speak their minds. On this at least I have not mellowed as I've aged. My personal line in the sand is that we will never site ban for anything but over-the-top spamming or gross/repeated illegal activity while I am on staff. See my journal if you feel the need for that last statement to be expounded upon.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday November 12 2015, @10:16AM
Mighty Buzz, are you alright? No need to paint a target on yourself. We either can take you out, or we back you up. But the theatrics are a bit over the top. Reddit, you say? What is that?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 12 2015, @10:58AM
No theatrics. This is simply something I have strong opinions on.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday November 12 2015, @02:52PM
Redditors having strong opinions about reddit is a bit like high schoolers having strong opinions about high schools.
You're gathered with a huge group of people who, by their nature, are assholes, and a few people responsible for making sure they don't burn the place down. The former will always really resent the latter.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @03:04PM
Redditors having strong opinions about reddit is a bit like high schoolers having strong opinions about high schools.
Well, someone's arguments stand on their own merits, so I will at least give Redditors and high schoolers a chance to present their cases.
You're gathered with a huge group of people who, by their nature, are assholes, and a few people responsible for making sure they don't burn the place down.
Because the site will burn down if someone says something that certain people don't like?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday November 12 2015, @04:10PM
True.
Anybody with half a brain and an internet connection could do 5 (or less) minutes of research and determine that mods and admins are actively censoring things that shouldn't be censored.
Getting rid of r/coontown? Eh, okay, fine. Removing Snowden news and Drone Papers news from r/news? Totally not cool. And shadowbans were never cool, as they are the most dishonest, slimy, and chickenshit form of regulation imaginable. Shadowbanning is straight-up Stazi shit. You're in trouble, but you don't deserve to know why.
And they can hemorrhage users and be subject to embarrassing internal squabbles and reverse their position after its way too late. Sound familiar?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @08:49PM
SoylentNews, where absurdly Godwinning a debate gets you modded "Insightful". It's reddit, for fuck's sake. It's not something that actually matters. Statements like yours are fucking offensive to anyone who actually experienced the Stasi. (Note: "Stasi", not "Stazi". "Stazi" looks like a teenager's "clever" attempt to imply that the Stasi were Nazis, which is a fairer explanation than the actual explanation, which is simple lazy ignorance.)
Note: For any pedantic neckbearded cunt, I am very, very well aware that the Stasi were of Communist East Germany, whereas "Godwinning" would normally involve referring to Hitler. If you are incapable of seeing the comparison, well, fuck you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @12:28AM
Note: For any pedantic neckbearded cunt, I am very, very well aware that the Stasi were of Communist East Germany, whereas "Godwinning" would normally involve referring to Hitler. If you are incapable of seeing the comparison, well, fuck you.
Don't hold back. Tell us how you really feel!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @01:22AM
So what you are saying is that you know goodwinning was the incorrect terminology but you used it anyways.
I mean I am just checking here. I don't want to rile you up any, cause you seem like you have anger issues.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Friday November 13 2015, @01:07AM
not a huge fan of ethanol, but can't disagree with your take on this, as far as shadowbanning being simply despicable, inhumane behavior...
worse than the chickenshit disemvoweling boing boing does/did...
(? have not been back since i saw them do that to some posters a couple years back... again, despicable behavior)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday November 13 2015, @02:13AM
You're gathered with a huge group of people who, by their nature, are assholes
That's not entirely true, it almost always depends on the subreddit.
One of my favourites is a non-mainstream sport and the community is pretty welcoming. On the odd occasion someone acts badly the community tends to do it's own policing.
It is a fairly small subreddit though, about 10,00 subscribers, so that probably helps.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 12 2015, @03:00PM
"See, I'm a veteran. This means I was willing to take a bullet for the right of my countrymen to speak their minds."
An observation, Brother. I really don't have much use for Fox Noise, but I can join a discussion on Fox, and I can say some pretty outrageous things, and no one ever threatens to ban me. I've been banned from many MSM discussion sites. Imagine that. The liberal socialist networks that claim to be all about freedom only want to shut me up. They don't care how many years I served my country, they don't care that I might be a veteran, they don't care how many lives I've saved (or taken) in my life. I don't subscribe to their politically correct agendas, so I am personna non grata on those liberal sites.
For this, we served?
This is one of the things I like about Soylent, and /. - no one gets banned for having an unpopular opinion. THIS is freedom of speech. (We all reserve the right to kick Ethanol when he's off his meds though.)
I have nothing but contempt for those who want to silence people they disagree with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @04:10PM
Some discussion venues value "safety from offensive content" more than the free flow of ideas.
In the real world, I can see how this is important for situations where people would be afraid to speak otherwise.
On the internet, I only see this as useful for getting rid of posters that are deliberately trying to disrupt discussion by trolling. I'd rather have more trolling than less ideas but each site has to determine how this affects their signal to noise.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:41PM
They don't care how many years I served my country, they don't care that I might be a veteran, they don't care how many lives I've saved (or taken) in my life.
You're right, "we" don't care because those things have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of your comment. (except in that recent gun thread, I guess)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:07PM
This is the internet. He/She might be a genious 12 year-old girl from Algeria that likes to assume different internet identities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:53PM
> i really don't have much use for Fox Noise, but I can join a discussion on Fox, and I can say some pretty outrageous things, and no one ever threatens to ban me. I've been banned from many MSM discussion sites. Imagine that.
This whining about censorship and conflating it with "the right of my countrymen to speak their minds" is intellectually dishonest. It is like demanding that all stores sell all possible products. Nobody is stopping fox from being a free for all. Free for alls tend to end up with zero signal, but if that's what you want there are plenty of places on the net that will let you do that. There are also other places that do not want to be free for alls, they want to have a specific character and you are required to follow their rules in their house. That's how free speech works.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:05PM
No, it is you who is being dishonest. You may give some lip service to freedom of speech, but you have no problem with seing people punished arbitrarily and capriciously by random moderators who often have their own political agendas.
I suppose that it made sense that you could speak your mind in 1930's Germany, if you were willing to suffer the consequences of a visit from the Brown Shirts later in the evening. You can say whatever you like in China, so long as you're willing to answer to The Party afterward. And, you can post your opinion on most web sites, if you're willing to be banned for doing so.
It's all the same thing.
A forum that is dedicated to one subject in particular - tech, automobiles, motorcycles, dolls, cooking - it is reasonable to ban extraneous subjects that have no bearing on the forum subject. That's perfectly fine. But, posting political stories online, then banning people who voice opinions contrary to the forum operator's views is so obviously WRONG, it cannot be justified.
Seriously, you've got to contort yourself into unhuman shapes to even come close to justifying that kind of censorship. Are you a fascist? A communist? A nazi? A religious zealot? Those are the kinds of poeple who justify censorship.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:52PM
> No, it is you who is being dishonest. You may give some lip service to freedom of speech, but you have no problem with seing people punished arbitrarily and capriciously by random moderators who often have their own political agendas.
Thanks for telling me what I think. You would definitely be the expert on that.
> That's perfectly fine. But, posting political stories online, then banning people who voice opinions contrary to the forum operator's views is so obviously WRONG, it cannot be justified.
Then go somewhere that comports with your worldview. Oh I forgot, those evil moderators are following you around the entire internet censoring you everywhere.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:29PM
There are also other places that do not want to be free for alls, they want to have a specific character and you are required to follow their rules in their house. That's how free speech works.
Funny how "let the free-market decide" and "invisible hand" get thrown by the wayside whenever "SJW"s are perceived to be involved.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @07:43PM
Who is suggesting that the government stop the censorship? From what I see, people are merely criticizing it. Or do you think that freedom of speech and the free market mean being free from criticism?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 12 2015, @09:32PM
"See, I'm a veteran. This means I was willing to take a bullet for the right of my countrymen to speak their minds."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @02:01PM
I'm not seeing how that is advocating that the government stop this particular censorship. Maybe it simply means that he values freedom of speech highly.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:03PM
but I can join a discussion on Fox, and I can say some pretty outrageous things, and no one ever threatens to ban me.
Yeah, 'cause shutting down the entire comments section [newshounds.us] is so much better!
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:13PM
Interesting. Newshounds seems to imply that Fox shouldn't have put news stories online that might be controversial. So - are you pointing out that Fox censored the comments on one especially controversial story, or are you instead pointing out that Newshounds wants to censor Fox?
And that line of thought leads me to ask, how do we end racism in this nation? If you punish the white man, will racism end? If controversy is silenced, will racism end? Or - is it more likely that some open, loud, discordant controversy will end racism?
I choose the discordance. Let the rabid racist beat each other to death, both the blacks and the whites. We'll be better off without them - both the blacks and the whites. Once they've killed each other off, then all that's left are more moderate middle grounders, who can reach some kind of agreement with each other.
We've been doing it all wrong for centuries now. Don't silence anyone - encourage every one to run at the mouth.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:26PM
So - are you pointing out that Fox censored the comments
Yes, I am pointing out that you are completely wrong about Fox not censoring.
And that line of thought leads me to ask: You are aware that trying to move the goalposts like that implies that you know you're wrong?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:34PM
Uhhhhh - discussions tend to evolve, ya know? A discussion that leads nowhere isn't much of a discussion. I've pointed out that Fox censors far less than MSM. You showed me that Fox did censor a story. I've moved no goalposts. I'm still asking.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @07:19PM
> I've pointed out that Fox censors far less than MSM.
Uh no. You claimed something totally nebulous "MSM" versus one named company. Totally unprovable assertion. Face with counter-evidence you retreated into further generics.
Besides Fox is fucking mainstream. The number one news channel and they aren't part of the MSM?
All you've done is flown the flag of your culture affiliation in a sort of "no true scotsman" fallacy.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday November 12 2015, @07:37PM
Whatever. If Fox is mainstream, it is right of center mainstream, while almost all of the rest of mainstream is left to far left. There really is nothing "nebulous" about US mainstream media. There are the Turner affiliated networks, and the Hearst affiliated networks, and finally, there is Fox. Hearst and Turner have banned me so many times, I've lost count.
If you think I'm wrong, just install the request policy addon for Firefox. Hit any and all of the mainstream media you care to check. CNN, for instance, pulls half of their news off of Turner servers. Maybe more than half. Few CNN pages load unless you allow turner dot com and ugdturner dot com.
We aren't discussing some long list of 90 corporations, after all.
http://www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6 [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @01:57AM
> Whatever.
Lol. The ultimate tacit admission of getting it wrong but being too prideful to own it like a man. Who knew runaway had the maturity of a 12 year old girl?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @01:44AM
As a veteran, libertarian, and as a commenter that has been reading your posts here for a long time I have to say are you sure they didn't ban you cause you were acting trolly? You at times give off a flambait/troll aura.
Maybe, just maybe, if you were a little bit calmer and tried to speak to your audience instead of yelling at them you might change a few of their minds.
For example:
-Don't call the people there liberal socialists. Everyone knows that is meant as an insult. When you insult someone you turn their ears off. Do you listen with an open mind if someone calls you a tea bagger? I doubt it.
-When you have facts behind your case, provide citations. And no that does not mean brietbart or limbaugh. You have to find sources that will speak to your audience. Find citations on those same mainstream sites you rail against. I know it sucks but citing brietbart will turn ears off as well.
-Don't tell people how they think. You don't know how they think with any certainty. You may be partially right, but there are nuances to how they feel about things, and things that have shaped their lives. Try to speak to them on their terms not not yours.
-Actually try to understand what they are saying, sure sometimes people on both sides of the political spectrum are batshit insane. Even if you are correct that they are batshit, calling them batshit will cause the others to turn their ears off. If you cannot figure out why someone thinks something ask them to explain it. Little known fact: asking for something makes someone like you more. Ask for their thoughts and then provide well reasoned calm citeable facts to show why you disagree.
I mean honestly I have read your comments and this is what I see in my minds eye with some of them:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNTApC0T9OA [youtube.com]
I used to be a liberal but calm reasonable discussions with others have shaped my perceptions.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Friday November 13 2015, @01:56PM
As a veteran, libertarian, and as a commenter that has been reading your posts here for a long time I have to say are you sure they didn't ban you cause you were acting trolly?
Sounds like they banned him because they are oversensitive. I don't care how trolly or inflammatory his comments might have been. Don't pretend that your site respects free speech when you sit there and ban people for stating things in a way that you don't like; be honest and upfront about your censorship. And no, vaguely-worded rules against causing "offense" and other such things are not really sufficient, because they could apply to literally anything. Regardless of the tone, I don't think it was worthy of a ban. Those sites are total garbage.
-Don't call the people there liberal socialists. Everyone knows that is meant as an insult. When you insult someone you turn their ears off. Do you listen with an open mind if someone calls you a tea bagger? I doubt it.
If their argument has merit, what they call you is irrelevant.
Even if you are correct that they are batshit, calling them batshit will cause the others to turn their ears off.
Sounds like those people who would "turn their ears off" don't care much about reality, then. At least not if it's stated in a way they don't like. Who cares if they don't listen? As far as I'm concerned, this is a good thing, because you're able to spot shallow morons more quickly.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:39PM
I fail to see the outrage in a moderated forum (moderated in the traditional sense, of course) making their ban policy more transparent.
But, of course, I don't need a persecution conspiracy to protect my ego from people not liking my posts.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @10:54AM
An outright account suspension is definitely better than a shadowban, since that way you know what is happening and can defend yourself. After all, invalid suspensions will happen. After all, it's still humans who operate this, not infallible gods.
The message on the user's page, on the other hand, is making things worse. It goes beyond self-protection of the site. I hope the deciders at Reddit are aware that this means that in case of invalid permanent bans, they open up themselves to libel litigation.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday November 12 2015, @12:32PM
Yup, this is better. I don't see any exposure to libel litigation though.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by TME520 on Thursday November 12 2015, @10:39PM
After all, it's still humans who operate this, not infallible gods.
Hahaha ! Don't speak such foolish words, little human.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @11:04AM
If you want to see how Reddit is systematically deleting comments to push an agenda, check out unreddit [unreddit.com]. Actually, you can place any Reddit feed into the unreddit URL to see how they are editing comments, for example:
https://unreddit.com/r/videos/comments/3s5wz2/yale_administrators_responds_to_safe_space_hands/ [unreddit.com]
And if you *really* want an alternative to Reddit, kind of like how SoylentNews spawned from Slashdot, you can always use the free-speech alternative Voat [voat.co], although their computing sub-topics (example: /v/linux vs /r/linux, /v/bsd vs /r/bsd, etc) leave a lot to be desired.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nekomata on Thursday November 12 2015, @12:25PM
what the flying fuck. I had _absolutely_ no concept of this. Basically, this is opinion-genocide (almost, Godwin, almost!). Who makes these deletions? Is it the mods? Admins? Is unreddit actually trustworthy?
I'm really quite astonished, especially since almost none of those comments are bad, it's really just disagreement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @02:26PM
it may be a good site, I don't know, but saying VOAT makes me feel uneasy, kinda throw up in my mouth kinda uneasy.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NCommander on Friday November 13 2015, @12:54AM
I knew on some level there had been mass mod abuse, but that really puts it in black and white. I don't hang out in /r/video, but most of those don't seem to be against the rules.
I don't know if unreddit is reliable, but given what I've seen in other subs, basically sums it up. As for Voat, well, I dunno what it is, but something about their site rubs me the wrong way; it reminds me a lot of kuro5hin back when they were a rival to Slashdot.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @04:55PM
That is not one or two here and there... That is systematic mod abuse. Fuck me...
(Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Thursday November 12 2015, @11:06AM
There are many things about which we disagree, TMB. And I'm glad to have the opportunity to discuss them with you.
On this topic however, I couldn't agree with you more. Knowing (and not being very surprised, either) that you (and the rest of the team) take the idea of free expression seriously, is one of the things that makes SN fabulous!
I hope the folks here realize what you and the rest of the team have accomplished over the last 18 months or so -- I appreciate your hard work and delight in having a place like this to discuss, debate and learn without worrying about being censored.
Truthfully, I could never get into reading stuff on reddit, as their interface is both ugly and vertigo-inducing. Yuck.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday November 12 2015, @11:34AM
Yep, that was my main beef with them. The site's ugly to the point of unusability. Nowadays my main beef is them censoring any speech they find "problematic".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Thursday November 12 2015, @01:18PM
I must agree. There does seem to be a trend of "ban untidy comments to keep the front page pretty" from the likes of reddit. Essentially, we all know that occasionally(!) there are some unwise things said online...
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday November 12 2015, @03:20PM
I recently saw an example of how a video critical of European anti-immigration was removed from r/videos for being "political," but a video about the SJW academic nonsense was not, and how the mod said with a straight face that one was political and one wasn't.
Of course, Reddit's been on my shit-list since I heard about r/news removing the Snowden news and, apparently, more recently The Drone Papers. It's a perfect example of how censorship becomes a slippery-slope and a perfect example of what happens when cabals of hysterical moderators dominate your forum under the guise of "political correctness." When your forum becomes a "safe space," it becomes intellectually dishonest.
About bans themselves, I think Reddit is headed in the right direction with suspensions, but too-little-too-late. Any organization who engaged in chickenshit tactics like shadowbanning would never again earn my trust, and the only thing that's making them more honest is the (perceived or actual) threat of users leaving. Not to mention that techniques like shadowbanning are an insult to the intelligence of the forum's readership, as if they couldn't figure shit like that out. Let Reddit be a lesson to be learned. If you're going to ban somebody, in my opinion, the least you can do is let them know and why.
Slashdot used to tout itself as a bastion of free speech, and we all saw what happened with that. I'm not complaining about my ban there, because I know damn well why I was banned and never even asked about it. However, when it happened, I thought it was pretty peculiar how they had plenty of spam rotting in the firehose, and yet my submission about being banned was culled within a minute.
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Thursday November 12 2015, @03:56PM
well banning for speech is entirely down to the platform's politics and greed. In principle, we could have a peer-to-peer comment system, where individuals could "ban" seeing another, but the infrastructure could not. If you know why you were banned, the question is , would you do it again?
I am concerned that the fact that comments are under the control of corporate and political interests, that the whole idea of the internet is at risk.
Add to this the fact that "news" on websites is ephemeral and changes are made with no edit history. And occasionally puff pieces with no date!!!!
All these together are the long game - the continual ability to massage the speech that is seen, heard and ultimately the message that is delivered.
I wish it was paranoia!
but you see the same stories make the rounds and see the patterns.
Reading peer reviewed journals makes you paranoid, because "new" stuff has some inbuilt dependencies that are hard to predict...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @04:25PM
> Nowadays my main beef is them censoring any speech they find "problematic".
Don't forget, *everything* is problematic.
- Laci Sarkeesian
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @01:11PM
I could never get into reading stuff on reddit
IMHO Schneier's blog and Ycombinator have better comments, but for me I don't like the limit for the free lurker of 500 responses. It has something to do with some "Reddit Gold" which I didn't bother to read about. So if your favorite celeb is interviewed or a really interesting story hits 501+ comments, you're fucked and miss out on a lot.
IMHO a lot of the posts on Reddit really go off-topic quickly, with a lot of dipshits parroting quotes from various TV shows and movies, or just off-topic stupid shit in general.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:54PM
Not too different here (just look at any story that mentions wither sharks or lasers - one guy even complains about it in his sig file), it is just that the number of comments is much less here. What you're complaining about is apparently an Internet thing, not simply a reddit thing.
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Friday November 13 2015, @12:57AM
That's mostly because we set the default cutoff to zero so AC posts show up out of the box. If you set it to 1 or 2, a fair bit of crap disappears out of sight.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday November 12 2015, @03:09PM
Truthfully, I could never get into reading stuff on reddit, as their interface is both ugly and vertigo-inducing. Yuck.
I had the same problem although I don't know if it was the interface or what. I wonder if there's something deeply ingrained into personalities such that some of us are the reddit type and some of us just aren't. I took a look or two at reddit and the voting system didn't seem anything like the moderation system that I liked, and I pretty much never gave it a second thought other than when somebody sent me a link.
Even when I became interested in Bitcoin it seemed all the news on the subject was coming out over there but I still didn't want to go there. I don't hate the place or bear it any ill will - I just don't like it. Even though I was a big fan of Y-combinator I still didn't have any interest.
I'm betting that's the case for most of the people here, but maybe I'm wrong - curious to see what people say.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by moondrake on Thursday November 12 2015, @03:56PM
I find reddit useful to read (I never post there) about stuff that is mostly irrelevant (reviews of things, info about a game or so, etc). SN is for stuff that does matter.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday November 13 2015, @03:51AM
I hope the folks here realize what you and the rest of the team have accomplished over the last 18 months or so -- I appreciate your hard work and delight in having a place like this to discuss, debate and learn without worrying about being censored.
Slipping off topic here a bit, but I would like to second this sentiment and also add that the frequent complaints about submissions are unnecessary and uncalled for. It should not have to be pointed out that if one does not like the submissions, they can submit articles themselves, and that if there is a particular topic one does not want to discuss here, they can simply skip by it and go to the next article.
(Score: 3, Touché) by NotSanguine on Friday November 13 2015, @11:11AM
frequent complaints about submissions are unnecessary and uncalled for. It should not have to be pointed out that if one does not like the submissions, they can submit articles themselves, and that if there is a particular topic one does not want to discuss here, they can simply skip by it and go to the next article.
While I tend to agree with you, I'd also point out that complaining about the quality of submissions doesn't (IMHO) reflect poorly on the editorial staff (they do, after all, have to work with the articles submitted and sometimes the choices available are less than stellar). What's more, on a visceral level it's quite satisfying to wag my finger at someone who complains about the quality of a submission and scold them about submitting themselves.
You wouldn't want to take away one of my many many vices, would you? :)
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Thursday November 12 2015, @02:58PM
I was always an advocate of no moderation or a light touch to moderation until I got involved in a subject specific discussion forum where lots of people wanted to show up and detract from the purpose of the site by contradicting the main subject matter we were discussing. These people really had no business being on the site because they weren't there for our purpose; they were there for their own. The moderation seemed heavy to me at first until I realized what was going on - we who were there for the stated purpose of the site needed such people to be shown the door or we'd be overrun by disrupters.
I don't think SN would function well with this kind of policy. I have no idea about reddit; I don't even have an account there.
As for the right of people to speak their mind: of course everybody has the right to speak their mind, but not at the expense of others. If it costs $5 to put up a website and I pay it, then I have the right to speak my mind on that website and set policy for who can say what there. I decide what niche I'm trying to serve and what the purpose of the site is, and if someone doesn't like it and I show them the door I haven't denied them any rights - they have the right to speak their mind, but not the right to speak their mind at my expense, using my property and resources. Freedom of speech is rooted in freedom of the press - and presses are cheaper than ever today!
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Thursday November 12 2015, @03:07PM
The legality of their censorship is not in question, as far as I know.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:49PM
I fully appreciate the need to moderate discussions, however I feel a better method would be to mark posts as offtopic/troll like we do here. Once modded the comment becomes "hidden", but anyone can choose to display the hidden comments. That way there is no real censorship, just an annoying wall to jump over. Also, transparency can really help engender trust. When people can see for themselves why some content was downmodded, then they will have more (or less) trust in the moderators.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:56PM
I'm pretty sure we all think that our style of moderation is better, that's why we're here.
Seriously, who gives a crap how Reddit moderates? Frankly, if they make is sucky enough maybe we'll get some of their users that value that sort of thing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:01PM
Seriously, who gives a crap how Reddit moderates?
Well, it's somewhat interesting to talk about, at least for a little while, at least for me. It's their site to do as they wish, though. Most of the people over here want to be able to say whatever, and most of us feel the site is better for it.
When I've taken a look at reddit they seem to have lots of subforums run by users, so I'm thinking each of those subforums might be better if the ones running it could decide on their own moderation policy. Then if you don't like it, you can go start another. That's how newsgroups worked back in the day, and I thought usenet was the better for it.
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(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Thursday November 12 2015, @09:15PM
Seriously, who gives a crap how Reddit moderates? Frankly, if they make is sucky enough maybe we'll get some of their users that value that sort of thing.
I care in the sense that it's a large and influential site. The way it's set up and the way most of the subs are moderated encourage a groupthink mentality, while also giving the illusion of free speech. People might think they're getting the whole story when they aren't.
It's rather easy to fall into a worldview when all the content you see conforms to that worldview. I actually suspect a lot of the problems college students seem to be having are a result of how most of our online social interactions are curated and censored. Online, it's super easy to wall yourself off from alternative viewpoints. In real life it takes a lot of effort. You can't just thumb down or block somebody who shows up at your protest that disagrees with you.
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(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:59PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @05:52PM
Subs like Suicide Watch are moderated quite heavily. The users there are constantly bombarded by trolls and spammers. The mods will use the shadowban for most of them, but when they are over the top trolling then they'll ban them, but that usually ends up with the troll just creating other alts and continuing to troll even more, so they'll weigh that option versus the shadowban, and most times they'll opt for the shadowban. The shadowban is a godsend for them because it will take a long time for the offenders to realize their posts aren't getting through.
As far as the whole free speech thing, the community came up with the rules, and the mods just enforce them. If you have someone that is breaking the rules such as posting "methods", then the mods, for the most part, will contact the poster, and ask them to edit that out. If they don't, then they just delete it. Rarely will the mods interfere with discussions unless it goes totally off topic right away, or if it ends up breaking more of the posting rules.
The worst part of the shadowban thing is the learning curve to just set it up! It should be just an option on the ban page instead of having to copy & paste the name of the offender into the massive list of offenders because it can easily be broken from a less tech savvy moderator.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @06:09PM
The problem with shadowbans is when they get used against legit posters. I quit hackernews when I got shadowbanned - I posted a follow-up story with all new information to a very popular story from a week earlier. It was the most upvoted story I had ever submitted and was getting active, civil discussion. Within a day my
story was "disappeared" and I was shadow-banned. But I had no idea I was shadow-banned. No one told me anything. I didn't even know shadow-banning was a thing. I only found out because I had wipe cookies and often read anonymously so I saw my shadow-ban. I had a 2000 karma or whatever they call it over there, I was not a spammer or a troll.
In trying to figure out what had happened, I figured it was some kind of bug, I saw another guy who had been diligently posting and making submissions nearly daily for 6 months after a shadow-ban. Because hackernews has a setting to see "invisible" posts I was able to figure out what his last post was before the shadow-ban - the guy had done nothing particularly wrong But neither he nor I had an inkling that some random punishment had been inflicted. But hackernews had stolen many hours of his life as he tried to participate as a productive member of the community there. Oddly, he was not angry when I told him his posts were invisible. He went and found a moderator or something (a process that is not spelled out anywhere on that site) and got his ban lifted.
I decided fuck that shit. That level of callous disregard for real people putting honest effort into participating in a community is fucking sociopathic. If you know to look for it, shadow-banning is ridiculously easy to detect - just check if your post is visible if you don't use any login cookies. It is not a solution to stop anyone even moderately motivated. But automated or unthoughtful application can be so tremendously inhumane that if you aren't closely managing it you are downright evil in my book. Its the kind of thing that sounds brilliant! to a teenager, but adults should know better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @07:06PM
I totally agree with what you said. The mods on SW don't take shadowbanning nor banning lightly. They do automodding as well, but the parameters are very tight, so as to not impede with legitimate posters.
I think the behavior you're describing is quite prevalent everywhere in human life. There are always (I hesitate to use the word "people" because that would imply that they have compassion and empathy) people, that will always try to game the system, or just create chaos in everything they touch. So, there are tools to help the moderators and admins, and they're being abused by others, and of course that just makes it hard for people that are legitimately following the rules and being good community citizens...it's nothing new, and they really are hurting others, and it needs to be stopped somehow. I'm at a loss as to how.
Due to the sheer volume of posters to that site you posted at, it could have been a mistake or deliberate, but I would have tried to ascertain what was going on. If you got nowhere with it, then I would have just abandoned the site as you have done.
I had the same thing happen with me on Digg. I guess LOL Cats are much more interesting than what I was posting, so I just left them to it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @07:14PM
> Due to the sheer volume of posters to that site you posted at, it could have been a mistake or deliberate, but I would have tried to ascertain what was going on. If you got nowhere with it, then I would have just abandoned the site as you have done.
The thing that made me give up was that they had no clearly delineated process for even figuring out what was going on. No trouble-ticket system, you had to figure out who to contact and then figure out how to contact them. Every single thing to correct the problem is the burden of the punished. There was not even an acknowledgment anywhere on the site that there could be problems (not just shadowbans) much less where to go and what to do. That might be ok on a low volume small community site where everybody knows everybody. But not something like that place. It is a sign of not giving a shit about their own fuckups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @05:28AM
What if one advocates marrying adorable female children, as is tradition?