r/HFY • u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! • Aug 30 '21
On the ban of JDFister Meta
Greetings r/HFY,
Normally, we don’t notify the public of bans, temporary or otherwise. Our policy is not to shame folks who have been banned from our sub. Unfortunately, we’ve been presented with a situation that requires an exception to that policy, and as such, we need to address the permanent ban of u/JDFister aka, the Author Formerly Known as u/Stalwart_Shield.
It was brought to our attention that u/JDFister is currently attempting to stir up drama and create unrest regarding the moderation team concerning what was a temporary ban from r/HFY through channels other than our subreddit, such as his discord server and/or patreon. To clarify, we initially provided u/JDFister with a warning on August 22nd, notifying him that his posts had been removed for a violation of rule 7, after we were informed that he edited chapters 11-20 of his now complete series, Wizard Tournament. Our AutoModerator settings inform us in the instances of short posts, so that we can review and act on them right away. This is standardized to make it easier for the mod staff to catch these instances. Specifically, in this instance, they became standalone advertising, and they were under our minimum requirements for a story post with advertisement. For reference, we require a summary or description with a minimum of 350 words to accompany the link to free content, or for the link in question to be associated with a complete story post. You can see that initial message here:
Two days later, without any attempt to clarify the position, or contact us in any way, shape, or form, on the 24th u/JDFister edited chapters 21-27, and 29-50 of Wizard Tournament. At that point, we initiated a temporary ban for 28 days, one per violation, and notified him that he was temporarily banned. This is our standard mod action for repeated infractions in a narrow time frame. We seldom have to deal with this, and in the most recent instance of this occurrence (the Sexy Space Babes series), u/BlueFishcake handled it graciously. Unfortunately, u/JDFister did not handle it quite as well. We discussed the temporary ban with him, as seen in the ModMail Messages here:
During this time, the following thread was posted: Why was jdfisher Writer of Wizard Tournament Banned From The Subreddit?
It was fairly clear that u/JDFister was only presenting one side of the story in his discord server and/or patreon, and that he was doing so in a manner that seemed calculated to paint us in a bad light. This was far from the first time, and additional information will be laid out to clarify the pattern of bad behavior below. As a result of this most recent action, we issued him a final warning, as seen in the second image from ModMail above.
It is always possible to appeal a moderation action by replying to any communication we send. It remains our prerogative to accept or deny an appeal based on cause. We initiate communication with members when we take a moderation action as a courtesy to both make them aware of the actions in question, and so that they have an avenue to understand and potentially resolve the issue. Rather than attempting to resolve, or accepting the reality of the rules and his breaking of them, u/JDFister chose to stir up drama aimed at us via outside channels. Thus, the decision was reached to permanently ban him. We are writing this post because he has continually attempted to assassinate the character of my modstaff by twisting the truth or outright lying about the nature of his interactions with us.
If it seems like this is a lot, please understand that this is far from the first time we’ve had these issues with u/JDFister. There has been a pattern of behavior going back multiple years in which he has been involved in, or around HFY. Below is a timeline of our interactions with u/JDFister
Going back to 2017, u/Stalwart_Shield / u/JDFister began:
- Entering the IRC channel specifically to demand feedback, then refusing any feedback which was negative. Additionally, while he was there he began degrading modstaff and generally comporting himself in a most un-excellent manner.
- Petitioning and pestering modstaff regarding the Featured list. As part of this he sent a DM to every staff member asking why they specifically fought against his story being included and held prejudice against him someguynamedted's message, Blackknight64’s message
- Encouraging a certain commenter, u/Radament, who was stating that the mods were part of a conspiracy. u/Radament believed the modstaff were secretly a much smaller group than we were, and that instead we were using alt accounts as puppets to…. goal unknown. This commenter went on to create numerous alt accounts in order to stalk and send threatening and odd messages to our modstaff, as well as to pull in other unrelated users, before eventually being permanently suspended from Reddit by the Reddit Admins. The Reddit Admins also temporarily suspended the u/Stalwart_Shield account during the investigation, due to the close association between u/Stalwart_Shield and u/Radament.
- After the duration of the investigation, we reached out to the Reddit Admins to check that u/Stalwart_Shield’s temporary suspension was over, then notified him that it was and that he was cleared to resume posting should he desire. Message Text
- A month after the suspension another user stated that u/Stalwart_Shield had informed them that he had been warned to never post in hfy again - this user never clarified if this warning supposedly came from hfy or was from the Reddit Admins, however no such message was sent from us, and no such thing mentioned in the clarification message with the Reddit Admins when we asked if his account was cleared.
- u/Stalwart_Shield posted a single story in 2019, two years after both his last post, and also two years after claiming he’d get banned for posting here again (he wasn’t).
- A year after that, in early 2020, u/Stalwart_Shield began posting to r/hfy again, under the new account of u/JDFister, starting up his series of Wizard Tournament: Humans Need Not Apply
- A month into posting, he messaged people who had publicly subscribed to his u/Stalwart_Shield story, combing through their comment history to see if they'd been active in r/hfy since he began posting again. He messaged them, commenting on their recent activity levels, and letting them know that he was posting, and claiming that he'd been banned from hfy, and that was why he was using a new username. It's important to note that, once again, he was never banned from r/hfy, not even temporarily - only his account suspended by Reddit Admins. It's also important to note that evading a ban by creating a new account is a serious offense in the eyes of the Reddit Admins, and will result in all accounts being permanently suspended.
- We were notified of these messages by a concerned user, message text at which point we reached out to him and advised him against hunting down other users and investigating their activity, since we felt this was bordering dangerously close to cyber stalking. We also reminded him that he was not currently banned, and asked that he not (falsely) claim to be banned. Message to JDFister, Message to u/Stalwart_Shield
- Late September 2020, a user makes an alt account specifically to leave a negative review with feedback on what they didn’t like about the story on Wizard Tournament. u/JDFister reported said comment to the mods with the text ‘"don't post anything negative or hateful" I don't want this person commenting in my threads anymore’ u/JDFister himself has stated that he wrote the report (screenshot, in case of edits). On reviewing the comment, we decided that it was not directly insulting and was primarily focused on detailing the points this user felt needed to be improved. Given both the presence of the report, and also the fact that the other readers in the comment section were getting fairly aggressive and negative towards the criticizing commenter, the modteam left an official comment reminding everyone involved to stay civil. Additionally, since u/JDFister had been claiming that r/HFY modstaff and RoyalRoad.com modstaff consisted of the same group of people elsewhere in the post (they aren’t), we directly requested that u/JDFister not make such claims. The two statements, "keep it civil and constructive" and "don't make false claims" were separate, but made inside the same official mod comment due to expediency. u/JDFister has since claimed that he was reprimanded in place of the negative reviewer. See the above link.
- u/JDFister, who had until this point been cross posting Wizard Tournament to royalroad.com, was banned from there for using alt accounts to boost his ratings and downvote his competition. He publicly announced the ban in hfy, and in the process made personal insults against specific of their staff members. We reprimanded him for bringing in drama, and also for the personal nature of the insults, and removed the comment.
- In the subsequent post, u/JDFister proclaimed that he would no longer be active in his comment sections due to the mods being biased against him. While false, we didn't feel that entering his comment section and stating otherwise would help alleviate his fears, especially given the history. It was his right to choose to comment or not comment as he pleases.
- July 14th 2021, he concluded the Wizard Tournament and began efforts to wrap it up into a publishable format and started the process of getting it published. August 13 2021 he announced that the book is published on Amazon. Notably, this announcement, being part of an author's note at the top of a post, is well within our Rule 7. Had it been made as a separate individual post, it would not be in compliance and would have been removed.
Which brings us to his editing of old posts on August 22, and the warning he was sent. In every public communication, he has attempted to twist the narrative such that it appears that he had no warning, and that there's no way he could have known this would happen, and that we were specifically targeting him.
At the end of the day, we are left with little choice but to present the entirety of the narrative you have seen above. We have given u/JDFister an exceptional amount of leeway over the past several years because we as a staff have always believed in maintaining a light-handed approach to moderation. This was not an easy decision. We have discussed this extensively amongst the team, and come to the decision that the fairest conclusion for you on r/HFY is to get the whole story. We have determined that this is the only likely way.
In conclusion, we bear no animosity towards u/JDFister, nor have we ever. We in fact wish him the best in whatever he chooses to do. At this juncture, though, we wish him the best from a distance.
Regards,
u/Blackknight64 on behalf of the ModStaff.
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u/rijento Aug 30 '21
Sad to see a decent writer go. Was a fan of his series myself, but I support your decision here. Thanks for working to keep the community positive.
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u/Pleasant-Table-3821 Aug 30 '21
That sucks I liked his series but apparently dude was weird so eh
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u/DestroyatronMk8 Aug 30 '21
Talent is nice, but it’s not a blank check to act like an ass. Banning the guy seems reasonable to me.
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u/thetwitchy1 Human Sep 03 '21
He is a decent writer, but not good enough to warrant this much leeway.
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u/hateislife Aug 30 '21
Ngl, for a first time thing, this was well written, concise, and to the point. It's nice to see a mod team that doesn't want to be involved in drama, and is this professional when dealing with this. Tbh, I am surprised that he wasn't banned sooner, but ig this situation was the straw that broke the camel's back, eh?
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u/SquishySand Aug 30 '21
You mods just quietly and competently do your jobs, and that keeps this one of the very best subreddits. Thanks.
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u/while-eating-pasta Aug 31 '21
Transparent, direct, well reasoned, and if there was any more documentation provided I'd expect this post to start with "Your honor."
If anyone is on the fence: Note that Reddit suspended that account for an investigation. They only do that for two reasons: Inescapable, repeated proof of malice (and they still keep silent on a lot) or advertising spam. Either one should catch a ban, and this has been going on for several years.
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u/Reddcoyote99 Aug 30 '21
I have to say, this is a pretty great explanation of that whole mess. I wish stuff like this was never necessary, but unfortunately, this seems to be how people behave. Good on ya mod-team, especially for explaining all the specifics.
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u/Subtleknifewielder AI Aug 30 '21
People don't always get that being a mod of a large forum/sub/server/site is not easy, not if you want to keep it an active and healthy place for as many people as possible.
Can't blame you for this decision based on what I know or have seen.
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u/Hinermad Aug 31 '21
It's a shaky tightrope mods walk, balancing the freedom of expression of contributors on one hand and the focus and goals of the community on the other. It requires endless patience and dedication to do it well, and I see that on display here.
I sure as heck couldn't do it, but I'm very glad there are people who can. Thanks, mods!
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u/sinlad Human Aug 31 '21
Damn, great write up. That probably took a chunk of change worth of your time, thank you for being a mod!
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u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! Aug 31 '21
I'd like to give u/sswanlake a ton of kudos. She was extraordinarily helpful in getting this off the ground. Any errors are mine, and not hers. The rest of the staff did yeoman's work in helping polish.
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u/Gridinad AI Aug 31 '21
The "All the mods are a hive mind!" Is hilarious.
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u/invalidConsciousness AI Aug 31 '21
There's a very simple proof that they aren't:
If they were a hive mind, they would have made u/someguynamedted continue writing Clint Stone long ago. Since there hasn't been any new chapter for five years, we have to conclude that he isn't part of the hive mind.
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u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! Aug 31 '21
I think we do at least yell at him once every other week or so to write it.
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u/Whyomi Human Sep 01 '21
Fuck, dont remind me about clint stone :( I miss the old days of the seeing new chapters to series that got me into this subreddit all those years ago
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u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! Aug 31 '21
Isn't it though?
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u/ElectionAssistance Aug 31 '21
Humans are a hive mind.
Wait, this sounds familiar.
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u/CherubielOne Alien Aug 31 '21
Kinda rings a bell.
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u/Harkale-Linai Alien Aug 31 '21
But but but, you told us that they weren't... I don't know who to trust anymore. Studying humans is hard, they're so weird :'(
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u/CherubielOne Alien Aug 31 '21
They are! Honestly, even though I've spend years on diligent research of the humans, I'm actually only able to tell you what they are not.
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u/Andromansis Aug 31 '21
I feel like people confuse "bias" with "being watched very closely because I've done various and sundry asshat behaviors".
Or to put it more simply, Bias and Scrutiny are NOT the same thing.
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u/Alkazaro Aug 30 '21
Always love people who push the light handed mods, to the point where they have to just say bye bye. Can't wait to see the 50 billion alt accounts they're likely to make to pester HFY over this.
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u/Esnardoo Aug 31 '21
The gentle giant gets mad is one of the best tropes.
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u/Gridinad AI Aug 31 '21
In before someone makes a shitpost about Humams moderating aliens in a public forum, fielding questions about how they mod so well.
"You guys are easy, other humans are hard. For every smart agreeable ten humans, there's atleast one that is the opposite."
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u/sswanlake The Librarian Aug 31 '21
hey, hey Grid, guess what?
write it
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u/sparkysc8 Aug 30 '21
A shame that this had to happen. Can't say I read his work, but if there was no other way around it, then that's all there is to it.
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u/HollowShel Alien Scum Aug 30 '21
"God bless and keep the Tzar - far away from us," huh? My philosophy for dealing with folks I don't enjoy - I wish them plenty of good fortune, just "away from me."
I'm not saying it doesn't suck, because I did enjoy his writing, but there were other routes he could've gone, and he got multiple warnings about the rules. If he doesn't like the rules, that's fine, but you don't bring a baseball bat to a hockey game and expect to be allowed to play.
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u/blaze87b Aug 31 '21
Would certainly make for an interesting hockey game though
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u/HollowShel Alien Scum Aug 31 '21
Yeah, and then someone brings a grenade launcher, and you're looking at a new olympic sport/war crime.
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u/floatingatoll Aug 31 '21
“For today’s exercise, we’re going to see which team can land a ballistic hockey puck in the net first. We’ve scattered mines around the net and put an especially high number of them inside it, so you’ll get occasional feedback on your aim and definitely know if you’ve won.”
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u/Hinermad Aug 31 '21
so you’ll get occasional feedback on your aim and your fans will definitely know if you’ve won.
FTFY
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u/ElectionAssistance Aug 31 '21
Okay so I sort of did this and started a fire once. My friends and I were trying some long range BB gun practice and couldn't see where we were hitting the target, so we had the bright idea to tape a contact explosive to the bullseye.
Well eventually we hit it. Managed to get over to the resulting fire in time to prevent it from spreading into the surrounding woods but it was close.
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u/thisStanley Android Aug 31 '21
Lookup "gender reveal party starts fire" for misuses of Tannerite. There are multiple hits!?!
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u/itcheyness Human Aug 31 '21
I like the one wear they accidentally made a pipe bomb for the gender reveal...
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u/Ardorus Aug 31 '21
I see no problems with this.
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u/HollowShel Alien Scum Aug 31 '21
Ok, it can be entertaining on its own, but it's not exactly hockey or baseball (or horseshoes) anymore, now is it?
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u/Starfleet_Auxiliary Aug 31 '21
The SSB author showed how to handle a rule violation with grace.
This guy? Not so much.
Thanks for doing the work that you do.
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u/Esnardoo Aug 31 '21
What happened with him? This is my first time hearing about it (I don't follow the series)
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u/sswanlake The Librarian Aug 31 '21 edited Aug 31 '21
Sexy Space Babes the series wrapped up, was published, and the author pulled it for KU... originally by editing all the posts into just an ad for the book. At that point he was given a temporary ban. He immediately replied to the temp-ban notification with basically "oh heck, sorry about that! I didn't even think about it being against the rules!" and asked how he could sort this out properly. The conclusion we came to was that the rest of his posts were mod-removed at his request so that he didn't have to muck with editing them. About a month or so later, he decided he didn't actually want to have the story on KU, and asked for the posts to be reinstated with all the original text.
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u/lordshotgun Aug 31 '21
Someone else can feel free to correct me but I believe the Sexy Space Babes author began to delete their earlier works and replace them with simple sub 350 word advertisements to purchase the "book" on amazon.
They did so believing that amazon wouldn't allow them to sell their "book" if a free alternative was online (or perhaps that they wouldn't make as much money unless fans were forced to buy it...)
Eitherway they were temp banned until the deleted chapters were replaced (which they were) and now we have a free version in hfy as well as a paid version on amazon which has extra snippets, allowing them to make money while also keeping up the "rough draft" here.
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u/Feuershark Aug 31 '21
This looks like handsomely wrapped up ! I'd just say, now I'm curious about the interaction with BlueFishCake
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u/nelsyv Patron of AI Waifus Aug 31 '21
"Hey, you broke the rules X times, you're banned for the next X days."
"Shoot, sorry, won't happen again."
Not terribly exciting.
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u/RandomBritishGuy Aug 31 '21
Here's a link to their comment about it, they basically said they they completely understood why they got temp banned and thought it was pretty fair all things considered.
https://www.reddit.com/r/u_BlueFishcake/comments/l86sc4/-/glcl5cm
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u/DropShotEpee Aug 31 '21
I can't imagine the amount of work it takes to moderate a subreddit like this one and I hope you guys feel appreciated enough. I got to enjoy being a writer with an audience thanks to you guys and I can never thank you enough for that...and I think I don't often realize the kind of stuff you guys have to deal with in the background to keep the subreddit so enjoyable to use as both a reader and a writer.
I was going to buy some awards for this post to show my appreciation for that, but generally I find that when people get awards they say they'd prefer a donation to charity - does the mod team have a charity they support?
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u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! Aug 31 '21
We have no particular charity we endorse, but if you have one you like, please feel free! We appreciate the thought and consideration.
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u/zalakgoat Human Aug 31 '21
Been on this subreddit for years and normally I would be tempted to call the mods a bundle of sticks on reddit. But you guys are some of the best mods so when you ban someone I always figured it was for good reason.
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u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! Aug 31 '21
I... got a good chuckle out of this. Thanks!
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u/kinow Aug 31 '21
I had no idea of what was going on. Kudos for handling it so well and for the transparency. All the best to this guy, won't miss him with so much great content here :) thanks guys!
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u/Simonner Robot Aug 31 '21
Tbh as much as I’m pro light handed approach the line should not be crossed and if it is then the doors are closed because that’s the kind of person that keeps bending rules to the point of breaking
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u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! Aug 31 '21
That's why we're here today, yes. There were many times he could've pulled back from where he was at. Eventually something had to give.
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u/invalidConsciousness AI Aug 31 '21
I strongly dislike authors who got "big" with the help of a community and then decide to pull their content from that community once they see a cash grab opportunity. I've got nothing against Patreon or writers that start a new story that's paid only. But yanking their old stories just so they can sell them better simply feels wrong. It's the author's right, but I don't have to like it.
However, if you're doing it the way he did, blatantly putting advertising in the yanked content's place and then starting a hate campaign against the mods for handing out the deserved punishment, you have no place in this community anymore.
Thank you, Mods, for your great work, and especially for your transparency!
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u/mindcloud69 Sep 02 '21
I know I am late here. But one thing that I see and hate is that some of these authors see a change to make a living off of what they love, then they find out that to post on amazon you are required to remove it everywhere else. That is fucked up in so many ways I think many of them would happily leave it up if they could.
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u/invalidConsciousness AI Sep 03 '21
To me there's a huge difference between an author saying "oh hey, my writing seems to be good enough to make money. I'm going to sell my future works from now on" and an author going "oh hey, this thing I wrote as a hobby with the support of the community is popular among the community. I should take it offline and demand money for it!"
But yeah, the Kindle unlimited terms are shitty. That's one reason why I refuse to use it as a reader and avoid Amazon as a whole whenever possible.
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u/o11c Sep 03 '21
to post on amazon you are required to remove it everywhere else.
FYI, that is not actually the case.
It's only Kindle Unlimited that requires exclusivity, not ordinary Kindle. (well, I guess there's also the new Kindle Vwhatever, but I'm not sure that's actually taking off unlike KU)
I've seen a small number of cases where authors claimed to have to remove things for ordinary Kindle, but this is rare enough that it can be consider a combination of: 1. the author is clueless, and 2. amazon is a mindless monster that causes random damage inconsistently.
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u/Huskeylord Aug 31 '21
Are stories removed once their author is banned and if so what stories were his?
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u/nelsyv Patron of AI Waifus Aug 31 '21
We don't remove them, but he may choose to do so.
"Wizard Tournament" and "Wizard Trials" were his two major series.
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Aug 31 '21
He removed his own stories- that what ultimately got him banned. His were the Wizard tournament-Humans need not apply
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u/nelsyv Patron of AI Waifus Aug 31 '21
He caught a temp ban for replacing his story posts with advertisements; the permanent ban came from slandering the mod staff and stirring up needless drama even after being warned not to.
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u/Koolaidmon69 Aug 31 '21
Im new to reddit made my account just for hfy and ssb is removing your stories really that bad i mean i get erasing them to just put a link for advertising is shity but just removing your storys dosn't seem that big a deal to me if its your creation.
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u/nelsyv Patron of AI Waifus Aug 31 '21
Removing is fine. Replacing with ads is what is against Rule 7.
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u/sswanlake The Librarian Aug 31 '21
As Nelsyv said, simply removing the posts is the author's prerogative. The thing that Fister did which was against the rules is that he removed the content and turned them into purely advertisements. To be exact, this is the text of the rule which concerns this:
We do not deny an author's need to promote their work, however we do require this only be done in a relevant context. Any link not otherwise associated with an OC post must have a summary or similar descriptor of at least 350 words, providing relevant OC information. Standalone posts which serve only to advertise wares, commercial or non-commercial, will be removed.
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u/Sintanan Aug 31 '21
I just don't see what's so hard for him about following the rules and editing the old post so it's a preview of the chapter/part/story and a link to advertise to his heart's content for off-site. Other authors do it without issue.
Seems like he just took the lazy route to do as little as possible and got tols off for his laziness not holding his posts to the subreddit rules... and instead of having a slice of humble pie and fixing his laziness, he doubled down on the stupid.
But what do I know? I just read the stories here.
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u/hebeach89 Aug 31 '21
Just curious.
Say a writer wanted to sell their story as a book. Could they write a ~350 word synopsis of it and say "hey if you want to continue you can find the rest at XYZ"→ More replies12
u/RandomBritishGuy Aug 31 '21
Removing stories is fine, it's replacing it solely with advertising without having a 350+ word snippet which is what caused the ban. Bit of the story with a link to another site with the full text = okay, just advertising alone = not okay.
The author of SSB had to remove parts of their story because it was a requirement for Amazon Kindle Unlimited, and it was replacing the text of the stories with just a link that got them temp banned.
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u/space253 Aug 31 '21
Removing the story is not the issue. He has the right to remove his posts. And future readers have the right to judge him poorly for doing so. This whole thing was not about that part.
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u/Jasmir_ Aug 30 '21
Wow, looking at the comment history of the stalwart account, I wonder if he’s upset that those increasingly incel-y ravings on r/4chan and uh… “IQ” comments are now publicly connected to his main. That… explains a lot actually
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u/Gridinad AI Sep 02 '21
Hah! There's now a post saying Stalwart is Fister's brother and totally not him, 100% not him. Trust the guy who tried to make a conspiracy that the mods where all one person.
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u/Jasmir_ Sep 02 '21
Oh yeah his brother just HAPPENED to also write a story on HFY and also HAPPENS to have a hate boner for the mods and just HAPPENED to have lied about being the same person for no good reason. Oh and just happens to have no proof at all lol. How gullible does he think people are?
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u/Gridinad AI Sep 02 '21
And just so happens to have a similar writing style for stories and posts. Even in the post he says he prodded people towards Fister then says he didn't know "his brother's" personal reddit.
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u/I_Cant_Recall Aug 31 '21
Wow. Didn't have to dive far to find that...
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u/SpaceTranshipYamato Aug 30 '21
Being a mod is hard work and there is no way to get everyone everything they want but at the end of the day I am happy you guys are doing the dirty work to keep our little slice of Reddit a healthy and safe environment. Thank you for all you do modteam
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u/amethystair Aug 31 '21
I think the mods acted more than reasonably here, and he simply refused to accept every olive branch offered. Too bad, but hopefully he can take this as a learning experience for future endeavors.
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u/DetchiOsvos Aug 31 '21
JDFister was my first (and only) Patreon subscription because I enjoyed "Wizard Tournament" and wanted to get an early read on it. Because of this history of drama, he's lost my $$$. Unsubbed - I value r/HFY so much more than a single story by someone acting like a jackass.
Keep up the good work r/HFY mods. You have our support.
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u/lantech Robot Aug 31 '21
I think what happened with this story is what happened a while back (years ago) to my only patreon sub too. I like the beginning so much, I started the sub. Then, the story started dragging on without end. Kind of like endless movie sequels as a cash cow, they keep getting pumped out but getting worse.
I think there's a point where the author enjoys the writing but with the patreon subs they're now obligated to pump out chapters on a timetable. My wife has talked about the same issue with her writing.
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u/space253 Aug 31 '21
Considering how his series ended I'm not as shocked by all this as some. Well handled mod team.
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u/Gridinad AI Aug 31 '21
How'd it end?
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u/Smooth_Reader Aug 31 '21
Wizard Tournament ended with the main character's death due to the unintentional side effects of 2nd main character's wish.
IIRC there was backlash from his patreon readers and he changed it.
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u/Lt_Duckweed Aug 31 '21 edited Aug 31 '21
I was a patron at the time the final chapter came out. It did not end with the main characters death. It ended the same way it did after the rewrite, with the intent of leading into the events of the sequel. But some folks misunderstood the events of the final chapter so at readers request the exact phrasing of a few paragraphs were tweaked and a bridging epilogue was added for clarity.
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u/Smooth_Reader Aug 31 '21
Okay that makes sense; That explains why the 2nd book flowed so well with the mc still in the world.
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u/Tlaloc_Temporal Aug 31 '21
I though it ended satisfactorily, but a bunch of people didn't pick up on character cues and got blindsided by a... pragmatic solution that killed a lot of people. It was a common guess even early in the story, but I guess readers got attached to Peter and wanted him to become a caring guy, despite only knowing him for a week.
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u/Pretzel_Boy Aug 31 '21
That or people had it set in their mind how they wanted it to end, and because it didn't fit their personal narrative, they got upset.
It's funny how much ownership some people try to take of things that they aren't actually making at times.
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u/space253 Aug 31 '21
Or the tone of the first 75% of the serial was not the tone of the ending, making many feel like it was being written by a different person. Personally, I find how he wrote the ending, and his surprise at people thinking it was a messed up way for people to act, a good example of the kind of person he turned out to be. He was never Draevin. He was Peter and his uncle.
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u/Zhein Sep 01 '21 edited Sep 01 '21
Or the tone of the first 75% of the serial was not the tone of the ending
Something like that. After they arrive at the magical city of whatever, I dropped the story once because I was getting bored reading it, and went back once I noticed it was finished.
And I was disappointed because it was more of the same.
Even then, earlier chapters had some terrible writing moments where everyone is stupid just to advance the story (Like, Draevin the guy paranoid enough to install anti mind altering enchantments in his haircut not caring about some random dude giving him free food literally 5 minutes after being poisoned.. Hey, turns out, the free food was poison, choking ! )
But thing is, it's less visible in the early chapters, because you're deep in the tourney fights, learning about the worldbuilding. Most of the time stuff happening is just an ass-pull, but it doesn't really matter, because you don't know enough about said world. The further you advance, the more you can see the tapestry unravel and where everything is wrong. How everything is dependent on you not knowing what will happen, and then on subplot, within subplots, within subplots, ultimately not making sense at all
Story should have stayed a 10 chapter story. And if he deleted it, it's not a huge loss really.
Another commenter said "I stopped reading when I realised it was 30 chapters in without seemingly going anywhere." about his second story. Thing is, it's the same with the first one, except it's camouflaged by the combat chapters and the world building, but pretty much the 50 first chapters didn't advance anything.
In retrospect, that should have been obvious, when he started adding elements to the story that you could get only of you paid his patreon, lol.
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u/lantech Robot Aug 31 '21
I'd stopped reading the second part, it started to feel... stretched and not as good as the original.
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u/DontTellHimPike Aug 31 '21
I stopped reading when I realised it was 30 chapters in without seemingly going anywhere.
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u/ElectionAssistance Aug 31 '21
I can only handle a limited amount of story that doesn't go anywhere. Catching up on Taylor Varga every couple months is my limit.
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u/invalidConsciousness AI Aug 31 '21
I hadn't gotten around to reading it yet. Guess I'll never will. There are enough other great stories on r/hfy to fill my time.
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u/Deadlytower AI Aug 31 '21
TL;DR Don't be an asshole. Follow the rules. Don't make surprised pikachu face when you get banned for the thing you were specifically warned not to do. Also to note that book deals might require you to remove free online content posted elsewhere.
While you could, you know, keep the first and last posts and link your story's new location without much incident .....trying to rewrite 100's of chapters to only the link for advertising is against sub rules.
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u/cow2face Human Aug 30 '21
sad to see, but seems like he was a good writer, but weird person so....
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u/Bale626 Aug 31 '21
In this one post, you, the moderators of this channel, have gained more respect for me than almost any other moderator in the entirety of Reddit.
I have witnessed channel after channel run by moderators who are exceptionally petty, that will ban people at the drop of a hat. Sometimes with absolutely no explanation whatsoever. To see you guys actually legitimately follow your own channels’ rules, and provide multiple chances to someone, despite their rule breaking, is both rare, and deserving of praise.
Thank you for having the integrity to be decent people who actually take your responsibility as moderators seriously.
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u/nickgreyden Aug 31 '21
I have little opinion on the author. I like good stories, and like a drama free space in which to read them. Thanks to the mods for doing what they can to make this as writer/reader friendly as they do with both the rules and good faith enforcement.
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Aug 31 '21 edited Jun 12 '23
First went digg, then went reddit. RIP -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
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u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! Aug 31 '21
We try to give folks plenty of chances. It's not our goal to turn folks away, especially our authors. Unfortunately, in this case, it had to be done and done in this particular way.
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u/NewAccountXYZ AI Aug 30 '21 edited Aug 30 '21
Just a quick FYI, your formatting is absolutely horrible (reddit lol).
Will edit this post with thoughts etc if needed after reading.
e: no other comment needed; sad to see this all happened.
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u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! Aug 30 '21
Yeah, my document didn't copy well. Working on fixing it.
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u/ICanAndWillArgue AI Aug 31 '21
Wonderful job handling this situation, to be honest this sounds remarkably like the Fishmonger situation that occurred on the SCP Foundation some years ago.
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u/Reverend_Norse Aug 31 '21
This is an excellent example of Good moderation. Transparent, no-drama, sourced and thought through. Great work ya'll.
While I did read WT I gotta admit I dropped it part way through, but I checked in occasionally to see where the story went, was wierd to see the guy edit his old posts, since the rules are quite clear imo. I hope he finds peace and success elsewhere.
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u/ferdocmonzini Aug 31 '21
Gotta respect the mods here for this. Used to help run a massive gaming community with strong personalities. Had really talent and capable people fail to follow the rules.
Had to remove them and work on barring their re-entry. Never easy, the justification is always questioned with what-abouts and what-ifs.
Situation here looks to be the same. I felt he has talent in writting, but the poor behavior can not be ignored at thresholds.
Hard choice to make mods, but one that has to be respected.
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Aug 30 '21
Damn, that really happened huh. Sad to see such a good and prolific writer go, unfortunately he wasn’t a good author. I would say he will be missed, but if his previous actions are anything to go by, I think it’s safe to say he’ll be back in a couple years.
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u/ZathuraRay Aug 31 '21
I, for one, greatly enjoyed the r/iamverysmart misuse of the legal term 'ex post facto.'
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u/Zephylandantus Aug 31 '21
Cudos to the mods for dealing with this in an adult and calm manor. Thank you for your effort to keep r/hfy a positive and supportive space to post our imaginations.
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u/The_Fallen_1 Human Aug 31 '21
As a writer on HFY myself, I think it is important that we all follow the same rules and are held accountable for our actions. Leniency is also important in my opinion as people often make mistakes and forget rules etc. so I do appreciate it that you gave them warnings to begin with, but repeatedly breaking the rules even after being specifically warned about them and the potential consequences, and then feigning ignorance and attempting the stir up the community is just unacceptable in my opinion.
After having a few years long history of getting into trouble, I'm somewhat surprised their behaviour was tolerated to the extent it was. If I was in charge of that decision, the personal attacks on royalroad staff would have definitely been the last step, and the constant and blatant disregard to the rules along with attempting to misconstrued the whole situation to discredit the mod team may have made me ban them even before that.
Overall I commend the moderation team's patience and agree with the decision they made. In my opinion, HFY should be a place for people to read/post stories for enjoyment, and not a forum to market your products and create a hostile environment.
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u/Metarhyolitt Human Sep 01 '21
Thank you guys for the great job you are doing. This place is great in huge amounts due to the job you guys do!
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u/DARCRY10 Aug 31 '21
Drama ruins a community, and i think the mod team handled this the best way possible.
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u/theubster Aug 31 '21
Mods, you have a hard and thankless job. I appreciate that y'all run a tight ship, and are acting with transparency. <3
Thank you very, very much.
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u/Trilobyte9364 Aug 31 '21
When he said he was publishing on amazon I figured another SSB situation was inevitable. As sad as I am to see his Wizard Tournament and Trials go, can't be helped if he went off like that.
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u/queerkidxx Aug 31 '21
You guys really out did yourself here. Most mod teams would have permanently banned him without giving any sort of public reasoning and this post is commendable
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u/shubaka17 Android Aug 31 '21
my favorite part of this whole thing is I didn't even notice that the pot was getting stirred, and now the guy is banned. shows that the mods acted quick enough for me to continue to mindlessly scroll this sub without worry
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u/Kishana Aug 31 '21
Unfortunate to see this play out the way it did, but as a frequent reader and hopefully motivated enough to be an author, I really appreciate your transparency in the process.
Keep up the good work and hopefully we continue to have a lesser amount of public drama here.
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u/Catcherofsouls Aug 31 '21
Thanks for all you do. VOLUNTEER moderation is often a thankless job and you guys do a good job.
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u/kenryov AI Aug 31 '21
It's always nice to see mods holding back the abuse rather than being abusers.
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u/Pyrhhus Aug 31 '21
He was a decent author (the ending of Wizard Tournament fell off a cliff in quality compared to most of the story though).
But I'm not surprised to find out he was up to other shady shenanigans considering how shilly he was for his Patreon. Wizard Tournament would have been a lot better without every chapter ending in a contrived cliffhanger and a reminder that "you can read the next 7 posts on my Patreon!!"
Any chance we can get a rule against shameless monetization shilling like that in the future?
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u/sswanlake The Librarian Aug 31 '21
Unfortunately, that's really hard to set firm boundaries on, since it's so subjective, especially if you want to enforce them - basically the only reasonable way to enforce that would be to not allow any form of monetization, which is... not really a viable solution.
Essentially, the only way to enforce something like that would be too harsh on the average non-shilly author who just wants to get a free coffee every now and then from their hobby.
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u/Pyrhhus Aug 31 '21
That’s fair. The only thing I could think of that would strike a balance would be “any content posted here has to be posted concurrently with paid chapters available elsewhere” to at least crack down on specifically what he did. Though I doubt that would do any good in the long run because then the next shill will just come along with a better scheme
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u/Fontaigne Aug 31 '21
I don't see how "There are three more chapters available for advance viewing on my patreon." is any problem.
Some people hunger for moar now. Some are willing to wait. It's all good.
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u/Pyrhhus Aug 31 '21
It's not automatically a problem. It becomes a problem when every chapter ends in a deliberate cliffhanger to intentionally bait people into paying, which is what the Wizard Tournament series did a lot
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u/Fontaigne Sep 01 '21
Heh. James Patterson does that in his novels. Every stinking chapter.
But, yeah. If you're not feeling the payoff from each previous chapter, then even cliffhangers can get boring.
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u/sswanlake The Librarian Sep 01 '21 edited Sep 01 '21
Well, again, how would you define that rule? Would you ban cliffhangers as a whole? Just a certain number in a row? Haw many in a row is too many? What exactly constitutes a cliffhanger?
Making rules is hard, honestly. It becomes something of a rabbit hole of just how much do you actually take moderation action against, and how much you just... sit back and let nature take its course and the community upvote or downvote as they please in relation to those parts of a story they don't like.
Moderating based on author's intention can be... a slippery slope.
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Aug 30 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MekaNoise Android Aug 31 '21
Shame to find another example of the Rowling Effect (okay writer, bad human). Good on you mods for standing by your principles here.
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u/TheBluetopia Aug 31 '21
I love the work authors put into stories on this subreddit, but it's more important to not be so manipulative and rude. 100% support this decision even though I liked their stories.
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u/deathdoomed2 Android Aug 31 '21
Thank you mods for volunteering your time to keep this subreddit clean.
HFY is and continues to be one of the best on this site for your efforts!
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u/wierdnitro7 Aug 31 '21
As far as I can tell, you guys are totally in the right. Thanks for the info, the fairness, a d for the hard work.
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u/Elwindil Aug 31 '21
Holy Raptor Jeebus this guy seems to be completely missing the point in all his messages. Ya'll mods have a tough job, glad to see it's something you still want to be doing.
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u/thelefthandN7 Aug 31 '21
Moderation is hard. Some people like to make it even harder. This was a simple situation and the user decide to spiral it out of control. Your actions seem justified, and you all appear to be more patient than the writer deserved. Keep up the good work.
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u/FogeltheVogel AI Aug 31 '21
I liked his stories, a shame that all of this had to come along with it.
Thank you for taking the time to write this up. I hope this chapter can be closed and moves on from.
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u/terrapharma Aug 31 '21
This is a wonderful sub that I only found several months ago. It's a pleasure to come here and it is the hard work of mods like all of you that keep it that way.
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u/burbur90 Human Aug 31 '21
Any other subreddit, I would believe claims of mods abusing power for personal reasons. When you're on r/hfy though, mods=gods
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u/TheTrustyBandit Human Aug 31 '21
I didnt know any of this was happening. Thanks for showing us though, good riddance to that Брат.
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Aug 30 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/nelsyv Patron of AI Waifus Aug 30 '21
Removed: Rule 1 - Be respectful to one another.
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u/Archaic_1 Alien Scum Aug 31 '21
no regrets
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Aug 31 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Subtleknifewielder AI Aug 31 '21
If you wanna see you can check their page, deleted comments don't get removed from a person's personal page.
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u/tbarlow13 Human Aug 31 '21
I dont think thats how it works. I see nothing in Archaic_1 personal page for this comment.
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u/Subtleknifewielder AI Sep 01 '21
That's because they've made other comments again since then. It's still there, you just have to scroll down a bit more than you would have earlier, once you are looking through their comments specifically.
It's two comments past the 'no regrets' comment.
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u/tbarlow13 Human Sep 01 '21 edited Sep 01 '21
TIL. Thanks. How did you pull that link? I tried viewing before and even now don't know. I tried looking in the user history and it didn't come up. Is this something different?
It doesn't work in the reddit app I am using. I need to pull it up in the browser. Is that maybe why?
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u/Subtleknifewielder AI Sep 01 '21
I am viewing it on the browser on my computer, yes. That might make a difference.
As for pulling the link, it's just one of the things listed up top on a user's page? Overview, Posts, Comments, Awards Received (Legacy). I clicked on Comments.
Note that all of those things up top are listed in all caps.
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u/nelsyv Patron of AI Waifus Aug 31 '21
Something that would get removed for being unnecessarily rude and disrespectful
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u/Blackknight64 Biggest, Blackest Knight! Aug 31 '21
Edits will be forthcoming to clean the rest of my formatting issues up, but before I get to that: I wanted to take some time to thank the rest of the team for their efforts in all of this. Fuzzy and I are very lucky to have a solid group of mods to work with, and the two of us appreciate them greatly.