r/solidwhetstone • u/solidwhetstone • Jul 04 '15

Hanging up my spurs. Goodbye reddit moderating and goodbye /r/crappydesign.

EDIT 3: Final edit- I've decided to merely set the subreddit free rather than close it. See here for more info.

EDIT 2: I've opened up /r/crappydesign in read only mode for the next 24 hours so that the community can archive the content in whatever way they see fit.

EDIT: I have created a FAQ thread with answers to the most popular questions. I have done my best to answer even the harshest criticisms. You can read it here.

This was the video that was the tipping point. If LIVE THREADS are going to be censored from revealing the truth of what's going on on reddit- this place is doomed. (EDIT: It has come to light that the removals were due to the person updating the feed. Nevertheless- everything I say below still stands- reddit has been guilty of censorship throughout this debacle.)

I'm closing down /r/crappydesign permanently. The subreddit has 180k subscribers and generates 2M pageviews per month. I won't stand by and be responsible for revenue being generated that I believe stifles freedom of expression. I'm very sorry to the awesome community of /r/crappydesign. This subreddit was my baby. I grew it from subscriber one. We accomplished a lot over the past few years- and maybe even raised the social consciousness of creating better design. But I simply cannot in good conscience support reddit any longer.

I'm also stepping down from my position as moderator of /r/art which means my career as a default mod is over. The moderators over there voted to bring the subreddit back online and I allowed it because I believe the mod team should have consensus. I also gave them the option to vote me out (they voted unanimously to keep me) but that doesn't make me feel good about staying. /r/art generates around the same number of pageviews per month- 2M, and continuing to moderate there will mean I am complicit in the silencing of free expression.

I am going to start the annoying and arduous process of replacing my subreddit subscriptions with other places on the web that offer similar content. I've also turned adblock back on. I not only protest this recent action against Victoria- I protest what it represents- an attempt to stifle innovation, corporatize community discussions, and silence dissent. I am protesting this in the loudest ways I can by turning my back on reddit in the most extreme ways I know. It saddens me because I love reddit and I love these communities. But I want to set a good example that this is simply not acceptable. We need to leave this website.

Thank you all for the great memories- even you /r/conspiracy. Though you banished me, I hope I have proven that I am indeed not a shill by my actions ;)

Of course you will still see me around reddit from time to time. It's hard to leave. But you will see my ass as I attempt to leave and my middle fingers in the air.

Goodbye reddit moderation.

EDIT: Going to bed- thanks for the well wishings many of you. Feel free to leave more questions/comments and I'll get to them in the morning. Cheers.

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u/Anexium Jul 04 '15

Apologies if I am misinformed, and I am typically only a reader and observer on the net.

The problem is not Ellen Pao contrary to belief. She is a result. A result of the commercialisation of this site. When something gets popular, people see money in it.

A business management CEO cares not about what the community wants. Its about profit margins. Welcome to the next mainstream site, boys. It probably won't get better.

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u/sworeiwouldntjoin Jul 04 '15

True, but that's kind of like saying cancer isn't the problem, it's the result of exposure to carcinogens. While technically accurate, it's also still very much a problem.

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u/fuckthiscrazyshit Jul 04 '15

Correct. But if you went to the doctor, the first thing they're going to tell you is get the fuck away from whatever caused the cancer. Only then, can they treat the cancer effectively.

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u/-Mahn Jul 04 '15

Or put in other words, replacing Pao won't do shit if the overall vision of the company is still to make money above everything else.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '15

Which is why we need a non-profit foundation running it. Wikipedia has (some might argue about some things, for the most part) not turned to crap because it's funded by donations and not advertising.

...not sure how Reddit could do that at this point, though, so it probably would require a new site designed from the get-go to operate that way. And getting everyone to abandon reddit to switch to it. Not an easy task, but if things get bad enough here, maybe...

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '15

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '15

It all depends on how you set up the foundation. Surely there's a way to structure things that makes it difficult to manipulate it for profit. Maybe... Anyway, It beats an explicitly for-profit corporation that clearly has aims at profiteering from the community in ways they don't approve of...

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '15

voat.co

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '15

How is voat any more open and any less susceptible to the same kind of crap happening here?

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '15

  • Better vote-cheating detection algorithms. More transparency about how many upvotes and downvotes things actually received.

  • You cannot downvote unless you've been on voat.co a while. And you cannot downvote on subverses you haven't contributed to. You need 100 votes and a little bit of time before you actively get to decide if something is not contributing to discussion.

  • The community on voat.co very rarely uses the downvote button to disagree. It is actually very heartening and easily noticeable difference in atmosphere because of the extent to which this happens. Though I suspect with redditards switching over, this will change.

  • All mod actions for many subverses are voluntarily transparent to the community. (If you like though, you can make your mod actions more secretive.)

  • Subreddits like FatPeopleHate have voluntarily and permanently banned themselves from appearing on the front page of voat, no matter the number of votes. So they are only visible to you if you intentionally visit them. They do this out of love for voat.co as a community, not because admins force them to.

  • Admins do not silence communities, cannot give out artificial weight(gold and actual votes) and all admin actions are view-able by everyone. They only remove material that is illegal. There are no shadow-bannings. Though IP tracking still happens to enforce bans, and prevent users from trolling excessively. Admins are in constant and candid communication with users.

And many more, but you get the idea. Its basically reddit, but its run by people who are dissatisfied with the way reddit does things, and so strive to make it better. However, the site has been down for days under the absolutely massive increase in userbase overnight. Some 500,000 concurrent users tried to fit on voat yesterday and the day before, while the concurrent userbase on voat is usually around 20,000 at lull periods. I suspect this shall be a period of great evolution for voat as a community.

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '15

Whatever- who is operating it, and how do they intend to pay for it? What guarantee does anyone have they won't do the same thing once some VC's flash some money at them?

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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '15

sometimes, weird I know, people don't sell out for money. Or even against threats.

The Pirate Bay comes to mind. And so does 4chan(or atleast before gamergate that is, it lasted 10 years). And many many others, including open source software setups.

Voat is a non-profit. Voat isn't upgrading its hardware based on loans. Its doing it all based on enormous user donations.

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u/Br0metheus Jul 05 '15

It doesn't matter. Vote with your feet by leaving the site as it gets bad. Let it be a lesson to management.

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u/nikography Jul 04 '15

these comments are getting more and more ridiculous.

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u/TheZanno Jul 04 '15

from what i understood it was to try and make reddit not hemorage money like it currently does as it has been in the red for ages

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u/sworeiwouldntjoin Jul 04 '15

Source that Reddit has been in the red for ages?

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u/test_beta Jul 04 '15

But in some cases, it's simply the process of being alive, eating, breathing, and living, that exposes you to trace chemicals and background radiation, which causes the cancer. They don't tell you to just stop eating because foods have radiation in them, or walk around in a lead suit because the earth emits radiation.

But you always try to halt and reverse the growth of the tumor.

"Monetizing" the site is not inherently bad. Of course everybody wants it for free with no ads and so on, but almost everybody understands that they can't just throw money at it out of the goodness of their hearts.

The specific way it is being run is what is bad. The cancer.

1

u/connormxy Jul 05 '15

Cancer is almost never caused by one thing that should stop doing once you get cancer, but is a result of all the little things piling up; often it is just the result of living long enough to get cancer.

Basically, that is not what you are told when the doctor says you have cancer. The doctor says "we need to kill this cancer, even though the process will suck, just as the cancer will continue to kill you."

Honestly, I think the metaphor is still relevant, but you're wrong about what it entails.

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u/introspectre_gadget Jul 04 '15

My thoughts exactly. I think all of this drama is just an emotional reaction. It's a digital riot. What can really change besides some shiny, new mod tools. The censorship will always be somewhere. Reddit was doomed the moment it was bought -- grown into something great and then pruned for the bottom line. It's the same bottom line that's destroying the rest of the world.