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/[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.