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Haha. Exactly.

They're using it exactly as it was intended. Arguably, they're just better at using it.

That is a completely disingenuous take on what was stated.

The subreddit in question specifically and continually used the tool in a negative, unconstructive manner, which is obviously not what it is designed for. Other subreddits use the mod tool in various ways that don't have anything to do with the explicit purpose of stickied posts, which I pointed out, but notice I didn't label that as abuse.

> The subreddit in question specifically and continually used the tool in a negative, unconstructive manner

I don't think that's true, I think you just don't like the content.

The admins and a sizable portion, if not the majority, of reddit think it's true. It's also odd that you seem to forget that the content in question was specifically and continually addressed to the rest of the community in an often aggressive manner. Hardly any active and constructive discussion, political or otherwise, took place on those threads. Indeed it's hard for that to ever happen when your mods immediately ban anyone who doesn't fit a certain mold.

Notice that after the tool was limited, the frequency at which posts show up on the front page was severely decreased. The posts were not being upvoted because of the content, they were being upvoted specifically to get the thread to the front page and often with no constructive purpose.

Yes, and that's why they make rules that only impact the_donald, which in turn encourages the_donald to lash out. Because they are being singled out for censorship. I think you've got a pretty selective memory of sticked threads in the_donald, but whatever. Should they be nice to a community that consistently calls it the_dipshit, etc, and whose administrators continually make changes to limit the reach of their voice, and their voice alone?

The sticky change came in conjunction with limiting the number of posts it was possible to have on the front page, and a few others. Saying the change to sticky policy is what's keeping the_donald posts off the front page of /r/all would be incorrect.

You can stop being dishonest at anytime now.

Your timeline is backwards. They were not singled out for "censorship" before their abuse. That doesn't even make sense. Again, please notice the immediate effect of having the tool taken away from the mods. Hardly anything is organically upvoted from that subreddit anymore.

>Should they be nice to a community that consistently calls it the_dipshit

Why are you going to purposefully ignore why they have that reputation? This is like having a guy in the group that continually does annoying or obnoxious things, gets told off and then tells everyone else to "chill."

>the number of posts it was possible to have on the front page, and a few others.

Which was global.

>Saying the change to sticky policy is what's keeping the_donald posts off the front page of /r/all would be incorrect.

Except it is not. They do not reach top spots on /r/all anymore. We're talking about single posts, not the number of posts, but they don't reach as high as they used to.

You can stop being dishonest anytime now. You have a limited perspective. They had to make several internal rule changes specific to them (which they enforce) before any site wide changes happened. They get brigaded and attacked just like any other major political sub, but only they have unique rules made for them. Why are you purposefully ignoring why they act that way? It's like having a guy in the group who thinks it's acceptable to push people around because they have a majority opinion, and double down when people don't accept it. They had several posts at the top of /r/all yesterday [1-4], but I guess they don't go as high.

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5gvy1j/the_new_...

2. https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5gwnwx/reddit_v...

3. https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5gvazb/boom_tru...

4. https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/5gwe8n/posted_t...

>They had to make several internal rule changes specific to them (which they enforce) before any site wide changes happened.

And you can see the reasons for this expounded upon in the ancestor comments of this thread. There is a very clear cause and effect for these actions. Ignoring them is you being dishonest.

>They get brigaded and attacked just like any other major political sub

Of which there seems to be very little evidence for. On the other hand, the brigading and abuse other communities received have been well documented and brought to light both to the admins and the community at large.

>It's like having a guy in the group who thinks it's acceptable to push people around because they have a majority opinion

If you're going to insinuate that reddit is doing this because some sort of political bias, you are completely ignoring other subreddits that have remained completely untouched regardless of their political positions, despite sometimes even how questionable the subreddits themselves are, and are ignoring spez's previously stated political positions.

This claim lacks consistency at best and at worst continues to be willfully dishonest about the actions taken by the subreddit towards the community as a whole.

>They had several posts at the top of /r/all yesterday [1-4], but I guess they don't go as high.

Yes, they do not go as high and the frequency at which this happens has dramatically decreased. Indicating that previously front-paged threads were not organic.

> Indeed it's hard for that to ever happen when your mods immediately ban anyone who doesn't fit a certain mold.

That statement is false. Nobody is banned from that subreddit for being of a "certain mold". The rules for the subreddit are on the sidebar and they only ban users who speak ill of their candidate of choice.

The same is true on the /r/SandersForPresident and /r/HillaryClinton. If you went on either of those and insulted Sanders, Clinton, or their supporters, you'd get banned on there as well.

I'd argue the anti-Trump subreddits are demonstrably worse. They ban people who have never even posted in them because they've posted on /r/The_Donald.

I was banned without ever having ventured there, and then proceeded to be called a "faggot cuck" (presumably because of my posts to /r/gaybros) by the moderator. So it most certainly is not false. There are many others who echo this scenario across reddit.

>If you went on either of those and insulted Sanders, Clinton, or their supporters, you'd get banned on there as well.

Funny, I was not very kind towards Clinton. Still can post in /r/HillaryClinton.

>I'd argue the anti-Trump subreddits are demonstrably worse.

You can certainly argue that, the problem is having some kind of substantive evidence to base this claim on.

> I was banned without ever having ventured there, and then proceeded to be called a "faggot cuck" (presumably because of my posts to /r/gaybros) by the moderator. So it most certainly is not false. There are many others who echo this scenario across reddit.

Perhaps a rogue moderator did this but AFAIK it's not the policy of the sub as a whole. I'd suggest messaging them (the moderator list) if you'd want to get unbanned.

> Funny, I was not very kind towards Clinton. Still can post in /r/HillaryClinton.

Then you must be an outlier. Forget insulting her personally, I know of people that were banned for being Democrats that disagreed with her specific policy positions. I'm not even arguing that's against any rule. Each subreddit is free to come up with there own rules for what content is acceptable.

What I take issue with is preemptive banning. At best it forces people to live a digital double life with multiple personas. If you're following the local rules then there's no reason they should be banning you for opinions you've expressed elsewhere.

> You can certainly argue that, the problem is having some kind of substantive evidence to base this claim on.

Create a dummy account, post a hello to /r/The_Donald and them see what happens. It's definitely real and goes well beyond the purely anti-Trump subreddits. You'll get banned from entirely unrelated non-political subreddits as well. The funny thing is you won't realize it until you go to them and try to reply to a post.

Vote manipulation is against the rules regardless of what tool you use.

They just used stickies as their tool.

Stickying a new post so users see / vote on it faster is vote manipulation? Doesn't seem to be the case per reddit itself. [1]

1. https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205192985

Oh FFS, did you even read the link!? Here, the last bullet point:

> Forming or joining a group that votes together, either on a specific post, a user's posts, posts from a domain, etc.

That perfectly describes what was going on with moderators leading the mob by stickying dozens of posts per day, directing them towards their brigading targets.

So every sub is vote manipulating by nature of being a group that votes together on specific posts? I see. Don't break the site from the sidebar would have been a better option.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his internet-ego depends on his not understanding it."

If you refuse to see the distinction between vote-manipulation and organic vote behavior, then I think we're done here.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his internet-ego depends on his not understanding it."

If you refuse to see that I simply disagree with the fact their stickying constitutes vote-manipulation, and assume I'm arguing in bad faith because I don't hold the same viewpoint as you, then I think we're done here.