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Comment by arcticfox | Hacker News Reader

They've totally broken "quarantined" subreddits as well. I used to occasionally visit /r/watchpeopledie as a reminder of my own mortality and some of the horrors of the world, but apparently NSFW wasn't enough for people visiting "watchpeopledie" to realize they might see something bad. So they "quarantined" it, which actually means totally breaking it, in my browser at least. RIP.

Discussion by others here [0] "I'm a senior mod at /r/watchpeopledie, and we can all see through Reddit's bullshit and hypocrisy" and here [1] "Just a few thoughts on the hypocrisy of Reddit's quarantine"

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/subredditcancer/comments/9js8gf/im_...

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/watchpeopledie/comments/9js9j4/just...

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Yeah the horde of edgelords in WPD totally isn't one of the reasons the sub got quarantined.

Gore will always be considered shock content, but the comments in WPD are almost always downright repulsive.

Can you elaborate? I assumed that quarantining a sub was about the posts, rather than the comments. This is based on my experience of every subreddit having lots of offensive comments (granted, mostly downvoted.)

Posts and comments are all contents. Offensive posts will not spawn inoffensive comments. In WPD you can probably get more upvotes by being more offensive. From what I've seen there, it's usually the ones trying to call for basic decency being downvoted.

To somewhat further your point, take a look at /r/greentext and /r/4chan. While the posts themselves are only somewhat racist, the comments that accompany them are disgustingly edgy and juvenile - they're not being downvoted however. I don't think anything is likely to be done to these subreddits.

Yes. Let's ban repulsive stuff defined by democratic vote. Since the country is mostly Christian, no more talking about gay people - that's repulsive. Welcome to Russia.

What is downright repulsive is people who think like you do. Here's an idea - you don't like it, don't go to the subreddit and let them do what they want. We don't need people like you dictating the repulsiveness level of what others can say. I know it makes you feel more in control of your life, but who would want to live like you do? That would be one sad existence.

A lot of subs are full of edgelords. The sub was quarantined because they need to make Reddit more palatable to investors and advertisers.

A lot of subreddits had that happen to them. It's sad because they are choosing who can speak and who cannot.

Perhaps interestingly, this is exactly what people criticize Twitter/Jack for not doing.

The problem is, it's generally different people in those cases. These two groups are fundamentally opposed, and satisfying them both is impossible.

You're right, when GP says "people want less X for Y" and I say "people want more X for Z," we aren't talking about the same "people."

Yeah like /r/theredpill

They're not stopping those people from speaking, they're just hiding that content from average users. It's reasonable to think the average redditor probably doesn't want to see death videos alongside their cat pictures and memes.

>"the average redditor probably doesn't want to see death videos alongside their cat pictures and memes" //

Was that possible _by accident_ in recent renditions of reddit? IME you have to be in a reddit where that sort of content is, and change settings to make it default visible?

/r/all potentially could have anything pop up, no?

I could be wrong but it always (in my recollection, so only going back a few years) excluded nsfw? When I last visited even going to a fully nsfw subreddit all the media was blurred out, so you might have NSFL titles .. but if you're that timid then probably any site with UGC is going to be a struggle.

NSFW is not filtered out of /r/all; it is from /r/popular. AFAIK though subs have to opt-in to being part of /r/all.

It use to show up in my /r/all feed when NSFW filtering was off. Definitely stood out among the other NSFW content you would be scrolling past.

The binary SFW/NSFW designation is also a problem. First there is the difference between NSFW text and NSFW visuals. You will see plenty of text posts on Reddit labeled as NSFW because they include a dirty joke, talk about sex, or includes something incredibly un-PC.

When it comes to visuals, there is a big difference with how comfortable people are with sex vs violence (NSFW/NSFL). Some people would be happy to see one but want to stay away from the other. Then you have the difference within those categories. A picture of a person in skimpy underwear is not the same thing as hardcore porn. Similarly a video of an athlete hyperextending their knee on a sports subreddit is different than the type of gore that you might see on the watchpeopledie subreddit mentioned above.

Maybe you should be able to indicate the severity and category of the NSFW-ness. Potentially something similar to MPAA ratings were you can have PG-13, R, X with an indication if it is for sex, violence, or something else. However that puts even more work on the users/moderators which is probably why Reddit would never implement it.

I don't know how reddit even operates while having subreddits dedicated to hardcore pornography and extreme gore and violence on the same domain as sfw subreddits. Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, do not allow those type of things for a reason, because once young children start using the site and the parents/ media find out what their kids could be looking at, their is a large amount of outrage. Reddit seems to have not had that problem, because it is not as popular and harder to use for < 13 year old demographics, but if reddit keeps pushing an easier to use layout and keeps expanding, then they are gonna run into this problem at some point.

Reddit definitely had that problem in the past. As an example they had a “jailbait” forum which they only took down when CNN ran a long story about it at primetime.

Heh, recently 4chan moved their SFW boards to a different domain. I imagine it was so they could have advertisers happy in there while keeping the other one intact.

It's sad that people conflate posting on reddit with "speaking".

From the American perspective: our love of and support for free speech means you can make your own website or newspaper and say what you want. (And people have the freedom, conversely, to tell you your content sucks and f you)

But we never envisioned a world where some private newspaper would be forced to print the speech of those they didn't want to, or disagreed with.

Considering the content of the VAST MAJORITY of quarantined subs (holocaust denial, virulent and shocking racism, white nationalism), it's actually shocking that Reddit allows this content to continue without banning.

You say it's sad they are choosing who can speak and who cannot, but I can point you to objectively evil and noxious speech on reddit today that isn't going anywhere...

You're definitely right about this, the fact that even /r/4chan isn't quarantined despite the content of it's comment section tells you everything you need to know. WPD had very strict rules imposed before the quarantine occurred and the comments weren't nearly as bad as one would expect.

Frankly I think it's obvious that the entire point of quarantines is to hide away the content Reddit doesn't want advertisers to see without any community blowback. Quarantined subreddits are completely ad-free after all.

I remember just last year r/4chan literally had a picture of an overweight woman drinking a big gulp getting fucked doggy style by a man covered in blood with a caption "I have evolved" as the background to their subreddit. 4chan regularly got to the frontpage of reddit and many posts were not marked nsfw. Reddit should have done something about that subreddit years ago, because that could actually turn new users off of reddit.

Big Gulps are very disturbing. I mean, why would you not just spend the extra 10 cents for a Super Big Gulp?

Which has nothing to do with the content.

"edgelords"? Really? That's the best word you found to describe them?

What would you suggest?

Offensive? Anyway got dowvoted a lot so maybe "edgelords" its the best word for it! Even I should start using it against people I dissagree with.

It doesn’t mean you disagree with them. It’s that they write their comments for maximum shock value.

It’s not the end of the world, but it’s hardly desirable.

That's the intended meaning, but someone could always call someone else that just to dismiss their argument pretending that it was said for shock value instead of persuasion; and for what I have read that's how it is commonly used.

That’s a possibility, but most well reasoned and argued thoughts do not turn into a shock piece, so I’m inclined to think not.

Fighting/dealing with that repulsion is an endeavor some people seek.

Eh, they went back to Youtube. I've read the vilest, most shocking and dumbest comments on Youtube (and they had quite a few upvotes) - Reddit is meek by comparison.

That's cause to my knowledge you can't downvote on youtube, or rather you can thumbs down but I don't think it has any effects on comments.

Dare I ask what an edgelord is?

Imagine someone who makes an edgy joke, then imagine someone who makes only edgy jokes, constantly - then they stop being funny.

It's the difference between making jokes that are edgy and jokes whose sole component is shock value.

Urban dictionary definition - https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=edgelord

But in general people who try to be "edgy" and "dark" to a fairly ridiculous degree.

It's when you behave online like you are 15 years old. Everything about you has to scream 'enlightened contrarian' or 'devil's advocate' otherwise you'll become one of those conformists clicking their fingers to Taylor Swift and Imagine Dragons.

Conversations with them are impossible and frustrating because they aren't looking to talk to someone, they're looking to talk AT someone and collect as many upvotes as possible.

so the entirety of /r/politics?

I was thinking more like r/unpopularopinion. r/politics is wall to wall with Trump posts, gets tiring within the first few minutes.

obligatory xkcd : https://xkcd.com/2036/

Then surely you just don't subscribe to that subreddit. I don't like the Trumpy subreddits and their horribleness, but, sadly, I can't see why I should stop them.

I think WPD is genuinely important. There are edgelords, sure. Watching and thinking seriously about what I saw there changed my perspective on life.

I usually can't stand to watch the videos, but the discussions on mortality and the precarious fragility of life in general I've found valuable. Because of that sub I am more careful in many situations and do value life much more.

I haven't visited that subreddit on a long time, so I'm knowing this from you. What a pity. I visited on a similar reason to yours: to know how my own life can be taken suddenly, without notice or warning.

Since I move around exclusively by bicycle, I paid particular attention to the videos where cyclists met their untimely fate. I've learned a lot watching those videos, since it gave me a more clear perspective on how some things, apparently not too extreme, are insanely dangerous traps to a cyclist (riding near a truck with open wheels, for instance, even if at some distance).

Shame it's quarantined...

Getting off topic but I always ask folks what are some more examples of unexpected things to look out for?

I’ve become a bit disillusioned with cycling after 2 fairly bad crashes in about 6 months.

I didn’t have a fear of metal drawbridges, having gone over a variety of them numerous times. Then I hit one that was slick from rain earlier in the day. Tires swerved like I was on ice and I did not fall gracefully. Broke my elbow, nose, and needed many many stitches.

Recently I did all the “right” things- riding in daylight, in a bike lane, in bright clothing with a helmet, and still got right hooked by a careless driver. Walked that one off but limped for a week. after.

I could fill you a long list of dos and don'ts, what do look for and what to avoid, but cycling is inherently practical, and you have to learn it by doing it.

As you are by now aware, we're pretty much exposed to all kinds of dangers, and sometimes bad things happen. But if you aren't discouraged, and you keep on practicing, eventually you'll learn how to avoid most of the worst case scenarios where you could find yourself by your own negligence and/or lack of attention.

The important thing to retain is that you have to have the muscle memory to know how to react properly when in a tight spot. That's why reading about things isn't much of a help — you don't have time to think in order to act properly. My advice? Practice, and practice riding defensively.

I live in a very rough country for cyclists — Brazil. And in order to find my place on the road I have to be twice, thrice as careful as I would have to be somewhere else. But I've found that if you play it safe and learn to be nice and respectful of what the other perceives as its rightful place on the road, thanking everyone that shows you even the smallest act of kindness or basic respect for you, you'll be surprised how much things change on the road around you.

Be nice and don't try to be a hero. You're a glorified pedestrian and your skin is no match for steel.

Thanks for the thought out response. "Glorified pedestrian" is a good way of thinking about it. Legal rights are not the same as perceived rights.

> I didn’t have a fear of metal drawbridges, having gone over a variety of them numerous times.

Where do you live that has numerous drawbridges made of metal?

Borrowing the phrase from motorcycling but it rings true with bicycling as well. Ride like you are invisible and every driver is drunk and out to kill you. Assuming the worst intentions from cars on the road teaches you to slow down and be prepared to stop or swerve to avoid a collision. Wet metal and bikes don't mix, motorcyclists are taught to pull in the clutch going over train tracks and man hole covers for this very reason.

Thanks- I've always felt I rode this way, assuming the worst, but with each incident that assumption of worst intentions increases! Wt metal and bikes, such a no brainer in hindsight and wish I hadn't learned the hard way.

Your point aside, this /r/ falls under: things I didn't know existed but reluctantly clicked on, and clicked on, and clicked on, only to feel a need to DoD 5200.28 wipe it completely from my memory while I stewing in my own vat of nauseating regret.

> They've totally broken "quarantined" subreddits as well.

What really grinds my gears with this is the fact that you cannot see quarantined activity via the API. If you browse a user's overview on the website, you'll see comments/posts in quarantined subs with a "quarantined" label. But if you fetch the exact same data via API, the quarantined activity is simply not returned at all, even if the account is opted in to the quarantined subreddits. There is no way to retrieve this data, and as a result, my bot can't block users that hail from these cesspools...

You are right +1 . Meditating on immortality makes you fearless, anecdotally.

They have also been fairly recently quarantining political subreddits, more specifically socialist subreddits.

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