>Hipson, who is also the sole moderator of r/PayPal, says he was brought on as an RBI mod because he “loves banning” people.
That sentence right there describes one of the main problems with reddit. Power-seeking moderators who are more interested in flexing on users than making good communities.
The fact is the folks who REALLY want to be moderators, are almost always the folks who should not be.
When I moderated a large gaming forum years ago, anyone who lobbied too hard was automatically out as a moderator candidate, the pattern was just way to clear that the folks who want to moderate badly, are the worst. It was amusing as when you denied those folks, they usually did something terrible... (forum rules wise, not really terrible).
I agree, one of the issues with Reddit is that there is a chain of moderators who bring their buddies along or seem to horse trade moderator duties. I've seen more than one sub have issues after these full time mods show up as moderators in forums they don't seem to have participated in (yes I know they use alt accounts) and behave as if they do not understand the forum.... or just don't actually do anything and the forum falls prey to the usual low effort memes, "hey look at this pic" and such issues.
Agreed. Reddit went from being an active discussion board (if I can call it that) to having controlled dialogues. Echo chambers now exist, everywhere. Essentially, each sub is - veritably - it's own version of r/TumblerInAction on 'x' given topic, whether it be politics, social discourse, or what-have-you.
Even the ban against "hate subs" doesn't seem to take into the fact that a lot of hate subs still exist[0], espousing hate and dehumanisation of people. (Far more have sprung-up since this list was made but do note that the list referenced has a political leaning to it, as well. Perhaps, though, this has more to do with the radicalisation of politics.)
[0] - https://www.reddit.com/r/AgainstHateSubreddits/comments/68da...
It's actually weird how we haven't seen any innovation in this space for a long time; not just from Reddit, but from any other site like it. No one is trying anything new.
The whole peer-voting system should have eliminated the need for moderators, instead it's become just another means of homogenizing opinion and stifling dissent.
dang isn’t running around pulling articles because they don’t fit a narrative