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Except the subreddits banned were some with pictures of older teenage girls (15-17) in non nude situations, the most edgy being bikini pictures. Something that belongs on reddit? That's for you to decide. Paedophilia material? No, not even fucking close.

Besides, pedos wouldn't trade images on reddit, I really refuse to believe people would be stupid enough to trade such pictures through a US website which offers no anonymity.

"Pedos can’t trade their images anymore (whether legal or not)."

The only thing that this move ended up doing was ensuring the use of private subreddits for this act. People aren't going to change simply because someone told them that what they already knew was wrong is now more wrong. The content will still be traded on reddit (even though I highly doubt that cheese pizza pm's actually happened very often), just not with a public pool to gather from.

Plus, all of this shit is still up on imgur.

I’m worried about private subreddits. Admins, however, can see what’s going on inside them so I don’t see that as much of a problem.

From Wikipedia: "There are over 67,000 subreddits to peruse, with the default set being (as of October 18, 2011[4])." I could not find a specific number for the admin staff, but given the fact that wiki lists 11 staff members for reddit that number can not be particularly high; in fact the reddit admins steam group has 6 members. I sincerely doubt that anyone is capable of filtering 10,000 subreddits every day in search of offensive material.

Finally, even if somehow reddit manages to completely and utterly block all things they deem to be CP related, these people will just move to another, probably harder to track venue. All in all, this entire move is rather pointless action in response to people that want the feelgood sensation of "Protecting the Children."

I think that some people didn't want this stuff to end up on CNN, and having the media end up branding them guilty by association (i.e. "Reddit" == "Cesspool of pedos").

Just because you think some people enjoy looking at pictures of young-looking girls (in some cases it's hard to estimate their ages) you think they are "pedos" (and you also create a legal vs. illegal distinction, too). By the same token of jumping to conclusions from small sample of behavior I judge that you are a complete hedge brain, because you cannot even find a synonym for fuck in a short comment.

It is ironic (I wonder if you can understand it) that, had the sort of limitation that you back were in effect on HN, comments like yours would have been deleted.

1. It isn't a slippery slope argument I am making. I am simply stating that when the rules change, people don't like it, for the mere fact of it. Whether or not the reason for their dislike is fallacious, a qualitative difference in an implicit or explicit agreement will affect the community experience, and will anger those who were happy under the previous arrangement.

2. If you want to argue about fallacies, perhaps you shouldn't do so with a strawman. I never defended r/jailbait or any of the other banned subreddits. I was simply pointing out that there are differences between "anything goes" and "walled garden" approaches to community building, and that both have strong positive results, and one is not necessarily better than the other. The level of disingenuity of your reply is up there with "presidential candidate". Get off your moral high horse and reply to my actual statements.

3. I never claimed reddit would be radically different - again: I was discussing people's reactions, not claiming them as reflections of fact. Another strawman (thats at least 2 in one post!)

4. Who the fuck are you to be that condescending? What value do you provide to the world that makes you able to dictate what matters and what I should observe?

I did reply to your actual statements.

I never claimed you defended pedos. Where did I do that exactly?

I was stating that feeling betrayed by this change makes no sense at all. I cannot fathom how one can possibly feel betrayed by such a change. That’s all. Can you explain that to me? Huh?

As a third-party observer, I initially had the same reaction as sophacles, in that your comment appeared, at first, to be a strongly-worded straw-man argument.

However, now that I re-read it I can see your point, but your use of profanity and the general lack of civility in your comment obscured your argument. The tone of your comment was more like an accusation than a reasoned response, even if the content (minus the profanity) was not intended to be.

It was supposed to be an accusation. Some things deserve accusations. And profanities.

Sigh. I’m quite disillusioned about HN, actually. Not that it should surprise me, but damn. People here say the exact same things as on Reddit. If you squint a bit the reactions are the same. That doesn’t make me happy.

I do recognize that I can’t do many constructive things here (short of screaming at people) so I’m going to excuse myself from this thread. I won’t convince anyone anyway.

The first statement of the actual Guidelines of HN is "Be civil." I find it strange that you're disillusioned with HN because your uncivil comment was not well received.

(Just to clarify: I'm not disillusioned about karma or anything petty like that. I’m ok with being downvoted for not being civil. I’m disillusioned about the general attitude displayed here. That attitude made me want to not be civil anymore.)

> That attitude made me want to not be civil anymore.

Then it would be a good idea to take a break, maybe go for a walk, until you can be civil.

> People here say the exact same things as on Reddit.

Perhaps it's because they are correct and you are in fact in the wrong here?

>Sigh. I’m quite disillusioned about HN, actually. Not that it should surprise me, but damn. People here say the exact same things as on Reddit. If you squint a bit the reactions are the same. That doesn’t make me happy.

Then perhaps you need to realize that some of the things people are saying have some merit and you're looking at them wrong. I realize ad populum isn't a valid form of logic, but when the great majority of people are telling you you're wrong, it could never hurt to re-examine your position.

Since you are unhappy here, do us all a favor and just stop coming to the site. The same posts are linked and discussed many other places on the web, where you can have discussion with people who either agree with you, or don't mind you overreacting to disagreements.

The slippery slope is a fucking fallacy!

Until it isn't.

> "The slippery slope is a fucking fallacy!"

Ugh. Here we go again.

The fact that the slippery slope argument can be a fallacy doesn't mean that all claims of slippery slope is automatically a fallacy.

People seem to think the fact that this word exists means they can use it in all contexts and be right.

[edit] And the slippery slope angle has materialized in this particular case. No sonner had the jailbait subreddits fallen did people start clamoring for the shutdown of /r/beatingwomen, /r/deadbabies, and various other reprehensible subreddits. This certainly hasn't been a we-banned-jailbait-and-now-everything-is-fine deal that people hoped it to be.

I believe this is known as the slippery slope fallacy fallacy.

The "slippery slope" argument can be made more strongly here - a few months ago /r/jailbait was shut down by the admins. There was a lot of hand-wringing about it, but they were eventually swayed by opinion and some media attention.

This time around there was a post on SomethingAwful talking about a few more subreddits, and they were all (including several that were explicitly 18+ content only) shut down immediately. For good or ill, we're not in danger of slipping down that slope any more, we're demonstrably sliding already.

/r/jailbait was shut down by the /r/jailbait moderators, not the reddit admins.

Arrrg!

If you say “slippery slope hurr durr” it is a fucking fallacy. You have to do work to make it one.

No slippery slope has materialized anywhere. That’s bullshit.

Totally agree with you. I don't see why people are kicking up such a fuss. In fact, grab the IP addresses of everyone in those subreddits, hunt them down and throw them in jail. Give them a good beating on route too.

What if someone started a terrorism subreddit promoting hateful and inciteful behaviour. Defend that freedom America. We already know how that is working out. I doubt anyone would even bat an eyelid and this would be a non-story.

Seriously do not believe people are defending this "freedom" of speech. Total BS and people obviously have too much time on their hands doing nothing.