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Comment by deminature | Hacker News Reader

Getting rid of moderators turns reddit into 4chan. If you want that, fine, but there's already a website for unfiltered hate speech and spam.

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It’s incredibly frustrating when you take the time to write something out- something that benefits others and does nothing for you, like sharing your experience or knowledge- only to have the comment removed for one bullshit reason or another. I have never written hate speech or anything racist or in that vein on Reddit, yet I’ve been censored and banned so many times by what I can only assume are children (or children at heart) with too much free time on their hands. I was a mod for a large subreddit for years and not once did I feel the need to ban anyone. The downvote system is pretty effective- the comments and posts that are downvoted enough, and it doesn’t take much, are hidden. There. The commenter retains their right to free speech, and doesn’t get frustrated that they were moderated/censored/punished for expressing themselves, and if the “community” decides it’s a “bad” comment, it’s hidden- effectively deleted as far as anyone who is truly prone to clutching pearls is concerned. That being said, my mental health is way better now that all my accounts have been banned from subreddits I liked and I’m essentially pushed off of Reddit to healthier activities such as touching grass.

All badly moderated communities tend to turn to shit. Just look at Wikipedia.

What's wrong with Wikipedia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Why_Wikipedia_is_not...

Unrestrained bullying, increasingly smaller numbers of article editors and a cruel clique of editors. It’s basically in maintenance mode, it’s not increasing in quality or knowledge.

Kind of like OpenStreetMap's community. I would guess the same can be said for anything like there where it's a free, open, global, community-led effort. There will always be a hard-core niche of people who live and breathe the thing and are naturally protective of it e.g. picky with other people's contributions.

> when you take the time to write something out - something that benefits others and does nothing for you, like sharing your experience or knowledge

Sharing your experience or knowledge is not a completely selfless act. Some enjoy the feeling of being an expert, others use this as an opportunity to push their point of view, some just like to help but even that is a benefit for them.

https://xkcd.com/386/

Feeling good when you do good things is, in the main, what makes you a good person. I'm not sure it's sensible to describe such people as essentially selfish.

“Feeling good when you do good things” could be seen as a definition of hedonism ;)

I’d describe selflessness in this context as accepting that a community might have different rules and see someone’s actions as not helpful, despite their best intentions.

I love me some xkcd

I'm glad your mental health is better, but you come across as an unreliable narrator. I very rarely have my comments removed, and when it has happened, it's never because I posted interesting facts about Cavendish bananas or how VLIW is underrated - it's at least a little controversial or rubs people the wrong way.

The problem with downvotes is brigading (trolls overrun your community), and people have to get exposed to toxic shit before it's downvoted enough to be hidden. You're free to go to voat or whatever if you want. I like communities with good moderation, I seek them out.

This is true until you start touching 3rd rail topics. And having an experience like parent poster's even one time is one time too many IMO.

I've never had a long and thoughtful post censored, but it's frustrated me the once or twice it happened with a short comment that I didn't believe deserved it.

I agree we need moderation to avoid being a cesspool, but a light touch is absolutely essential.

I've had long and thoughtful posts censored. Yeah it sucks. It makes you not want to help people, at least on Reddit. Why would I spend my valuable time helping someone out when it might just get deleted by a 16-year-old modding a subreddit in-between CoD matches?

I don't mean to brush Reddit with broad strokes, but I have to insist mine is a common experience. It is almost certainly true that if you stick to a few "sophisticated" subreddits and comment conservatively (both in frequency and in content), you'll rarely or never encounter the toxic traits of Reddit.

What are some of the verbatim comments you were banned for? On which subs did you post them?

/r/Games banned me for saying that GTA V should not be censored, for example.

That's verbatim? Just writing "GTA V should not be censored" got you banned?

I believe it. That really sounds typical of Reddit.

I don't believe it at all. My unreliable narrator radar is blowing up.

I have been banned from subreddits for comments like that. The equivalent of "I don't think censoring GTA V is a good idea". Seriously.

Maybe the mods thought it was a bot account? Maybe they just disagreed with me. Maybe my account was too new but they didn't bother sending an explanation message? I don't know.

GTA games have been making fun of pretty much everyone. But there's this one group that you're not allowed to tell jokes about.

I'm old enough to remember how gamers laughed at people like Jack Thompson who wanted to censor and ban video games. But now people like him are moderating gaming subreddits and saying that censorship is good actually.

If it's the group I think you're talking about, you forgot your triple parentheses.

I have no idea who Jack Thompson is. Gamers are disproportionately shithead teenagers whose parents neglected to teach them that the n and t words are not the peak of comedy, so it sounds like Thompson is much needed presence.

I'm not going to hunt down the exact comments, but ones I can remember (and please pardon the lack of composure):

- Banned from /r/the_donald for saying something that wasn't even really critical of Trump, it was a fact, no ounce of opinion.. basically the mods were banning anyone who commented anything less than absolute, blind praise of Dear Leader.

- Banned from /r/clov (a penny stock subreddit) AFTER posting incredibly well-received research on the company, because I was skeptical about their earnings numbers (which did come in below expectations).

- Banned from /r/politics for saying something along the lines of "I wish Mitch McConnell would keel over already", which is absolutely a bullshit thing to get banned for, on /r/politics of all places. That's probably one of the least-"human rights" subs on Reddit. There are few places where your right to free speech is more-often challenged. Regardless of your political affiliation, I think you should be able to wish death on Trump, Biden, Obama, whatever.

- I was never banned from /r/AskWomen, but I think anyone who has been on Reddit an appreciable amount of time knows of their reputation for removing comments that have any potential to offend even one person on the planet (you can comment there if you are not a woman, they just want it off top-level and that your flair is your gender). I gave up commenting there pretty quickly. I mean I get it, I'm not a woman, but it is one of the most popular subs and you're naive if you think only women read AND comment on posts there.

- Banned from /r/robinhood for nicely, professionally (LinkedIn-appropriate) suggesting in a thread that Robinhood better-educate its users on the risks of options trading. Nowadays you can actually gamble with options in your Robinhood IRA account. That's nuts to me, and I am 100% sure it will be illegal someday. Vlad and co. really have no shame. I am an atheist, but sincerely hope Vlad Tenev goes to hell.

- When I messaged the "head mod" of /r/robinhood something like /u/CardinalNumber about the ban, I got some automated message back saying my message was reported to Reddit (I figured out it was automated because A) he replied to me immediately, and B) when I replied to that, I got the same exact message a second time. Reddit actually banned me for 3 days. It baffles me that companies like Robinhood let these guys have any association with their brand. I assume he was getting so much hate mail (he has banned A LOT of people from /r/robinhood) he just set up a program to report anyone who messages him- figures he gets a message, it's probably hostile. And as far as I know, he's still a mod there.

So at this point I was ready to perma-ban all my accounts by wishing death on Greg Abbott. I mean look, the dude is a prick. It's an opinion as close to fact as an opinion can get. It wasn't a death threat, it wasn't racist, it was the kind of comment the First Amendment was made for... we should be able to criticize public figures, especially government figures.. anything short of a death threat imo. Anyway, that's what happened. I wished death on Greg Abbott on /r/news or something like that, predictably I got hit with the perma-ban. Now I have huge swaths of my free time back haha. A double-edged sword to say the least.

I realize without the verbatim comments it's easy to read this comment and conclude I am probably being dishonest about the tone or nature of the comments, and that my bans were 100% justified. I can't disprove that notion, but for what it's worth, I wouldn't mind posting all of those comments on LinkedIn with my full name and picture attached to it(with the exception of the wishing death on Mitch McConnell and Greg Abbott).

Many Reddit’s are run by angry folks, I’ve asked questions before only to be scolded and other times to crickets because it was not a funny picture/video or meme.

Any real forum I could find on the same topic always had nicer people and my questions got replies.

The problem is that forums cost money and time to host, update, prevent spam, etc.

Oh and I hate the Reddit auto-moderation, a post will never get posted because I was too new and then your dependent on the email to the Reddit moderators to move it out from an email they may never read.

Have you been to 4chan? It has moderation. Also - 4chan is not only /pol/ and /b/.

Even 4chan has moderators (the janitors).

> but there's already a website for unfiltered hate speech and spam.

Twitter?!?

Just the current power tripping ones who think they own the site.

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