Thread

1. nomilk · 1790655652 · focus · HN ↗

   The biggest problem I have with reddit is mods can slowly but systematically ban users who express unfavourable opinions, and over time, anyone casually browsing could mistakenly believe those views are unpopular, whereas in reality everyone with that view (everyone who spoke it, anyway) was banned.

   To give a simple example, one video game franchise subreddit bans any negative discussion on the most recent title. Over 5-10 years, this shielded them from negative feedback. But the franchise has tanked because core users weren't listened to, and they ended up making something nobody wanted.

   1. atraac · 1790670982 · focus · HN ↗

      I feel like most of their problems come from downvoting, not mods though. It's just not possible to have a real discussion on reddit anymore, because anything that is not the mainstream opinion just gets insta downvoted. People will literally downvote anything they don't agree with, and seem to be more likely to do that if they see the comment has a negative score already. If they allowed subreddits to turn off downvoting, and have HN-like system where every new comment lands on top for a while to give everyone a chance, that whole place would be much more healthy.

      1. Akronymus · 1790671154 · focus · HN ↗

         HN also only gived downvote perms after being active, afair.

         1. saghm · 1790688005 · focus · HN ↗

            IIRC it's unlocked at 500 karma. You need to contribute in ways the community considers valuable before you can signal that something isn't valuable.

            1. Akronymus · 1790688168 · focus · HN ↗

               Yeah I wasn't sure of the actual threshold (I kinda just lucked into a lot of karma early on because of a post about factorio releasing 1.0)

               1. saghm · 1790694180 · focus · HN ↗

                  Ah, that makes sense. I'm basically the opposite, in around a decade I've posted articles directly maybe a dozen times, so it took me a while before I received the privilege to downvote.

                  1. brokenmachine · 1790906224 · focus · HN ↗

                     I only see downvote sometimes, for some reason. I don't see it available on the comments on this post.
      2. Aunche · 1790679820 · focus · HN ↗

         The most nefarious behavior I've seen is when the mods shadowban every argument they disagree with that has positive upvotes but leave arguments they disagree with that has negative upvotes to give the impression that everyone on the opposing side is stupid.
      3. pcthrowaway · 1790703197 · focus · HN ↗

         I think the mods are a larger contributor to the "acceptable discourse" in most subreddits than drive-by downvoters. Most people with unacceptable opinions (as per the mods) find other subs to congregate in when they've been banned or know their input will result in them being banned.

         There are exceptions though: I participate in some capacity in most of the feminist subreddits, and the divisions between different branches are pretty charged. One example "feminismuncensored" subreddit which I believe was created in reaction to the "feminism" subreddit's slant towards white liberal feminism (which has been getting better over the years), but seems to have attracted trans-exclusionary feminists due to the name, and the fact that trans-exclusionary feminist views are also not tolerated in most of the other larger feminist subreddits (for those who don't really pay attention to this, my use of "trans-exclusionary" rather than "gender-critical" is a signal of my own bias towards trans-inclusive feminism).

         The /r/feminismuncensored moderators recently stickied a post clarifying that transphobic comments are not tolerated there, and as you can imagine it was heavily downvoted by people who (I think somewhat reasonably) assumed the name of the subreddit meant trans-exclusionary feminism would be tolerated. Comments supporting the moderators' decision there were heavily downvoted as well. So this is one of the (relatively rare IMO) cases where the subreddit appears to be frequented by people whose views are out of line with the moderators' ideas of acceptable discourse. In most other subreddits the moderator bias and community bias tend to be more closely aligned

         1. dozzr · 1790744334 · focus · HN ↗

            Most of the so-called "feminist" subreddits are run by men who pretend to be women, so that's not surprising at all. These men have a habit of worming their way into every online women's space and, if they can, taking control of the discussion. Reddit is especially terrible for this, and the only way for women to protest this misogyny without risk of having their accounts banned is to downvote.

            1. zbentley · 1790793780 · focus · HN ↗

               What do you mean when you say "men who pretend to be women"?

               I understand this is a fraught question, and I'm not trying to be snide or score points. Given the specifics of the post you're replying to, I think that's a germane thing to clarify here.

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