Saying “fuck off, Nazi” needs more protection than being a fucking Nazi.
I would much rather suffer blunt language and PG-13 insults than inane ‘do you still beat your wife?’ implications… especially if I’m not allowed to brush off those implications with blunt language and PG-13 insults. There’s a million polite-sounding sentences more infuriating and abusive than ‘get bent’ or ‘stop trolling.’ God damn, reddit had the worst attitude toward ‘stop trolling,’ as if that was automatically a thread-derailing insult - but not whatever prompted someone to say, ‘you’re obviously operating in bad faith and you should knock it off.’
Would it always be in response to bad faith? Nope. But sometimes it is, and the reason we have human beings as moderators is so they can tell.
More than anything - I want words to matter.
I’m banned from my instance’s c/conservative community because the moderator is a coward and a liar. Initially for ten days for ‘lying’ while criticizing an article’s excuses for bigotry, and now for two years for politely explaining exactly how that article described bigotry and then excused that bigotry. But some assholes get power and don’t really care what’s true. Either you kiss the ring and cower when they wag the stick, or they’ll shuffle cards for the pretense to silence you.
Anyway.
As decisions rather than goals:
Compartmentalization is the third-best feature reddit ever had. Subreddits allowed everything, even outright illegal shit, to thrive in its own little corner. At the time I admired that hands-off approach. After the last decade, I’m pretty okay with excluding Nazis, no matter how well they keep to their miserable little ratholes. Some questions have a right answer. For everything else, yeah, manage your own subscriptions. Ideally with a little more effort put into keeping power-hungry bastards from seizing existing communities.
Nested comments are the second-best feature reddit ever had. It’s a form of compartmentalization, allowing many conversations to happen simultaneously, even in a thread with a thousand of them in the first hour. Do people not remember the unfollowable chaos of flat chronological forums? Seeing “1, 2, 3… 317” and just heaving a sigh? You’re never gonna read all that shit. It’s gonna wear out your scroll wheel if you try. There’s people skipping to the end and not understanding what’s going on, starting on page 50. Nested comments let you actually talk to a person, instead of attaching their name to a postcard and hurling it into an avalanche.
User voting is the best feature reddit ever had. I can’t even comprehend when Lemmy instances want downvotes removed. Do you not understand why Twitter is a flaming wreck on the altar of Engagemagog, while reddit was largely functional in spite of absentee landlords? Moderation is what keeps a forum from becoming 4chan - and users moderating each other is a great first approximation. Even sorting good stuff first and bad stuff later can be great for everyone, before removing a single comment or commenter.
Basically, I’m not here because of anything wrong in reddit’s design.
Saying “fuck off, Nazi” needs more protection than being a fucking Nazi.
I would much rather suffer blunt language and PG-13 insults than inane ‘do you still beat your wife?’ implications… especially if I’m not allowed to brush off those implications with blunt language and PG-13 insults. There’s a million polite-sounding sentences more infuriating and abusive than ‘get bent’ or ‘stop trolling.’ God damn, reddit had the worst attitude toward ‘stop trolling,’ as if that was automatically a thread-derailing insult - but not whatever prompted someone to say, ‘you’re obviously operating in bad faith and you should knock it off.’
Would it always be in response to bad faith? Nope. But sometimes it is, and the reason we have human beings as moderators is so they can tell.
More than anything - I want words to matter.
I’m banned from my instance’s c/conservative community because the moderator is a coward and a liar. Initially for ten days for ‘lying’ while criticizing an article’s excuses for bigotry, and now for two years for politely explaining exactly how that article described bigotry and then excused that bigotry. But some assholes get power and don’t really care what’s true. Either you kiss the ring and cower when they wag the stick, or they’ll shuffle cards for the pretense to silence you.
Anyway.
As decisions rather than goals:
Compartmentalization is the third-best feature reddit ever had. Subreddits allowed everything, even outright illegal shit, to thrive in its own little corner. At the time I admired that hands-off approach. After the last decade, I’m pretty okay with excluding Nazis, no matter how well they keep to their miserable little ratholes. Some questions have a right answer. For everything else, yeah, manage your own subscriptions. Ideally with a little more effort put into keeping power-hungry bastards from seizing existing communities.
Nested comments are the second-best feature reddit ever had. It’s a form of compartmentalization, allowing many conversations to happen simultaneously, even in a thread with a thousand of them in the first hour. Do people not remember the unfollowable chaos of flat chronological forums? Seeing “1, 2, 3… 317” and just heaving a sigh? You’re never gonna read all that shit. It’s gonna wear out your scroll wheel if you try. There’s people skipping to the end and not understanding what’s going on, starting on page 50. Nested comments let you actually talk to a person, instead of attaching their name to a postcard and hurling it into an avalanche.
User voting is the best feature reddit ever had. I can’t even comprehend when Lemmy instances want downvotes removed. Do you not understand why Twitter is a flaming wreck on the altar of Engagemagog, while reddit was largely functional in spite of absentee landlords? Moderation is what keeps a forum from becoming 4chan - and users moderating each other is a great first approximation. Even sorting good stuff first and bad stuff later can be great for everyone, before removing a single comment or commenter.
Basically, I’m not here because of anything wrong in reddit’s design.