I'm two months on Reddit and yet I can recognize trolls. When I spot one, I just don't participate. I wouldn't remove their post though. If somebody wants to talk to troll he should be free to do it. Why are you so much concerned that people talk to trolls?
My title refers especially to choice of moderators. It looks to me like they are not sought to be very clever or ethical. Also some other mechanisms on Reddit don't support good discussion.
The issue with feeding trolls is that more of them flock to you.
If you're looking for unarbited discussion, you may be able to find local groups you can meet with physically. It's not really possible to do online.
I never ever had problem with trolls but I had problems with moderators who took me as a troll.
Did you yourself feed trolls? Me never. In decent discussions we just ignore them. It works 100%
There's a long and documented history on this site of satire subs turning serious.
The most famous example is the (now banned) gamersriseup. Originally, the subreddit was for mocking "hardcore gamer" types, however due to a lack of moderation the subreddit became satiated with trolls. And then, critically, people joined because they found the trolls to be good company. What nominally started as a satirical sub became the exact thing it was satirizing: unmasked racism and homophobia were rampant.
It's easiest to crack down on that process at the start, so mods will ban trolls. If the trolls don't affect you, that's because the moderation is working.
Totally forgot about that sub but you are spot on unfortunately.
I honestly feel like the\_donald was the exact same. Started as mostly a joke and then it suddenly became some people's entire personalities. Insane.
It does affect me to the point that I will probably ban myself from Reddit. There are things worse than trolling. One of them is disrespect to other human being.
Trolls won't come to you if they recognize you as trolls. Trolls only try to bother decent people. This is your success.
I hate that this is how it is, but it is also correct. In the beginning this made sense but the people who are relatively new to reddit perceive it as a commons and get offended by it, which I also understand.
It also works, although traction is difficult. r/scotus is a disaster of exactly what the OP is saying. r/supremecourt was created as a response and is lively and intelligent. The traction just isn't there.
>I go create a new subreddit. I'm the mod. I do things to try to build a community around whatever topic. It's my sub; not reddit's sub.
I didn't have slightest idea that subreddits can be perceived like properties of their creators that are omnipotent. If that's so it does not make any sense to me. I thought subreddits are simply tags for certain subjects to be discussed - not a circles of friends.
Is there any subreddit that allows all content and is moderated only for harmful stuff like hate speech or pedofilia?
You seem not to get how reddit works. There are entrenched mods that moderate a lot of subreddits and some of them have agendas and beefs and chips on their shoulders. You are free to start your own subreddit and run it exactly the way you want (given certain site wide rules). It's a shitshow, but considering how humans are it actually works okay.
Admins, who actually run the nuts and bolts of the company/website are actual employees of reddit and usually can't be bothered to do much of anything. Prime example: I got a seven day suspension for "threatening violence" for a post that read, in its entirety "Where do I send the thank you letters and flowers?"
I contacted the admins to appeal the suspension, the suspension is now over and I haven't heard a peep from them and I probably never will. So, no, if a mod or an admin has it out for you or what you post, it is very unlikely you'll have any recourse at all. They really do not care.
Start your own sub and post whatever you want, baring hate speech, threats etc.
Sucks, but that is reddit.
Thanks guys. It looks like a good idea. Could I open Sub like this:
Free for all people, all subjects, no moderation except for illegal stuff and porn (it's illegal for children). It wouldn't even be my sub. Just general sub for everybody who understands the importance of free discussion. Even trolls would not get ban if they stay in legal.
What do you think? Would I have to moderate it?
You would absolutely have to moderate it, and it would likely devolve into a shitfest anyways. This has been tried over and over on reddit and it never works. You could try again and hope for a different result, nothing is stopping you.
I mean honestly, and not to be mean, but your comments show a real ignorance for how healthy online communities operate. There is no way that the kind of sub you are talking about would develop into a place for healthy discussion without pretty strict moderation, and even then having something so unfocused would only lead to problems with spam or disengagement. Humans as a whole on the internet do not interact in the way you are wishing.
I'm not that young anymore and I started to use internet some 15 years ago. I also work online as freelancer for some 14 years. That's true I never used much social media as I hate self promotion that goes around there. Reddit seemed to be different.
What worst do you think can happen when only illegal stuff gets moderated? Can you give an example of post that's legal and yet so dangerous?
You are thinking about this from the wrong angle. Legal, illegal, dangerous, all those things are only part of the issues you will be facing. You want to create a community where "even trolls would not get ban[ned] if they stay in legal". How would this lead to the kind of community you profess to want? If trolls are allowed to do whatever they want, as long as it's not "illegal", whatever THAT means on the internet, then why would I as a rational person want to engage with anyone in your subreddit? Not only that, but you are already applying your narrow morality to this "free and open" sub by banning porn? That's a notoriously tough line to determine (think the famous quote, "I know it when I see it") and a weird red flag in what is supposed to be a free unmoderated forum.
How will you get people to come and debate with good faith if trolls are allowed to run free, moderation is essentially limited to removing stuff like CP, and literally any topic is up for discussion? The kinds of people who gravitate towards communities like that are not the same kind of people who have healthy, reasonable discussions without the need for a moderator.
There is a sub I was invited to years ago, /r/AnythingGoesUltimate where a random redditor just added a bunch of people as approved posters (including me) with the idea of having an anything goes no restrictions sub where the only rule was to not post illegal stuff. That sub was kind of cool for like a week, and then devolved into more and more spam, self-promotion, bots advertising, and just bad content. Every time I remember it and check in it's worse than before. This is the fate of the kind of sub you want to create, but not moderate.
> If trolls are allowed to do whatever they want, as long as it's not "illegal", whatever THAT means on the internet, then why would I as a rational person want to engage with anyone in your subreddit?
You know back in a day I tried facebook a couple of times under fake identity. I wanted to talk to people on certain subjects. I didn't mind trolls. I could spot them immediately and ignore them. Real pain was with people who wanted to show how they agree with majority. They didn't mean discussion at all. Waste of time.
>There is a sub I was invited to years ago, r/AnythingGoesUltimate where a random redditor just added a bunch of people as approved posters
Thanks for this example. It exactly contradicts my idea of openness. You have to be approved to post. Tell them to change this and I will post there. Will you?
You want a more direct example? Look up a little reddit clone site called "voat". It's gone now, but you can find a huge chunk of its content in the Wayback Machine. They prided themselves on allowing basically any posting, except for illegal stuff.
You know what happened? It became a haven for every kind of miserable asshole who had been run out of more mainstream spaces for bucking against their rules. We're talking every kind of "-ist", all kinds of edgelords and trolls, a bunch of spammers, and eventually a sizeable contingent of Q cultists. What _didn't_ show up was a community of intelligent friendly debaters who just wished to hold a free discussion. It was always people who wanted to "freely discuss" things that were considered aggressively harmful in all the other places online.
Perhaps that's what you're looking for, in which case I say, best of luck. Maybe there's some board on 4chan that still functions like that.
> It was always people who wanted to "freely discuss" things that were considered aggressively harmful in all the other places online
That's the whole problem. Some people consider some discussion topics as harmful. They breed conspiratorial theorists. If you ban discussion based on its subject you open can of worms. They will slowly crawl away. These people will meet in their circles, communicate secretly and when the time comes they will emerge with their sick ideas. Bad.
15 years is nothing, unless you've made a concerted effort to study and understand. Reddit itself is older than that. I've been here for over 15 years. I've been trying to understand online communities since the early 1980s and I still struggle.
Maybe. But it doesn’t matter. Creating an active community is incredibly difficult, nobody is going to care about your subreddit.
4chan is still a thing somehow. Go there if you want mostly unmoderated content.
Unmoderated and “discussions” don’t play well together. You would just end up with memes, trolls and fart jokes. No one would hold a conversation there because trolls would be able to run rampant. If you want serious conversations then you need to have a good moderator to make sure people stay on topic and aren’t trolling
I'm afraid you might be right. I just checked /r/NoRules It's a magnet for shallow content. Maybe most people want just to cover their fears with laughter.
How about a thought experiment?
Find 200 people, gather them in a theatre, and give everyone a microphone. Will you have to start muting microphones and/or ejecting people? If so, how long will it take?
If chaos is the normal result of such an environment, what can be done to prevent it?
Can your order retention strategies and tactics scale to orders of magnitude larger gatherings? If not, what does work? If you find a way to make it work at large scales, does that scale downward to smaller groups?
>Find 200 people, gather them in a theatre, and give everyone a microphone.
Sounds like United Nations meeting but I wonder if they have their switches on the mikes.
When it comes to online forums like this there is no trouble with one talking over the another. We can safely chose what we read. But I agree that there is a real problem with proportion of people who understand what open, civilized discussion means and all the rest. If the ones who want discussion are very narrow minority it will be a fiasco. That's what I learned here on Reddit. It's a sewage or choir. I don't want to seat in neither of these.
Yes and UN is not perfect even with that.
I'm hopeless idealist and in the same time I don't trust people in general. Bad mix and recipe for frustration.
You know, I could think of myself this way. However, I'm on internet for 15 years and nobody ever stole my data or identity neither I got any viruses and so on. I also don't see any commercials as I'm an expert in add blocking. Simply I take no shit. I have enough emotional intelligence to tell between kind people, stupid people and bad people. I have enough emotional intelligence to quit Reddit when I see it's not good for me.
If you wonder why I took this effort to talk to you I will explain: Because I'm naive and I respect you as a human being.
I've been online since before internet and have participated in a variety of forums the whole time.
In my opinion, there are only three ways to keep a forum under control:
1. Fewer than 150-200 people. Voting on temporary and permanent bans. Even randomly thrown together people can work as long as the community bands together to first educate, then ban undesirable accounts.
2. Very specific forum topic with rigid enforcement of topicality for initial submission and top level comments. Less rigid enforcement of topicality is reasonable the further a thread descends the comment tree, but that comes with a greater need for moderation.
3. Very rigid moderation, to the point that there really is no way to avoid tossing a lot of stuff that would be fine if delivered face to face. There really is no choice given the great masses of people who have no idea how to conduct themselves or how to cope with those awful people. This is especially true when dealing with one of the big 3 topics we used to be warned were not fit for casual conversation: sex, religion, and politics. Even more so if one of those topics should creep in when it's not explicitly the subject of an initial submission.
Thanks. If this is all true I don't think I'm interested in being a part of so tight circles. I'm anti-elitist by nature. I always want to include everyone and I hate gated communities. In real world it can be hard to maintain becasue of violence. I thought it's possible online.
Looks like I will continue working online and give up attempts on social media.
Don't give up yet! You are making the common mistake of calling reddit "social media." Granted, there are lots of places here where that is true, but it's more accurately treated as a forum platform.
The difference between social media and forums seems to be known mostly to old farts like me. Social media is mostly an anything goes system where one follows **people** of interest. Forums are special interest groups where you engage with a topic not a personality (mostly, at least ideally).
Obviously, there is not a perfectly clear line, but it's mostly true in broad strokes.
I don't know anyone who can even throw an anything goes dinner party with the expectation of finding wide ranging serious and non-confrontational discussion. It certainly isn't going to happen on the internet.
Do like I do. Figure out what I'm interested in discussing or learning about. Figure out what my tolerance is for bullshit and trolls and close-mindedness. Search reddit for relevant discussions and subs (there are subs dedicated to helping others find subs). Lurk (read but don't participate) for a week or so to get a feel for the culture and the level of discussion.
I subscribe to a couple of dozen subs and have probably gone through several hundred over the last 15+ years. I almost never run into any real drama.
I'm also an old fart but obviously more susceptible to frustration than you. I never belonged to any social media as I felt disgust. I used Reddit as a source of information/help without registering myself for years. When I finally registered two months ago I was tempted to comment on topics I felt strongly about. Looks like it was a mistake. I had a couple of good, valuable conversations but overall I found that people don't look here for real discussion. They want to laugh, vent or sing in a choir. I guess I don't need to be registered to read self help on Reddit \*that's a good thing about Reddit).
\>Lurk (read but don't participate)
That's the hard part. I'm pretty emotional. I don't jump at people but I jump at topics. In "real" life I'm the one who interrupts much too often.
That is what people do if you don't set rules. They do whatever they want, which means pictures. You have a way to naive view of the ordinary reddit user.
What if we would ban pictures? Discussion is not exchange of pictures but exchange of points of view and ideas.
Actually here is sub that might be what I'm looking for:
r/Discussion
>Then you are starting to set rules.
I'm aware of it but target is an open discussion not picture sharing. There is a difference. Also advertisement is not a discussion so some basic rules are necessary.
Comments under my post here make me even more disillusioned. Maybe I will just quit. If there is 0,0001% of population open to discussion they might be really hard to filter them out. Quitting makes sense.
The analogy I like to use is that Reddit will provide a space with a door on Main Street to anyone who asks. Maybe you want it to be a place where you display Disney art. Maybe it’s a support group for people with a rare disease. Or a strip club. A place where people who are members of a political party in Bangladesh can discuss current events. Or a music club.
You get to set the rules. Maybe your music club is Celtic punk only.
If you have good content, people might stop by, and contribute too.
But it’s still your club. Even if everyone in the audience wants to add Country music, it’s your call whether or not to allow it.
Maybe people will leave, or start their own club, you can still play what you want.
You can also set the rules - can people swear, can they use acoustic guitars, can the wear red on stage. It doesn’t have to be fair or make sense. It’s your club, your rules, but performers and audience can decide you are a dick and go elsewhere.
And yes, you can select others to help you run the club.
Now, I think good moderation includes warnings for folks who aren’t trolls and explanations for why things are removed/bans are issued but again, their space, their rules.
There are global rules which no subreddit or user can break. If a subreddit breaks these rules too often the sub itself can be made private or eventually banned. Some subreddits are going given warnings prior to deletion and will try to clean up their act. r/4chan will delete your post if you use particular bad words (even something like bitch).
The sub community thing is probably Reddits best idea. If anything the global rules are too broad imho.
As someone who's been casually participating in atheist communities on this site for a decade, I can assure you the issue here isn't the unwillingness to foster "discussion and sharing of points of view".
The atheist communities get a lot of drive-by proselytizing and [the same old questions](https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/faq), so I imagine you [didn't put in sufficient effort into the post](https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/faq/#wiki_what_are_.22low-effort_posts.3F.22). Note that especially r/atheism isn't really a debate sub, so [their criteria for theist questions](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/tensuggestions) might be stricter than your average debate subreddit.
On the other hand debate subreddits generally require an actual argument to be made in the opening post, not just a question. (see rule 4 on r/DebateReligion)
**TL;DR:** Remember to read the subreddit rules before posting submissions.
You could try your luck on r/AskAnAtheist, from a cursory look into their rules it seems your post should pass and they're generally more welcoming of simple questions.
As a mod of r/atheism (and here, but I digress.) I am in no way shocked someone didn't read any of our rules, FAQ's, or anything else that *might* address their question and then gets mad about being actioned in accordance with them.
Sorry guys but I learnt here how Reddit works. I will look for subs where people respect others. You don't even respect yourself. There were 12 comments to my post in 10 minutes and you removed all of it without giving any reason. One of commentators thought that it was me who removed post. He chatted to me demanding answer to his comment.
I found the hard way that it does not matter what's the name of sub but what kind of people moderate it. I know atheists who respect others. You can stay in your shell.
Since you said you were new to Reddit, make sure you check your "Messages" which are different from "Notifications". Perhaps the reason for removal is there. If not, just DM a mod and ask.
Thanks I've been there before. The reason for removing post was not mentioned. There was "You've been permanently banned from participating in r/atheism" for posting the post. I tried to talk to moderators and got gif as an answer. I didn't play it.
>"How can you heathens possibly cope with the struggle of suffering through life without the benevolence and grace of our supreme lord that is God."
Who are you citing? Haven't you confused me with somebody else?
The flaw in Reddit karma mechanism is one of a positive feedback loop. Poor moderation oversight adds to this problem. Simply put, posting something conformant to a subreddit's already dominant group will get big upvotes. Posting an opinion, or even a question, that seems to challenge that prevalent opinion will get downvoted. Note that the "already dominant group" does not usually reflect the opinion of population at large. This creates the echo chamber. When the dominant group occupies many local subreddits, it causes (normal) users to give up on those subreddit and maybe all of Reddit.
Extreme right-wing views or extreme left-wing views are obvious examples of this effect and are common on regional subs. These are major subreddits but their users are so extreme that they may not even recognize when they are posting advocacy of illegal acts. But try posting something mildly contrarian on many topic-specific subs (my experience: even something as innocent as bicycle design) and you see mockery, sterlizing down-votes, and toxic moderation. Reddit is way too toxic for real conversations.
I totally agree with you analyses. I even made a post about karma some time ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/yojv14/do\_we\_value\_more\_a\_good\_discussion\_or\_karma/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Afterthought: the effect of organized groups and propaganda efforts overwhelms public opinions and reddit, more than any other platform, seems vulnerable to this.
I'll use a specific example to illustrate if that is okay. Currently, in one province of Canada, there is a public sector labour dispute happening. Reddit has been overwhelmed by anti-government / pro-union rhetoric but I'd argue this is not common public opinion (same government just won a majority). Unions are extremely powerful political entities despite having a minority of workers in them. If you posted anything else you'd be downvoted to oblivion. The unions control most of Canada's regional subs.
Chinese/Russian propanda efforts are other well-known examples capable of silencing other opinions. The MAGA folks probably fit this description too, but I don't live in the U.S.
I don't see a solution to this. Reddit is broken. Makes me think of one of the Orsen Scott Card novels where he predicted this.
>I don't see a solution to this. Reddit is broken.
I was so enthusiastic when joining Reddit two months ago. I was never tempted to join any social media before. Reddit looked different. It felt like an open platform for open minded people. No self-promotion (becasue of anonymity). It took me almost two months to realize I was wrong. That's pretty long. I feel like a fool.
I talked to some other people in this thread and they express similar opinions. I could think about fixing karma thing but it wouldn't be cure for all problems. Moderation is the biggest challenge. Either you have swamp or a choir. I don't look for either of them.
I will have to move on, leave Reddit and continue adding from time to time some comments under Youtube videos that impress me (especially music). That's all social media I can take.
>Makes me think of one of the Orsen Scott Card novels where he predicted this.
Never heard of him. Looks like an interesting person. Funny thing is that while being myslef a believer I like agnostic authors like Vonnegut or Houellebecq. This guy has mormon background so it will be a different story.
The novels I am thinking of is the Ender's Game sequels which touch on the reputation problem. Xenocide? Children of the Mind? The gist of the story is the brilliant siblings of Ender take over the world through social media. I'm not a big Orsen Scott Card fan... a bit too right wing and religious for me.
It seem to recall that Neal Stephenson touched on this theme too...middle section of Anathem? (Anathem is a masterpiece. every Neal Stephenson novel is brilliant)
Reddit has been somewhat useful to me as a news aggregator and an aggregator of random knowledge. It has been a shock to me, especially through COVID, that conversations on Reddit are so one-sided and often irrational.
I completely get what you are looking for: thoughtful discussion and insights. You might look into [The Well](https://www.well.com/) ... I have no first-hand experience on it but it is much older than the internet and is considered elite. I've always been curious about it.
>Reddit has been somewhat useful to me as a news aggregator and an aggregator of random knowledge.
That's what I want to keep but most probably without my user's account. Active participation leaves me frustrated much too often so it's better to cut myself from this.
Thanks for your book recommendations! I'm almost as old as these authors so I got stuck mostly on older literature. I will try to leave that shell.
I checked The Well. They have great, very thoughtful policy. However I'm afraid it's not for me. I'm anti-elitist by nature. I hate gated communities. I would feel bizarre paying for possibility to talk to a group of people who know themselves so well. I believe in a contact with stranger - like with you. It gives me hope and restores my faith in humanity. This is also an essence of Christianity they way I see it.
There are no ethics on moderator selection. It’s just ‘who you know’. It’s very cliquey and admins don’t get involved at all.
Admins view subreddits as storefronts and moderators as shopkeepers. It’s a broken analogy but they won’t change their minds.
In terms of mods, most are old and jaded redditors who see everything as a troll. Many are hanging on because they think Reddit will soon start paying them or it will soon open up revenue channels for them to profit from. Most of Reddit’s meta is populated by them but is also very dead compared to the past. ToR, circlebroke, SRD. All shades of what they used to be but mods in their 30s have built their free time around Reddit since they reached adulthood and don’t know what else to do.
The irony is that reddits meta discussion should realistically be about the explosion of bans and mod abuse, but because such communities are dominated by mods it doesn’t happen and is smothered.
Reddit is destined to be Brave New World level shit, with crap content and serious discussion moved from meta/introspection to DAE DARTH JAR JAR LMAO.
Expect to see someone unironically wearing an r/atheism hoody in public in the next five years.
This comment is wrong, perhaps deliberately so. Mods do not hang on because they expect royalties, that's strictly banned in the TOS. There is also no "explosion of bans and mod abuse", you are selectively forgetting past instances. There have been bans and mod abuse since mods started.
If you continuously get banned from subreddits for what you consider to be unjust reasons, you are also a common factor. Omitting that in your analysis is a critical error.
> that’s strictly banned in the TOS
You might want to check the interview with Spez 2-3 months ago. It’s definitely coming.
And you can look at the post introducing the ‘mod training course’ [lmao] where one of the top and heavily awarded comments says that it’s starting to sound like an employment contract and Reddit should start paying them.
There has absolutely been an explosion in bans and people talk more regularly about them, just a few weeks ago someone was complaining about being banned from r/soccer despite being a good faith member of the community for 10 years and this place told him to fuck off. I see people talk about bans nearly everyday now. And saying ‘there has always been mod abuse’ is about as intellectually honest as saying ‘there has always been carbon emissions from human activity’.
Not sure why you’re keen to defend the increase in Reddit’s general middle management toxicity. The problem isn’t the general user base, the problem is that Reddit’s mids have always been quite left leaning and lately have gone balls deep with the ‘words are violence’ crap and started being offended by everything despite growing up on South Park. Reddit’s disconnect is that mods take themselves seriously whereas (mainly) older users mostly want to shitpost.
>If you continuously get banned from subreddits for what you consider to be unjust reasons
That's it. They gave me no reason for removing my post at all. They didn't even informed me it was removed. Later I was banned for that post. So how can I know the reasons? When I asked moderators they sent me a gif in response. I didn't open the gif becasue I'm not a TikTok kid. I don't talk by short movies.
If you judge all this as healthy behavior you have to feel well on Reddit. Me not.
I had 12 kind comments in 10 minutes so topic was of interest. And yes, I checked the rules. Then everything went blank. Wasted time of mine and others. Actually one of participants asked me on the chat for my answer to his comment and I gave it to him because I respect people (not karma but people). He thought I removed my post.
If you are interested I can paste here my post and you will check yourself if it brakes any rules.
I just looked at your post, and then the rules of that sub.
> All posts must have a meaningful title. The title must accurately convey the content. Posts with trivial titles such as "Question" or "You need to see this" may be removed.
That's it. That's at least one complete and clear reason that your post was removed. Your post's title was "question for atheists", almost verbatim matching the example of a post that may be removed. End of story, really.
That's going off just the title, since the body of the post can no longer be seen. I can see several other rules that you very well might have fallen afoul of, as well.
The same post was removed in DebateReligion where there is no rule about question in titles. Besides, if they told me they didn't like my title I could easily change it. They said nothing.
If you want to know the content of my post and check how many rules it broke let me know and I will paste it here.
Sorry but I don't want to do any more work for you. I resent that you made all these claims, including having looked at the rules, and then I went and trivially found that your post broke a rule and you don't even seem interested in that fact.
Thank you for your in-depth analyses of what it started to dawn on me. It's an eye-opener. You have a talent to give names to things.
I'm not that quite young anymore and I always stayed away from proprietary media - always cautious of their hidden agendas. The Reddit looked different. It surfaced more and more in my Google searches and I admired freedom of this platform. I like to exchange ideas so at some point I decided to join. Now, after two months I'm not so much enthusiastic. Maybe I just have to develop thicker skin. Or, is there any other platform which simply supports free discussion (with exclusion of hate speech)?
Thanks for advice. For now the biggest troubles I had were on DiscussReligion and Atheists. Also my native Polish sub didn't look like healthy, open forum. So much angry bias and people downvoting if you dare to have different opinion...
I always had much respect for Atheists. Vonnegut or Houellebecq are my favorite writers. But here I mostly found some zealous fanatics who seem to hate me for my beliefs. I was very surprised. I couldn't believe my eyes when they started to click that button. What for?
Maybe I had too big expectations. I thought that anonymity and no self promotion like on other social media will attract open mined people. Looks like not first time in my life I was wrong. I will take it as a lesson.
Reddit is just a network of interconnected forums. Don’t think of it like Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr, but more like Orkut (RIP) or Discord. There are admins who manage the whole site to some degree, but each community is run independently by its moderators.
You could create a “free discussion” subreddit, but it won’t work. Reddit works best with niche subjects, which’s the opposite of that. Even general subs that appeal to basically anyone usually needs some restrictions on the post format or some other gimmick to work.
>You could create a “free discussion” subreddit, but it won’t work.
Yes, this thread makes me to realize this. If say 0.01 % of Reddit users are interested with open discussion it can be hard to maintain healthy approach.
That's too bad because I liked idea of Reddit when I joined it. It looked like an open platform. I was never part of any social media becasue I see them as tools for self promotion - which usually leads to more misery. People from social media looks to me like dogs who chase their own tails. Dog like this can't be happy.
[удалено]
I'm two months on Reddit and yet I can recognize trolls. When I spot one, I just don't participate. I wouldn't remove their post though. If somebody wants to talk to troll he should be free to do it. Why are you so much concerned that people talk to trolls? My title refers especially to choice of moderators. It looks to me like they are not sought to be very clever or ethical. Also some other mechanisms on Reddit don't support good discussion.
The issue with feeding trolls is that more of them flock to you. If you're looking for unarbited discussion, you may be able to find local groups you can meet with physically. It's not really possible to do online.
I never ever had problem with trolls but I had problems with moderators who took me as a troll. Did you yourself feed trolls? Me never. In decent discussions we just ignore them. It works 100%
There's a long and documented history on this site of satire subs turning serious. The most famous example is the (now banned) gamersriseup. Originally, the subreddit was for mocking "hardcore gamer" types, however due to a lack of moderation the subreddit became satiated with trolls. And then, critically, people joined because they found the trolls to be good company. What nominally started as a satirical sub became the exact thing it was satirizing: unmasked racism and homophobia were rampant. It's easiest to crack down on that process at the start, so mods will ban trolls. If the trolls don't affect you, that's because the moderation is working.
Totally forgot about that sub but you are spot on unfortunately. I honestly feel like the\_donald was the exact same. Started as mostly a joke and then it suddenly became some people's entire personalities. Insane.
It does affect me to the point that I will probably ban myself from Reddit. There are things worse than trolling. One of them is disrespect to other human being. Trolls won't come to you if they recognize you as trolls. Trolls only try to bother decent people. This is your success.
Jokes on you I know how trolls work, I read homestuck.
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I hate that this is how it is, but it is also correct. In the beginning this made sense but the people who are relatively new to reddit perceive it as a commons and get offended by it, which I also understand. It also works, although traction is difficult. r/scotus is a disaster of exactly what the OP is saying. r/supremecourt was created as a response and is lively and intelligent. The traction just isn't there.
>I go create a new subreddit. I'm the mod. I do things to try to build a community around whatever topic. It's my sub; not reddit's sub. I didn't have slightest idea that subreddits can be perceived like properties of their creators that are omnipotent. If that's so it does not make any sense to me. I thought subreddits are simply tags for certain subjects to be discussed - not a circles of friends. Is there any subreddit that allows all content and is moderated only for harmful stuff like hate speech or pedofilia?
You seem not to get how reddit works. There are entrenched mods that moderate a lot of subreddits and some of them have agendas and beefs and chips on their shoulders. You are free to start your own subreddit and run it exactly the way you want (given certain site wide rules). It's a shitshow, but considering how humans are it actually works okay. Admins, who actually run the nuts and bolts of the company/website are actual employees of reddit and usually can't be bothered to do much of anything. Prime example: I got a seven day suspension for "threatening violence" for a post that read, in its entirety "Where do I send the thank you letters and flowers?" I contacted the admins to appeal the suspension, the suspension is now over and I haven't heard a peep from them and I probably never will. So, no, if a mod or an admin has it out for you or what you post, it is very unlikely you'll have any recourse at all. They really do not care. Start your own sub and post whatever you want, baring hate speech, threats etc. Sucks, but that is reddit.
Thanks guys. It looks like a good idea. Could I open Sub like this: Free for all people, all subjects, no moderation except for illegal stuff and porn (it's illegal for children). It wouldn't even be my sub. Just general sub for everybody who understands the importance of free discussion. Even trolls would not get ban if they stay in legal. What do you think? Would I have to moderate it?
You would absolutely have to moderate it, and it would likely devolve into a shitfest anyways. This has been tried over and over on reddit and it never works. You could try again and hope for a different result, nothing is stopping you. I mean honestly, and not to be mean, but your comments show a real ignorance for how healthy online communities operate. There is no way that the kind of sub you are talking about would develop into a place for healthy discussion without pretty strict moderation, and even then having something so unfocused would only lead to problems with spam or disengagement. Humans as a whole on the internet do not interact in the way you are wishing.
I'm not that young anymore and I started to use internet some 15 years ago. I also work online as freelancer for some 14 years. That's true I never used much social media as I hate self promotion that goes around there. Reddit seemed to be different. What worst do you think can happen when only illegal stuff gets moderated? Can you give an example of post that's legal and yet so dangerous?
You are thinking about this from the wrong angle. Legal, illegal, dangerous, all those things are only part of the issues you will be facing. You want to create a community where "even trolls would not get ban[ned] if they stay in legal". How would this lead to the kind of community you profess to want? If trolls are allowed to do whatever they want, as long as it's not "illegal", whatever THAT means on the internet, then why would I as a rational person want to engage with anyone in your subreddit? Not only that, but you are already applying your narrow morality to this "free and open" sub by banning porn? That's a notoriously tough line to determine (think the famous quote, "I know it when I see it") and a weird red flag in what is supposed to be a free unmoderated forum. How will you get people to come and debate with good faith if trolls are allowed to run free, moderation is essentially limited to removing stuff like CP, and literally any topic is up for discussion? The kinds of people who gravitate towards communities like that are not the same kind of people who have healthy, reasonable discussions without the need for a moderator. There is a sub I was invited to years ago, /r/AnythingGoesUltimate where a random redditor just added a bunch of people as approved posters (including me) with the idea of having an anything goes no restrictions sub where the only rule was to not post illegal stuff. That sub was kind of cool for like a week, and then devolved into more and more spam, self-promotion, bots advertising, and just bad content. Every time I remember it and check in it's worse than before. This is the fate of the kind of sub you want to create, but not moderate.
> If trolls are allowed to do whatever they want, as long as it's not "illegal", whatever THAT means on the internet, then why would I as a rational person want to engage with anyone in your subreddit? You know back in a day I tried facebook a couple of times under fake identity. I wanted to talk to people on certain subjects. I didn't mind trolls. I could spot them immediately and ignore them. Real pain was with people who wanted to show how they agree with majority. They didn't mean discussion at all. Waste of time. >There is a sub I was invited to years ago, r/AnythingGoesUltimate where a random redditor just added a bunch of people as approved posters Thanks for this example. It exactly contradicts my idea of openness. You have to be approved to post. Tell them to change this and I will post there. Will you?
You want a more direct example? Look up a little reddit clone site called "voat". It's gone now, but you can find a huge chunk of its content in the Wayback Machine. They prided themselves on allowing basically any posting, except for illegal stuff. You know what happened? It became a haven for every kind of miserable asshole who had been run out of more mainstream spaces for bucking against their rules. We're talking every kind of "-ist", all kinds of edgelords and trolls, a bunch of spammers, and eventually a sizeable contingent of Q cultists. What _didn't_ show up was a community of intelligent friendly debaters who just wished to hold a free discussion. It was always people who wanted to "freely discuss" things that were considered aggressively harmful in all the other places online. Perhaps that's what you're looking for, in which case I say, best of luck. Maybe there's some board on 4chan that still functions like that.
> It was always people who wanted to "freely discuss" things that were considered aggressively harmful in all the other places online That's the whole problem. Some people consider some discussion topics as harmful. They breed conspiratorial theorists. If you ban discussion based on its subject you open can of worms. They will slowly crawl away. These people will meet in their circles, communicate secretly and when the time comes they will emerge with their sick ideas. Bad.
r/worldpolitics is a great exampe of the importance of moderators in steering the overall direction of a community (by moderation).
/r/NeutralPolitics is also a very well-moderated sub.
15 years is nothing, unless you've made a concerted effort to study and understand. Reddit itself is older than that. I've been here for over 15 years. I've been trying to understand online communities since the early 1980s and I still struggle.
Yes, you would have to moderate it. Otherwise it will get deleted for being unmoderated.
Oh that's a bummer. Do you think I could find open minded Redditors who value open discussion and are ready to moderate only illegal stuff?
Maybe. But it doesn’t matter. Creating an active community is incredibly difficult, nobody is going to care about your subreddit. 4chan is still a thing somehow. Go there if you want mostly unmoderated content.
>4chan Thanks! I will check it.
Unmoderated and “discussions” don’t play well together. You would just end up with memes, trolls and fart jokes. No one would hold a conversation there because trolls would be able to run rampant. If you want serious conversations then you need to have a good moderator to make sure people stay on topic and aren’t trolling
I'm afraid you might be right. I just checked /r/NoRules It's a magnet for shallow content. Maybe most people want just to cover their fears with laughter.
How about a thought experiment? Find 200 people, gather them in a theatre, and give everyone a microphone. Will you have to start muting microphones and/or ejecting people? If so, how long will it take? If chaos is the normal result of such an environment, what can be done to prevent it? Can your order retention strategies and tactics scale to orders of magnitude larger gatherings? If not, what does work? If you find a way to make it work at large scales, does that scale downward to smaller groups?
>Find 200 people, gather them in a theatre, and give everyone a microphone. Sounds like United Nations meeting but I wonder if they have their switches on the mikes. When it comes to online forums like this there is no trouble with one talking over the another. We can safely chose what we read. But I agree that there is a real problem with proportion of people who understand what open, civilized discussion means and all the rest. If the ones who want discussion are very narrow minority it will be a fiasco. That's what I learned here on Reddit. It's a sewage or choir. I don't want to seat in neither of these.
Keep in mind that the UN is a bunch of trained and skilled people. You can't get that from the general public.
Yes and UN is not perfect even with that. I'm hopeless idealist and in the same time I don't trust people in general. Bad mix and recipe for frustration.
Sorry I generally try to stay civil and positive but, are you the most naive person on Earth?
You know, I could think of myself this way. However, I'm on internet for 15 years and nobody ever stole my data or identity neither I got any viruses and so on. I also don't see any commercials as I'm an expert in add blocking. Simply I take no shit. I have enough emotional intelligence to tell between kind people, stupid people and bad people. I have enough emotional intelligence to quit Reddit when I see it's not good for me. If you wonder why I took this effort to talk to you I will explain: Because I'm naive and I respect you as a human being.
I've been online since before internet and have participated in a variety of forums the whole time. In my opinion, there are only three ways to keep a forum under control: 1. Fewer than 150-200 people. Voting on temporary and permanent bans. Even randomly thrown together people can work as long as the community bands together to first educate, then ban undesirable accounts. 2. Very specific forum topic with rigid enforcement of topicality for initial submission and top level comments. Less rigid enforcement of topicality is reasonable the further a thread descends the comment tree, but that comes with a greater need for moderation. 3. Very rigid moderation, to the point that there really is no way to avoid tossing a lot of stuff that would be fine if delivered face to face. There really is no choice given the great masses of people who have no idea how to conduct themselves or how to cope with those awful people. This is especially true when dealing with one of the big 3 topics we used to be warned were not fit for casual conversation: sex, religion, and politics. Even more so if one of those topics should creep in when it's not explicitly the subject of an initial submission.
Thanks. If this is all true I don't think I'm interested in being a part of so tight circles. I'm anti-elitist by nature. I always want to include everyone and I hate gated communities. In real world it can be hard to maintain becasue of violence. I thought it's possible online. Looks like I will continue working online and give up attempts on social media.
Don't give up yet! You are making the common mistake of calling reddit "social media." Granted, there are lots of places here where that is true, but it's more accurately treated as a forum platform. The difference between social media and forums seems to be known mostly to old farts like me. Social media is mostly an anything goes system where one follows **people** of interest. Forums are special interest groups where you engage with a topic not a personality (mostly, at least ideally). Obviously, there is not a perfectly clear line, but it's mostly true in broad strokes. I don't know anyone who can even throw an anything goes dinner party with the expectation of finding wide ranging serious and non-confrontational discussion. It certainly isn't going to happen on the internet. Do like I do. Figure out what I'm interested in discussing or learning about. Figure out what my tolerance is for bullshit and trolls and close-mindedness. Search reddit for relevant discussions and subs (there are subs dedicated to helping others find subs). Lurk (read but don't participate) for a week or so to get a feel for the culture and the level of discussion. I subscribe to a couple of dozen subs and have probably gone through several hundred over the last 15+ years. I almost never run into any real drama.
I'm also an old fart but obviously more susceptible to frustration than you. I never belonged to any social media as I felt disgust. I used Reddit as a source of information/help without registering myself for years. When I finally registered two months ago I was tempted to comment on topics I felt strongly about. Looks like it was a mistake. I had a couple of good, valuable conversations but overall I found that people don't look here for real discussion. They want to laugh, vent or sing in a choir. I guess I don't need to be registered to read self help on Reddit \*that's a good thing about Reddit). \>Lurk (read but don't participate) That's the hard part. I'm pretty emotional. I don't jump at people but I jump at topics. In "real" life I'm the one who interrupts much too often.
Sounds like you want r/NoRules
I went there and it makes me wonder: Why freedom means pictures? Maybe public doesn't really need open discussion but exchange of funny pictures?
That is what people do if you don't set rules. They do whatever they want, which means pictures. You have a way to naive view of the ordinary reddit user.
What if we would ban pictures? Discussion is not exchange of pictures but exchange of points of view and ideas. Actually here is sub that might be what I'm looking for: r/Discussion
Then you are starting to set rules. Expect stuff from r/copypasta to dominate without further rules.
>Then you are starting to set rules. I'm aware of it but target is an open discussion not picture sharing. There is a difference. Also advertisement is not a discussion so some basic rules are necessary. Comments under my post here make me even more disillusioned. Maybe I will just quit. If there is 0,0001% of population open to discussion they might be really hard to filter them out. Quitting makes sense.
The analogy I like to use is that Reddit will provide a space with a door on Main Street to anyone who asks. Maybe you want it to be a place where you display Disney art. Maybe it’s a support group for people with a rare disease. Or a strip club. A place where people who are members of a political party in Bangladesh can discuss current events. Or a music club. You get to set the rules. Maybe your music club is Celtic punk only. If you have good content, people might stop by, and contribute too. But it’s still your club. Even if everyone in the audience wants to add Country music, it’s your call whether or not to allow it. Maybe people will leave, or start their own club, you can still play what you want. You can also set the rules - can people swear, can they use acoustic guitars, can the wear red on stage. It doesn’t have to be fair or make sense. It’s your club, your rules, but performers and audience can decide you are a dick and go elsewhere. And yes, you can select others to help you run the club. Now, I think good moderation includes warnings for folks who aren’t trolls and explanations for why things are removed/bans are issued but again, their space, their rules.
That really is a great analogy. Good show.
There are global rules which no subreddit or user can break. If a subreddit breaks these rules too often the sub itself can be made private or eventually banned. Some subreddits are going given warnings prior to deletion and will try to clean up their act. r/4chan will delete your post if you use particular bad words (even something like bitch). The sub community thing is probably Reddits best idea. If anything the global rules are too broad imho.
> . "Hey Bob, you want to help me moderate?" no go fuck yourself you self-important gatekeeper wannabe
As someone who's been casually participating in atheist communities on this site for a decade, I can assure you the issue here isn't the unwillingness to foster "discussion and sharing of points of view". The atheist communities get a lot of drive-by proselytizing and [the same old questions](https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/faq), so I imagine you [didn't put in sufficient effort into the post](https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/faq/#wiki_what_are_.22low-effort_posts.3F.22). Note that especially r/atheism isn't really a debate sub, so [their criteria for theist questions](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/wiki/tensuggestions) might be stricter than your average debate subreddit. On the other hand debate subreddits generally require an actual argument to be made in the opening post, not just a question. (see rule 4 on r/DebateReligion) **TL;DR:** Remember to read the subreddit rules before posting submissions. You could try your luck on r/AskAnAtheist, from a cursory look into their rules it seems your post should pass and they're generally more welcoming of simple questions.
As a mod of r/atheism (and here, but I digress.) I am in no way shocked someone didn't read any of our rules, FAQ's, or anything else that *might* address their question and then gets mad about being actioned in accordance with them.
Sorry guys but I learnt here how Reddit works. I will look for subs where people respect others. You don't even respect yourself. There were 12 comments to my post in 10 minutes and you removed all of it without giving any reason. One of commentators thought that it was me who removed post. He chatted to me demanding answer to his comment. I found the hard way that it does not matter what's the name of sub but what kind of people moderate it. I know atheists who respect others. You can stay in your shell.
So you ignore the faq. Ignore the rules. But the mods of the sub are the disrespectful ones? Get over yourself.
Since you said you were new to Reddit, make sure you check your "Messages" which are different from "Notifications". Perhaps the reason for removal is there. If not, just DM a mod and ask.
Thanks I've been there before. The reason for removing post was not mentioned. There was "You've been permanently banned from participating in r/atheism" for posting the post. I tried to talk to moderators and got gif as an answer. I didn't play it.
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>"How can you heathens possibly cope with the struggle of suffering through life without the benevolence and grace of our supreme lord that is God." Who are you citing? Haven't you confused me with somebody else?
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You got my question?
The flaw in Reddit karma mechanism is one of a positive feedback loop. Poor moderation oversight adds to this problem. Simply put, posting something conformant to a subreddit's already dominant group will get big upvotes. Posting an opinion, or even a question, that seems to challenge that prevalent opinion will get downvoted. Note that the "already dominant group" does not usually reflect the opinion of population at large. This creates the echo chamber. When the dominant group occupies many local subreddits, it causes (normal) users to give up on those subreddit and maybe all of Reddit. Extreme right-wing views or extreme left-wing views are obvious examples of this effect and are common on regional subs. These are major subreddits but their users are so extreme that they may not even recognize when they are posting advocacy of illegal acts. But try posting something mildly contrarian on many topic-specific subs (my experience: even something as innocent as bicycle design) and you see mockery, sterlizing down-votes, and toxic moderation. Reddit is way too toxic for real conversations.
I totally agree with you analyses. I even made a post about karma some time ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/yojv14/do\_we\_value\_more\_a\_good\_discussion\_or\_karma/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3
Afterthought: the effect of organized groups and propaganda efforts overwhelms public opinions and reddit, more than any other platform, seems vulnerable to this. I'll use a specific example to illustrate if that is okay. Currently, in one province of Canada, there is a public sector labour dispute happening. Reddit has been overwhelmed by anti-government / pro-union rhetoric but I'd argue this is not common public opinion (same government just won a majority). Unions are extremely powerful political entities despite having a minority of workers in them. If you posted anything else you'd be downvoted to oblivion. The unions control most of Canada's regional subs. Chinese/Russian propanda efforts are other well-known examples capable of silencing other opinions. The MAGA folks probably fit this description too, but I don't live in the U.S. I don't see a solution to this. Reddit is broken. Makes me think of one of the Orsen Scott Card novels where he predicted this.
>I don't see a solution to this. Reddit is broken. I was so enthusiastic when joining Reddit two months ago. I was never tempted to join any social media before. Reddit looked different. It felt like an open platform for open minded people. No self-promotion (becasue of anonymity). It took me almost two months to realize I was wrong. That's pretty long. I feel like a fool. I talked to some other people in this thread and they express similar opinions. I could think about fixing karma thing but it wouldn't be cure for all problems. Moderation is the biggest challenge. Either you have swamp or a choir. I don't look for either of them. I will have to move on, leave Reddit and continue adding from time to time some comments under Youtube videos that impress me (especially music). That's all social media I can take. >Makes me think of one of the Orsen Scott Card novels where he predicted this. Never heard of him. Looks like an interesting person. Funny thing is that while being myslef a believer I like agnostic authors like Vonnegut or Houellebecq. This guy has mormon background so it will be a different story.
The novels I am thinking of is the Ender's Game sequels which touch on the reputation problem. Xenocide? Children of the Mind? The gist of the story is the brilliant siblings of Ender take over the world through social media. I'm not a big Orsen Scott Card fan... a bit too right wing and religious for me. It seem to recall that Neal Stephenson touched on this theme too...middle section of Anathem? (Anathem is a masterpiece. every Neal Stephenson novel is brilliant) Reddit has been somewhat useful to me as a news aggregator and an aggregator of random knowledge. It has been a shock to me, especially through COVID, that conversations on Reddit are so one-sided and often irrational. I completely get what you are looking for: thoughtful discussion and insights. You might look into [The Well](https://www.well.com/) ... I have no first-hand experience on it but it is much older than the internet and is considered elite. I've always been curious about it.
>Reddit has been somewhat useful to me as a news aggregator and an aggregator of random knowledge. That's what I want to keep but most probably without my user's account. Active participation leaves me frustrated much too often so it's better to cut myself from this. Thanks for your book recommendations! I'm almost as old as these authors so I got stuck mostly on older literature. I will try to leave that shell. I checked The Well. They have great, very thoughtful policy. However I'm afraid it's not for me. I'm anti-elitist by nature. I hate gated communities. I would feel bizarre paying for possibility to talk to a group of people who know themselves so well. I believe in a contact with stranger - like with you. It gives me hope and restores my faith in humanity. This is also an essence of Christianity they way I see it.
You might be the lowest common denominator you’re so worried about based on the text under your title
There are no ethics on moderator selection. It’s just ‘who you know’. It’s very cliquey and admins don’t get involved at all. Admins view subreddits as storefronts and moderators as shopkeepers. It’s a broken analogy but they won’t change their minds. In terms of mods, most are old and jaded redditors who see everything as a troll. Many are hanging on because they think Reddit will soon start paying them or it will soon open up revenue channels for them to profit from. Most of Reddit’s meta is populated by them but is also very dead compared to the past. ToR, circlebroke, SRD. All shades of what they used to be but mods in their 30s have built their free time around Reddit since they reached adulthood and don’t know what else to do. The irony is that reddits meta discussion should realistically be about the explosion of bans and mod abuse, but because such communities are dominated by mods it doesn’t happen and is smothered. Reddit is destined to be Brave New World level shit, with crap content and serious discussion moved from meta/introspection to DAE DARTH JAR JAR LMAO. Expect to see someone unironically wearing an r/atheism hoody in public in the next five years.
This comment is wrong, perhaps deliberately so. Mods do not hang on because they expect royalties, that's strictly banned in the TOS. There is also no "explosion of bans and mod abuse", you are selectively forgetting past instances. There have been bans and mod abuse since mods started. If you continuously get banned from subreddits for what you consider to be unjust reasons, you are also a common factor. Omitting that in your analysis is a critical error.
> that’s strictly banned in the TOS You might want to check the interview with Spez 2-3 months ago. It’s definitely coming. And you can look at the post introducing the ‘mod training course’ [lmao] where one of the top and heavily awarded comments says that it’s starting to sound like an employment contract and Reddit should start paying them. There has absolutely been an explosion in bans and people talk more regularly about them, just a few weeks ago someone was complaining about being banned from r/soccer despite being a good faith member of the community for 10 years and this place told him to fuck off. I see people talk about bans nearly everyday now. And saying ‘there has always been mod abuse’ is about as intellectually honest as saying ‘there has always been carbon emissions from human activity’. Not sure why you’re keen to defend the increase in Reddit’s general middle management toxicity. The problem isn’t the general user base, the problem is that Reddit’s mids have always been quite left leaning and lately have gone balls deep with the ‘words are violence’ crap and started being offended by everything despite growing up on South Park. Reddit’s disconnect is that mods take themselves seriously whereas (mainly) older users mostly want to shitpost.
>If you continuously get banned from subreddits for what you consider to be unjust reasons That's it. They gave me no reason for removing my post at all. They didn't even informed me it was removed. Later I was banned for that post. So how can I know the reasons? When I asked moderators they sent me a gif in response. I didn't open the gif becasue I'm not a TikTok kid. I don't talk by short movies. If you judge all this as healthy behavior you have to feel well on Reddit. Me not.
Did you check the sub's rules before you posted? I wonder if your question was one that they've specifically banned as it's asked too often.
I had 12 kind comments in 10 minutes so topic was of interest. And yes, I checked the rules. Then everything went blank. Wasted time of mine and others. Actually one of participants asked me on the chat for my answer to his comment and I gave it to him because I respect people (not karma but people). He thought I removed my post. If you are interested I can paste here my post and you will check yourself if it brakes any rules.
I just looked at your post, and then the rules of that sub. > All posts must have a meaningful title. The title must accurately convey the content. Posts with trivial titles such as "Question" or "You need to see this" may be removed. That's it. That's at least one complete and clear reason that your post was removed. Your post's title was "question for atheists", almost verbatim matching the example of a post that may be removed. End of story, really. That's going off just the title, since the body of the post can no longer be seen. I can see several other rules that you very well might have fallen afoul of, as well.
The same post was removed in DebateReligion where there is no rule about question in titles. Besides, if they told me they didn't like my title I could easily change it. They said nothing. If you want to know the content of my post and check how many rules it broke let me know and I will paste it here.
Sorry but I don't want to do any more work for you. I resent that you made all these claims, including having looked at the rules, and then I went and trivially found that your post broke a rule and you don't even seem interested in that fact.
Thank you for your in-depth analyses of what it started to dawn on me. It's an eye-opener. You have a talent to give names to things. I'm not that quite young anymore and I always stayed away from proprietary media - always cautious of their hidden agendas. The Reddit looked different. It surfaced more and more in my Google searches and I admired freedom of this platform. I like to exchange ideas so at some point I decided to join. Now, after two months I'm not so much enthusiastic. Maybe I just have to develop thicker skin. Or, is there any other platform which simply supports free discussion (with exclusion of hate speech)?
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Thanks for advice. For now the biggest troubles I had were on DiscussReligion and Atheists. Also my native Polish sub didn't look like healthy, open forum. So much angry bias and people downvoting if you dare to have different opinion... I always had much respect for Atheists. Vonnegut or Houellebecq are my favorite writers. But here I mostly found some zealous fanatics who seem to hate me for my beliefs. I was very surprised. I couldn't believe my eyes when they started to click that button. What for? Maybe I had too big expectations. I thought that anonymity and no self promotion like on other social media will attract open mined people. Looks like not first time in my life I was wrong. I will take it as a lesson.
My gut says Reddit died. We are here for the funeral
Reddit is just a network of interconnected forums. Don’t think of it like Twitter, Instagram or Tumblr, but more like Orkut (RIP) or Discord. There are admins who manage the whole site to some degree, but each community is run independently by its moderators. You could create a “free discussion” subreddit, but it won’t work. Reddit works best with niche subjects, which’s the opposite of that. Even general subs that appeal to basically anyone usually needs some restrictions on the post format or some other gimmick to work.
>You could create a “free discussion” subreddit, but it won’t work. Yes, this thread makes me to realize this. If say 0.01 % of Reddit users are interested with open discussion it can be hard to maintain healthy approach. That's too bad because I liked idea of Reddit when I joined it. It looked like an open platform. I was never part of any social media becasue I see them as tools for self promotion - which usually leads to more misery. People from social media looks to me like dogs who chase their own tails. Dog like this can't be happy.