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[–]whistlepig 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Reddit use to be full of hackers and some crazy racists back when it was good. That freedom of speech thing is what attracted everyone else. That was why the voting system was created. It allowed people to hide comments/posts below a specific voting threshold so the nervous people could avoid seeing most of the unpopular opinions like racists. That was the whole point of the voting system. It allowed the normies and the free speech zeolots (like me) to hang out together. And it worked great. Unfortunately there are too many who aren't interested in not seeing things they don't agree with as much as they want to forcibly stop others from thinking at all.

[–]ChillyChili 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

The problem is that you can't just simply search on controversial or bottom and keep up the convo anymore.

Unpopular by reddit investor standards can not remain. Bots/shills downvote until nonbot nonaligned views are beaten or beaten, but also users are banned/removed so that they cant participate and other like-minded folks dont even know they have an ally when they face banning/removal.

[–]whistlepig 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

exactly.

My point was just to say that for those first 3 years or so reddit was plenty fringe. For the sake of historic perspective.

[–]magnora7[S] 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I agree, but voat is the counter-argument about why having it too open can leave it open to having the site culture hijacked by extremists.

[–]whistlepig 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

perhaps.. or you just have to attract enough of the right community early on

Of course.. easy for me to say, since I haven't actually tried to do it like you have. ;]

[–]roguecanine 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Reddit didn't have the voting system right from the start?

[–]magnora7[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It didn't? I know reddit had votes before it even had subreddits, which would've been 2007-2008 or so, when I started reading it.