all 17 comments

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This was the first time all 50 top posts were removed. More at https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditMinusMods/

[–]Vigte 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Posts #3, 5, 19 and 41 stand out to me.

[–]magnora7 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (12 children)

Yup, just got banned today from a subreddit because I had the gall to tell a mod that maybe he shouldn't be telling people to be respectful in the comments, while he has a "shitler" mod flair next to his name.

I was subsequently memory-holed, as were all my comments in that thread (even the ones unrelated to that conversation)

I have been non-personed by the mods there. Still pissed about it: https://saidit.net/s/MeanwhileOnReddit/comments/edx/just_got_banned_by_a_mod_on_reddits/

But this is the exact reason we made saidit. Because this shit is happening more and more. They are going the way of digg. The only thing reddit has going for them is the illusion that people get to have their say, when in reality anyone with any real opinions gets boxed out in a very hidden way, like I was today. Then your OP post here shows that it's just corrupt beyond all measure

[–][deleted] 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

Well I guess he was right about being a shitler. Yeah the whole mod concept seems to be not working out so well on reddit. I don't know if we're sufficiently different or destined to go down the same path. At least with our public modlogs, users can see a mod is banning for dissenting opinions/feels.

[–]magnora7 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

At least with our public modlogs, users can see a mod is banning for dissenting opinions/feels.

Well we've got that, but also we the admins are not corrupt. On reddit a corrupt mod does corrupt stuff, and the admins look the other way or pat them on the back. Here on saidit, I imagine we'd intervene to get rid of bad mods who are acting poorly, instead of encouraging them.

I think that creates a top-down ripple effect, and is the main reason the mod situation on reddit is so bad. Because the admins don't properly oversee the mods, and in fact seem to protect their bad behavior. I think this one aspect will be our saving grace.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Part of me feels that there should be a mod policy and supporting code where mods can only ban for a rule violation from the sub's publicly posted rules or sitewide rules. If someone wants a personal sub where they are dictatorial and ban happy, then they will be forced to declare a rule like "Doing anything that upsets the moderators". Then people might choose to ignore the sub for having this rule. I donno.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Part of me feels that there should be a mod policy and supporting code where mods can only ban for a rule violation from the sub's publicly posted rules or sitewide rules.

Yeah it's not a bad idea, to have a dictionary of pre-defined rules that they must select one of in order to be able to ban the person. Someone else was suggesting that too.

I think a lot of subreddits have this too though, and at the end of the day the mod can just shoehorn it in to one of the rules if they want.

The real problem is that when the mods ban someone, and all their comments disappear, there's no accountability. There's no way for a 3rd party to go "This banning didn't make sense, because I see the comment and the reason why it was banned, and I don't agree with it" and register that complaint in a meaningful way. There's no one modding the mod actions, so to speak.

I think our showing the modlog like we have is one great step toward helping that. But I almost feel like there needs to be a way for people to see what's been deleted along with the reasons why, and then be able to make a judgement on that mod's actions, and then register that judgement with the saidit system somehow, in a public way.

So basically if some mod is just being a jerk and banning people for no reason, then there will be a lot of registered complaints against that mod by users who see what's going on, and examples of that mod making bad judgement calls in saidit's public record.

The problem is with how it happens on reddit is it just all gets memory-holed so that the mods (and admins by extension) don't end up looking bad, by removing all evidence. So no one ever knows if they made a good call or not, and there's nowhere to even have that discussion. So it turns in to these little dictatorships, which ends up killing the website.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

there needs to be a way for people to see what's been deleted along with the reasons why

We could change how deletions work by leaving the content intact, and also force mods to type in a reason for ban/removal, that wouldn't be too hard.

register that judgement with the saidit system somehow, in a public way

We could have a saidit sub /s/modwatch or /s/mod_transparency or something where people could post and discuss.

Your assessment makes a lot of sense to me.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

We could change how deletions work by leaving the content intact,

I like this, but can we make it hidden until the user mouses over or clicks a [reveal] button or something. Just because most things that get deleted will be garbage, so it makes sense to hide them, but they should be accessible for anyone who wants to see them.

I like the idea of /s/modwatch for additional discussion and where people could bring up discussion about potentially-corrupt mods without worry of being censored for doing so. Then they'll be able to link back to their comment that led to the ban, which anyone can see, which should be followed by the reason the mod banned the person.

We can just make a site rule that any time a mod bans a person from their sub, they must explain why in a comment below the offending comment why the person being banned, visible to everyone. And any mod who doesn't do this gets a warning, then gets let go as a mod if they fail to do it again. I think it makes sense to have a bit of "paperwork" for the mods when they ban someone via this ban-explanation comment, so they have to think about it rather than just do ban willy-nilly. The mods should be afraid of offending the users, not the other way around like it is on reddit, to put it another way.

I think this combination of solutions would do a lot, and wouldn't be terribly difficult to put in to practice.

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

Amen, sounds good. So mods will be required to post a comment for removing a post, removing a comment, and banning a user. What about marking as spam? And wanting to ban a user for abuse of mod mail/harassment wouldn't really have a place for the mod to comment.

The spoiler idea sounds good, we need to fix those anyway. I suppose we could instead show "[deleted/removed]" in the main post view like how it is now, but then if you view it through the modlog you get the original content.

I don't know if this covers the extreme dox cases, where stuff shouldn't be publicly viewable, but it sounds good for the 80%.

The mods should be afraid of offending the users

yes

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

So mods will be required to post a comment for removing a post, removing a comment, and banning a user. What about marking as spam?

Marking as spam can still result in the mod replying "Removed because it's spam". This is what I do when I remove spam posts, I warn them in the comments "Ads go in /s/ads please, last warning" and then when they do it again, I ban them and comment "Banned for not following site rules, ignoring spam warnings".

Something like that. I think every mod action that censors someone else should leave a paper trail.

And wanting to ban a user for abuse of mod mail/harassment wouldn't really have a place for the mod to comment.

That's a fair point, but they should just block that user then. That's not justification to ban someone from a sub, imo. They have to do something public to get banned from the public place. Messages between users are just between those users, and shouldn't affect people being banned from subs and so on.

I suppose we could instead show "[deleted/removed]" in the main post view like how it is now, but then if you view it through the modlog you get the original content.

Yeah we can do it that way until we get the spoiler system working. I'd like it to be visible right along with the rest of the comments. I don't want it so a user has to dig through 5 pages in order to see what happened, that'll ensure only super-motivated parties will take enough interest to do anything, which will invite corruption.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Got it. Captured as #2 on our list.

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

This all points to why Reddit is going to fail. Countless Reddit replacements are popping up, and ones like Saidit and Vote are growing quickly. Even this new dissenter app and site will take people away from Reddit. Turns out people don't like being censored, silenced, and erased. Weird...

[–]magnora7 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yup. And before this there was digg.com, a site similar to reddit, which fell much quicker and more spectacularly because it didn't have the subreddit/sub system, and reddit learned from it but is basically going down the same route.

This was the straw that broke the camel's back for digg, it's an interesting read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_encryption_key_controversy

That and the site redesign they pushed that hid advertisements as real content, all 3 of those redesigns triggered exoduses from digg to reddit. Which is basically what reddit is doing now, and people are starting to leave

[–]useless_aether 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

savage. is this the new management, bloody chinese?

[–]magnora7 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No way, it's just the trend that's already been in place for at least 5 years now. It's just continuing down that path. The Chinese investors might have accelerated things, but they didn't change the path already in place