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Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

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Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#291

Most of the "free and open" internet is centrally controlled. HN quickly shadow bans anybody who goes against the dominant ideology.

We ban accounts that post tedious ideological boilerplate and get into lame flamewars. People like to flatter themselves with "goes against the dominant ideology" rhetoric (I, the noble freethinker, unjustly suppressed by the servile mods, etc. - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...), but really it's just tawdry internet stuff that we've all heard countless times.

That's why comments like this never come with links - because readers could then see for themselves and make up their own minds - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that shadowbanning was a moderation technique reserved for the admins, and unavailable to subreddit moderators; IIRC, it also applied to the entire website.

Some moderators do a soft shadowban where they simply delete every post you make in their sub with no notification. The is functionally like a shadowban - you can see the post in your history and have no way of knowing it was deleted without signing out or using a different account, other than a suspicious lack of votes or replies.

> you can see the post in your history and have no way of knowing it was deleted without signing out or using a different account, other than a suspicious lack of votes or replies.

Reveddit [1] or its accompanying extension [2] can alert you when this happens. I'm the author. You can see the behavior yourself on r/CantSayAnything [3] or read more in the FAQ [4].

[1] https://www.reveddit.com/about/

[2] https://www.reveddit.com/add-ons/direct/

[3] https://www.reddit.com/r/CantSayAnything/

[4] https://www.reveddit.com/about/faq/

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#293
post #16

There's a network of Dutch subreddits, 99% of which are managed by the same clique of mods. Recently I noticed comments I had posted in those subs over the last few months had completely been ignored. It turns out I have been shadowbanned, and not just on the primary /r/thenetherlands sub, but on every single one of the communities they manage. There is no apparent reason for them to have done this to me. My messages…

How do you check if you are shadowbanned?

Check https://www.reveddit.com . It can indicate site-level or subreddit-level shadow bans.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#294
post #5

Same with the coronavirus related subs last year: https://i.4pcdn.org/pol/1582202873483.jpg It was discovered and some of the mods removed themselves. Honestly I just think they go by another name.

That screenshot is from /pol/ so I'm curious if the complaints about "censorship" were that people couldn't call it a china flu.

I remember seeing links to reveddit, a site I made, over this. A competing subreddit claimed censorship [1] by posting low-res screenshots of removed posts [2]. It was just a way to drum up support for their own subreddit. The screenshots were misleading because every subreddit with any history has tons of removed posts, and that's the default view on reveddit. I'm 99% sure most users understood this right away though.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Wuhan_Flu/comments/ev6yhy/the_new_s...

[2] https://i.imgur.com/kL8I8qy.png

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might not be forever. I had an admin shadowban me once across the entire site for daring to post on r/indiegaming and r/gaming, two subs I commented on constantly, a single link to a video game I made over six months (well at least that's the best reason I can come up with, I was never told a reason why, I know certain subreddits are super anti-self-promotion for some reason though). I didn't even notice for six m…

Honest question: Why would you continue using a site that treats you like this? I would go find something else to share my limited attention with. I remember getting banned on Fark (remember them?) and I simply never went back. If you don't want me participating, I won't add free content to your business. I was even a paying subscriber there, and dropped the subscription immediately. People need to start cutting ties…

I did stay away for about three years (my old Reddit account is like 14 years old at this point). I don't remember what specifically got me to look at their board game subreddit, but I started looking at it without being a member for a while, and eventually I wanted to comment on them enough that I said 'Screw it, I'll join, stick to this one subreddit, and not do the thing that got me shadowbanned.'

I did stick with just that subreddit for quite some time. It was the Covid-19 pandemic that led to me branching out to other subreddits (I wanted to check r/coronavirus specifically) more and discovering my old account was back.

One thing I never did go back to, though, was r/indiegames and r/gaming, the two I most likely got banned from.

Also I don't really bother with r/boardgames anymore and check other subreddits more now. There are Facebook groups that work better for that, as I can see notifications from friends that are in the industry and make sure I keep up with their posts and comments.

Reddit is huge, me not participating isn't going to cause any changes in how the site works at all. I find value in the site still, so I still use it.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#296
post #16

There's a network of Dutch subreddits, 99% of which are managed by the same clique of mods. Recently I noticed comments I had posted in those subs over the last few months had completely been ignored. It turns out I have been shadowbanned, and not just on the primary /r/thenetherlands sub, but on every single one of the communities they manage. There is no apparent reason for them to have done this to me. My messages…

I make music and music videos, and used to enjoy posting the work to reddit very much. About 2 years ago the tone of posting on reddit changed to a ban on self promotion. I really never understood how that was supposed to be a valid policy, and saw certain accounts break that rule without any sort of intervention at any time they wanted to.

The fact is that reddit is really an undercover "upvoted for profit" front-site now. After they were done building the community from democracy, it changed to something else, a place where corporate and paying interests now are what push mediocre and triggering content to front pages... They banned me permanently based on my IP. and stripped all 3 of my accounts from access to my subreddit that I spend a lot of time building, and while I could easily get around that, I realized that it's simply easier and better to just work on my own web sites and not have to keep posting to gain traction for sharing my original work.

The same is happening on many social sites that have massive user bases but high overhead... It's not sustainable in the long run, because they will never be able to make everyone succeed no matter how much they pay.

We're reaching a new plateau/failure cliff for large-scale social media, and so many creators and talented people have been chewed up and spit out by the false promises those platforms once made. Now the focus is to go back to real organic growth by starting locally, and cutting losses with social sites...

Myspace is gone now, a neat and tidy profit for good ole Tom, remembered fondly by most... I'm not sure that modern social sites will have the same fate, nor be able to offer the same value to a large community as Myspace once did.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#297
post #291

Most of the "free and open" internet is centrally controlled. HN quickly shadow bans anybody who goes against the dominant ideology.

We ban accounts that post tedious ideological boilerplate and get into lame flamewars. People like to flatter themselves with "goes against the dominant ideology" rhetoric (I, the noble freethinker, unjustly suppressed by the servile mods, etc. - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... ), but really it's just tawdry internet stuff that we've all heard countless times. That's why comments like…

For a moderator you sure love to put down people and call them names. I think it’s really vicious and inappropriate.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#298
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some moderators do a soft shadowban where they simply delete every post you make in their sub with no notification. The is functionally like a shadowban - you can see the post in your history and have no way of knowing it was deleted without signing out or using a different account, other than a suspicious lack of votes or replies.

> you can see the post in your history and have no way of knowing it was deleted without signing out or using a different account, other than a suspicious lack of votes or replies. Reveddit [1] or its accompanying extension [2] can alert you when this happens. I'm the author. You can see the behavior yourself on r/CantSayAnything [3] or read more in the FAQ [4]. [1] https://www.reveddit.com/about/ [2] https://www.rev…

Good to know, thanks! I use /r/shadowban currently. Providing more resources in this area is definitely appreciated.

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#299
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup! It shadowbans some domains too. If you're unlucky enough to write blog posts on the shadowbanned domains you won't be notified in any way at all and your submissions will still appear in the listings while you're logged in. Very frustrating.

Can you email me a domain? I'd like to try this. My email is in my bio. Thanks.

The domain is read.cash

Re: Almost all of the top subreddits are moderated by the same people

#300
post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you email me a domain? I'd like to try this. My email is in my bio. Thanks.

The domain is read.cash

Looking at the site it’s not surprising that they’ve banned it but yeah you’re right. It’s completely hidden.
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