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Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

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Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#131

Post by zht »

Loeffelmann wrote: post #117
bryans wrote: post #73

Both Reddit's admins and their future-employee mods are completely out of control, in a way that makes Facebook's intentional topic manipulation seem tame by comparison. These people go out of their way to ban people for no reason -- constantly, every single day -- in a way that can only be described as intentionally abusive. They appear to get some kind of sadistic pleasure in reading ban appeals and denying them, k…

I got banned for harassment because I said that something was kind of gay.

did you think that it was homosexual in nature?

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#132

Post by nekcihc »

cainxinth wrote: post #118
archerx wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true and it is already having an effect. The amount of posts in the development sub reddit has declined so much it is borderline dead. For example the front page of r/javascript is mostly days old posts which means I can visit it once a week and not really miss anything and it has 1,873,376 subscribers! It seems people have recognized that the post quality was garbage and moved on to greener pastures. It…

I’ve been using Reddit since the beginning, and I still use and like it, but your ban for saying “using php is stupid” comment resonates. One of my biggest Reddit pet peeves is downvoting or punitive mod action in response to subjective opinions. It’s not a new problem, and it’s one that can happen in any forum with downvoting, but it drives me nuts. The downvote is not a disagree button!

>>The downvote is not a disagree button!

Downvote is a disagree button as it is perceived as such and that is an issue. Same functionality is in NH - it just has a higher treshold when you can use it, but not really that different in essence.

Banning for arguing is normal - from the times, when early web forums existed. Banning can be for any reasons - disagreeing with mod, arguing with someone, who is friends with mod. Mod is a god in forum. The solution to that is - either be a friend of mod or do not argue with idiots for idiotic reasons unless you are an idiot or simply want to be banned. PHP might be stupid or might not be stupid - who really cares in the end, when you log off from forum.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#133

Post by datavirtue »

vorejdajo wrote: post #101
beckman466 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recently it almost happened again with my current account (Reddit allows the creation of multiple usernames using the same email address,) were your two different accounts that were (1) permanently banned and (2) temporarily banned using the same email address?

Just a PSA: Email is entirely optional. You can create multiple accounts without email.

I had a ten year old account that was banned for not having an email address. There were various warnings asking me to supply the email address. I refused and the account was deleted. No issues other than this.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#134

Post by commandlinefan »

bryans wrote: post #73

Both Reddit's admins and their future-employee mods are completely out of control, in a way that makes Facebook's intentional topic manipulation seem tame by comparison. These people go out of their way to ban people for no reason -- constantly, every single day -- in a way that can only be described as intentionally abusive. They appear to get some kind of sadistic pleasure in reading ban appeals and denying them, k…

I'd honestly throw a party if Reddit completely collapsed under its own weight and its owners/investors lost everything they had... but I still haven't seen anything else that will replace the niche that it fills. As long as there's no alternative, they'll continue to make the rules.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#135

Post by bryans »

cainxinth wrote: post #118
archerx wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true and it is already having an effect. The amount of posts in the development sub reddit has declined so much it is borderline dead. For example the front page of r/javascript is mostly days old posts which means I can visit it once a week and not really miss anything and it has 1,873,376 subscribers! It seems people have recognized that the post quality was garbage and moved on to greener pastures. It…

I’ve been using Reddit since the beginning, and I still use and like it, but your ban for saying “using php is stupid” comment resonates. One of my biggest Reddit pet peeves is downvoting or punitive mod action in response to subjective opinions. It’s not a new problem, and it’s one that can happen in any forum with downvoting, but it drives me nuts. The downvote is not a disagree button!

The downvote button is Reddit's second biggest problem. It was meant to signal that a piece of content was either off-topic or broke a rule, as a way to alleviate the pressure of moderation. That's a fine theory, but it's simply not possible in an anonymous and unaccountable environment. It increases the trolling and makes it easy for bad actors to both control competitor content and promote their own.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#136

Post by commandlinefan »

darebak wrote: post #125
k8sToGo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought mods are unpaid?

Mods are not paid by Reddit, admins are paid but I think that some admins are also modding a few subs.

I'm conspiratorial enough to believe that some of the power mods are being paid, but not by reddit.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#137

Post by barneygale »

Loeffelmann wrote: post #117
bryans wrote: post #73

Both Reddit's admins and their future-employee mods are completely out of control, in a way that makes Facebook's intentional topic manipulation seem tame by comparison. These people go out of their way to ban people for no reason -- constantly, every single day -- in a way that can only be described as intentionally abusive. They appear to get some kind of sadistic pleasure in reading ban appeals and denying them, k…

I got banned for harassment because I said that something was kind of gay.

Good.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#138

Post by liara_k »

Likely because bots and troll farms are totally out of control, and they don't have a more accurate way of fighting it. IMHO, this is also the reason behind some of the heavy-handed moderation on some subreddits. AFAICT, as bad as it is already, this is only going to get worse as (1) NLP AI gets better and (2) there remains no positive defense against sybil attacks.

Just curious... I'm assuming people have already thought of doing a pseudonymous web of trust--or is that somehow inherently impossible even ignoring the old spam-solution form checkbox for universal adoption?

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#139

Post by Hakashiro »

I believed in Reddit very strongly. I did. And then they started pulling off all these user hostile moves. "This community is better in the app" when I wasn't logged in. I understand why. They need to protect their investors' interests: which is collect as much data as possible. But if what you're doing is introducing friction to your own users then that seems like a clearly stupid move. Then again of course Reddit admins don't know if I'm a user because, after all, I didn't log in. But perhaps I just wanted to check out a specific posts in my phone web view without opening the post in the fucking app?

So I deleted my account. And I don't miss it too much, I never really found actually interesting content on it. On the other hand I've regained so much time that I used to invest in mindless scrolling.

Re: Tell HN: Reddit accounts cancellation/suspension caused by VPN usage

#140

Post by segfaultbuserr »

datavirtue wrote: post #133
vorejdajo wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a PSA: Email is entirely optional. You can create multiple accounts without email.

I had a ten year old account that was banned for not having an email address. There were various warnings asking me to supply the email address. I refused and the account was deleted. No issues other than this.

Take your E-mail address seriously. After a security incident, Reddit sysadmins may force an E-mail verification and password reset. I lost my first Reddit account (Yes, I lost two Reddit accounts) because of that - the E-mail address was gone since a long time ago but I didn't bother to change that, so I couldn't complete the verification.
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