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Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

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Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#51

Post by ramphastidae »

eganist wrote: post #4

Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. We were one of the subs "called out" as being controlled by Gallowboob with the original post and subsequent reposts. We (buu700 and I) added Gallowboob some years back largely to have insight into how other teams modded their subs at a time when we were growing quickly and needed to know what to do to keep up. While useful in meeting that goal, we quickly realized it was pretty…

Why do you free work for a for-profit social network, especially if you say yourself that the work negatively impacts your mental health and that the community you are moderating is toxic?

What are you getting out of this?

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#52

Post by Goronmon »

haunter wrote: post #14
eganist wrote: post #4

Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. We were one of the subs "called out" as being controlled by Gallowboob with the original post and subsequent reposts. We (buu700 and I) added Gallowboob some years back largely to have insight into how other teams modded their subs at a time when we were growing quickly and needed to know what to do to keep up. While useful in meeting that goal, we quickly realized it was pretty…

>how meaninglessly violent people become when their posts are modded Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs. Most people get angry when someone removes their post and yet they see it reposted and approved hours or even minutes later (Gallowboob is infamous for that but regular users do it too)

Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs.

This is a common refrain I've heard going back well before Reddit ever existed.

I helped moderate the Vault Network boards for a while back when they were a thing.

Its hard to overstate how amazingly...disturbed and vitriolic some of the individuals of a community can be. And dishonest. And spiteful.

No amount of transparency helps when all it takes to refute any evidence is to label the mods as lying or "corrupt".

Let's say a user says something bad and you mod the post and give them a warning. You tell them exactly what the offense was and why it was moderated. They might even act civil in response.

Then you see later them talk about "X mod totally censored their post for no reason and refuses to explain why. X and the rest of the mods are totally corrupt".

So, what do you do? Post a screenshot of the private messages exchanged (something, for instance, we weren't supposed to do)? Take a screenshot of a browser window with the "mod view" (aka. uncensored) of the original post? Something said user will point out can be easily edited because well, its a browser showing a website, not exactly hard to alter).

And that happens every day, all the time constantly. And no one is being paid and there is a constant stream of other stuff you are trying to stay on top of.

And sure, some of the mods are shitty and "corrupt" in a sense. But I would say its as much a reflection of the community itself as anything.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#53

Post by filleduchaos »

ptsdthrowaway33 wrote: post #46
eganist wrote: post #4

Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. We were one of the subs "called out" as being controlled by Gallowboob with the original post and subsequent reposts. We (buu700 and I) added Gallowboob some years back largely to have insight into how other teams modded their subs at a time when we were growing quickly and needed to know what to do to keep up. While useful in meeting that goal, we quickly realized it was pretty…

As someone who was mentally and physically abused as a child, I'm so sick of people on the internet saying they have PTSD from mean comments that they can ignore and escape from. You cannot escape abuse from someone that is supposed to be protecting you in childhood. You cannot escape from the trauma of war when you sign up or are conscripted to be a soldier. You cannot escape the horror of death being an EMT. Seeing…

Unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be) PTSD and trauma in general are not yours to define or gatekeep.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#54

Post by dariusj18 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #21
BitwiseFool wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a moderator you have the power to control what people see - subscribers and visitors alike. To me, it's easy to see how moderators with an agenda can curate content to match their views. It also wouldn't surprise me if some moderators are compensated - under the radar - by influencers and marketers.

When I first started on Reddit like 10 years ago, it leaned pretty libertarian (pro Ron Paul, pro free speech, etc.). I noticed over time that it leaned farther and farther left, and I wondered what had happened to all the previous users. Then there came a conspiracy theory that a handful of users had gamed the moderation system to take control of the tone of the site overall - especially the one that's the topic of…

I think instead you would find that it has only become more partisan. Stratification of subs where people with opposing ideologies don't mix, and if they do they get hella down-voted.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#55

Post by teddyh »

Someone1234 wrote: post #41
haunter wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>how meaninglessly violent people become when their posts are modded Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs. Most people get angry when someone removes their post and yet they see it reposted and approved hours or even minutes later (Gallowboob is infamous for that but regular users do it too)

> Maybe if mods were more transparent across all the subs. Don't get me started. Particularly "muting" posts with auto-moderator (silently hiding them for others without notification/warning/explanation). It was originally created for spam control but is regularly abused for generic moderation. It needs more controls placed on it. To give a recent example, I wrote a long reply in /r/fitness's daily discussion but it…

> /r/politics has a huge dictionary of phases and idioms that result in auto muting. None of which are defined in their rules.

This is true here on HN too. One such word that I’ve seen to cause comments get auto-killed is “m∗sturbation” (censored for obvious reasons), and I am sure there are others.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#56

Post by ciguy »

I was once banned from a travel sub for suggesting to a 19 year old woman asking about safety in Egypt that it might not be the best place to travel by herself. I had been there myself and know women who have traveled Egypt on their own who also recommended against it.

My comment was seized upon by mods of the sub as:

1: Mansplaining (She didn't specifically ask for male opinions so I should shut up).

2: Racist Hate Speech (Because saying Egypt might not be perfectly safe - something I would also say about many cities in the USA - is somehow racist to Egyptians).

3: Sexist (Women can do anything that men can do and I was apparently suggesting otherwise).

I was summarily banned from that sub plus a bunch of other travel subs by the same few mods. I don't know what the answer is for moderation on Reddit but whatever they are doing right now is definitely not working.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#57

Post by snazz »

ptsdthrowaway33 wrote: post #46
eganist wrote: post #4

Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. We were one of the subs "called out" as being controlled by Gallowboob with the original post and subsequent reposts. We (buu700 and I) added Gallowboob some years back largely to have insight into how other teams modded their subs at a time when we were growing quickly and needed to know what to do to keep up. While useful in meeting that goal, we quickly realized it was pretty…

As someone who was mentally and physically abused as a child, I'm so sick of people on the internet saying they have PTSD from mean comments that they can ignore and escape from. You cannot escape abuse from someone that is supposed to be protecting you in childhood. You cannot escape from the trauma of war when you sign up or are conscripted to be a soldier. You cannot escape the horror of death being an EMT. Seeing…

This is a little more serious than "you're a piece of shit", no?

> I've been dealing with some on and off after a post some years ago where somebody who requested advice followed through with the best course of action only to find that his wife killed their kids soon after.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#58

Post by elliekelly »

ptsdthrowaway33 wrote: post #46
eganist wrote: post #4

Relationship Advice lead-ish mod here. We were one of the subs "called out" as being controlled by Gallowboob with the original post and subsequent reposts. We (buu700 and I) added Gallowboob some years back largely to have insight into how other teams modded their subs at a time when we were growing quickly and needed to know what to do to keep up. While useful in meeting that goal, we quickly realized it was pretty…

As someone who was mentally and physically abused as a child, I'm so sick of people on the internet saying they have PTSD from mean comments that they can ignore and escape from. You cannot escape abuse from someone that is supposed to be protecting you in childhood. You cannot escape from the trauma of war when you sign up or are conscripted to be a soldier. You cannot escape the horror of death being an EMT. Seeing…

Calling someone with PTSD “weak” is exactly how society brushed aside soldiers and child abuse survivors with PTSD for decades.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#59

Post by Ajedi32 »

thebouv wrote: post #5

So, I don't get it. Why does it matter if a few volunteer mods manage a ton of subs? Isn't it hard to do? So they have a hard job? And it's volunteer? And .. what? I don't understand the outrage directed at mods I guess. Note: I'm a light Reddit user. I follow a handful of subs. And I can't name a single mod of any of them. Maybe this is more meaningful for people who spend more time on the site and are more involved…

Mods on Reddit aren't _just_ mods; they're more like administrators for the subreddits they moderate. Not only do they enforce the rules of each sub, they also have free rein to decide what those rules are in the first place, and there are no formal mechanisms in place for community oversight or recourse for moderator actions.

If the head mod of a sub about cats decides that henceforth only posts about dogs will be allowed, that's how it'll be from now on and there's nothing anyone can do about it short of everyone leaving the sub or direct intervention from Reddit employees (pretty rare).

This isn't usually an issue; for the most part moderators are benevolent dictators. But for large subs, especially those which are automatically recommended to new users by Reddit and those which deal with more serious real-world topics like politics, you can imagine how this dynamic might create a certain level of tension between moderators and the users of the subreddits they control.

Re: Reddit's top user leaves platform after harassment

#60

Post by txcwpalpha »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #12
thebouv wrote: post #5

So, I don't get it. Why does it matter if a few volunteer mods manage a ton of subs? Isn't it hard to do? So they have a hard job? And it's volunteer? And .. what? I don't understand the outrage directed at mods I guess. Note: I'm a light Reddit user. I follow a handful of subs. And I can't name a single mod of any of them. Maybe this is more meaningful for people who spend more time on the site and are more involved…

As a moderator you have the power to control what people see - subscribers and visitors alike. To me, it's easy to see how moderators with an agenda can curate content to match their views. It also wouldn't surprise me if some moderators are compensated - under the radar - by influencers and marketers.

>It also wouldn't surprise me if some moderators are compensated - under the radar - by influencers and marketers.

In GallowBoob's case, he's admitted before that posting on reddit is his job. He used to work at Unilad, getting paid by his company to promote viral shit all over reddit. I think now he's moved on from Unilad but does the same stuff at other companies.

It's pretty egregious that reddit admins allow him free reign to use reddit as his own astroturfing platform. I say good riddance to him if he truly is "done", though I have my suspicions that it's just a ploy for him to make an alt and do the same stuff with it.

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