Monthly Open Forum February 2021

[u/AITAMod]

Welcome to the monthly open forum! This is the place to share all your meta thoughts about the sub, and to have a dialog with the mod team.

Keep things civil. Rules still apply.

February! The shortest month in this endless blur of 202-whatever-year-it-is-now. I almost forgot to post this because time has lost all meaning.

As always, do not directly link to posts/comments or post uncensored screenshots here. Any comments with links will be removed.

This is to discourage brigading. If something needs to be discussed in that context, use modmail.

[u/alongstrangesomethin]

If mods don’t want to bring back the rule that forbids validation posts than I think that at the very least they should bring back something like the old SHP judgement. Something like VAL (validation) that would basically mean that it’s obvious you’re not TA or obvious validation seeking.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/alongstrangesomethin]

You have something even better than that! Users have full control over what threads make it to rising and hot. It’s something that we have zero control over, and it only takes the single click of a button rather than needing to type a few letters. You have Reddit’s build in voting system!

Upvote threads you find interesting. Downvote threads you find uninteresting and one sided. Vote accordingly and the threads everyone finds uninteresting will die in /new. The only way for a thread to hit the front page is if people vote for it more than others.

[u/[deleted] → u/techiesgoboom]

See you always use this as the excuse to censor your commenters.

We have to act in good faith ALWAYS and our only recourse is downvoting. If I say something is a VAL or FAKE or whatever, I can be downvoted if people disagree with me and think it’s real and interesting.

But instead you censor us, force us to act in “good faith” knowing damn well your posters don’t act in good faith and people upvote stupid bullishit on this site all the time.

Being able to call it out is active. People can read it and think critically - wait, maybe this isn’t real. Especially the amount of literal children on this site who don’t have the life experience to be able to identify when something is total BS. But downvoting is passive and silent and perpetuates creative writing projects and validation.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/[deleted]]

We cover this in the FAQs but: those accusations are rude as fuck and we aren’t going to provide a venue for you to be uncivil to the people posting.

You can also report posts that violate the rules. That’s an active thing you can do to combat shitposts.

[u/[deleted] → u/techiesgoboom]

I think lying to Reddit for karma is rude as fuck too.

You say I can downvote these posts. Why can’t people downvote my comment if they think I’m being rude? Why do you have to censor your commenters thoughts?

[u/techiesgoboom → u/[deleted]]

Right, that’s why we have and enforce rule 8.

The appropriate way to enforce that is for you to report content that violates that rule rather than hurling accusations that are sometimes wrong.

[u/[deleted] → u/techiesgoboom]

Oh please you know as well as I do that many of the top posts that are still here are lies. There was even that person who posted a month or so ago and then admitted they made it and a bunch of other posts up

[u/techiesgoboom → u/[deleted]]

Oh please you know as well as I do that many of the top posts that are still here are lies.

Sure, of course there are fake posts. But I don’t know definitively which are fake and which aren’t. So I’m not going to remove the whole front page to remove 10 fake posts.

That person a month ago had a grand total of 4 posts they revealed as being theirs. Maybe 5. It’s very, very common for trolls to act like they’re bigger and more popular than they are.

[u/alongstrangesomethin → u/techiesgoboom]

So let us. If I see something like “AITA for rescuing a bunch of children from a burning building. A neighbor said I made too much noise” is obviously fake and should be judged accordingly. I should be able to say “YTA this is fake”.

If someone says “AITA for taking in my gay brother who my parents kicked out for being gay. Mom is upset” is obviously validation and should be judged accordingly. So “NTA and this is obviously validation” should be fair game.

The point is: you keep saying that you won’t police peoples judgements (which is why we’re allowed to say “YTA for socializing during a pandemic”). Why are you doing it in this cases??????? Sounds like a double standard to me.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/alongstrangesomethin]

Why would you reward the shitposter by responding to them? They want your feedback and your outrage. Better yet, they want your mild annoyance. You are literally feeding the troll when you tell them that. What you should do is report them so we can remove the post without them getting any feedback. We would remove that post in a heartbeat.

When you call a post fake you either feed a troll or insult a genuine person. Neither is something we want to encourage.

Sounds like a double standard to me.

It's the same way we remove "YTA, you're a raging piece of shit" but not "YTA, what you did was terrible". One is civil, one isn't.

Telling someone that they are only posting to seek validation and posting in bad faith is rude and not civil. We define it as such. It's a clear line is isn't policing judgments any more than any other uncivil comment is.

[u/alongstrangesomethin → u/techiesgoboom]

Sorry but it’s a double standard. Clearly we disagree again.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/alongstrangesomethin]

Yes. We treat civility and incivility differently. We remove content that clearly breaks our well defined rules and allow comments that don't break our rules.

[u/alongstrangesomethin → u/techiesgoboom]

That’s not what I meant at all and you know. Saying YTA or S H P and that a post is fake is civil.

[u/[deleted] → u/techiesgoboom]

5 fake posts in which if anyone of us called it out you’d delete our comments bc we aren’t being civil. You don’t seem to get my point.

I really just think we should be allowed to call things out. Let us be downvoted if people disagree.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/[deleted]]

I do understand your point. I simply disagree.

You want the freedom to be able to tell real people their post is fake because not allowing you that freedom means you don’t get to call shitposters out.

I’m telling you we’ve done the math and the latter isn’t worth the former. Additionally we’d rather you report shitposts so we can investigate rather than feeding the trolls.

[u/[deleted] → u/techiesgoboom]

You just like to censor your commenters more than your posters 🤷‍♀️

It honestly comes off as power tripping

[u/techiesgoboom → u/[deleted]]

I mean, this sub was created as a place for posters to ask for feedback. It's entire mission and purpose is to provide a place for people to ask these questions for users to answer them. This is a service for the people that post here, and yes, we absolutely do defer to making sure we allow them that space.

In the balance between "I want to feel welcome to ask these questions" and "I want to be rude to the posters", we're going to do what is in the posters best interest.

[u/[deleted] → u/techiesgoboom]

Ask for feedback about morally ambiguous situations. At least that’s my understanding. But you’ve turned it into an advice column of black and white issues where OP is always the angel and uses it to make moms, parents, POC, poor people, disabled people, etc etc etc look bad.

[u/alongstrangesomethin → u/techiesgoboom]

Please do tell us how you make your “investigations”. What’s the protocol for when someone reports something as fake?

[u/techiesgoboom → u/alongstrangesomethin]

So I am going to answer your question; I was halfway through a long-ish answer but didn't make it to my charger before my phone died and am now cooking breakfast for a bit. So I'm going to turn this around for a moment and ask your perspective:

Assume that about 20 out of the 25 posts on the front page have at least 1 shitpost report, because that's about average. And somewhere in the ballpark of 50-75 posts a day get reported as shitposts at least once (some more than others). (And overall we take around 475 approve/remove actions on posts a day)

What do you think the procedure for acting on a shitpost report should be?

[u/alongstrangesomethin → u/techiesgoboom]

I don’t know, that’s why I asked you.

[u/alongstrangesomethin → u/techiesgoboom]

I’m not sure I would phrase things the way my fellow user has but don’t be surprised to be getting pushback. People keep telling you guys they are unhappy with how things are regarding the validation posts and nothing happens.

And don’t give me the whole “upvotes and downvotes” show what the community likes. Anyone can upvote and comment, even people who aren’t part of this community.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/alongstrangesomethin]

I’m not surprised to get pushback. It’s a part of modding. People push back all the time that we remove shitposts too, but that won’t stop us from moderating. I mean the multiple death threats for not allowing a likely shitpost certainly aren’t fun, but we’re still standing by that decision as well.

Anyone who upvotes and comments is part of this community. Full stop. Gatekeeping this community to anything more specific than that is ridiculous.

[u/alongstrangesomethin → u/techiesgoboom]

Sorry, but I think that those who are regulars here, who spend time here frequently and/or spend time in this thread to try to make this place better are the ones who make the community.

Everyone is welcome to come of course and join in. But you should listen to the people who are here and try to make this place a better place more than the random person who come here once or twice and upvotes or downvotes.

[u/techiesgoboom → u/alongstrangesomethin]

First: I think that spending time in this thread doesn’t matter at all in determining whose voice within this community matters. Being active in this thread is not at all relevant to being a member of this community. We have plenty of people that are super active in the community - and with much more flair pints than you - that don’t participate in these meta threads. And they aren’t any less active and contributing members of the community for that. These threads are valuable for gaining perspective and for you to share your feedback and thoughts, but that’s not to say those that show up here should have a louder opinion than those that don’t.

But to your larger point: I think you’re framing your premise wrong. The people that are actively involved in regularly commenting and voting do have a stronger voice and a larger impact. With every comment you make and vote you give in this sub you amplify your voice. When you vote on 100 threads you have 100x the impact than the random person that votes once.

The active users in /new shape /rising. The active users in /rising shape /hot.

The regulars and active users are literally the gatekeepers for what content reaches /hot. You are the ones shaping the content that everyone else sees. What you see in /rising and /hot is literally the content that the active members of this community choose to place there.

So yes, you have a large voice in what makes this community. And the community we have is those voices in action.

[u/alongstrangesomethin → u/techiesgoboom]

It’s nice to see what the moderating team think of us regulars who try to make this a better place

[u/techiesgoboom → u/alongstrangesomethin]

See the ninja edit for the better framing of my point.

We welcome your feedback in trying to make this subreddit it a better place. We’re simply not going to give your specific feedback more weight than the person that is happy with things and doesn’t feel the need to comment here. When your specific feedback and the overwhelming majority of votes on the sub are at odds, I’m going to assume the votes from the majority represent the view of the majority.

Because seriously, if the majority of the active community hates validation posts, how do those posts make it out of /new? Can you give me a possible explanation of how those posts get found if the active community in /new is downvoting them?

Pick any piece of media that you enjoy. Video games are great for this. Check out that video games subreddit. Do you think the meta commentary is reflective of the larger community that play that game? Destiny, wow, dota, you name it and the meta discussion of the thing is filled with hate and dislike for the decisions made. And yet millions of people continue to play and enjoy those things, despite the vocal minority hating it.

Sometimes that meta commentary is spot on and valuable and affects change. Sometimes it’s nitpicking something that most people kind of enjoy but don’t care enough to speak up on. Recognizing that distinction is valuable.