6079 upvotes, 48 direct replies (showing 25)
View submission: Content Policy Update
Last week an SRS user went nearly four years into my history and posted this in /r/ShitRedditSays:
Taken with zero context, and without considering this happened in the midst of Reddit banning a few subs and /u/violentacrez getting doxxed, SRS users decided that I was tolerant of rape, or beating women, that I was lazy, a shit-poster, pandering to my "audience", suggested SRS users go to Amazon to see what a piece of shit I was, that I thought "rape" was "freedom of speech", and that I was objectively wrong and thought "freedom of speech" was moderating a website.
They hadn't bothered to read the rest of my comments, where I said "If this were MY company and these subreddits were on MY board, I'd delete them in a heartbeat, because I find them personally offensive."
I was banned from SRS years ago (not for commenting, just because one of the mods thought I should be -- that's their prerogative) so I messaged the SRS admins and asked for a chance to respond, considering this post was #1 in SRS.
As you can see, the only response was "ROFL".
/r/Fatpeoplehate was created to mock people based on a subjective perception.
/r/Coontown was created to mock people based on a subjective perception.
/r/Shitredditsays was created to mock people based on a subjective perception.
This is their stated purpose:
"Have you recently read an upvoted Reddit comment that was bigoted, creepy, misogynistic, transphobic, racist, homophobic, or just reeking of unexamined, toxic privilege? Of course you have! Post it here."
They exist to mock and harass Reddit users.
we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.
Your words.
Please explain to me how holding other people up to ridicule *without even allowing them to respond* is good for reddit, encourages participation, and makes Reddit a safe place to express our opinions and ALSO differs from the subs you've banned.
EDIT: And this comment was already linked in SRS:
mfw /u/WarLizard[1] pulls the "WHAT ABOUT SRS" card after being linked here.
He regularly contributes to /r/KotakuInAction[2] , not sure why he feels like he'd be welcome here at all. He's also complaining about the existence of SRS, so yeah right there he'd be banned. Oh no, a sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic post was made and got linked here. WOULD ANYONE THINK OF THE RACIST'S FEELINGS?
This is a perfect example.
I have posted in KiA, and it has been fascinating to talk with the people there. Much like it has been fascinating to talk to the people in GamerGhazi.
But without context, someone might assume that because I've posted or commented there that I'm racist, misogynistic, transphobic, or maybe just an asshole. And suggesting that I think I'd be welcome in SRS, *outside of responding to people talking about me there* is ridiculous.
So with this extra data in mind, should I feel comfortable and safe posting in controversial subreddits? Or should I stay in the safe ones, stick my head in the sand, my fingers in my ears, and never discuss anything outside of cat pics?
EDIT: I continue to feel safe to express my opinion: http://imgur.com/p3klfon
EDIT: OMFG the staggering irony. An SRS mod is accusing me of organizing a brigade against them.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 23:55 UTC*
1697 upvotes, 5 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by VikingFjorden at 06/08/2015 at 00:50 UTC
244 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Sadly, your story isn't the first, nor is it going to be the last. SRS is a shitstain on reddit, one of the brownest there is, and it's beyond baffling how there has been no attempts at permabanning both the sub and its key members.
How to spot an SRS "argument":
Honestly, there's a part of me that wishes it's intentional trolling. The alternative--namely that people genuinely and sincerely do, think and say the shit that goes on in the SRS sub and by SRS members--is kind of depressing on behalf of everyone who isn't an absolute idiot.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 22:36 UTC
1562 upvotes, 10 direct replies
Also, I'd like to point out, to the people defending SRS, that nobody really cares when you talk shit about actual racist people or homophobes or whoever, it's that SRS will target an individual user for something they consider to be morally wrong, then go into that thread and antagonize that user and (this is the important bit) completely random other users who happen to have had the bad luck of posting in that thread. Completely innocent people, never said anything mean or bad or bigoted, but because they happened to be standing in close proximity to the person that offended the SRS brigade, they're getting targeted as well. That's why people hate SRS, or at least why I do.
Comment by alonghardlook at 05/08/2015 at 23:34 UTC
540 upvotes, 4 direct replies
This. Every time this comes up, SRS gets a mention like this and every single time, it is completely ignored. I'm all in favor of riding reddit of some of the trash, but lets not just focus on the obvious places. Racist, sexist and other hateful places are a great start, but SRS actively brigades and has admitted it. SRS is obviously not as obviously offensive, but they are certainly not making reddit a safe or better place.
I vote Warlizard for the new CEO. He's obviously had experience running a high profile forum before, so we know he can deal with it.
Comment by Couchtiger23 at 05/08/2015 at 23:39 UTC
188 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Imagine a group of teens hanging out in a mall, making fun of people that walk by. If anybody goes up to them and talks to them, the all go silent, pull faces, and stare only to break out into laughter as the person walks away.
This is my impession of the work-place culture of the admin team, they're just like the teenagers that I mentioned...the main difference is that they actually own the "mall".
I can't believe that you actually went up to them and talked to them expecting a mature response. Just do like the rest of us do: go to the mall and shop in the stores you like but ignore the gaggle of teenagers that hang out in the food court.
Comment by CHAD_J_THUNDERCOCK at 05/08/2015 at 22:21 UTC
757 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Hey aren't you that guy from the transphobic racist forums?
(sorry. this is a very good example of the harassment that happens in that sub. Going 4 years into your post history and taking your words out of context is terrible. What you haven't also mentioned is that **your real life identity is tied to your reddit account. You have books on Amazon**. This is attacking your real life identity. Fatpeoplehate got banned because they had pictures of imgur staff on their sidebar, which is not too different to SRS's harassment. SRS attacked you specifically as you are reddit famous and have a real identity connected to it in real life)
Comment by SRS_scares_me at 05/08/2015 at 22:53 UTC
82 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Personally, I think /r/ShitRedditSays should be banned. The main reason I think this is honestly during all this subreddit drama I've wanted to say a thing or two about SRS but I stop myself every time.
I'm afraid of using my real account incase they decide to retaliate against me whenever they come up. It's insane that I should fear saying something on an online forum.
/u/archangellestrudelle Why am I afraid of your sub? Why do I think getting a comment of mine linked there and sent to the top means I'll have to delete my account?
we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.
/u/spez Why am I afraid to use my real account to say anything negative about SRS?
Comment by ICritMyPants at 05/08/2015 at 23:13 UTC*
99 upvotes, 0 direct replies
SRS needs to be banned. It's a cesspool and no adminis are addressing it. It causes more hate than 99% of the other subreddits on here. Ridiculous.
Edit: Top comment in an SRS thread about this announcement (wow, who'd have thought they'd make a thread congratulating this?...):
I'm not sure I should congratulate him [/u/spez] for finally banning subs and content that would never have lasted more than a day on a normal forum in the first place tbh.
The irony. It hurts.
Comment by danbo- at 05/08/2015 at 23:18 UTC*
119 upvotes, 3 direct replies
/r/Shitredditsays[7] was created to mock people based on a subjective perception.
A lot of the *circlejerk subs have done that and one in particular is why I quit being a mod. On the one hand, the freedom to criticize people in authority is important; on the other hand, communities formed around mocking, ridiculing, and downvoting people they dislike aren't productive in the slightest.
Your edit with the screenshot is a prime example of the latter type of behavior.
Edit: this post[1] by /u/jpflathead sums up what I think and where I stand about SRS and many of the *CJ subreddits.
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3fx2au/content_policy_update/ctsrgvu
Comment by SobStoryBob at 05/08/2015 at 23:13 UTC
164 upvotes, 6 direct replies
so I messaged the SRS admins and asked for a chance to respond, considering this post was #1 in SRS.
http://imgur.com/Z8EJh1c%5B4[1]]
1: http://imgur.com/Z8EJh1c%5B4
As you can see, the only response was "ROFL".
It's really amazing how often the logic of either extreme side is similar. SRS says you're not welcome there. I wonder what words Coontown would use to an openly black redditor? We already know how fatpeoplehate treated openly fat redditors. It's harrowing to see that neither side sees the similarities in the other.
Comment by Tanaghrison at 05/08/2015 at 22:37 UTC
447 upvotes, 7 direct replies
SRS consistently breaks even the rules that were in place before today and are allowed to continue on. They brigade, doxx, and circlejerk every single day. But they are allowed to continue. Fuck SRS and the admins for allowing this ridiculous behavior.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 23:38 UTC*
10 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by -Stupendous-Man- at 05/08/2015 at 22:13 UTC*
416 upvotes, 2 direct replies
paging /u/archangellestrudelle
paging /u/archangellestrudelle
Would you care to respond to this?
Comment by stemgang at 06/08/2015 at 02:01 UTC
7 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Thank you for speaking up. It's pretty obvious that the admins are creating objective policies to ban illegal content and brigading behavior.
And then they're ignoring their own policies, and simply banning speech that they consider objectionable.
And the SJWs are so influential with the admins that even spez cannot mention their name or their sub SRS. It's only a matter of time before the reddit cancer eats all "objectionable" speech.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 22:28 UTC
858 upvotes, 3 direct replies
/u/spez COME THE FUCK ON EVERYTIME THERE IS A POST ABOUT SRS YOU JUST IGNORE IT! COME ON
Comment by infinitysnake at 06/08/2015 at 01:02 UTC
7 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I've been here almost a decade, and yeah, it seems very obvious to me that SRS exists only to bully and harass people who have opinions or use language deemed badthink by the gang that hangs around there.
The problem, as always, is that the rules are always applied first to those who exhibit badthink and that people who don a veneer of puritan correction are given free reign to be as offensive as they like.
Jerky opinions from racists suck, but it's a whole new level of Orwellian obnoxiousness to call out individuals in this way, harassing, humiliating, and smearing in order to police language & even thought. It's creepy and it definitely breaks the rules, but for whatever reason it is tolerated by Reddit.
Edit to add: If you pull that nonsense on Facebook, you get banned. Rules require names be blanked/blurred to prevent harassment, which seems pretty reasonable.
Comment by imawookie at 05/08/2015 at 23:24 UTC
8 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I followed that link, and that is disgusting. A third person discussion about a person where that person is not allowed to speak. Identifying that person and their financial interest on other sites. That is beyond acceptable, and in direct opposition to the stated "safe space" rules.
Comment by midnighttycoon at 05/08/2015 at 23:48 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
or just reeking of unexamined, toxic privilege
This is what's crazy. They pick on specific users based on very subjective criteria.
(Oddly, I got banned on SRS after saying that I was against rape.)
Comment by _My_Angry_Account_ at 06/08/2015 at 00:31 UTC
6 upvotes, 1 direct replies
If SRS brigading has a direct impact on your income then you should file a lawsuit against reddit for monetary damages. It seems the only thing that really forces traction is lawsuits. You are in a unique position to actually do this and force them to shutdown SRS.
Comment by whatevers_clever at 06/08/2015 at 00:03 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
yeah I knew I wouldn't see SRS here.
The funny thing is that SRS uses a Bot that is supposed to prove they aren't a vote brigade sub. The thing is, half of the bots comments prove it is, and the other half are deleted most of the time (can't follow it's link to the graph as it doesn't exist).
SRS is a sub that will stay because apparently it is in bed with reddit admins
Comment by Yunjeong at 05/08/2015 at 22:10 UTC
642 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Have the admins ever explicitly addressed SRS?
Comment by missmymom at 05/08/2015 at 22:18 UTC*
23 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You've said it so much better then I did when I tried here
I hope you get a response, I haven't yet, but perhaps you will with a little more personal experience.
Comment by gilbes at 05/08/2015 at 22:32 UTC
35 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Reddit relies on the free labor of mods. Mods chose to be compensated by pathetically getting an inflated ego from the petty tyranny they impose.
SRS is petty tyranny in action. Petty tyranny fuels the mods. Banning SRS would upset the mods and reddit might have to pay people to moderate its own site.
SRS will not be banned because it is cheaper to placate the saddest 1% of reddit than to actually manage the entire site.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 22:17 UTC
152 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 06/08/2015 at 01:58 UTC*
9 upvotes, 1 direct replies