Honestly, I don’t think a message board has to have one. If a mod is powertripping, then why would you want to be a part of the community? If they’re not, then you’re probably not a good fit for the community and the mod doesn’t have to deal with trolls and angry back-and-forth’s.
That isn’t to say what Reddit did isn’t wrong. They established that system and they have a culture of appeals. Suddenly removing that isn’t really fair from a “social contract” or whatever perspective.
If a mod is powertripping, then why would you want to be a part of the community?
Because the size of a community matters, and they’re not fungible. Back on reddit, my city’s subreddit was run by power-tripping mods. Sure, I could try to create an alternative – and somebody actually did – but it had multiple orders of magnitudes fewer users than the original sub and almost nobody would actually see what you posted there, so what’s the fucking point?
The entire reason I wanted to comment in the original sub was to try to politically persuade and influence people in my city. Censoring me from that sub was extremely effective even if alternatives theoretically existed.
Well, I don’t use Reddit anymore – it has joined the list of oligarch-owned shit that I’m boycotting (along with Facebook and Twitter). And yes, I do participate in local politics IRL.
But that still doesn’t invalidate what I wrote. The fact is that these platforms have too much fucking power as de-facto replacements for the public forum, and whether you refuse to use them or you get kicked out from them, it marginalizes you in a very real way that affects the real world. That’s a problem even if the possibility exists to go commune with other rejects on a platform the majority don’t give a shit about.
Not to mention, if I had a nickel for every real-world event hosted by a real-world local government, community, or activist organization that I missed because it was only advertised on Facebook, I’d have a big pile of nickels.
Oh I completely agree these platforms have too much power. Zero argument here. I’m just saying on an individual basis you have other options. But yeah i get what you’re saying
It doesn’t have to have a fair appeals policy, but an instance that has an appeals policy is one that you would probably want to join more. So an instance should have a fair appeals policy, because that’s what the users who use the instance want - assuming the instance wants users.
As for what reddit did, there’s a lot of pulling the rug out that you’re casually ignoring. Reddit is what it is because of the users that contributed to it. In spite of Huffman talking about “their dataset”, they don’t actually own the data - it belongs to the users, reddit merely has a license.
Now, reddit is trying to change the rules - as a user, you’re no longer in charge of the subreddit you created and became moderator of anymore, you’re expected to serve “will of the users” (as defined by reddit admin), the users you attracted to the house you built. Reddit was founded on the idea “if you don’t like it, make your own space, and users will flock towards the better one”.
Reddit changed the moderator code of conduct. And yet, if you strictly apply the moderator code of conduct as they sometimes do, it completely undermines many of the bans that reddit admin also enforce. They’re hypocrits, now all they want is to exploit everyone that put them where they are.
Honestly, I don’t think a message board has to have one. If a mod is powertripping, then why would you want to be a part of the community? If they’re not, then you’re probably not a good fit for the community and the mod doesn’t have to deal with trolls and angry back-and-forth’s.
That isn’t to say what Reddit did isn’t wrong. They established that system and they have a culture of appeals. Suddenly removing that isn’t really fair from a “social contract” or whatever perspective.
Because the size of a community matters, and they’re not fungible. Back on reddit, my city’s subreddit was run by power-tripping mods. Sure, I could try to create an alternative – and somebody actually did – but it had multiple orders of magnitudes fewer users than the original sub and almost nobody would actually see what you posted there, so what’s the fucking point?
The entire reason I wanted to comment in the original sub was to try to politically persuade and influence people in my city. Censoring me from that sub was extremely effective even if alternatives theoretically existed.
But your city has other communities on other platforms and local social meetups. You don’t have to use Reddit.
Well, I don’t use Reddit anymore – it has joined the list of oligarch-owned shit that I’m boycotting (along with Facebook and Twitter). And yes, I do participate in local politics IRL.
But that still doesn’t invalidate what I wrote. The fact is that these platforms have too much fucking power as de-facto replacements for the public forum, and whether you refuse to use them or you get kicked out from them, it marginalizes you in a very real way that affects the real world. That’s a problem even if the possibility exists to go commune with other rejects on a platform the majority don’t give a shit about.
Not to mention, if I had a nickel for every real-world event hosted by a real-world local government, community, or activist organization that I missed because it was only advertised on Facebook, I’d have a big pile of nickels.
Oh I completely agree these platforms have too much power. Zero argument here. I’m just saying on an individual basis you have other options. But yeah i get what you’re saying
It doesn’t have to have a fair appeals policy, but an instance that has an appeals policy is one that you would probably want to join more. So an instance should have a fair appeals policy, because that’s what the users who use the instance want - assuming the instance wants users.
As for what reddit did, there’s a lot of pulling the rug out that you’re casually ignoring. Reddit is what it is because of the users that contributed to it. In spite of Huffman talking about “their dataset”, they don’t actually own the data - it belongs to the users, reddit merely has a license.
Now, reddit is trying to change the rules - as a user, you’re no longer in charge of the subreddit you created and became moderator of anymore, you’re expected to serve “will of the users” (as defined by reddit admin), the users you attracted to the house you built. Reddit was founded on the idea “if you don’t like it, make your own space, and users will flock towards the better one”.
Reddit changed the moderator code of conduct. And yet, if you strictly apply the moderator code of conduct as they sometimes do, it completely undermines many of the bans that reddit admin also enforce. They’re hypocrits, now all they want is to exploit everyone that put them where they are.