#and I get that moderation is a thing and without mods the subreddit is just fucked but still...

[one-and-a-half-yikes]

little weird joining the bakudeku subreddit and then it just being completely vacant of any activity going on and then I look and see IzuOcha sub with more activity (not meant to be taken as a negative tbc, glad they're having fun over there it just sucks lmao) like what the fuck happened???? Did everybody over there fucking die or something?????💀💀😭😭😭😭

[xavigav]

The Reddit Blackout, #196, And Being New to Tumblr

okay i've seen a lot of people in the past ~24 hours or so confused by everything going on with Reddit & Tumblr from both sides - people new to tumblr who don't know how to use it, and tumblr users who don't know what's going on with reddit and why many of its users have joined up here i know this isn't really related to my blog but fun fact about me: i was up until recently a very active reddit user and even mod a subreddit, but I've also been on tumblr for about 3 years now on different accounts, so I think I can see pretty well from both sides of this and explain what's going on this post will be split in 2 sections: what happened with reddit (and what #196 means), and a guide for new users

1. What The Hell Is Going On With Reddit?

The thing that's caused all this ruckus is a major change to Reddit's API, which is what Reddit provides to people so they can pull directly from Reddit to make third-party apps or tools.

The change is that Reddit is changing its previously free API to be paid. Which on its own kinda sucks for developers, but it's not unexpected. They need to make money somehow, right?

The problem is that the API pricing is WAY TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE. The developer of the most popular 3rd party Reddit app, Apollo, says it will cost him $20 million a year to continue running the app as normal.

Essentially, this pricing forces almost everything third-party to shut down, which causes 3 major problems:

Third-party apps cannot keep running, which sucks for normal users because Reddit's official app is awful. It's slow, its video player is a thing of nightmares, it doesn't have many useful features third-party developers have made.

It sucks even more for visually impaired users because they can't use the official Reddit app at all. Reddit's official app does not work with iOS's native text-to-speech function. Third party apps, on the other hand, often do. So Reddit is forcing blind users away.

Third-party moderator tools cannot keep running, which sucks for moderators because many rely on these tools to properly moderate their subreddits. And moderators are often necessary, because without them subreddits get banned and hate speech and even CSA can often run rampant.

So you see why this change is bad.

Reddit users were PISSED.

So over the past week and a half or so, they have been working on organizing a site-wide blackout. The majority of the most active subreddits have now gone private. Some are only doing it for 48 hours, others (such as r/196) are doing it indefinitely.

That's why you can't access most of Reddit right now, and that's why many users have come here.

You're probably still wondering, though - what is this #196?

Well, as you may guess, it's connected to that subreddit r/196 I just mentioned. r/196 is a subreddit which only has one rule: every time you visit, you must post before you leave.

That's it, that's the subreddit.

The thing about r/196 that set it apart from most other subreddits - and what lends the subreddit's users perfectly to Tumblr - is that it was dominated by queer and leftist users.

So now they've come here and set up shop in #196 and r/196 so they can continue their merry little shitposting.

There's a ton of lore related to r/196, actually, but this is already a long tumblr post and quite frankly I cannot be bothered to write about it at the moment.

2. I'm Here From Reddit, What Now?

Hello there, random new user. As a double-citizen of Reddit and Tumblr, let me show you around this place.

First off, there are some other people who are better at explaining that I am who have made some really helpful things. Watch this Strange Aeons video as a guide to Tumblr culture and functionality and read this post which directly compares Reddit and Tumblr.

Assuming you've done that, here's some additional advice of my own:

Do you miss sorting subreddits by top of all time/the year/the month? Well, you can do something very similar with tags! If you go to a tag at the top of the screen you can select top, and then at the dropdown that says "all time" you can select different time periods! Even 6 months, which Reddit hasn't ever had.

Tumblr has a lot of cool customization features! Even outside your icon/banner/bio, you can change you blog colors and on desktop you can have an html theme (which has its own thriving community here). That customization is part of what sets Tumblr apart from everywhere else - I think you'll enjoy playing with it.

Notes will probably confuse you at first. Unlike the different numbers for upvotes and comments, notes combines the total number of likes, reblogs, and replies into the same number.

Outside of organizing your own blog, when making your own posts tags are what help other people find your post. Use them! But don't abuse them, because then people will just block you.

There are three ways of people finding your post: if someone follows you, if someone follows the tag(s) assigned to your post, and if someone is just scrolling through the tag(s) assigned to your post (and also the secret 4th way no one uses, which is finding it on the trending page, but even if people did use it no one will find your post initially that way)

tumblr is no longer The Discourse Website. And unlike what Reddit wants you to believe for some reason, it is very much alive still. Most of the people seeking fights have moved to Twitter (though some have also moved back here again). You will not get any brownie points for being a dipshit like you do on some subreddits.

So there, welcome to the hellsite (affectionate), you'll pick up on all the in-jokes eventually, for now just try not to be a nuisance and soon enough this'll be your new internet home.

[sophieinwonderland]

The hatesub r/systemscringe are being full-on transphobes again!

Reminder: a huge number of systems have alters and headmates with completely different genders and sexes from the body.

Anyone who has ever studied any type of multiplicity is aware of this fact.

And not-so-shockingly, this makes gender complicated.

Let's just see the screenshots they're angry at today.

So the body has transitioned to male but this one headmate identifies as female and identifies as a trans woman.

In another screenshot, the system says they aren't "invading trans spaces." Which is such an absurd thing to have to defend yourselves from accusations of when you're a part of a trans system.

Even if you do take the position that spaces for transwomen should be exclusionary AFAB people, one would at least expect the male headmates to be able to feel safe in the trans community without being made to feel like they're "invaders."

Unfortunately, many pluralphobes and queer exclusionists have decided the gender identity of headmates in systems is less valid than that of singlets.

This is another pretty common thing. Especially with introjects who have source memories. It's common to have memories of lives you may not have actually lived but still feel pretty real.

I did a Tumblr poll last year. About half of systems responding had at least one trans headmate with the same gender as the body's AGAB. Nearly all had cis headmates with the opposite gender of the body.

Of course, if you heard it from r/systemscringe, they must be faking being trans entirely!

And takes like this throw not just systems under the bus, but also people who are genderfluid or otherwise nonbinary as well.

And if you're thinking, "wow, that comment sounds like something truscum would say," you aren't wrong!

Here are some unrelated posts this same user has authored:

Back to r/systemscringe, most of the comments were more of the same, stopping just short of calling them transtrenders but clearly very much wanting to!

By the way, all the censors on the names of the system and alters were mine. u/superthrowawayEEE censored nothing. When a user points this out, moderator u/DizkoLites says they considered taking it down but chose not to, saying their name was common enough that it wouldn't matter.

To be fair, the mods did end up taking it down... after the system got harassed for their gender and contacted the subreddit directly.

So congrats on waiting until after the harassment to enforce your own rules!

But don't worry, you're free to make a brand new post mocking someone for their gender identity! r/systemscringe's mod team is totally cool with that! Just gotta hide the name because that's apparently the only problem here!🙄

(You know, unless they're on the mod-approved hit list. Then you can name them too no matter how much harassment they get.)

The other day, someone asked this question on the hatesub:

Here's the answer:

Stop being bigots.

Stop being ableists.

Stop spreading misinformation.

Stop mocking people for their genders.

Stop harboring truscum and parroting transphobic talking points!

Try to be decent human beings for once in your lives!

And then... well, I guess that wouldn't leave much of a subreddit would it? There's no r/systemscringe without ableism, transphobia and queer exclusionism. It's baked into the DNA of these groups.

But maybe that would be for the best.

Nothing from these cringe communities is salvageable. And nothing should be socially acceptable about groups founded on cyberbullying.

[dextixer]

Yknow, at first i thought i would just make a thread telling everyone how manipulative this post about how "I dont hate critique but critique bad" is, to warn people about snakes in the FNDM hiding in the grass.

But then this utter clownshoes decided to invoke Monty, to talk about Montys wishes. To weaponize a dead person as a cudgel for a fucking internet argument.

This is why i hate most of the RWBY FNDM, because they are all sunshine and rainbows, all progressive, all nice people, or at least they portray themselves to be until they take off their fucking masks. And then all of these supposedly nice people reveal themselves to be manipulative ratfucks.

So, lets be very clear. If you invoke Monty in your shitty internet arguments, you are just a morally defunct person, you are lower than fucking trash. He is a deceased man. His corpse is not there for you to parade him like a fucking puppet for your own arguments.

The fact that it follows a fake ass "nice guy" facade is just the icing on the cake.

Despite the claims of the OP, they were not "suggesting that hate discourages people" they were being a snakey fuck by at first saying "Criticism isnt bad" and then outlining literally EVERY single tired anti-criticism buzzword phrase in existence. Everyone fucking knows that most of the time "Im not saying x is bad BUUUUUT" leads to the person revealing that, yeah, they are saying that X is bad. Its the most fucking elementary silencer for any argument in existence.

We have the ol reliables of

>"If you no like, just leave" >Conflating criticism with hate >Implying that people should not criticize passion projects >Implying that RWBY receives unique kind of criticism that no other thing does

Alongside that we also have some weird implications that RWBY is disliked for being "cringe" and of course, more instances of conflating criticism with "hate". If one pays attention they could easily spot a pattern, take a shot of your favourite drink anytime you see the word "hate" or its synonim when the supposed thread is supposed to be about criticsm.

As far as for the second part of the post that comes after my reply.

Criticism does not have to be constructive, its good when it is, but if a person can see something wrong, they can say its wrong without offering a solution. I dont need to be a professional doctor to see a bone sticking out where it shouldnt be etc.

And lets get back to the old sticking point "Oh, but why does RWBY have separate critic communities".

Because the fandom MADE it a fucking necessity! Just like with shows like Game of Thrones and many others! You think critic spaces or subreddits are some kind of never seen before thing before RWBY?!

The only reason RWBY has them is because of the fucking Fandom!

The RWDE tag on tumblr only exists because people were ASKED for criticism to be something that people could avoid, by tagging a post as RWDE anyone using this platform can easily blacklist the tag and NEVER see anything from it! And yet the Fandom instead of doing so CONSTANTLY comes into the tag, and then constantly bitches and whines about how criticism exists!

The critics subreddit exists because most people there were slowly pushed away from the main sub. It didnt START as that, but it became that when the mods of r/RWBY decided that instead of moderating discussions they would rather throw out all the critics because fans would NEVER behave in critical posts and would either mass report them or cause conflict!

Whether someone likes RWBY or not has NOTHING to do with personal morality. Its also extremelly ironic that there are constant "uwu, people say me bad because i like RWBY" claims with nothing to back them up while on places like twitter you can see RWBY twitter accounts say that anyone who dislikes RWBY is just a misogynist or the like.

I would rather take the most toxic critic foaming at the mouth about how RWBY is bad over people like op, ratfuck snakes who pretend to have no problem with criticism while sneaking in the same fucking anti-criticism shit into their threads.

I dont even criticize RWBY that much anymore and i mostly just tell the critics spaces to not even talk to the larger fandom, and its because of dipshits like the OP.

Because the RWBY FNDM is full of these nice presenting, nice writing manipulative jackasses who are just smiles and rainbows while saying the same tired bullshit as always. Just a reminder, just because someone is "polite" does not mean they are not full of shit.

[stellae-de-baphometis]

PSA: Stay away from the DemonolatryPractices subreddit.

Hi everyone, so a little side note before I get into everything. This post is gonna be a bit venty and also touches on sensitive topics, so apologies in advance for that.

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING - mentions of anti-Semitism, Nazis, suicide, alcoholism. ⚠️ Full post will be under the cut.

So I haven't posted in a while, the main reason being that I've been struggling with mental illness and I'm working a very stressful job that's been taking up pretty much all of my time. Luckily I'll be quitting this job soon though. But I also wanted to address the fact that one of the other reasons I stopped posting is because I realised in the past I had an anti-Semitic mindset without even realising, and I was appropriating Jewish daemons in my spiritual practices and spreading harmful misinformation on my blog. I've since deleted any posts containing such content and have been doing my best to educate myself on why it's not okay to appropriate Judaism. I also removed the Jewish daemons from the grimoire I'm writing and left a Daemonolatry subreddit that encouraged and tried to justify appropriating Lilith and other Jewish daemons.

This subreddit was r/DemonolatryPractices.

Just recently, I posted to a pagan subreddit about including daemons like Azazel, Leviathan, and Behemoth in my grimoire, as I am aware of their Jewish origins and wondered if it would be okay to include them in my grimoire, as they're also present in Christianity. I briefly mentioned in the post that I had omitted Lilith from my grimoire as I didn't want to appropriate a Jewish entity.

Someone in the comments tried to claim that working with Lilith wasn't cultural appropriation, and obviously got the ban hammer from that subreddit because it's anti-Semitic to try and appropriate Judaism as it's a closed practise. This person got really salty and went into my DMs, trying to claim that Lilith was a "Mesopotamian Pagan goddess" and started shouting a bunch of anti-Semitic shit claiming that Judaism took this "Queen Of Hell" and spread lies about her, which is obviously just an insanely disgusting thing to say... And correct me if I'm wrong here but I think that whole idea of Jewish people spreading lies about spirituality and the world in general is based off an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory. Again, correct me if I'm wrong because I genuinely don't know for sure - it's just something I've heard about. If it is true then holy shit that's fucked up...

Anyways, this person kept accusing me of being "incorrect" and "wrong" about cultural appropriation, and it got to the point where I had to block them because they just wouldn't leave me the fuck alone.

This person then went to the aforementioned Daemonolatry subreddit to talk shit about me behind my back and started a huge smear campaign in the comments, where there were almost a hundred comments all calling me insane and accusing me of being an "internet bully" for trying to be an ally to Jewish people and calmly educating people on why it's not okay to appropriate Lilith. They kept saying that I was spouting bullshit and that was wrong.

This then lead to me getting witch-hunted by a bunch of people getting really angry and bitter with me, trying to defend appropriating Lilith. Everyone was blowing up my DMs trying to argue why it's okay to appropriate Lilith and other Jewish daemons. I had to block several people and also contact the moderator of this pagan subreddit, as there were so many comments of people slamming me and trying to justify their anti-Semitic rhetoric, that the mod had to actually disable the comments on my initial post.

It was overwhelming as all fuck and I actually had a meltdown because of this. I have BPD and other personality disorders, and so it's very easy for my emotions to get out of control and for me to become overwhelmed... And that's exactly what happened. I was so stressed out and upset that I started binge drinking vodka to the point of passing out. I'm struggling with alcoholism at the moment, so this situation triggered my alcoholism and I absolutely lost my shit. I even became actively suicidal and was drinking to try and combat these feelings and prevent myself from actively carrying out a suicide attempt, because I really felt like I was on my last straw with all the problems I've had at home lately. The whole ordeal was fucking awful...

But enough about how it made me feel because that's not nearly as important as how this shit is potentially affecting Jewish people themselves. Now I don't want to speak over Jewish people here or speak on how anti-Semitism affects Jewish people, as I am not Jewish and it's not my place to speak on that whatsoever. However I will say that I do recognise and understand that Jewish people are an oppressed minority group that have evidently suffered a lot of discrimination and marginalisation throughout history. All I'm saying is I can imagine that Judaism being appropriated by anti-Semites probably isn't gonna make Jewish people fucking feel good...

I apologise if I've said anything incorrect here or if I'm speaking over Jewish issues. It's not my intention to do so, and my goal is to only speak from the perspective of an ally. Please don't hesitate to correct me in the comments if I've said anything incorrect or insensitive, I don't want to speak over anyone here or spread false information.

Anyways. These people in the r/DaemonolatryPractices almost view Lilith appropriation like some sort of cult. If you're complacent and don't criticise it, they're fine with you. If you try to call them out on their shit, they come after you hard and ridicule you to shit. It's fucking terrifying, disgusting, and downright disturbing how these people will get so defensive, bitter, angry, and vicious when you call them out on their cultural appropriation. To me, it looks like an obvious projection of their covert anti-Semitism, and when you call them out for said anti-Semitism, they lose their shit and feel deeply attacked, because you're exposing them for what they truly are.

This very subreddit was the thing that sent me down an anti-Semitic pipeline where I got it into my head that cultural appropriation and anti-Semitism is completely fine, and that Judaism was a "bad" religion just like Christianity. They vilify Judaism and lump it into the "big bad Abrahamic religions" category alongside Christianity, and accuse Judaism of vilifying "their" Lilith. It's truly disgusting and horrifying, and I am deeply ashamed that I was brainwashed into thinking this way and was basically within an echo chamber that prevented me from seeing a different perspective. But being brainwashed doesn't take away from the fact that I still take complete accountability for what I did, and I am genuinely so sorry to the Jewish community for spreading anti-Semitic rhetoric on my blog and having such a warped view of Judaism. I sincerely cannot apologise enough and it's something I want to do everything in my power to make up for.

So my message to you guys is this. Please stay the hell away from r/DemonolatryPractices. They are anti-Semites at best and far-right Neo-Nazis at worst. Please don't go near that cesspit of a subreddit. It's riddled with anti-Semitism, cultural appropriation, and bigoted people who will try and justify and defend that shit to their fucking death. Stay far away from this subreddit, especially if you're a Jewish person, as I can't imagine it would be a very safe environment for Jewish folks...

Everyone please stay safe and I wish you all well. And again, I am sincerely sorry to the Jewish community for my past actions. I will do everything I can to make up for it.

Ave Satanas ⭐

-Kody

[captain-cathers]

What’s happening to Reddit, and why should I care?

TL;DR: An unreasonable API price increase is going to kill third-party Reddit apps, destroying important moderator and accessibility tools. Many popular apps have announced they're shutting down on June 30. The admins/site leadership aren't backing down. Most of Reddit is going private on June 12-14 in protest.

Unreasonably dense explanation under the cut:

What is Reddit?

Reddit is a social news aggregation site that is made up of millions of individual boards/forums, called “subreddits.” 

Each of these subreddits has a topic (baking, Borderlands, hentai, pictures of cats wearing hats, etc.) and users can submit related posts to these subreddits (images, text, videos, links, etc.). 

Every subreddit is moderated by a team of unpaid volunteers, and can have anywhere from 10 to 10,000,000+ members. 

The current CEO of Reddit is Steve Huffman, or spez. He was one of the original co-founders in 2005, left in 2009, and returned to Reddit in 2015 following the Ellen Pao fiasco. (TL;DR: she was the scapegoat for several unpopular changes made to Reddit and site policy.)

What’s going on?

Reddit announced that they are going to start charging money for their API, when API access had previously been free, à la Twitter. Also like Twitter, they’re charging an exorbitant amount for it, which will essentially drive all of the third-party apps and tools using it out of business. 

Reddit did not have an official app for a long time, but it did have a free API, which allowed developers to access Reddit data and posts and make their own Reddit apps. Several of these third-party apps became extremely popular. (AlienBlue was the most popular iPhone Reddit client, before it was bought by Reddit in 2014 and then shut down and replaced with the official Reddit app in 2016.) To this day, millions of Reddit users use these third-party apps, accessibility tools, and moderation suites that rely on the Reddit API.

What’s an API?

An API (Application Programming Interface) is essentially a toolkit that allows different apps and websites to interact with each other. A third-party Reddit App, for example, uses Reddit’s API to allow its users to view subreddits, post comments, upvote posts, etc. For a non-technical explanation, see this comment.

The bullshit that’s happening (in no particular order)

The new API prices were announced on May 31 and are going to take effect on July 1. That gives developers 30 days to figure out what they’re going to do with their apps – nowhere near enough time to rework an entire monetization scheme and get it approved. In addition, the new API prices are completely outrageous. Everyone clowned on Twitter for setting an absurdly-high price for their API, and then Reddit went and did the exact same thing. (Keep in mind these third-party app dev teams are extremely small – Apollo, which has millions of users, is developed by one person.)

Blind people cannot use Reddit without third-party apps. (Reddit is claiming they’re going to make an exception for accessibility tools, but there has been no communication on how they define accessibility-focused apps or how they would get approved.)

Moderators cannot effectively moderate their subreddits without third-party apps. All subreddits are managed by an unpaid, volunteer mod team, who keep posts on-topic and fight spam and abuse. Many of the tools and bots they use to keep subreddits running smoothly are at risk with the new API changes, and historical promises from Reddit that new moderation tools are coming have always been fruitless. Many subs are moderated by just one or two people, and this change will be the final nail in the coffin.

The new API blocks NSFW content – while this is a bummer for NSFW content creators/viewers who use third-party apps, more significantly it makes it difficult for moderators to effectively police NSFW content and spam. (This could also point towards a future Tumblr-esque porn ban, but Reddit recently expanded desktop support for NSFW uploads so this is unlikely.)

The CEO of Reddit, Steve Huffman (spez) accused the developer of Apollo of blackmailing/extorting Reddit. Good thing the Apollo dev recorded the phone call and revealed that spez was lying. (Fun fact: spez was caught editing users’ comments without their knowledge back in 2016.)

Reddit claims these changes aren’t intended to kill competing apps, but they’re also testing turning off the mobile website and directing users to their app instead. It seems like Reddit’s moving towards the official app being the only way to access Reddit on mobile.

Reddit’s trying to go public and is laying off about 5% of their workforce.

Reddit admins are inviting users to newly-created German-language subreddits full of badly-translated content stolen from English subs for… some reason? (Maybe to make their site look like it has more of a global presence ahead of a potential IPO? Or to replace old and established non-English-language subs with new ones and new mods?)

Spez is hosting an AMA (Ask Me Anything) tomorrow, June 9 (but no time is listed in the post…)

Apollo, Reddit is Fun, and Sync (among others) have all announced that they will be shutting down their apps on June 30th.

(Fun side note, Apollo was actually namedropped and shown multiple times by Apple at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference this past week.)

To protest the impending API pricing changes, hundreds of subreddits are taking their subs private from June 12-14 (some indefinitely). Reddit has said they’re “open to postponing the API timeline to launch mod tooling, if [mods] agree to keep their subreddits open.” The mods aren't backing down, and as of 6/8 the protest is going forward as planned.

Why should I care?

Reddit is a mixed bag of a website, only as good as its individual subreddits. On one hand, the site is a breeding ground for hate, amplifying movements like Gamergate and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. On the other hand, Reddit is home to countless communities, works of art, hobbies, support groups, and political movements that provide both knowledge and support that can’t be found elsewhere. There’s a reason why searching anything + “reddit” is an effective search query – Reddit’s one of the few indexed and searchable places left on the Internet that hasn’t been completely enshittified yet – a place where you can get a question answered by real people.

The Internet is increasingly driving toward individual walled gardens, where genuine connection and information is harder and harder to find. (Remember when all the wikis got eaten by Fandom? Or how every website destroyed the chronological feed and added stories to become the same? Or just everything about Twitter?)

Anyway, there’s no call to action here, just general despair. At the very least, we’ll be eating well on Reddit drama for the next couple weeks.

[kingdoms-and-empires]

I don't know about that new subreddit, one of the mods seems to regularly post in r/Conservative and has quite a few... hot takes, to say the least, that I doubt will go very well with most users here. Don't take my work for it: imgur(.)com/a/BFOT6cI

Hello, I'm actually glad you brought this up! The person in question is named Bird on KaE Discord, he's one of my moderators. He's the one who created the subreddit in the first place actually.

In the early days of the KaE Discord, it was like the wild wild west lol, not only was it anarchy and messy...we had alot of political talk in there as well.

We soon learned that it made things too incendiary, and put people at risk of getting banned for emotional outbursts. So we implemented new rules in my server that political talk was now prohibited. Why? Because it has no place in a community that's centered and focused on Interactive Fiction. We came in with the same mindset concerning the subreddit. It's a place that allows discussion only on the topic of Interactive Fiction. Bird and I actually discussed whether or not we should use different usernames for the subreddit. One out of fear for incurring the wrath of some entities, and the other for letting ourselves be open for inspection to the world. It's a very naked feeling, having your commentary be exposed for everyone to see, to judge. But we said fuck it. We shouldnt hide.

His and mine political leanings havent been a problem ever since we prohibited the allowance of political talk in the server.

My server has now grown to over 1000 members, and the moderation of Bird and the rest of the team is a main reason for it.

I invite anyone and everyone to look inside my server. See the vibe of the place. You'll find that the community is one focused on not just Kingdoms and Empires, but the Interactive Community as a whole.

We actually expected this to happen. So thank you for ripping the band aid off and letting us talk openly about it. However, I'd like everyone to know, this anon has sent the same message to every single person who has reblogged the subreddit post. I sense shady shit is underfoot. Honestly, this tactic may have worked if everyone was decentralized and unable to communicate with each other. But thankfully, the Interactive Community is becoming more centralized and united. I have a suspicion on who you are, but baseless claims are below me, and not worth anyone's time.

Just like your baseless claim of Bird's ability to moderation being in question. Not when the past indicates otherwise.

Also, I hope you know: If you continue digging up the past or mass message people who support the subreddit with more screenshots and the like...you're gonna get outed as someone who wants to see this subreddit fail, right? You won't be someone who simply wants to call to alarm a mod being conservative and warn others who disagree with those views. You couldve simply brought this out into the open at the subreddit itself, where everyone could see and we couldn't delete it without looking like hypocrites. Instead you'll be exposed as a bad actor with malicious intentions. Ah but i digress, now im the one throwing baseless claims...until you prove me right :)

Also, shameless advertising: https://discord.gg/73WdMMNXvm

[tsarscur]

Also not to contradict my previous post but there's been an alarming tendency of YouTube guys leaking into GWAG and posting their Patreon previews there.

I get it - YT has been becoming increasingly difficult to post any "spicy" content on but GWAG is a porn subreddit - sure there are always exceptions to the rule like the "But Master" series that hadn't become "porn" until part four, but I'd like to see you try post the first three parts on YT - and if you only post "technically SFW" content I feel like it's not exactly your place. There are quite a few GWAG VAs who have Patreon, but they don't post previews on Reddit - they just advertise it on their page. On the other hand, those kinds of previews would also often seem out of place on say r/lgbtpillowtalkaudio because most of them aren't vanilla and/or "cosy, sweet, soft, soothing" - they're functionally kinky porn just without the porn part.

An exempt from GWAG Wiki:

Also, this is less of a technical thing and more of a feeling, but knowing those kinds of guys (from YT) I FEEL like if they were actually posting their full content on GWAG they would... not necessarily get banned or reprimanded but face moderation - they're not especially good at tagging their stuff properly.

All that said, I trust in GWAG mods more than I trust in any gods, so I'm sure it's going to be okay at the end.

[sapphicwizards]

no one asked me but let me explain how bluesky's composable moderation works because it feels very compatible with the tumblr model (and I'm really hoping we see a tumblr-style platform built on the tech)

So bluesky is a decentralized thing that works similarly to twitter, but the underlying technology could replicate basically any type of blogging platform. The philosophy of it is to distribute ownership of a public square as much as possible without forcing normal people to learn tech shit. The goal is to have a place for everyone that is resilient to takeover by corporations. It relies a lot on third party indexing of posts and has absolutely no privacy features. Notably, it doesn't (and probably can not) have private accounts, which is the most important line of defense twitter users have against harassment. They've gotten a lot of shit for this! However

Having moderation in a place like that is kinda hard but I think the approach is interesting and from the outside it kinda looks like it's working. There was just an article in wired that was complaining about how bluesky is boring because people aren't fighting enough.

Basically you have layers of protection.

Layer 1: First, there are feeds that can operate as either recommendation algorithms or sort of like subreddits or hashtags. These feeds can be moderated and curated. Feeds are run by third parties and are easy to operate. I run some feeds! If a feed you like starts to suck, you can make an identical feed and run it better.

Layer 2 is third party services called labelers that look at everything that gets posted and labels them if they find what they're looking for. You can have a labeler that specializes in CSAM for example, or a labeler that takes user input and labels posts where the author has said it's NSFW. Labeling services are where the more "traditional" moderation happens, ie they're mostly using either AI/keyword flagging and user reports reviewed by a paid moderator. You get to choose what labeling services you use so if one is unjustly censoring a demographic, we can all move to a different one.

Layer 3 is moderation lists. These are kinda controversial but I think they work really well for stuff that I personally find offensive but isn't usually taken down from social platforms. Examples of lists I subscribe to: brand accounts, art thieves, mass-follow bots. Some groups have also used mod lists to protect their own communities. For example bluesky has a few prominent lists of transphobes and people who harass sex workers.

Layer 4 is literally just blocking and muting manually. Blocking on bluesky is pretty intense though it breaks every single thread that includes you and the person you're blocking. It's hard to tell who blocked who and if it was done manually or because of subscription to a list.

Social platforms already have most of these but bluesky gives you more choice over how they work. If you're unsatisfied with a labeling service making bigoted judgements or a list including false positives for example, you don't have to switch to a whole different platform or instance, you just need to switch individual services.

The idea is that communities come together via feeds, which can be moderated. Something you could do with that is have a fandom feed where anyone who tags their hate stops having any posts show up there for example. Stuff that needs to be moderated at the individual post level, as well as ToS compliance at the account level is handled by labelers. Account-level moderation can be handled by mod lists, which also have the benefit of being run by subject-matter experts. For example, a trans woman maintains a list of transphobes so if you are a trans person you can subscribe to it and instantly be blocking like 600 terfs who now can no longer bother you.

Ignoring situations involving doxxing (which are more serious but also less common and easier to protect yourself from), the main goal of sustained harassment on here is to get you to delete your blog. You can probably keep most of your friends by adding them on discord or whatever, but the underlying logic in these cases is "you are a person who exists on the same part of the internet I use, and I want that to stop."

I reject the idea that moderation will ever be a solution to this problem, at least not without creating new, worse problems. But tumblr can and should provide users better tools for defending themselves.

Let's talk about tumblr's private blog feature. You can password-protect a blog, so that users have to enter the password before being able to see and interact with your posts. This is barely a step above deleting your blog.

You need to manually share this password with everyone you want to have access to the blog, which does not scale to a following in the thousands. You need to hope that no one ever leaks the password to your harassers, in which case your only recourse is to change the password and manually reshare it, again. This is a Bad System.

What does a good system look like? Consider twitter's private account feature. All your followers are preserved, but future followers have to ask to follow your blog. If you block a follower, they can't just create a new account and dodge the block - they're locked out. You keep your blog, you keep your following, you keep your friends, and no one outside your bubble can touch you.

There are still downsides here compared to not being harassed at all - people who don't already follow you can't see your posts - but it gives you a way to turn off the harassment spigot that can be easily reversed if/when your harassers get bored.

Combine this with a feature ideally for both private and public blogs (allowing only people you follow to reblog or reply) and I think the situation on this site improves a lot.

[sophieinwonderland]

Reminder: A hate group is a group that, through its beliefs or practices, attacks and maligns an entire group of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.

r/systemscringe is a pluralphobic hategroup.

And the current mod team's actions have only made the subreddit more dangerous.

Where the previous moderators had rules against posting people uncensored to discourage harassment, new moderators replaced these restrictions with a hit list of acceptable targets. They did this under the pretense of only targeting "public figures" but their definition of a public figure is broad enough to allow the mods to name anyone they dislike as an acceptable target.

And it's not just that. Shortly after taking over, the mods of the hate sub did away with flairs for systems. The new rule is that people with DID aren't allowed to say if they have it.

And people who the r/systemscringe mods deem a faker will be hit with a "check user history" flair to brand them as such, encouraging harassment against branded users.

("Trolling" for them is, unfortunately, anything that goes against their narrative.)

All the while, they've taken a hard stance against RAMCOA survivors, making their automod respond to any mention of RAMCOA with links saying it doesn't exist that cite the ableist Satanic Temple's Grey Faction, a group that doesn't even believe in DID and whose founder specialized in the made-up False Memory Syndrome, as it source.

Yes, r/systemscringe is an ableist pluralphobic hate group that is designed around maligning and attacking systems. Often for basic system things. And it's currently being ran by a vile mod team who are intent on pushing boundaries as far as they possibly can without getting the subreddit nuked. And the only reason they're showing as much restraint as they are now is because of that looming threat from Reddit admins.

No, this is not a "both sides" issue, and I will not shy away from calling a hate group a hate group.

[moonstarfem]

This post kind of took me by surprise yesterday, and I'm curious to see what other rad fems who frequent FDS think about this announcement. It seems as though some of the mods are unhappy with the way the subreddit is going and are seeking to remind users that the whole point of the sub is to apply what you've learned on FDS by actually getting out there and dating men.

This is a poor take IMO considering that the sub exists to support women in all areas of life, not just dating. I don't think the moderator announcement is at all representative of the majority of the current userbase, especially when you take a look at FDS' most popular posts and the type of content that users are most frequently engaging with. I mean, just take a look at the flair options. There are multiple ones available for us to talk about a variety of issues, including "cultural misogyny" and "global resistance". Even posts that aren't inherently about dating are still relevant to dating. To quote a user below, "dating doesn't exist in a vacuum. The whole dating scene is very obviously impacted by the patriarchy. So raising consciousness among women about beauty standards, the sex trade, cultural misogyny etc are all important because they're tied together".

I think FDS ought to embrace the community they have established and the way it is continuing to evolve and thrive. I've seen some incredible posts on there in the months I've been subscribed. From an extensive list of why you shouldn't go 50/50 with a man on a date, patterns of behaviour displayed by abusers, calling out liberal feminism, analysing the glorification of sex work and much, much more. There are few spaces online where women are provided with such indispensable information straight off the bat. A woman who simply came onto FDS for dating could leave with a whole new understanding of the world and the misogynistic forces at play. I even saw a post the other day from an ex-sex worker who stopped escorting after discovering FDS and listening to the podcast. She encouraged other sex workers to do the same too.

It's actually quite insulting for OP to say that the "aggressive radfem idealogical grandstanding BS" has got to go. What a bizarre thing to say. I understand that not all FDS members are radical feminists, but considering that, 1. many active users are rad fems, 2. many have become rad fems through participating (whether that was the sub's intention or not) and 3. the podcast itself just hosted an "aggressive rad fem" last week (the incredible Gail Dines), I have no idea why radical feminism is being dismissed in this way. Why is it an issue if some posts include core radical feminist beliefs? It is still connected to dating, seeing as we are still attracted to men and have to navigate misogyny in all aspects of our lives. Radical feminism only strives to help women, not hurt women.

Also, OP seems to be unable to recognise a healthy middle ground between actively dating multiple men and opting out of dating completely. Yes, the handbook recommends multi-dating, but nowhere did it state that if you are single, you ought to be dating. She says, "It's okay to take breaks from dating because you're in a negative mindset, or focus on self improvement, or determine what you even want"...well, what if it's none of those things? If we're happy to just get on with our lives without actively seeking a man? What then? We are not "waiting for a HVM to come along" by not actively seeking them out. We know it's not that easy. I don't want to use online dating. I'm not going to join a meetup group for a random hobby just so I can cultivate opportunities to meet men. My life doesn't revolve around creating opportunities to meet men and I don't appreciate being told that I should "get in the habit of curating new experiences" with them. Like...no thanks. I will happily activate the vetting techniques I've learned when I come across men, but I don't need to go searching for them just to gain experience meeting and rejecting men. There are so many things I'd rather dedicate my time towards than to seek out men to practice FDS tactics on. Besides, there are plenty of non-dating situations involving men where we can still practice these techniques. Situations with male work colleagues, relatives, friends and strangers. Men are literally half the population. I think we'll be fine.

Anyway, I'm gonna share some comments from the post that particularly resonated with me:

Would love to see some more thoughts on this!

[droewyn]

[image ID: A screenshot of tumblr tags reading as follows:

#i still dont fully understand the proship vs antiship bullshit

#ive heard people saying that proship is another one of those labels pedophiles hide behind

End ID]

Okay, before anyone digs this person out of the tags to give them a hard time, they said a LOT more than this, and all of it is very sane and reasonable. But I wanted to address this particular point, so I grabbed just this.

I'm a regular on the AO3 subreddit. About once a week, we get some smug anti coming in to complain about the "LiTeRaL cHiLd PoRn" on AO3. They're usually expecting to find an echo chamber, and to be fair, on this topic we are one. We're just not echoing the position that they're expecting. Like AO3 itself, the subreddit is unapologetically pro-ship, down to the mods, some of whom are OTW volunteers themselves.

So antis show up, they get roundly mocked, and either vanish without a trace, or say something bad enough to get banned, either from the sub or from reddit itself. Honestly, the only reason to even click into these threads is to watch the drama; it happens so often.

Last night, I thought I was clicking into just another anti-post. It had a post title of "Is this something I can report?" Typical anti stuff. But when I clicked in, what came up was this:

[image ID: a screenshot of an AO3 story summary. The fic title is "The Eyes that Watch the Cradle", the author name has been redacted, and it is listed as an original work, meaning no fandom. It contains the archive warnings Rape/Noncon and Underage, and the freeform tags include the following:

Father/Daughter Relationship, Original Male Character(s) / Original Female Character(s), Older Man / Young Girl - Relationship, Omorashi, Grooming, Lolicon, Gymnastics, leotard, Urination, Piss Play, Voyeurism, Rape, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Teen Pregnancy, Inverted Nipples, gym clothes, Flexibility, Puberty, pee desperation, Pee, Childhood Trauma, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Daddy issues, Daddy Kink, Foot Fetish, Sweat, Tickling, Non-Consensual Tickling, Flashing, Non-Consensual Groping, Dry Humping, Coming In Pants, Molestation, Loss of Innocence, Vibrators, Orgasm Denial, Dubious Consent, Religious Guilt, Religion, Catholic School, Catholic Guilt, Hand Jobs, Forced Masturbation, First Time.

The summary reads: Tom and the perverse grooming of an 11-year-old girl gymnast he becomes infatuated with, through the years, she marries him and has his children, he grooms them too.

WITH PICTURES!

Transcriber Note: I need a shower now. End ID]

The thread has since been deleted by moderators, but fortunately the reddit mobile app is broken AF, so I was able to get the above screenshot.

The whole thing is really icky, but I want to highlight this:

[image ID: a screencap of just the phrase "WITH PICTURES!" taken from the previous image. End ID.]

I didn't track down the fic or click into it for obvious reasons (the FBI doesn't make a distinction between people consuming illegal content and people who just clicked in out of morbid curiosity), but others did, and reported that while there is no actual CSEM, there were photographs of very young children wearing leotards.

The implication is that these photos of kids are meant to be the ones being groomed and abused in the author's story.

Here is a representative sample of the comments on the thread:

[image ID: two screenshots from Reddit, displaying user comments.

User creampiebuni (with user flair "annoying shotacon") writes, "Pretty sure if it's linking to real photos of children, it can be reported. That crosses a big line."

They responded to themselves with, "Edit: I looked it up, yep, report, report, holy shit, this is not lolicon, this is just pedophilia."

User NataZing (the reddit thread's OP) replies, "I know, I only skimmed it, real nasty. Tried reporting it but it already had been so hopefully they get taken down

User parsious (with user flair "Definitely not an agent of the Fanfiction Deep State") replies, "If it had real pedo I would also be reporting to the police so they could talk to ao3 about user data... This sounds like the kind of person that needs to have a chat with the police."

User Connect-Sign5739 comments, "Yes, I'd report this. Including real pictures of children, even though non-pornographic, definitely crosses a line. Those real children shouldn't be associated with this story!"

User CatterMater (with user flair "Totally Not Boeing Mangement") writes, "Report, report, report."

User foreigner says, "WTF. [crying emoji]"

User andthennini writes, "Aside from how nauseating it sounds by the tags alone, if it actually has real people then I think it's reportable."

User ChaosieHyena says, "I gagged. Am pro fiction, but that's it FICTION. Any rpf (with images, no less) makes me genuinely queasy."

End Image ID]

There is not a SINGLE comment in support of this author. Every single person, except for one dipshit who made a really tasteless joke and got downvoted into oblivion, expressed shock, disgust, and horror.

See for yourself. OP's screencap is gone on desktop (again, it still shows up on mobile, at least for now), but the thread is still there and comments are intact: https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/1czd7aw/is_this_something_i_can_report/

This is what it means to be proship.

HJELP MEEEEEE LMAOOOO

[rotationalsymmetry]

I guess I’m in it now.

It’s good to re-examine the language you use to be more inclusive now and then. It sucks to have a gender that routinely gets left out of the conversation. It is good to adjust the words you use to back away from the idea that everybody is male or female, pick one. (Especially when you know people who aren’t male or female, but even when you don’t.)

It is also, specifically for bisexuals/pansexuals/etc, really fucking exhausting* to not be able to find an online group where I can just talk about the experience of being bi, and listen to what other bi’s have to say about it, without the discussion constantly being hijacked by nonbinary inclusion discourse. Constantly. All the damn time.** In a way that doesn’t happen when other people talk about their identities, and certainly doesn’t happen when straight people talk about who they’re attracted to.

(Straight people use “I love cock/I love pussy/I don’t like whatever” as shorthand for orientation all the motherfucking time, when they even have to explain their orientation rather than just having it assumed. Bi people? Not allowed. And we can’t just talk about anything — not who we like, not stereotypes, not appropriate sexual healthcare, not invisibility, not our own language issues — without about 1/3 of the conversation, or more, ending up being all about something on the nonbinary inclusion/whether bisexual or pansexual is the more inclusive term/the intrinsic transphobia of talking about attraction in terms of genitals, rather than what we were trying to talk about.

I am nonbinary. I do want to talk about nonbinary stuff. I would love to talk about the intersection of being nonbinary and being bi! never happens because everyone’s yelling about pansexuals or how it’s wrong to describe yourself as being attracted to me and women or conflating genitals with gender during your own coming out, an event where you should get to center yourself or something.

It is effectively a form of silencing. Even when it’s us doing it to ourselves.

*actually that’s not the right word. I mean really fucking alienating.

** I realize sometimes people say things like that when they mean “it gets brought up at all”, but I do actually mean all the damn time. I am not currently following any blogs that focus on being bisexual on tumblr because of this problem, the Facebook group I used to be in would have multiple massive dogpiles per week that were the first thing you saw because they got so much engagement (which seems like it would be hella counterproductive if your goal is to make a safe space for trans and nonbinary people, just moderating those posts out was an option and it was not an option the mods went with), and while Reddit of all places has been the best online space I’ve found for this, it still gets dragged down by bi vs pan BS fairly often. Like, if I look at more than 2-3 posts in a bi subreddit there’s going to be one of these things showing up. If I binge and read a bunch of posts, I’ll get multiple posts about this stuff. TBF, when I went to an in-person group that wasn’t really a thing at all, but as a spoonie in a pandemic, in-person groups aren’t really an option for me, and realistically even heathy bisexuals tend to look for other bisexuals online.

[wholesomebpt]

An update for some of the rules - Trolling/harassing/rudeness [

The WholesomeBPT Mod Team has decided to update our trolling/harassing/rudeness rule. While most of you visit the sub for wholesomeness, issues of race will always be below the surface simply by virtue of the name of the subreddit. We are using a black frame of view for most of these examples, but the reverse is also disallowed. For this reason, we will describe the behaviors that are not allowed or welcome:

CRUSADING - Coming to BPT with the express intention of starting a fight with other users. This is a sub for laughing and enjoying the wholesome content, not getting into race arguments. Examples of comments that are against this rule:

Quoting FBI Crime Stats/IQ stats

Calling other users racists with the express intention of derailing a thread ("you're the REAL racist" or "This is reverse racism")

"Everyone should just get over this"

"If you'd stop bringing race into everything racism would go away"

"Imagine if the roles were reversed and a white person posted/said that"

"Not all [insert group of people]"

"Playing the victim card/something about wanting victim status, "self victimization""

"They should had just complied with the police and not resisted"

Trying to justify the use of "n*gger" or "nigga" amongst non-black people.

"This is the most racist sub on Reddit"

TROLLING - Intentionally posting edgy things to make others angry. This one is self-explanatory. But here are some examples anyway.

Kill yourself loser

LMAO I bet you're just a white loser

Anything involving the word cuck

Triggered, Snowflakes

Cunt

WE WUZ KANGS.

Similarly posting "WE", "WE WUZ", or “KANGS N SHIEETT”

Use of "Dindu nuffin" or "Dindu"

"Muh"

Comments that are unnecessarily uncivil

All Lives Matter

Use of "Soyboy"

CONCERN TROLLING - This is a different type of trolling that has to do with acting as if you are a concerned user who would totally be for a certain ideal, 'if it wasn't for xyz'.

"Man I would totally be behind this if it wasn't for Jesse Jackson supporting it"

"I'd think police brutality was an issue if it wasn't for all the black on black violence"

“Just Asking Questions” - is a way of attempting to make wild accusations acceptable by framing them as questions rather than statements

Sea Lioning - Which consists of bad-faith requests for evidence, or repeated questions, the purpose of which is not clarification or elucidation, but rather an attempt to derail a discussion or to wear down the patience of one's opponent. The troll who uses this tactic also uses fake civility and feigns offense to discredit their target. Example

Context matters greatly in these. Different opinions are allowed, but bad faith posting is pretty visible. Moderators will use your posting history to get an idea of what you are like, and if it becomes obvious quickly if that a user is attempting to derail the natural flow of the sub. The punishment for violation varies based on the severity of the offense, which could be anything from removed comments to a permanent ban.

Have no doubt that if you say something remotely racist or race-baity and it ends up in the modqueue, and we find past racist posts or comments, you will be banned without a second thought. There is no place for neo-nazis or white supremacists in this subreddit, and if you are found trying to astroturf you will be indiscriminately banned.

**We may ban based on post history depending on the subreddit(s). Some subreddits have been openly hostile towards us, and continue to be. If you are found to be participating in said subreddits, you will be banned. If you feel as if it's a mistake, feel free to message the mods.

Things that aren't changing:

If you start calling us n*ggers, k*kes, neckbeards, and 'for free' in response to valid bans.

Racism still isn't allowed.

Saying 'ITT: Butthurt White People' still isn't funny. It'll be removed.

Thanks for bearing with us, if you have any questions or concerns, please leave them in the comments.

SIDE NOTE

Black Twitter is more than just memes and comedy. Black Twitter itself (not the subreddit) is an extension of the black community. Therefore, whatever is wholesome/popular/viral on Black Twitter may get posted here. Black people are not here purely for your own entertainment.

Politics influences/affects everyone and everything, it's going to be widely discussed at one point or another.

Users commenting "this sub used to be funny, now it's all politics/social issues" etc will be banned.

If you cannot deal with an influx of political/social issues posts, feel free to leave the sub.

The WholesomeBPT Mod Team

]

[omegangrins]

That time I was banned from r/Harmontown by Adam Goldberg

This is now a several-days-old topic, and doesn't seem to have any movement or *awareness* of the issue from the mods. I do find that problematic. I am, and many of the community in this thread remain deeply concerned about the concepts of process and censorship on display.

I reached out to siike (/u/siikeandrebuild) a few days ago, wondering if he'd like to comment at all, despite wishing to maintain his exile-on-principle. He asked that I paste his comment in wholly, without any changes at all. Here it is, I'll provide screenshots if you all need.

> Holy cow! On a whim, I thought I'd come back to see what the comments on the latest episode were, and I came across this. First, I appreciate the kind words. I read the entire "Goldberg banned Levi?" link of comments and saw a lot of interesting points.

> Basically, Goldberg (did ban and admitted to it) Levi, but stated that there were threats. There's no evidence of it. If Adam conversed with another moderator, I imagine he fed them false information in order to get his way. Don't know what he has against Levi, other than being annoyed, but Adam, ABOVE ALL OTHERS, should understand what it feels like to be punished for being annoying to a certain few.

> I understand Levi comments on just about everything. He doesn't live in LA, and can't go to the shows weekly, so he tries to connect to us all through this and other social medias. I don't see comments on everything as being a crime. I especially don't see how someone like Adam Goldberg can throw out false accusations, like him being threatened, with no proof of it, then disconnect Levi.

> Especially the week of the episode where Dan mentions that telling someone to stop talking isn't how we do things! Dan, and Harmontown in general, is a show about everyone, including Adam, Levi, me, and everyone else, being ourselves and connecting. Adam disconnected someone. I believe Levi's last comment was even something like, "What did I do? I'm sorry. I take back whatever it was. Please tell me what I did wrong and how to make it right." Then... ban. Silenced. Disconnected from the place that probably gets Levi through the day. You heard him on the show. He hates where he lives, what he does. He reaches out to us on subreddit and the Harmontown forum and Twitter, etc, for sanity. And he gets punished for that? By Adam Goldberg?

> I don't agree to that being the solution, so yes, I walked away, which sucks, cause with the crap I go through in my life, I come to this place to talk with most of you for sanity as well. I gave Adam a chance to explain himself, on the subreddit and in PM, and he didn't give me one shred of evidence to back up his claims. So therefore, the evidence shows that Adam was annoyed by all the comments, and with discussion with another mod or not, silenced someone.

> I'm not out to vilify anyone. I hate that. I guess I'm more shocked and disappointed than anything over Adam's behavior. And I'm not painting Levi as some poor victim/hero who can't fend for himself. He's a big boy and will no doubt make it through a ban. But still, its a ban that shouldn't be there. Its a silencing that should have never happened.

> That's everything from my POV, for what it's worth. You're welcome to share it in that forum if you think it will clear anything up for anyone. Obviously this isn't a big issue and most of us have bigger fish to fry in our every day lives. Still, I don't like the idea of one Harmenian silencing another. That's not how we do things. These are the actions of people that will not get my vote to join the Moon Colony.

> Again, thank you for your message and the nice things some of you said about me. It means a lot that some people hold me in such high regard. It truly does. I'm just like all of you. I do what I can to make it through the day. This show, Dan, and all of you help that. So know that I hold all of you in the same regard, and appreciate you all connecting with me. It really does make the tough days easier to handle. Be well. I'll be back when Levi gets to speak again.

So there you go. The voice from the beyond. We'll let siike know when he's able to come back, which is, of course, when Levi's ban is lifted.

/u/ultraberg has stated in this submission that he's vilified by us no matter what, but I don't think that's the case. I think if this had been approached with a reasonable process, and if the rest of the community felt we weren't being stifled, or at risk of censorship for *unknowable and unreasonable actions* we'd all be fine with it. Obviously, disruptive behavior has to be dealt with, and the purpose of *law* itself, in its highest form, is to liberally protect the rights of a social order. But we have to know the law, and know who is enforcing it.

At this point, it is a matter of severe mistrust.

I continue to believe a the election or selection of a new mod, who is unrelated to the show, who's primary purpose is to engage only with the /r/harmontown community (not the show itself) and to defuse or defang issues like this that could be seen as partisan or personal would be a very good thing indeed.

[dontbemeanmrbubz]

*kracks knuckels* Buckle up, this is gonna be a long one. Get ready for some reddit lore.

The beginnings

It all started with a group of roommates who made a subreddit called r/195. "195" Was their dorm number. The only rule of that subreddit? You must post an image before you leave. Originally it was just a thing between them, but of course other people started joining and it snowballed from there.

The result was essentially a shitposting subreddit, but without the rampant mean-spirited jokes and right-wing dogwhistles that are usually present in shitposting communities.

First migration

Eventually, the roommates told people that they planned to close down the subreddit because it was too much work, they weren't actually roommates anymore etc. As a result, the subreddit r/196 was created and carried forth the spirit of its predecessor for many years. It established itself as a very popular left-wing shitposting subreddit and (arguably) a safe space for queer people.

There are some offshoots of this subreddit as well, e.g. r/19684, where sexual stuff is banned.

API-protest and second migration

A while ago, reddit made some very unpopular API changes which made third-party apps practically impossible. This was heavily criticised, mostly because 1. the reddit app was and is dog shit and people don't want to be forced to use it, 2. third-party apps provided accessibility for people with disabilities, and 3. it made moderators' jobs harder.

In protest, a lot of subreddits just started to "black out" (nothing can be posted or commented), and r/196 was particularly persistent. As a result, a lot of people from this community fled to tumblr - either to support the protest or simply because they couldn't post anymore on r/196 - and used the tag #196. Integration went smoothly because r/196 already had tumblr-style humour, had similar (political) values, and a huge part of the content there was already just tumblr screenshots.

People also noted that the welcome on here was very dissimmilar to when people from twitter fled to tumblr, since apparently a lot of tumblr users fired the digital equivalent of "rent lowering shots" back then.

Aftermath and final thoughts

Eventually, r/196 was re-opened. The reddit-wide protest faded out without having had much of an effect, and reddit threatened to replace the mods of subreddits that still protested. I personally think it was ultimately a good thing that the subreddit became available again because it's a huge leftist and inclusive community - God knows we need as many of those as we can get!

A lot of people seem to have found other tags on tumblr, went back to reddit, or (like me) ended up using both tumblr and reddit, so #196 does not seem as active as it used to be anymore.

There have been some controversies on r/196 (e.g. tankies being bullies with a victim complex, discussions regarding the distinction between genital preferences and fetishization, and arguments regarding the presence of minors on the subreddit), but all in all I'm personnally quite happy with the subreddit's current state, and I enjoy being on tumblr as well :3

WHAT THE FUCK IS 196???????????