13 KiB
[META] You might be interested to know about the current attempt to take over the Voat satellite of this sub.
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Author: u/None *
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URL:
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Score: 0
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Created: 2015-06-18T18:33:04
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Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+31] Time flies like an arrow (2 minutes later)
So far as I'm concerned, they're free to it. If this community ever needs to move somewhere else, and voat is the logical place for us to move, we can just grab /v/rationalfiction. I understand the impetus to make voat into an exact mirror of reddit, but I don't think that's going to work out well, and they're right that /v/rational is prime namespace (even if I don't think that namespace counts for much if you don't have a way to drive users).
u/lodro [-1] (a day later)
Thank you for this thoughtful analysis. Perhaps you can convince your stubborn friend to give it up and use /v/rationalfiction.
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+3] Roll the Dice on Fate (3 days later)
I have to ask, well actually I don't have to but I do feel like it: do you think your current way of dealing with this issue is an effective way to get what you want? So far as I can tell you're making this whole thing rather pointlessly adversarial. Generally speaking if there's something you want that you can't actually pressure someone into giving you it's a lot easier to try being nice first then switching to other tactics like asking mods or whoever.
Implying that said person's reasons are bad and they're just being stubborn in a public place they will likely read is a bad idea irrespective of whether or not they are being stubborn. If they aren't, they'll feel wrongly accused and defensive making them less likely to go along with their thing. If they are, they'll just dig their heels in further.
You're playing to the crowd, but the crowd have no vote.
u/rthomas2 [+2] (3 days later)
I second /u/fuguofanotherworld. How fair or intelligent your point/request comes second to how respectful you are. I too agree with the argument that v/rational isn't ours to claim, but being rude or callous towards people for any reason--let alone the minor inconvenience of their disagreeing with you--makes me completely distrust your motives, and compels me to fight against your receiving of any power, however minor. You might still succeed in convincing me to agree with your point, but you'd also violently repel me from accepting you as a person who should have any control over what happens.
u/Imamapnotaterratory [+5] (11 hours later)
Let them have it. The name Rational is much more fitting for a sub about discussing rationality (like lesswrong) than only rational fiction.
u/Transfuturist [+8] Carthago delenda est. (8 hours later)
A subreddit namespace entitles one community to the trademarked use of a single common adjective?
Rational fiction or this sub? This sub is not. It is a placeholder to make sure /v/rational does not get picked up and used for something that is too different from what /r/Rational is.
Really, honestly, fuck that. Domain squatting like this is completely useless. Let them have it.
u/blazinghand [+3] Chaos Undivided (2 hours later)
Good for them, I suppose. No reason for us to stop doing our thing here.
u/callmebrotherg [+3] now posting as /u/callmesalticidae (6 hours later)
Interesting. I didn't know that voat was even a thing.
It'll probably be too much hassle to split efforts evenly between the two subs right now, but kudos or something for looking ahead?
u/BekenBoundaryDispute [+4] (32 minutes later)
I would really not feel comfortable migrating to Voat.
u/None [+8] (34 minutes later)
Out of curiosity: Why?
u/alexanderwales [+28] Time flies like an arrow (55 minutes later)
There are two primary reasons not to migrate to voat, one of which is always going to be an issue, and the other which is more dealing with current events:
/r/rational currently has 3,100 readers, and most of them wouldn't make the transition. You'd end up with a smaller community, fewer submissions, less discussion, etc.
Voat is experiencing growth right now because of the whole /r/fatpeoplehate thing. If you have no idea what that is, you can read about it here. There are two general sorts of people who are migrating. The first are the free-speech people who think this is a symptom of reddit losing its focus, spitting in the face of so-called transparency, doing exactly the sort of thing that goes against what made it the place to be in the first place, etc. The second sort are the people who populated subs like /r/fatpeoplehate and want to continue having a place for mockery, harassment, and ... well, hate, like it says in the name. There were about 150,000 subs of /r/fatpeoplehate, with more who frequented it but weren't subbed, and a fair amount of them went over to voat (it's the 17th largest subverse there, and from what I can tell, comprises about half the userbase). In my personal opinion, it doesn't seem like the sort of site that I would go to right now in the hopes of getting intelligent, thoughtful discussion, because a lot of the people you'd be talking to would be the sorts of people who take joy in mockery, harassment, etc. Not all of them, obviously, but enough. And worse, voat itself is profiting from this whole thing, which means that they're going to have a strong incentive to not upset their majority of their userbase.
u/rthomas2 [+1] (3 days later)
Speaking for myself, I'd want to point out that I hadn't heard anything about any controversy, and that my first exposure to VOAT's existence was this thread. As soon as I saw that it was a thing, I began wondering whether it was an attempt to be reddit-but-better, and started considering moving there.
So I'd have to believe there may well be a third group of people who'd move to Voat: those finding out about it simply due to its current visibility, and seeing if it might be a viable improvement over reddit.
u/BekenBoundaryDispute [+2] (40 minutes later)
The most recent wave of emigration to Voat was by very toxic groups and individuals, several of which have directly or indirectly harmed my friends, colleagues, and family.
I would not want to legitimize them.
u/None [+5] (46 minutes later)
Hmm. As someone who's been using voat.co since it was called WhoaVerse, that's … interesting. Thanks for the speedy reply.
u/philip1201 [+1] (5 hours later)
That sounds more severe than I would have expected from those groups. Do you have some kind of evidence, or could you expand on what happened?
u/torac [+4] (11 hours later)
I recommend you research that topic on your own, following the link above or maybe looking at the sticky in the Kotaku in Action sub. This is not really the place for that imho.
If you search for it you will probably find the same screenshots I did of some users and even at least one mod of the sub harrassing outsiders. Apparently quite a few people got private messages from users or mods of the sub, which many didn’t like. Some subscribers also doxxed people, despite that behaviour having been banned in the sub.
Most of this is hearsay and users of the site trying to justify the decision. As far as I know the Admins didn’t provide any evidence of their claims nor offered they a detailed justification for what they did. Contentious points are also a) why the banned the whole sub for the actions of relatively few of the 150k subscribers, b) why they banned all related subs, not only the offending one, c) why they didn’t ban any similar ‘hate’-subs d) why they didn’t ban any of the other subs that are shown to have sizeable population of harassers.
Regardless of what their reasons are or whether it was justified, significant parts of the population of voat come from various subs on reddit having been banned. This supposedly leads to quite a different ’site culture’ if that makes sense.
Edit: Also, Neogaf was also banned. It was a tiny sub about a forum of the same name, made to critize the perceived mod-abuse on that site.
u/Terkala [-10] (an hour later)
So, voat is guilty of what? It's free speech. Unlike the censored speech that we have access to here on reddit.
There are plenty of other subs on voat that are not as toxic as those, and they keep to themselves and don't bleed over into other subs.
If you want an insulated and padded room where nobody you dislike can ever talk to you, then you're free to not participate. I can quite confidently say that someone so afraid of interacting with those that they disagree with is likely not going to contribute anything of value to the conversation anyway.
u/FeepingCreature [+14] GCV Literally The Entire Culture (2 hours later)
It's not Voat's fault, but it does affect the sorts of people who are gonna be hanging out there for the next few months.
u/traverseda [+10] With dread but cautious optimism (7 hours later)
Politics is spiders man. I'm right there with you on the free speech thing, but you're very much making it an "us vs them" thing.
You can be concerned by all the SJW stuff and still think that fatpeoplehate is a shitty place.
u/AmyWarlock [-4] (3 hours later)
Maybe you should also go to voat if it's so enlightened and free-speech friendly
u/Terkala [-2] (3 hours later)
I find it very amusing that you and many others here are willing to vilify me for my "evil" views that free speech should protect everyone's speech. It's almost as if nobody here actually reads rationalist stories and has no idea how a rational debate can take place.
u/MaxDougwell [+8] (5 hours later)
I can't seem to find the part where your views are vilified and labeled "evil". Can you point me to them? I wasn't aware r/rational had such opinions and behavior.
u/Transfuturist [-2] Carthago delenda est. (8 hours later)
If I had to guess, I'd say Terkala was probably a sub of FPH, and took offense to a group they belonged to being labeled toxic.
u/AmyWarlock [+2] (5 hours later)
Really, you're going to talk about being rational when you read a comment saying that the person wouldn't want to spend time around hateful people and you jump to them saying that they're afraid of ever talking to someone who disagrees?
u/FuguofAnotherWorld [+1] Roll the Dice on Fate (3 days later)
You are being vilified for jumping straight to insults and finding justifications to lower the value of everyone who disagrees with you whilst claiming a rational debate.
u/None [-8] (an hour later)
[deleted]
u/AmyWarlock [+2] (3 hours later)
Reread their comment, they never said that.
u/Rhamni [+3] Aspiring author (16 hours later)
I'm the guy who registered the name. I'm mildly disinclined to losing the sub in case the reddit exodus broadens, but I cede the point that there really isn't much need for a subverse right now. I've replied to the thread and made a few posts to the subverse, but I agree we could just take a different name if it came to that. So... thanks for the heads up. And as the subverse sidebar says, if anyone from here wants to make more of an effort making it into an active sub, I'm happy to hand it over.
u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
What the hell is voat?
u/alexanderwales [+7] Time flies like an arrow (5 hours later)
Reddit clone, Schelling point for people who want all the things that reddit offers without all the stuff that reddit does.
u/Bowbreaker [+2] Solitary Locust (2 days later)
So... Does the subverse holding policy differ from Reddit's subreddit first come first serve policy then? Because as far as I know it is nigh impossible to take away a subreddit from the top founder/moderator if said person doesn't want it. If it is similar over there then there seems to be nothing to 'fear' regarding the loss of /v/rational.
u/None [+1] (7 hours later)
all the things that reddit offers without all the stuff that reddit does.
Huh?
u/alexanderwales [+8] Time flies like an arrow (7 hours later)
Like ... if you thought that the format of reddit was awesome, with nested replies, upvotes, downvotes, subreddits, etc. but you thought the management of reddit was terrible (admins, not mods). Every time reddit (the corporation) does something that people don't like, some amount of people get driven elsewhere, and for the most part, that "elsewhere" is voat.co.
If you haven't noticed anything, you can just ignore all of this.
u/None [+2] (7 hours later)
Yknow, a voting system etc, minus the occasional bouts of strict censorship.