[HelloMcFly]

Occam's Razor suggests the former. Here is a perfunctory "I don't know you" - nothing below may be applicable.

There are power-hungry mods, no doubt. They can be politically oriented in either direction, or sometimes just like to be the monarch. But I've been around reddit for over 15 years now, and in my view if you're regularly being accused of being toxic, I'm inclined to believe that you're the cause. And it may not be due to the factual nature of your posts, but the manner in which you share them.

Again, I don't know you, and my experience certainly can't generalize to everyone else. I was a mod for about six months, hated it, but that gave me all the insight I need into how dishonest (or possibly not at all self-aware) people can be when recounting how they were "wronged."

[unsupp0rted]

To me Occam's Razor suggests that any giant social network inevitably declines into group-think and mod fiefdoms, barring an active mitigation strategy.

This is the very basis of why HN rules and moderation are structured the way they are: to actively discourage such an anticipated decline.

If a person seems reasonable and thoughtful on one anonymous forum, Occam's Razor suggests they are similarly thoughtful in another anonymous forum.

[HelloMcFly]

> To me Occam's Razor suggests that any giant social network inevitably declines into group-think and mod fiefdoms, barring an active mitigation strategy.

And I would argue any giant social network also inevitably declines into troll behavior and bad-faith brigading without active mitigation strategies. It is hard to balance these things.

I certainly think "I'm routinely regarded as an a-hole because I act like one" to be much more plausible than "I'm routinely regarded as an a-hole because this giant social network has a metaphorical auto-immune disease that results in me experiencing this routinely."

[OGWhales]

> I certainly think "I'm routinely regarded as an a-hole because I act like one" to be much more plausible than "I'm routinely regarded as an a-hole because this giant social network has a metaphorical auto-immune disease that results in me experiencing this routinely."

Especially when others participate in that same social network and don't experience that same problem.

The one benefit I could give this person is that they are seeking out subs that have a high likelihood of being ran by highly political moderators and are extrapolating that to the whole of reddit. The same could be true for what kinds of discussions they find themselves participating in. If they are attracted to highly political communities and controversial discussions, they would have a higher likelihood of running into such issues.

[HelloMcFly]

My own experience indicates that people seeking those subs out also have a higher likelihood of being intentionally provocative, and the line between "provocative" and "troll" is very different for very different people.

[unsupp0rted]

The main problem with Reddit, and the crux of my point, is that year on year the problem creeps into even the smaller and intentionally non-political subs.

If interacting every day, it's getting harder not to be labeled an -ic or -ist of some kind in a sizable home town sub or a sub about a generic tv show.

That problem doesn't seem to exist on HN: more often people reply to the content of the comment without labeling the commenter.

[HelloMcFly]

> The main problem with Reddit, and the crux of my point, is that year on year the problem creeps into even the smaller and intentionally non-political subs.

My main problem with your conclusion is that this does not comport with my - and seemingly many others - experience, and my brief time as a mod has shown me that people who believe themselves to be victims often don't appreciate or admit their own culpability.

But I can't say that with any certainty, you're a whole human being with your own lived experiences, and I've no desire to review your reddit comment history either way. I do appreciate you are not the only one that feels as you do. I just can't square my experience with the one you claim impacts "every user" which is, quite frankly, preposterous and one of the main reasons I have a hard time taking your observations at face value.

But that's about all I have to say on the matter.

[mistermann]

> But I've been around reddit for over 15 years now, and in my view if you're regularly being accused of being toxic, I'm inclined to believe that you're the cause. And it may not be due to the factual nature of your posts, but the manner in which you share them.

Don't forget the sub-perceptual cultural axioms of the era the Event occurred in within Time.