[go1dfish]

I've asked this repeatedly at reddit and have still yet to ever receive an answer and I think it goes to the core of many of the concerns the reddit community has over the new direction.

Why is /r/TwoXChromosomes the only default subreddit to allow political advocacy?

Not a single default would have accepted kn0thing's first post in todays reddit.

Reddit as a political soapbox died around the time of Occupy Wall Street. It's as neutered as Facebook now.

[raldi]

Most political subreddits don't garner upvotes on the basis of "I'm glad I was shown this" but rather, "YOU need to read this".

And so you get a front page full of angry crap nobody wants to read but everyone thinks everyone else needs to see.

It doesn't make for a pleasant user experience.

[odiroot]

Just because you (and the rest of the staff) don't want to read it doesn't mean the community doesn't.

Parent comment is very much right, Reddit got disappointingly neutered.

[go1dfish]

Not only that, they should recognize that yes one use pattern of reddit was to get the word out of things you think other people ought to here. This attracts users that have something to say; and that attracts users who want something to read/hear etc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

This too can drive growth. If the community gets the impression that they don't drive the content then reddit loses all the magic.

The truth is, the users haven't driven the content of the front-page since the fall of /r/reddit.com following Occupy Wall Street.

[go1dfish]

The front page algorithm is specifically tailored to normalize the appearance of subs precisely so this sort of thing doesn't happen. It's simply not true that the front page would get flooded with politics if you brought in a single default subreddit that allowed general advocacy (or just reddit rule parity like /r/reddit.com did).

Also what makes /r/TwoXChromosomes any different?

Can't you see how that seems a bit unfair to long term politically oriented users of reddit when kn0thing is making statements like this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/35ym8t/promote_ideas_...

And ekjp is out doing interviews with avowed feminists and talking about safe spaces?

If reddit doesn't want to be a platform for political advocacy and activism just make that clear and be fair and even handed about it. Right now some groups are allowed to coordinate email campaigns while others are not and this favoritism has existed at high levels of reddit (whether due to mod cliques or admin influence) ever since the Ron Paul campaign.

The truth is that everyone posting to reddit is posting it with some measure of "YOU need to read this" and the state of default moderation leads to a torment for users who actually want to contribute in ways that powermods (and now admins) disagree with.

The new safe space rule is "Systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them."

The way this is written implies that safety is not the only factor in harassment, but that continued actions to torment and demean users in a way that makes reasonable people conclude that reddit is not a platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/36iduv/what_is_the_ap...

But the community team seems to only be using it to "ban behavior not ideas" by banning fresh subreddits that share any similarity with previously objectionable subs that were banned for harassing activity without warning, and without submitting any evidence to the community of the behavior so contemptible that it was worthy of disbanding a relatively large community without warning or any recourse whatsoever.

But to be clear, the banning of FPH did not trigger my outrage, I was stunned and appalled at Pao's statements wrt to Free Speech recently it's just a massive departure from the historical nature of the site and it's disingenuous to not acknowledge that to the community from whence you draw all power and profit.