Me as well for the same reasons. I get curious about what's happening there sometimes, and at this point it's just a wasteland.

It's difficult to find a thread that isn't politicized in some way, or does not have at least some toxic elements to it. I've been told sometimes that it's 'just the mainstream communities', however the most toxic encounters I have had were always in the more niche threads. It devolves into downright vitriolic flame wars if you disagree with someone, and generally "agree to disagree" just inspires more wrath.

The answer to flame wars because of too much politicization is fairly certainly not "we need less moderator powers!".

There's a few sides. Sometimes giving the moderator too much power means they also have too much power of abstention. If they selectively don't enforce rules, toxic behaviour can be enabled. Worse when rules are enforced against one participant but not another. Sometimes vague rules get arbitrarily used against the unpopular.

When those mods are literally playing a role in it and removing posts from one side of the political argument, but not the other side, in that discussion then yes they are part of the problem.

Curious, what alternatives have you found that are similar to what reddit used to be (besides this site)? Also, what alternative sites have you found replaced Reddit for you, even if they are not similar to what Reddit once was?

Ruqqus.com but unfortunately still small. And also infected. I've been on Shroomery lately and I really like that forum.

I think the concept of Karma points is bullshit and punitive. It makes people negative. PG should know that by now and so should Reddit. Karma is inherently toxic.

Anything that encourages vanity is. And karma encourages it more than anything. As do likes / dislikes. Numbers of votes. Numbers of likes. It's all the same. People competing for attention.

And justified by an angry mob because Karma.

> Ruqqus.com but unfortunately still small. And also infected.

I just went to see what it was. I selected the category 'Hobby' and here's the list of themes of the posts which came up top:

GunsNAmmoDeals, GunsNAmmoDeals, Cannabis, Guns, ProGuns, LASER, TheFirearmBlog, TheFirearmBlog, Plinkn, TheFirearmBlog, bobross, Physical_Removal

I mean, that's some hobby I guess, but a bit monomaniacal :-/

This is what happens when we divide people. People congregate form tribes and fight each other.

We keep calling each other Nazi's and Socialists - every social network online today.

What's your opinion on the moderation here on HN?

How is this different from other media? It's already common practice with magazines that contain product reviews. There's nothing stopping companies from doing this with bulletin boards and blogs.

Yes, this is true. The problem lies in that they've historically waved the free speech flag in one hand while throwing the banhammer with the other.

Ahhh, yes, and you literally just described Section 230 exemptions vs. being a publisher.

Yes, publishers are able to act as publishers and also get held responsible for what they publish. Social media sites are exempt from this under Section 230 rules, but that assumes they are not unfairly moderating their sites and turning into publishers.

Yes, you literally just described what is a publisher and why their abuse of Section 230 law is not ok. You all who are supporting this overmoderation of Reddit seem to want Reddit to be a publisher.

Well, with becoming a publisher and unfairly moderating the site, you lose Section 230 protections. You can't have your cake and eat it too, but that is what Reddit and many of the supporters of overmoderation want to do.

> Social media sites are exempt from this under Section 230 rules, but that assumes they are not unfairly moderating their sites and turning into publishers.

No, it doesn't. Section 230 has nothing about “unfair moderation”; it explictly allows online services to act as publishers within certain boundaries (to which the “fairness” of any moderation is not relevant, only whether the content is user-generated rather than first-party) without being legally treated as publishers for most civil liability purposes.

I mean just look at geographic subreddits like r/canada and r/vancouver they all have people, moderators with extreme alt-right views often banning people for sharing opposing views.

Astroturfing is common as aged reddit accounts are easily obtainable and Reddit algorithm isn't sophisticated enough to detect this.

/u/maxwellhill is also the biggest mystery of all. Even pinging the username results in a ban. This single account has been responsible for almost 70% of what you read on r/worldnews and its not far fetched to suggest that a small group of people actively dictate the world landscape.

Majority of people on reddit do not read beyond the headlines much like other social networks. People simply do not care to objectively ask for truth and are punished for doing so on Reddit.

Viral content is recycled over and over for hoarding karma points. Some users were caught fabricating heart wrenching stories for virtual internet points. I believe that these are farmers, creating thousands of accounts to be sold to people with commercial interest.

Very different than what HN does and it is the right way to maintain meaningful discussions. Too much of Reddit is just trolls and maladjusted individuals creating their own pseudo-realities like r/aznidentity or other Red-Pill subreddits.

I would assume bringing up that username results in a ban because it is now unfortunately associated with QAnon belief, and moderators want to stamp out QAnon conspiracies.