>> I think it's just the sense of heebie-jeebies

That's the start of most 'war-on-obscenity' arguments, and usually leads to no constructive ideas. I hate the topic (abusive pornography/snuff) as much as you, but that rational is inappropriate given the peoples' wide variety of tastes in this world, if the material is indeed legal for your region of the world.

>> More broadly speaking, I would be very willing to bet that an internet community that places harsher standards on acceptable content would result in a better environment for those involved

historically that has only served to push users to other services. the success of the regionalization of 2channel into what 4chan is now is a good example. 4chan's success is widely attributed to the pseudo-anonymity that it's users enjoy, and the founder of the site spoke at TED a few years back on what exactly the benefits of such a relationship with their userbase is.

http://www.ted.com/talks/christopher_m00t_poole_the_case_for...

>historically that has only served to push users to other services.

But this is exactly what you want - get rid of the low-quality users and offload them somewhere else. reddit has gotten itself quite a questionable image tolerating pornographic jailbait, necrophiliac porn, stolen nudes and domestic abusers on its platform for very long.

And who is to say these users are inherently low quality? Enjoying any anything socially unacceptable doesn't preclude them from creating content you may enjoy in another subreddit.

I'd argue that personality traits cluster, so that someone who frequents a fappenings-subreddit is way more likely to doxx your users, troll or cause other disturbances than people who don't.

And of course, junk traffic breeds more junk traffic. Even if the first generation of a shady subreddit might make this up with quality in other parts of your site, it will invariably attract generation 2 and later which will create a mini-eternal September.

I'd argue it's orthogonal.

>And of course, junk traffic breeds more junk traffic. Even if the first generation of a shady subreddit might make this up with quality in other parts of your site, it will invariably attract generation 2 and later which will create a mini-eternal September.

You can argue both ways, the quality increase will attract more quality users.

While those users are creating and posting dog porn they are of low value to me. They're creating noise not signal; consuming resources; and creating negative brand associations. By asking them to take their dog porn elsewhere I risk losing them altogether (which currently isn't much loss) or they start posting other content.

>They're creating noise not signal

Signal to people who care.

"They shouldn't be posting X because I don't like X" sounds extremely entitled to me.

"They are damaging the brand value of the site" which has nothing to do with you. When I criticise Apple (and you use Apple products), there is no need to take it personally.

A company is free to care about users who want dog porn. That company should not be surprised when other users, or advertisers, steer clear of that company or its brand.

An important part of the question here is are the subquestions of what should be regarded as a "common carrier"-like thing (a category which probably includes email traffic and public Internet traffic at the TCP/UDP level), and what should be tolerated on those services, and what should be regarded as not similar to a "common carrier" (which clearly includes, say, the official Wikipedia version of a Wikipedia page or the non-advertising content of an issue of the New York Times), and what should be tolerated in those venues. Part of the problem of Reddit is that it blurs the lines between the two categories and sends vague or contradictory messages about which side of the line it's on. Things that make Reddit look more like a single publisher or "community" include:

* the single /r/whatever namespace, which was meant to be used as the marker for the canonical or default reddit on a particular topic (and is still used by users for that purpose, whatever disclaimers Reddit may want to hide behind now)

* the partly-shared moderation across subreddits

* talk about "the Reddit community" and "Redditors" (wait, it's not a community but rather "a community of communities"? http://www.redditblog.com/2014/09/every-man-is-responsible-f... ? Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor), the Snoo branding and individual subreddits' customisation thereof, the promotion of shared Reddit meetups http://www.redditblog.com/2014/05/global-reddit-meetup-day-i... , and in general the consistent effort to promote a common identity for "Reddit" and "Redditors"

* other technical features like Reddit gold which likewise encourage the perception of Reddit as a single platform

The just-a-platform argument is hard one for any message board or single-host/owner, single-login cluster of message-boards to sustain. Reddit's even more poorly placed to sustain it than others. Twitter, for example, is much better placed to do so, even though it's a single-owner/host, single-login publishing system.