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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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Same. I don't want to have to go crawling back to reddit.

Why did we get ejected from Reddit again? Reddit admins let us know we couldn't debate trans stuff?

Discussion of it here.

Reddit admins let us know we couldn't debate trans stuff?

Not so much that (although it seemed like would be only a matter of time), but individuals were catching site-wide bans for the triple-brackets (as mentioned below) but also trans stuff -- I seem to remember getting a three day one for something trivial-ish around trans stuff.

What I suspect was happening is bad/motivated actors hanging around using the "report to admins" (as opposed to moderation team) function directly -- which at best would go to some blue-hair for evaluation, or at worst an auto-filter catching things like triple brackets.

Never was ejected. /r/TheMotte is still there. Every month /u/naraburns bot still posts an (empty) QC thread.

We were never actually kicked off. However, we'd had several warnings from the "anti-evil" squad, who ignored all our requests for clarification or further dialog. It was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, and Zorba eventually made the decision to pull the trigger. He might or might not have done this before it was necessary, but I doubt we'd have been allowed to remain much longer.

We were never actually kicked off. However, we'd had several warnings from the "anti-evil" squad, who ignored all our requests for clarification or further dialog. It was generally believed that it was only a matter of time, and Zorba eventually made the decision to pull the trigger. He might or might not have done this before it was necessary, but I doubt we'd have been allowed to remain much longer.

I think it was the right decision. I'm very proud that our little community survived the migration, despite all the nay-sayers at the time!

I think the timing was fine and allowed the migration to proceed with maximum cohesion. Trying to do it while /r/themotte was under administrative sanctions would have lost more users.

The writing was on the wall considering correspondence from the admins. It seemed to be 'You know what you did, no we aren't going to tell you' as a cover for 'we just don't like you, but don't have any specific rule we can point to'. It reminds me of 'Performance Managing' someone out of their job in corporate. Once the process has started, its almost impossible to reverse. They have made their mind up that they are going to get rid of you and that's that.

As it stands, Reddit is completely ruined for any serious political discourse these days. Bots, datamining for AI, making things 'advertiser friendly'.

It seemed to be 'You know what you did, no we aren't going to tell you' as a cover for 'we just don't like you, but don't have any specific rule we can point to'.

Yup, which makes it all the more depressing when this place occasionally pulls that same bullshit.

Considering how often I write lengthy explanations of mod decisions (including my own), I consider complaints like yours (still seething over a slap on the wrist two years ago!) to be nothing less than disingenuous. Especially given that you are one of our most irritating serial reporters who reports every post you don't like. So getting a warning two years ago is cause for outrage and lingering resentment, but you want us to warn and/or ban anyone who says anything that chaps your fragile hide?

I'm calling you out here on this where I don't normally make an issue of people who click the report button frivolously because I think the juxtaposition between what you think would be just moderation where you are concerned and what you think would be just moderation where people who are not you are concerned is illustrative.

Especially given that you are one of our most irritating serial reporters who reports every post you don't like

ROFL. I can't remember the last time I reported a comment. You're off your rocker. (EDIT: I don't think you can claim with a straight face that there hasn't been even one comment in say, even the last two weeks, that I "didn't like".)

It's clear from your response that you still can't point to anything specific. You have literally nothing. You just have another vague accusation. Pure deflection to an unrelated issue, too. Which is exactly the pattern described by the comment I responded to. You keep a bullshit secret list that you vaguely refer to, conveniently preventing the target from being able to show that any particular item on that list is bullshit.

I am not "seething"; I'm simply responding with a specific example of a particular pattern that was described. That's better than you can do.

ROFL. I can't remember the last time I reported a comment. You're off your rocker. (EDIT: I don't think you can claim with a straight face that there hasn't been even one comment in say, even the last two weeks, that I "didn't like".)

After looking it up, I do owe you an apology for this. I was writing this on the phone (which is no excuse) and I conflated you with another user with a similar name. So I was wrong about your reporting history. Mea culpa.

I stand by everything else I said, though.

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It's clear from your response that you still can't point to anything specific.

Bud, that thread you're still salty about? You got a lengthy explanation from me telling you exactly why you were banned. " When you came back and complained some more, I pointed this out to you again.

"I don't like your explanation" is not the same as "I have a secret list and will ban you for reasons we will not explain."

I am not "seething"; I'm simply responding with a specific example of a particular pattern that was described. That's better than you can do.

There is no kinder way to put this: you're lying. This has never happened on the Motte and you know it has not happened. Your own example is contradicted by anyone who actually clicks on your own links. I don't know what you hope to gain here, maybe convince people who engage in no critical reasoning, or maybe just poke mods because you're still salty two years later, but it's unproductive, and it's also ironic because if we were a fraction as arbitrary and petty as you claim, you would not be able to engage in this behavior.

"The mods have an unfair grudge against me and ban me for no reason!" cries the guy who posts blatantly dishonest attacks on the mods and is allowed to do so without consequences.

Many such cases.

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I've never had a slap from the mods and I think its very easy to say ruthless words with a razor's edge without getting modded.

You could advocate for Aztec child sacrifice here if you crafted your words in the right way. Anyone getting modded has a skill issue.

Yup. I already knew it was going to be Amadan before even clicking the link. Most mod work is trivial janitorial duties and some mods should really be forbidden from doing any other type.

But sometimes it's all worth it.

I believe the straw on the camel's back was when we had a comment removed over someone trying to civilly and factually explain (((parentheses))).

It was just someone using a regular set of [brackets] for a parenthetical statement and the Reddit turbo-jannies jumped on it as a supposedly bannable offense. Which indicated that the jig was probably up and someone higher up on the food chain was hunting for any excuse to start the witch burnings.

@erwgv3g34 @FistfullOfCrows @sarker

Guy A used guillemets. Guy B said Guy A sounded like a Nazi. Guy C said:

Nazis do (((this)))

But « thiis » [sic] is just a different type of quotation mark used in French, German, Russian and so on.

Guy C got whacked; other two did not. Hence, it's SoulFire that was correct to begin with.

Probably a Third World sweatshop worker or bot solely working on "does post contain naughty thing".

I was guy C. But it was just the random last straw, other removals happened and they were already preparing to migrate.

Wasn't it a set of «««guillemets»»»?

Who wants to bet a turbo jannie that had never seen russian quotes just thought it was a fancy new alt-right version of the echo brackets.

It was, iirc, a single «pair».

Technically we didn't, but the feeling was that we were close. Because we were willing to let people freely speak their minds on a number of topics (including transgender stuff), we had posts getting removed by site admins. The belief was that it was only a matter of time until the admins closed the sub for refusing to uphold the site-wide rules about what opinions one is allowed to express. Personally I agree with that belief, but we didn't technically get shut down.

Too many no-no words meant the sub was at risk of deletion, iirc. Much easier to respect the spirit of the community off-site where we could set our own standards for what content needs moderated.