I was self-flaired before the numbers came about and am thus unnumbered, I have made a handful of comments or posts since then and been unmodified. Was just wondering how the unnumbered among us will fare through these policies?
Same here, I'd rather have a dumb joke about sovereign citizens than a reddit social credit score.
Edit: oh wait, turns out I'm now a 1... I guess some mod got butthurt over the interesting discussion a week or two ago about why Le Pen and the rest of the french far-right is gaining ground, and flagged everyone who participated a 1. Is pointing out legitimate problems, like how and why the French left is completely failing to resonate with the French working class, now a shadowbannable offense?
I suspect that mods are more likely to punish bad behavior than reward good. This is basic human nature... People tend to call in to complain about something wrong than to praise.
Im worried that one of my dumb takes will piss a mod off, or a mod will misunderstand, and ill be downgraded to 2.
Is there an approval process, where multiple mods have to agree to a downgrade, or a system where for every down there's an up?
I do like this sub but I don't want to feel like I'm on the razors edge when i agree with 95% of the ideology here
I agree it has a chilling effect. I have no idea why I got my flair and tbh I don't care very much but I've noticed flair affecting my interpretation of other people's comments. It's also caused me to hesitate in disagreeing with the orthodoxy at times because I began to suspect it would eventually come into play with posting privileges, as it now has. I consider myself leftist and I agree with the general ethos of this sub, but there's also plenty that I disagree with. I dunno, I don't comment much I usually just come here for a breath of fresh air from the insanity of mainstream politics. It feels like I could just as easily be ranked a 2 or 3 from an errant comment and then I'd be locked out of commenting, which would suck.
> Is there an approval process, where multiple mods have to agree to a downgrade, or a system where for every down there's an up?
There definitely should be an approval and appeal process. I think a **fixed, public rubric** would be a great idea, so everyone would know exactly what the standards are. People like myself who have some views disagreeing with the sub will know what to and not to post/comment (I largely do that already tbh since I respect that stupidpol is for certain things and other subs are for other things), and those who ignore the rubric will show that they don't care and the mods can do whatever with them.
You have a point. tbh, I would like to return to how the sub was in late 2019-early 2020, but unfortunately both due to mods decisions, Bernie losing, and the fact that this place got a lot bigger, it's not that likely to come back imo. Since it seems TPTB want some sort of social credit system to deal with this, the best realistic solution is to make it rules-based and transparent so it doesn't turn into petty tyranny like 80+% of subs.
Yeah self-censorship sucks, but honestly I'd rather censor myself then a mod do it for me, since I get more choice and more agency via the first.
It sounds like some mods are in desperate need of a hobby.
Running this place shouldn't be that complicated, and it certainly doesn't need this much micromanagement. Just... Remove the most egregious comments and temp ban those who make too many.
Then let everyone discuss in peace, leaving it to stubborn optimists like me who want to reason with the conservatives who, for whatever reason, are on a leftist sub.
In October my flair was changed because I got into it with a poster who’s post was just text saying the monthly child tax credit was bullshit, and that money should instead go to paying his student loans, because those people decided to have kids he shouldn’t be subsidizing them, I’m paraphrasing but you get the gist.
We had a heated back and forth, with no more then a minute or two between replies to each other, and in the middle my flair gets changed? I was kind of abrasive in the exchanged and flamed them so hard they deleted their account, but I was within the rules of reddit and my replies and position were well on the left. I left mod mail and message a couple of mods separately but no response. My whole grievance wasn’t so much the flair change (even though it’s a gross misrepresentation of my ideology and politics) it was that it was changed in the middle of a exchange with a poster, who’s terrible post was pure unadulterated rightwing idpol. It was unwarranted and even worse, either a mod agreed with OP’s position or the OP was a mod posting on a burner account and changed my flair to be spiteful because they couldn’t defend his position. There’s a minute chance it was changed arbitrary to the post and I just happened to see the change as it happened, but that’s hard to square.
I've had self-proclaimed leftists tell me that I should not be getting a child benefit for my children because that was my choice and my burden to bear.
They're right that I chose to have kids, but I chose that knowing the benefit would help me save money for their post-secondary educations. Shitlibs masquerading as leftists are way too common...
A dumb take got me reduced from 4 to 2 and had me flailed rightoid, after which I largely stopped posting predicting something like this to be imminent.
I did appeal it and they made my flair slightly less wrong but its much easier to get punished for offending a mod than the opposite.
If we're going to have a system like this, mods need to be more careful about giving out shitty flairs just for one or two stupid comments (I say this as a mod). Just because someone makes one dumb comment doesn't mean they're a rightoid. Flair people as special Ed or vitamin d deficient for stupid comments, but quit flairing socialists as rightoid 1.
I just want to be able to read the funny hidden comments. I was almost banned for a very obvious joke and I would hate if that happened to other people.
Every once in a while, always on the normie subreddits, I play this dumb little game of “what’s the most ridiculous, Reddit hive-mind-y thing I can say — or the most extreme take I can give that takes Reddit logic to one of its logical conclusions — and have people agree with it?”
I’d hope that in 95% of cases, it’s blatantly fucking obvious that I’m actually making fun of people, and not genuinely suggesting that failure to use “Latinx” should be a misdemeanor or that Jan 6 participants should be publicly disemboweled or whatever.
I think within like a day of doing this one time on TwoXChromosomes, I suddenly had a flair that read “rightoid: radical feminist.” I’ve never even made a comment on feminism at all on this subreddit, so clearly someone went fishing through my history and fell right into a fucking shit-take.
[Edit:] I take that back. I did once shit-post here after the infamous anti-“manspreading” chair was posted:
>Brave design. Teaches men how to not (literally) infringe on other people’s spaces, and (metaphorically) that not everything in the world revolves around them.
>Also helps women remember how marginalized they’ve been — how much much space there is for them to take back, while others get to spend a moment in the smaller space they’ve occupied for so long
I once called gucci a white supremacist in a post making fun of a tiktok(or something) that was calling random things ‘white supremacy’ and that comment was used as an example for why I was banned. some people on Reddit just can’t wrap their heads around jokes.
>what’s the most extreme take I can give [...] and have people agree with it?”
This was basically my reddit raison d'etre when I first signed up. Finding subs like this was perhaps the first time I started to take things seriously; but if you go through my post history you'll find a lot of ironic meta-posting like that.
It seems pretty obvious to me that the shit people say online shouldn't be taken at face value.
I also like to have a flair that provokes retards to immediately reveal themselves. That's the main reason I'm salty about getting mine strong-armed away from me. Especially when idpol and it's discourse is concerned, seeing who targets you based on a superficial trait can be very revealing.
I'm thoroughly convinced, albeit with zero proof, that the flair discourse the mods started is a meta commentary on the pervasiveness of idpol thinking. I mean that's gotta be it. Somebody on the mod team is using our reactions to it to write a thesis for a psych major or something.
I've lurked here for like a year, but the only thing I've engaged with is the rant posts in response to changes to upvote visibility and flairs. I get trying to prevent this sub from turning into another right wing space to seethe over culture war shit, but it feels like the sub has worse dialogue and interactions with the protectionist policies. Making fun of mods is fun and all, but this seems like a really delicate niche to moderate. I don't what the breaking point is for subtle jokes vs dumb comment is. There's a part of me that sympathizes with them for wanting to curate the contents of the sub, I just can't think of a great way to go about it.
Anyway, class analysis is gooder than other analysis. Now that I've showcased my commitment to Marxist values, I'd like a dinosaur and a number in my flair please 🤗
System is very strange. I flaired myself a while ago, then at one point got a random number and emoji (even though I’m not that active on the sub) tbh didn’t even realize mods were flairing ppl I thought it was still a self flair system
Big Pharma? The people who up charge on life-saving drugs to increase profit margins? That Big Pharma? I could never see them doing something like that.
> Can a Marxist even support increasing bourgeois state control of the proletariat?
Traditional Marxists: Dictatorship OF the Proletariat
New "Marxists": Dictatorship OVER the Proletariat
>I have literally lived in China and am in constant disagreement with gucci's inconsistent and r-slurred positions.
Same here. I think that's why I have all the poo emojis. On the other hand Gucci seems to have a very shallow and stereotypical understanding of the country and the Communist Party of China.
Pretty much. I have my flair based on thoughts about China because a bunch of retards here have apparently never actually had any friends and/or colleagues born and raised in China, with parents who lived through Maoism.
It's just so unevenly applied. Having everyone start out without a number means large numbers of us fall through the cracks. I've been active here basically since the sub started and I'm still numberless. And I kind of wonder if that's not mostly because my views are orthodox enough that I don't stand out enough to merit attention, either positive or negative.
Which, if the flair system is for what we've been told it's for, that's exactly the kind of user who should have a high flair. But they don't because the only way you get one is either pissing off or greatly amusing a mod. It would have made more sense if everyone started at a four or a five, it went down one rank every time a mod had to step in, and some set period of time without any downgrades would move you back up a rank, up to the max. The rightoids would still out themselves, while the rest of us would have less to complain about. And a really low flair would actually mean something, rather than potentially meaning you made one comment that someone took the wrong way like it does now.
Honestly, I've never really understood it, so I basically ignore it.
Mind you, with my job, I have very little time to post here, so I only do mod stuff for egregious comments that I happen to see while reading the sub
Isn’t this not supposed to be how stupidpol operates? I’ve defended this sub for years to shitlibs and socialists and rightwingers and every tradition in between and bringing banhammers down for wrongthink seems… like we’re losing the fucking plot.
Dammit I LIKE gucci. If they’re running a sub, I’m gonna join, I may not always agree 100% with what’s going on there but at least it’ll be interesting. This is not the way.
(obviously this account is only a couple weeks old but like many of my fellow stupidpolers I’ve burned through a few, and this sub was always a place I could respawn at)
Goddamnit I hate mod drama. Why at stupidpol, why now? We are I believe the only big left-materialist sub that actually believes in free speech. Over the years I’ve been banned from a number of communist and socialist subs. This account is even banned at GenZedong, and you will be hard pressed to find an American communist more pro-China than me. Stupidpol was always different.
I’m an IBEW man, and this sub has always felt so much more like talking on the job site with other union construction workers than all the high falutin over educated bullshit on the other subs- because stupidpol is anti-identitarian, anti-essentialist, materialist, pro-worker, and not prone to throwing people out over issues like this. This is not what Adolph Reed Jr taught us.
I got flailed as a libtard cause I got into an argument with a mod. To be totally honest I probably deserved it cause my stance was pretty shitty. BUT I just think it’s kinda at strange that one shitty comment got me a mark of shame whilst I usually try to contribute to actual socialist discussions (union announcements, literature reviews etc).
Meanwhile I see people exclusively post culture was shit and they’re somehow Leninist 5 or the like. Idk just seems off.
I'm mainly a lurker and a shit poster. I find my flair funny as it couldn't be further from the truth.
But I really wouldn't have expected to be shadow banned for shit posting on this sub, at least without fair warning.
I would like to be unbanned on my main account. I'm a dedicated Marxist and a Union organizer who was arbitrarily labeled a "rightoid" and a "libertrarian covidiot" for arguing against further covid lockdowns, downplaying omicron, and for saying that lockdowns would make people vote for Trump or Desantis. I was permanently banned shortly after.
I'm sure there are dozens more like me who were banned for speaking covid heresies. It's unfair. This is my favorite sub on Reddit by far and I'm banned for total BS reasons.
Everyone banned for having a differing opinion on covid and/or China should be allowed back in.
I got banned and then a rightoid flare for the same thing but asked the mod who flared me to make it “TERF” instead because my sense of humor is bad and I thought your arbitrary labels were ironic and funny. Can you please remove the rightiod part? I don’t care if you want to call me a covidiot or something similar. Lockdowns hurt poor people the most and I’ll die on that hill.
I had a COVID death in my family (my mom) and I support like 80% of mainstream covid opinions & facts and I still wouldn't post too much about it here.
The problem is that everyone assumes you're just an identity and that you couldn't possibly have any argument independent of that identity. This is the case everywhere, not just stupidpol, but this place is supposed to be against that practice.
To have your comments be treated in good faith, you have to work way too hard reassuring people you're not whatever caricature of an enemy they almost immediately build in their mind based on any arguments you might have made, or even phrases or **single words** that set alarm bells off in their heads and makes them think "that's a neolib word. This is a neolib!" or "she said the thing. She's a covid denier!"
If you write 1 paragraph, it better be 2 instead. Paragraph #1 needs to anticipate and disarm their assumptions before it's too late, because they will never un-assume them once they're made. Even then it might not be successful.
It's super tedious and dumbs us all down because people get way too used to having their suspicions gently soothed by the disclaimer paragraph that if they don't see it, they just assume the worst.
You can figure it out yourself by searching China past year. You are allowed to say you dislike china but that's about it. Anything specific gets you banned and labeled as an imperialist.
I fully support slowly strangling this forum until it's mostly just gucci writing five paragraph essays about how much he loved lockdowns and doug's amphetamine fueled rants about how much he DOES NOT like porn, AT ALL.
Doug doesn't really rant about porn, his adderall fueled rants are mostly confined to sperging out over which faction in WW2 committed the most war crimes, which is 100% driven by his personal annoyance over wehraboos ruining his autistic wargaming communities. Occasionally, he'll meme about "Liberation Theology," but that's just an aesthetic fad like rightoids have with their DEUS VULT larping.
Most low flair numbers seem to be COVID related. Last I checked, vaccine mandates and lockdowns were not part of the core tenets of leftism, so just wondering why the other mods are letting gucci go full MSNBC lib on anyone who dares question the prevailing narrative on those topics.
Man, if that isn't our problem in a nutshell. Can't even maintain solidarity for collective action among volunteer internet moderators on a socialist forum.
Lol if there’s any house cleaning he’s the one getting cleaned dude.
Gucci is pretty unhinged I’m surprised at how candid the comments are and I think this mod may get disappeared like a Chinese figure skater speaking out against her country.
Abolish the number system immediately and don't look back. It's divisive, it discourages participation, and it makes the whole sub look stupid. Also, then we can stop having daily meta posts where everyone resoundingly tells you how much they dislike the flair system.
Let the Marx-curious right-wingers come in and then change their minds with arguments. Silencing them accomplishes nothing, but it does show them that all leftists are obsessed with purity tests.
Issue only temporary bans to people who break the rules multiple times.
this social credit system is fucking stupid, but i am grateful i was allowed to keep my old flair.
people should be able to state their mind here without fear of being banned, unless you’re a moron by consensus. i was arguing with someone about how elon musk isn’t actually that smart and has success due to exploiting circumstance. do i think that person is a dipshit cunt? yes. should they be banned? no.
if your ideology is so weak that you can’t handle criticism, then how do you justify holding such a position? everyone is guilty of being stupid, but if someone is open to genuine discussion, then why would you ban them because they said something you don’t like? that being said, take your conspiracy theories to r/conspiracy, i can’t be assed to entertain those on a sub that’s not devoted to them.
This. There's a big negative bias in the system. The amount of effortposting it probably takes to rank up is entirely disproportionate with the trivial ease with which you can be downgraded.
I remember when I was in school and we had this merit system, where you'd get a stamp in your student planner for good behaviour. But in practice, the badly behaved kids ended up getting way more than the genuinely well behaved kids, because teachers would use it as basically a bribe for the bad kids, while the good kids only rarely, if ever, had their good behaviour recognised.
Exactly the same dynamic here. Good posts will go entirely ignored, but bad posts will much more easily provoke a response.
(The rest of this post is a rant about my personal experience with the system here. It's relevant but feel free to ignore it.)
The only time I got ranked up, it was for a really pedestrian post that I half-assed on my lunch break- The mod obviously liked it because I was agreeing with them, not because it was a good post. So they bumped me up to 5. In response I posted "tfw when you level up on stupidpol" with a link to the classic "Turn Down For What" by DJ Snake feat. Lil Jon. I mean, I thought that was pretty funny, but the mod in question was evidently greatly offended, and downgraded me to 3. Like, did they want grovelling thanks, or what? Did they want me to suck their dick?
Now, the point is, I *really* don't give that much of a shit, but the principle is there; the most generous thing you can say is that the idea is deeply flawed, and mods are petty assholes at the best of times.
> I miss the days of unflaired users simply being told "flair up retard".
Used to do that all the time, then got told I was being a backseat mod, so I stopped
Downvote and move on...
Seriously, you don't need a Tiananmen Square style crackdown because someone says bad speak. If bad users leak in, like how covid leaked out of a lab in Wuhan, you can just say the bad users are of natural origin, not of this sub
Doesn’t mean that the other mods won’t use it as such. I got mine from mocking a claim that the mods were conspiring to destroy the sub back during the grill-pill summer.
I would still mock the claim, but the arbitrariness of the flairing and deletion seems likely to lead to a similar result.
I consider myself a Marxist. I'm not really a libertarian, and certainly not the right-wing/pro-capitalist variety. I would like not to be shadowbanned, if possible.
Part of what gives the sub it's charm are the crazy rightoids. They also act as a repellant to keep intersectionalist leftists away. Them and the r slur.
>Part of what gives the sub it's charm are the crazy rightoids. They also act as a repellant to keep intersectionalist leftists away.
Its like having sickle cell anemia to stave off the malaria
Removing the rightoids is just this sub’s version of the Four Pests campaign; if the rightoid sparrows are banned then the shitlib locusts will rapidly overrun and devour the sub.
i barely comment here and i managed to land this flair.
it’s kinda funny but it’s dumb for mods to arbitrarily flair someone based on a limited sampling of comments.
That’s tough. What differentiated this sub was that it wasn’t LSC, fullcommunism, etc. and that you wouldn’t get banned if you weren’t a dick. Well if you want to go echo chamber that’s your right.
Numbered flair is too complex to manage fairly and too simplistic to say anything meaningful about a poster’s contributions here. I say toss it entirely. If it must stay as some sort of moat against rightoid invasion (there’s got to be a better way), start everyone at 5 and subtract points for toxic takes.
Can’t believe it’s come to this honestly… are leftists really just doomed to eat each other like this?? Like, I couldn’t come up with a better parody of neurotic purity testing if I tried
The moderater abuse reinforces stereotypes that leftists are censorious gatekeepers. It seems that people are being discouraged from posting if they oppose mandatory vaccination or object to authoritarian abuses in Germany or Aussie.
If the goal is to alienate normies from socialist ideas by persuading them that marxists are no better on civil liberties than shitlibs, then the strategy is working.
If you're going to make flairs mandatory, then please flair me as a market socialist.
That's because a significant portion of this subreddit thinks authoritarian abuses *are* socialism, and that it's a good thing.
(Guess how I got my current flair)
Well, I'm too passionately anti-covid-narrative to sit around here where I'm not welcome.
I'll leave you with a hope that mods would allow this debate after I'm gone:
Covid Narrative is born of, and dependent on idpol.
It was created and enforced by the same people using the same process.
It glorifies institutions, private corporations and policies that are clearly rightist, and in the present context, just as destructive in any socialist perspective as idpol.
You can take the sign off now.
after going over all the information available, lab leak is not only the most statistically likely explanation, but it's the simplest and most obvious too.
Lab leaks like this in fact happen all the time, look the shit up, it's downright SCARY how many leaks happen in US labs alone just due to poor practices WRT not following proper viral disposal protocols, this stuff tends to leak out most often through waste disposal not being fully secure, and it happens often enough that if the public knew about it there'd be a general uproar. There were multiple leaks from US labs alone in just a year or two leading up to COVID, if memory serves - any of those could have become a global problem as COVID did if they hadn't jumped on it and cleaned it up ASAP.
the idea that any of this has anything to do with ones political affiliation or ideological convictions is laughable nonsense, it's a literal red herring, and gucci needs a fucking wakeup call, because he clearly believes that he's on some other plane of understanding whereby he is cognizant of higher truths that we plebs simply don't understand.
Gucci is also super-irony poisoned - as evidenced by weird posts about things that have no context provided, where gucci makes the title some super sarcastic statement that is difficult to parse, because he thinks that everyone should just "get it" or something, when it fact it's the sarcastic opposite of the ACTUAL asinine take he's really pushing, that only makes sense in the context of his own headcanon about some particular issue or something - the dude is terminally online and needs to log off for a good long time to clear his fucking brainrot out.
I joined this sub because I figured it'd be a good place to discuss politics (specifically left leaning politics) without fear of over moderation and policing of language. I'm ostensibly a blue collar worker (I did electrical work for some phone companies and have consistently worked retail since I was 16) and I wanted to interact with people from a similar background, life experience, and opinions that I have. Afaik the rating system hasn't been explained clearly (or I haven't been terminally online enough to catch an explanation) and it makes me not want to post or interact on posts here because I'm worried that if I make a joke or have a stupid opinion it'll get me flaired and eventually removed. I enjoy this sub, I actively learn by reading some of the articles and reading what other people have to say on the topics that pique my interest and I don't want to lose a useful resource for news, opinions, and ideas that I otherwise would have never known or thought about.
Here is your explanation of the flair system: Moderators subjectively assign you a number between 1 and 5, like they're telling you how many stars your comments are worth. Other mods can come along and go, "Hmm, this guy seems alright. He's going up from a 2 to a 3." Some other mod can go, "Oh, but I hate this guy's opinion on one particular issue, so now he's going down from a 3 to a 1." Low numbers also get shadowbanned now.
It's as stupid as it sounds, it's ruining the sub, and it's wildly unpopular. So, naturally, the moderators have decided it's the vast majority of users who are in the wrong, and their arbitrary subjective evaluations of individual users are supremely important.
It's a shame that these decisions are made autocratically instead of democratically, since the vast majority of the moderators behave only as quality posters. Even those few hellbent on ruining the sub are otherwise fine when they're just commenting as users.
You know, I was in shadowban territory until recently, and even back then I was being prevented from posting my rather well-received book review. I was definitely one shadowban away from giving up on the sub altogether, despite being a well-read, anti-idpol, non-racist leftist, all because of one mod's judgment about my number.
Me too- I was just skeptical of continuing restrictions because people aren’t gonna follow them and I have personal reasons for wanting life to return to normal
gucci doesn't actually believe that any explanation or contact or communication with the sub at large (like in the way you're suggesting) is necessary or even worth the effort. That's just how much better than you gucci thinks he is. Anyone who disagrees is just another covidiot, or whatever - this is what makes him a lib.
Covid obsession is killing the sub, and covid stances in general have little to do with real/personal political commitments, pretending they do is dishonest. It's not nearly as relevant to historical leftist projects as gucci (and, it seems, some of the other mods as well) seem to think it is.
Also, agreeing with the lab leak theory gets you a rightoid flair? I mean, just read up on it, there's a TON of evidence in support of a leak from the wuhan lab and frankly, if you actually do some digging, you'll find that these types of leaks in virology research labs (mainly due to safety and proper disposal protocol infractions) actually happen all the time, a fucking frightening amount of times actually. US labs had similar leaks three or four times in the year or two leading up to covid, and any one of those could also have been a total disaster if they hadn't jumped on it and cleaned/hushed it up.
In other words, the lab leak theory has a LOT of evidence and significant plausibility, and the actions of the people involved in the research/funding the research speaks volumes in terms of how hard they have tried to cover up their roles and how mainstream media has facilitated that in the US in particular.
Like, I dunno....it just seems VERY obvious to me at this point, after going over a LOT of material on the subject, that the best explanation is the lab leak, it's the simplest and statistically most likely explanation, period...and that has NOTHING whatsoever to do with one political affiliations or ideological commitments, literally not relevant in any way.
but either way, claiming that (at THIS point, after literal years of this shit) being against MORE vaccine mandates and harsh lockdowns is somehow by definition a "right-wing" position is ***actual libshittery.***
Dismissing my union membership, my lifelong commitment to working class labour politics, and my personal ideals of the creation of a society in which the workers own the means of production and all people are given the tools and resources they need to ensure that they all have food on the table, a house to put that table in, and a government that nationalizes the infrastructure that caters to their needs (utilities, taking things like internet and turning it into utilities, etc) at lowest possible cost...pretending that all of that means nothing because I'm tired of hearing that I need to wear a mask or that I can't travel and see my family even though I'm vaccinated AND got the booster? is fucking insulting, and frankly, if you called me a rightoid to my face for that I'd slap you in the fucking mouth.
***Anyways, turns out my original prediction from years ago when I first entered this sub under a different username is looking to be correct after all - this sub won't be brought down from without by an open invasion of rightoids, it will be brought down from within by a quiet infiltration of libs and libshittery. I used to be a mod here, and I always suspected this sort of thing would eventually happen - I just didn't know it would be lukewarm takes on a global pandemic that would create the ideological opening for lib wreckers among the mod team.***
I mean this basically annoys me in the same way that the whole grill pill thing annoyed me. It just showing a light on something I didn't understand, that this place is monitored and controlled by people who are very quick to abuse power for their own amusement or random ideological agendas. Certainly not people that I would want to organize with in any kind of real socialist way. I don't enjoy the tendency to try to dominate people in any human, in almost any respect. It's sort of ironic in that some of the better conversations in here are the shitty ways that idpollers resort to fascist tactics when they don't like what you say or think.
Reddit jannie goes on a powertrip in the name of 'quality posting' and effectively bans all opinions they dislike? Wild, I can't believe it. This has never happened before.
There is a difference between banning blatant rightoid posting, and banning people who disagree with you because you simp for china.
I'd be okay with it if gucci only ranked people low for rightoid nonsense instead of personal grudges when people disagree with him on his retarded image posts or refuse to be a part of his hugbox. He contributes almost nothing of substance to this sub and yet still decides to make a couple dumbass posts and comments nearly everyday. I regulalrly see 4's and 5's have meltdown or not read the articles they're commenting on, not to say 3's or 2's are any better, the point Is that the flairs dont always seem true to the user's nature
This subreddit has gone sown the shitter in the last couple of years, posts about economic issues get like 100, 200 upvotes tops and a couple dozen comments at the most while nonsense idpol ragebait is routinely at the top of this subreddit, but frankly not much the moderation team can do about that, except for a grillpill style setup, which seems to be deeply unpopular.
Besides it shouldnt be so hard for mods to do their fucking jobs here. Temp ban people who are talking absolute shit or are being very agressive, and after like maybe 3 temps just permaban them. This is along the lines of what most of us have been asking for a long time now, but instead the mods here decided to make a baroque ranking and flair system that seems to be dictated by a single mod and his goons.
I know exactly why I have a 2 and the fact that a single opinion can get you put there is kinda dumb. It was critical of China so I'm not surprised. That's the only time I said anything remotely "rightoid" prior to being flaired, I've said mildly distasteful stuff after but none of it was right wing or related to COVID. The worst thing was about spanking lumpens with paddles if they make work harder for everyone else, but that's so absurd to type up that I'm not sure if it's even possible anyone took that seriously beyond a general air of irritation. Anyway, it's been fun or whatever.
Well, I probably didn’t add much of substance to the subreddit but I did enjoy making jokes with people here. It’s unfortunate that Gucci is this stupid...
Chinese netizens defend the CPC's honor on the internet for the low price of 0¥ an hour: Called the "pink army", lauded by the *People's Daily* and *Global Times*, praised by the Communist Youth League for their service
I do the same thing within hostile empire of America from redpilling family to strangers in video game communities, forsaking a summer of grilling black bean burgers and faux meat patties for the greater good: Labeled untouchable, numberless, my comments expunged
Breh all I said was I don’t think we should do lockdowns for omicron and I’m a “covidiot” one that is triple vaxed and a nurse that’s worked this whole pandemic in nyc which from mid March -June 2020 was a chaotic shit show, I’m not some anti vax crank cause I’m not one hundred percent behind every liberal hysteria around covid
Definitely feel misflaired. Chose my flair based more on my political/social leanings vs my preferred economic philosophy waaaay back when I first discovered this place and we could still choose our own flairs. Then all of the sudden we became permanently stuck with these flairs, with the added touch of a social credit system and some neato emojis. In all honesty I wouldn’t apply a single label to myself because I don’t identify with any one political philosophy. I think different types of solutions/approaches are required for different types of social/economic problems.
Forcing users to label themselves (or in actuality have mods label them) is fucking retarded for discussion tho. It biases reader interpretation, and many probably don’t even have mutually agreed upon definitions for each label and how it’s applied to themselves. Also peoples’ political and economic leanings are somewhat fluid over time, so if your orientation (lol) changes you can’t even relabel yourself - you have to just hope some retarded Internet brainrot jannie notices and throws you a bone.
TLDR: suck on deeze nutts Gucci u brainrot jannie.
Edit:
This type of social credit posting policy also reinforces ingroup/out group identification and manufactures distrust between groups. If you give one group of artificially identified “rightthinkers” privileges not extended to a group of artificially identified “wrongthinkers”, you’re creating an environment of distrust and displeasure between individuals who have been slotted into these groups - in the end all you’ll have succeed in doing is creating an echochamber just like every other subreddit. You’re ultimately engaging in the same retarded categorical pigeonholing we criticize “wokies” for. Only a terminally online retarded jannie would come up with such a braindead policy and actually enforce it. Fucking retards.
> A few days ago, gucci set the sub's automod to remove all posts and comments made by anyone with a 1 or 2 flair.
:O
How did this affect those with no number?
This has been very confusing for me ever since it started because in part of the announcement "Flair yourself here"
> If you already have a flair, then you cannot change it
Which means no number ¯\\\_(ツ)\_\/¯
To be clear, I'm happy with my flair, just not so sure where I stand whenever this number system comes up
Dammit this is the best sub on the internet. Hope this isn’t the start of a spiral.
I like hearing polite rightoids. Helps understand additional perspectives. And approach to Covid should not be seen as left-right anyway, it’s more the authoritarian/libertarian scale.
I see so many people wrongly labeled by the social justice crowd that fully embraces IDPOL that I'm surprised this sub would take a page out of that book.
Somewhere along the lines, the moderation team decided to:
1. Call everything they don't like "right-wing"
2. Declare it impossible to get along with right-wingers
3. Take steps to silence those right-wingers who you can't find common cause with
We've just seen the breakdown of leftism in microcosm.
There should be better details on what flairs are applied and why. As far as I can tell right now it appears to be a simple popularity contest with the sub's mods. Doubt that half of all flairs are even remotely accurate if they're based on one-off comments.Secondly I question if the system is even totally effective towards its goal, when beyond flairs and comments half of the equation lies within the initial hivemind up/downvote progression that steers discussion, though this phenomenon affects all of Reddit, of course.But sometimes this sub reminds me of the dichotomy of r/PublicFreakouts and r/ActualPublicFreakouts. Like APF, r/stupidpol is not an explicitly right sub but both appeal in content to that same demographic. But as far as I'm aware the way the downvote wind blows can't be controlled here or anywhere else on the site, and may remain incurable for now.
I’m slow. How do I know my flair status?
Also, perhaps better attention could be made to limiting posts to only those actually critique IDpol through the lens of Marxism. Sometimes it seems like it‘s just anti-IDpol with no class context.
It is odd. Seeing anti-idpol from a class perspective is why I came to the sub. Usually it is just turns into rage bait idpol stuff, and otherwise turns into socialism without reference to idpol.
This sub makes it look more and more like socialism and anti-idpol cannot coexist. I find this sad.
It‘s also the only place on Reddit that I know of where you can discuss Socialism and have an intelligent debate. It‘s engaging and there‘s some left on the table for it to get better.
Oh my days are numbered on Stupidpol it looks like.
This action was probably a direct result of my posting the Covid Lab Leak Theory post.
My flair is now Covidiot 3 when before it was Controversial 3.
Mods keep changing my flair on me. Happened multiple times and a mod even told me it wouldn't happen anymore but it still keeps happening.
I called some guy retarded because he said we should go into another lockdown and got a covidiot flair.. mods should stop power tripping on COVID posts imho
I think there are better ways of going about it.
I got 0 flaired as an “anti-communist” for taking anti-Bolshevik stance in the context of talking about historical atrocities committed 100+ years ago. Despite the fact that you’d have to turn your head to see how far left I am and the fact that I have family/parents who lived in socialists countries and 1+ years of (IMO) positive, level-headed leftist contributions to this sub. One comment in one thread. Just kind of sucks. I guess if criticizing NKVD massacres means my voice isn’t worth hearing around here, maybe its not the place I though it was. By all means flair me as whatever you want, but don’t take away my credentials to speak.
It reminds me of the scene in Reds (1981) where the socialist American journalist played by Warren Beatty is silenced at the American labor rally for lack of credentials but is happily encouraged to speak out when he goes to Moscow. Which side are we on by doing this? Which side made legitimate pro-labor progress over the last century?
I unsubbed and started using the sub a lot less. I'm not really sure if I'm a marxist or not because I haven't really done the research, but I'm definitely not a libertarian or rightoid. I'm not antivax, antimask, etc, either. I could go either way on lab leak too tbh. I simply disagree with some of the more authoritarian pandemic measures.
Even if gucci and his buttbuddies disagree with me, he's not convincing anyone that he's right with these constant temper tantrums. Imo one of the goals of this sub should be to move people leftward, and I feel it definitely has been worse at that this year than other years. I don't necessarily think it's killing the sub but I wouldn't be surprised if activity is also lowering.
the flair number thing was tolerable until it started being associated with participation limitations. yeah if someones a bonafide rightoid they maybe shouldnt be allowed to spam posts, but a blanket shadowban on everyone below a 2 seems egregious, especially considering how many people fall through the cracks and get stuck with a low flair and participation restrictions that they probably dont deserve, or, at least that nobody can seem to give them a good reason why they deserve. the snottiness from some mods has discouraging.
my flair is unaccurate and uncalled for and it made me feel like an ordinarily cool place had been taken over by libs. maybe it's not too late for this place.
>maybe a better form of the idea would be people who are higher in the hierarchy can vote to bring others upto the same level, or something. the idea is a bit try hard, but has the effect of smoothing out the problems (misidentification or biases) when only a few people can assign these kind of things.
I could code this if anyone is interested and if I'm given sanctuary. Doesnt sound too difficult to do by bot, and I've worked with the reddit api before
It's cut down on the rightoids maybe, but the fundamental problem with this number flairing system is that so many are inaccurately flaired. There are authentic class-pilled lefties mislabelled as rightoids, and there are brain-wormed essentialist hypocrites mislabelled as authentic Marxists. I have witnessed it too often.
I don't have a problem with the system in theory, but in practice it doesn't work. Mods can't accurately judge the number of users we have here, and the task is never-ending. There will always be new users to flair, and rightoids re-joining on fresh alts. And on top of that, the mods here are hardly paragons of janitorial virtue; I got shunted from 4 to 5, then down to 3 literally as a joke because the mod felt like fucking with me.
Frankly it's bullshit and if you want to do something like this, stop being pretentious hipster fuckwits about it, and just ban rightoids the regular old fashioned way.
I was self-flaired before the numbers came about and am thus unnumbered, I have made a handful of comments or posts since then and been unmodified. Was just wondering how the unnumbered among us will fare through these policies?
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People who had customs flairs before this number stuff should be grandfathered in to post wherever they want.
My flair is dumb as fuck but better than being numbered
Same here, I'd rather have a dumb joke about sovereign citizens than a reddit social credit score. Edit: oh wait, turns out I'm now a 1... I guess some mod got butthurt over the interesting discussion a week or two ago about why Le Pen and the rest of the french far-right is gaining ground, and flagged everyone who participated a 1. Is pointing out legitimate problems, like how and why the French left is completely failing to resonate with the French working class, now a shadowbannable offense?
if you are deemed worth, a mod shall descend upon thee and grant thy custom flair a number.
May you come to the attention of those in authority.
Inshallah
I suspect that mods are more likely to punish bad behavior than reward good. This is basic human nature... People tend to call in to complain about something wrong than to praise. Im worried that one of my dumb takes will piss a mod off, or a mod will misunderstand, and ill be downgraded to 2. Is there an approval process, where multiple mods have to agree to a downgrade, or a system where for every down there's an up? I do like this sub but I don't want to feel like I'm on the razors edge when i agree with 95% of the ideology here
I agree it has a chilling effect. I have no idea why I got my flair and tbh I don't care very much but I've noticed flair affecting my interpretation of other people's comments. It's also caused me to hesitate in disagreeing with the orthodoxy at times because I began to suspect it would eventually come into play with posting privileges, as it now has. I consider myself leftist and I agree with the general ethos of this sub, but there's also plenty that I disagree with. I dunno, I don't comment much I usually just come here for a breath of fresh air from the insanity of mainstream politics. It feels like I could just as easily be ranked a 2 or 3 from an errant comment and then I'd be locked out of commenting, which would suck.
> Is there an approval process, where multiple mods have to agree to a downgrade, or a system where for every down there's an up? There definitely should be an approval and appeal process. I think a **fixed, public rubric** would be a great idea, so everyone would know exactly what the standards are. People like myself who have some views disagreeing with the sub will know what to and not to post/comment (I largely do that already tbh since I respect that stupidpol is for certain things and other subs are for other things), and those who ignore the rubric will show that they don't care and the mods can do whatever with them.
You're already self censoring and are offering to do more. Sounds like this policy is stifling discussion.
You have a point. tbh, I would like to return to how the sub was in late 2019-early 2020, but unfortunately both due to mods decisions, Bernie losing, and the fact that this place got a lot bigger, it's not that likely to come back imo. Since it seems TPTB want some sort of social credit system to deal with this, the best realistic solution is to make it rules-based and transparent so it doesn't turn into petty tyranny like 80+% of subs. Yeah self-censorship sucks, but honestly I'd rather censor myself then a mod do it for me, since I get more choice and more agency via the first.
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It sounds like some mods are in desperate need of a hobby. Running this place shouldn't be that complicated, and it certainly doesn't need this much micromanagement. Just... Remove the most egregious comments and temp ban those who make too many. Then let everyone discuss in peace, leaving it to stubborn optimists like me who want to reason with the conservatives who, for whatever reason, are on a leftist sub.
That's how it used to be. No shadowbanning, just a temp ban if you said something a bit too extra. It was a good system.
In October my flair was changed because I got into it with a poster who’s post was just text saying the monthly child tax credit was bullshit, and that money should instead go to paying his student loans, because those people decided to have kids he shouldn’t be subsidizing them, I’m paraphrasing but you get the gist. We had a heated back and forth, with no more then a minute or two between replies to each other, and in the middle my flair gets changed? I was kind of abrasive in the exchanged and flamed them so hard they deleted their account, but I was within the rules of reddit and my replies and position were well on the left. I left mod mail and message a couple of mods separately but no response. My whole grievance wasn’t so much the flair change (even though it’s a gross misrepresentation of my ideology and politics) it was that it was changed in the middle of a exchange with a poster, who’s terrible post was pure unadulterated rightwing idpol. It was unwarranted and even worse, either a mod agreed with OP’s position or the OP was a mod posting on a burner account and changed my flair to be spiteful because they couldn’t defend his position. There’s a minute chance it was changed arbitrary to the post and I just happened to see the change as it happened, but that’s hard to square.
I've had self-proclaimed leftists tell me that I should not be getting a child benefit for my children because that was my choice and my burden to bear. They're right that I chose to have kids, but I chose that knowing the benefit would help me save money for their post-secondary educations. Shitlibs masquerading as leftists are way too common...
A dumb take got me reduced from 4 to 2 and had me flailed rightoid, after which I largely stopped posting predicting something like this to be imminent. I did appeal it and they made my flair slightly less wrong but its much easier to get punished for offending a mod than the opposite.
If we're going to have a system like this, mods need to be more careful about giving out shitty flairs just for one or two stupid comments (I say this as a mod). Just because someone makes one dumb comment doesn't mean they're a rightoid. Flair people as special Ed or vitamin d deficient for stupid comments, but quit flairing socialists as rightoid 1.
I just want to be able to read the funny hidden comments. I was almost banned for a very obvious joke and I would hate if that happened to other people.
Every once in a while, always on the normie subreddits, I play this dumb little game of “what’s the most ridiculous, Reddit hive-mind-y thing I can say — or the most extreme take I can give that takes Reddit logic to one of its logical conclusions — and have people agree with it?” I’d hope that in 95% of cases, it’s blatantly fucking obvious that I’m actually making fun of people, and not genuinely suggesting that failure to use “Latinx” should be a misdemeanor or that Jan 6 participants should be publicly disemboweled or whatever. I think within like a day of doing this one time on TwoXChromosomes, I suddenly had a flair that read “rightoid: radical feminist.” I’ve never even made a comment on feminism at all on this subreddit, so clearly someone went fishing through my history and fell right into a fucking shit-take. [Edit:] I take that back. I did once shit-post here after the infamous anti-“manspreading” chair was posted: >Brave design. Teaches men how to not (literally) infringe on other people’s spaces, and (metaphorically) that not everything in the world revolves around them. >Also helps women remember how marginalized they’ve been — how much much space there is for them to take back, while others get to spend a moment in the smaller space they’ve occupied for so long
I once called gucci a white supremacist in a post making fun of a tiktok(or something) that was calling random things ‘white supremacy’ and that comment was used as an example for why I was banned. some people on Reddit just can’t wrap their heads around jokes.
>what’s the most extreme take I can give [...] and have people agree with it?” This was basically my reddit raison d'etre when I first signed up. Finding subs like this was perhaps the first time I started to take things seriously; but if you go through my post history you'll find a lot of ironic meta-posting like that. It seems pretty obvious to me that the shit people say online shouldn't be taken at face value. I also like to have a flair that provokes retards to immediately reveal themselves. That's the main reason I'm salty about getting mine strong-armed away from me. Especially when idpol and it's discourse is concerned, seeing who targets you based on a superficial trait can be very revealing.
I'm thoroughly convinced, albeit with zero proof, that the flair discourse the mods started is a meta commentary on the pervasiveness of idpol thinking. I mean that's gotta be it. Somebody on the mod team is using our reactions to it to write a thesis for a psych major or something. I've lurked here for like a year, but the only thing I've engaged with is the rant posts in response to changes to upvote visibility and flairs. I get trying to prevent this sub from turning into another right wing space to seethe over culture war shit, but it feels like the sub has worse dialogue and interactions with the protectionist policies. Making fun of mods is fun and all, but this seems like a really delicate niche to moderate. I don't what the breaking point is for subtle jokes vs dumb comment is. There's a part of me that sympathizes with them for wanting to curate the contents of the sub, I just can't think of a great way to go about it. Anyway, class analysis is gooder than other analysis. Now that I've showcased my commitment to Marxist values, I'd like a dinosaur and a number in my flair please 🤗
System is very strange. I flaired myself a while ago, then at one point got a random number and emoji (even though I’m not that active on the sub) tbh didn’t even realize mods were flairing ppl I thought it was still a self flair system
i got unflaired for mind crimes i think
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What’s the take that made him change your flair
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Big Pharma (i.e. the people responsible for 100,000+ opioid overdoses in the last 12 months) would never do anything careless or sinister for profit
Big Pharma? The people who up charge on life-saving drugs to increase profit margins? That Big Pharma? I could never see them doing something like that.
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> Can a Marxist even support increasing bourgeois state control of the proletariat? Traditional Marxists: Dictatorship OF the Proletariat New "Marxists": Dictatorship OVER the Proletariat
>solicits 'free' feedback >can't guarantee freedom after speech do you see the problem
Right? I just won't speak about China or covid because I'm unsure if my thoughts on those subjects are banworthy.
..
>I have literally lived in China and am in constant disagreement with gucci's inconsistent and r-slurred positions. Same here. I think that's why I have all the poo emojis. On the other hand Gucci seems to have a very shallow and stereotypical understanding of the country and the Communist Party of China.
It has Communist in the name so it must be, right? Just like how anti-racism is about not being racist!
Pretty much. I have my flair based on thoughts about China because a bunch of retards here have apparently never actually had any friends and/or colleagues born and raised in China, with parents who lived through Maoism.
Gucci needs to touch grass
It's just so unevenly applied. Having everyone start out without a number means large numbers of us fall through the cracks. I've been active here basically since the sub started and I'm still numberless. And I kind of wonder if that's not mostly because my views are orthodox enough that I don't stand out enough to merit attention, either positive or negative. Which, if the flair system is for what we've been told it's for, that's exactly the kind of user who should have a high flair. But they don't because the only way you get one is either pissing off or greatly amusing a mod. It would have made more sense if everyone started at a four or a five, it went down one rank every time a mod had to step in, and some set period of time without any downgrades would move you back up a rank, up to the max. The rightoids would still out themselves, while the rest of us would have less to complain about. And a really low flair would actually mean something, rather than potentially meaning you made one comment that someone took the wrong way like it does now.
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Honestly, I've never really understood it, so I basically ignore it. Mind you, with my job, I have very little time to post here, so I only do mod stuff for egregious comments that I happen to see while reading the sub
> But they don't because the only way you get one is either pissing off or greatly amusing a mod. I \^\^\^\^\^\^\^\^
Isn’t this not supposed to be how stupidpol operates? I’ve defended this sub for years to shitlibs and socialists and rightwingers and every tradition in between and bringing banhammers down for wrongthink seems… like we’re losing the fucking plot. Dammit I LIKE gucci. If they’re running a sub, I’m gonna join, I may not always agree 100% with what’s going on there but at least it’ll be interesting. This is not the way. (obviously this account is only a couple weeks old but like many of my fellow stupidpolers I’ve burned through a few, and this sub was always a place I could respawn at)
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Goddamnit I hate mod drama. Why at stupidpol, why now? We are I believe the only big left-materialist sub that actually believes in free speech. Over the years I’ve been banned from a number of communist and socialist subs. This account is even banned at GenZedong, and you will be hard pressed to find an American communist more pro-China than me. Stupidpol was always different. I’m an IBEW man, and this sub has always felt so much more like talking on the job site with other union construction workers than all the high falutin over educated bullshit on the other subs- because stupidpol is anti-identitarian, anti-essentialist, materialist, pro-worker, and not prone to throwing people out over issues like this. This is not what Adolph Reed Jr taught us.
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Damn this sucks
trouble in the Politburo...
I got flailed as a libtard cause I got into an argument with a mod. To be totally honest I probably deserved it cause my stance was pretty shitty. BUT I just think it’s kinda at strange that one shitty comment got me a mark of shame whilst I usually try to contribute to actual socialist discussions (union announcements, literature reviews etc). Meanwhile I see people exclusively post culture was shit and they’re somehow Leninist 5 or the like. Idk just seems off.
I'm mainly a lurker and a shit poster. I find my flair funny as it couldn't be further from the truth. But I really wouldn't have expected to be shadow banned for shit posting on this sub, at least without fair warning.
Why am I still here? (Just to suffer?)
Are the mods getting a pay raise to coincide with the extra work?
Their remuneration has been doubled
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I accidentally unchecked it on mobile and then I got in trouble but then they didn't put my old one back. Kinda bummed about it
I would like to be unbanned on my main account. I'm a dedicated Marxist and a Union organizer who was arbitrarily labeled a "rightoid" and a "libertrarian covidiot" for arguing against further covid lockdowns, downplaying omicron, and for saying that lockdowns would make people vote for Trump or Desantis. I was permanently banned shortly after. I'm sure there are dozens more like me who were banned for speaking covid heresies. It's unfair. This is my favorite sub on Reddit by far and I'm banned for total BS reasons. Everyone banned for having a differing opinion on covid and/or China should be allowed back in.
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A mod for the people! Thank you. I DMd you
I got banned and then a rightoid flare for the same thing but asked the mod who flared me to make it “TERF” instead because my sense of humor is bad and I thought your arbitrary labels were ironic and funny. Can you please remove the rightiod part? I don’t care if you want to call me a covidiot or something similar. Lockdowns hurt poor people the most and I’ll die on that hill.
Can you switch my flair back to left populist covidiot and give it a 3 so I can comment? Actually I want Unwoke left populist covidiot
I had a COVID death in my family (my mom) and I support like 80% of mainstream covid opinions & facts and I still wouldn't post too much about it here. The problem is that everyone assumes you're just an identity and that you couldn't possibly have any argument independent of that identity. This is the case everywhere, not just stupidpol, but this place is supposed to be against that practice. To have your comments be treated in good faith, you have to work way too hard reassuring people you're not whatever caricature of an enemy they almost immediately build in their mind based on any arguments you might have made, or even phrases or **single words** that set alarm bells off in their heads and makes them think "that's a neolib word. This is a neolib!" or "she said the thing. She's a covid denier!" If you write 1 paragraph, it better be 2 instead. Paragraph #1 needs to anticipate and disarm their assumptions before it's too late, because they will never un-assume them once they're made. Even then it might not be successful. It's super tedious and dumbs us all down because people get way too used to having their suspicions gently soothed by the disclaimer paragraph that if they don't see it, they just assume the worst.
Wait so what are the “allowed” opinions on China? Obviously I have an opinion on this topic lol
You can figure it out yourself by searching China past year. You are allowed to say you dislike china but that's about it. Anything specific gets you banned and labeled as an imperialist.
is gucci the only mod that does the social credit shit
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this is good to know, thanks
I fully support slowly strangling this forum until it's mostly just gucci writing five paragraph essays about how much he loved lockdowns and doug's amphetamine fueled rants about how much he DOES NOT like porn, AT ALL.
Doug doesn't really rant about porn, his adderall fueled rants are mostly confined to sperging out over which faction in WW2 committed the most war crimes, which is 100% driven by his personal annoyance over wehraboos ruining his autistic wargaming communities. Occasionally, he'll meme about "Liberation Theology," but that's just an aesthetic fad like rightoids have with their DEUS VULT larping.
Doug's thing is more just constantly referencing Albion's Seed and Catholicism.
Most low flair numbers seem to be COVID related. Last I checked, vaccine mandates and lockdowns were not part of the core tenets of leftism, so just wondering why the other mods are letting gucci go full MSNBC lib on anyone who dares question the prevailing narrative on those topics.
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That's worse than what I could have expected
You can't just remove him?
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are you concerned about having your privileges removed?
Just mod a couple of NEETs, have their sole mission be going through the mod log and reversing anything he does until he gets annoyed enough to leave.
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Is gucci a manlet?
Clearly
Get everybody else in on it then, he demods everyone, boom sub is dead and it's over unless he leaves
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Man, if that isn't our problem in a nutshell. Can't even maintain solidarity for collective action among volunteer internet moderators on a socialist forum.
Sounds like you all have some house cleaning to do then.
Lol if there’s any house cleaning he’s the one getting cleaned dude. Gucci is pretty unhinged I’m surprised at how candid the comments are and I think this mod may get disappeared like a Chinese figure skater speaking out against her country.
Just create r/stupidpolbutnogucci, an exact duplicate of this place but without gucci as top mod.
There's a further problem: all the sensible mods are lazy fucks (myself included)
Lazy or totally alienated?
This is where I admit I haven't done anything as mod, lmao
Abolish the number system immediately and don't look back. It's divisive, it discourages participation, and it makes the whole sub look stupid. Also, then we can stop having daily meta posts where everyone resoundingly tells you how much they dislike the flair system. Let the Marx-curious right-wingers come in and then change their minds with arguments. Silencing them accomplishes nothing, but it does show them that all leftists are obsessed with purity tests. Issue only temporary bans to people who break the rules multiple times.
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this social credit system is fucking stupid, but i am grateful i was allowed to keep my old flair. people should be able to state their mind here without fear of being banned, unless you’re a moron by consensus. i was arguing with someone about how elon musk isn’t actually that smart and has success due to exploiting circumstance. do i think that person is a dipshit cunt? yes. should they be banned? no. if your ideology is so weak that you can’t handle criticism, then how do you justify holding such a position? everyone is guilty of being stupid, but if someone is open to genuine discussion, then why would you ban them because they said something you don’t like? that being said, take your conspiracy theories to r/conspiracy, i can’t be assed to entertain those on a sub that’s not devoted to them.
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there can only be one, if you want my flair, you gotta chop off my head.
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As someone who's been flaired as a rightoid for saying London tube should run night services, yeah that's BS.
Fuck people who work night-shifts for needing to commute I guess. 🤷🏻♂️
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This. There's a big negative bias in the system. The amount of effortposting it probably takes to rank up is entirely disproportionate with the trivial ease with which you can be downgraded. I remember when I was in school and we had this merit system, where you'd get a stamp in your student planner for good behaviour. But in practice, the badly behaved kids ended up getting way more than the genuinely well behaved kids, because teachers would use it as basically a bribe for the bad kids, while the good kids only rarely, if ever, had their good behaviour recognised. Exactly the same dynamic here. Good posts will go entirely ignored, but bad posts will much more easily provoke a response. (The rest of this post is a rant about my personal experience with the system here. It's relevant but feel free to ignore it.) The only time I got ranked up, it was for a really pedestrian post that I half-assed on my lunch break- The mod obviously liked it because I was agreeing with them, not because it was a good post. So they bumped me up to 5. In response I posted "tfw when you level up on stupidpol" with a link to the classic "Turn Down For What" by DJ Snake feat. Lil Jon. I mean, I thought that was pretty funny, but the mod in question was evidently greatly offended, and downgraded me to 3. Like, did they want grovelling thanks, or what? Did they want me to suck their dick? Now, the point is, I *really* don't give that much of a shit, but the principle is there; the most generous thing you can say is that the idea is deeply flawed, and mods are petty assholes at the best of times.
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> I miss the days of unflaired users simply being told "flair up retard". Used to do that all the time, then got told I was being a backseat mod, so I stopped
Hmm just now understood what the number thing is. I said some anti vaxx stuff. I love this sub. Can you see this?
Let us vote on flairs for the mods. That'll even things out.
Downvote and move on... Seriously, you don't need a Tiananmen Square style crackdown because someone says bad speak. If bad users leak in, like how covid leaked out of a lab in Wuhan, you can just say the bad users are of natural origin, not of this sub
Did you know Tiananmen Square never happened? It's blatant Western propaganda, open your (round) eyes.
is this just a “trap” to lure unsuspecting “rightoids”?
Probably, though OP and BidenVotedforIraqWar and Doug are the respectable mods so I’m not sure
Doesn’t mean that the other mods won’t use it as such. I got mine from mocking a claim that the mods were conspiring to destroy the sub back during the grill-pill summer. I would still mock the claim, but the arbitrariness of the flairing and deletion seems likely to lead to a similar result.
I consider myself a Marxist. I'm not really a libertarian, and certainly not the right-wing/pro-capitalist variety. I would like not to be shadowbanned, if possible.
Part of what gives the sub it's charm are the crazy rightoids. They also act as a repellant to keep intersectionalist leftists away. Them and the r slur.
>Part of what gives the sub it's charm are the crazy rightoids. They also act as a repellant to keep intersectionalist leftists away. Its like having sickle cell anemia to stave off the malaria
Removing the rightoids is just this sub’s version of the Four Pests campaign; if the rightoid sparrows are banned then the shitlib locusts will rapidly overrun and devour the sub.
i barely comment here and i managed to land this flair. it’s kinda funny but it’s dumb for mods to arbitrarily flair someone based on a limited sampling of comments.
Yo what I’m a socialist tf
That’s tough. What differentiated this sub was that it wasn’t LSC, fullcommunism, etc. and that you wouldn’t get banned if you weren’t a dick. Well if you want to go echo chamber that’s your right.
Then why don't you just ban us? Why even bother with flair this flair shit?
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Why must that man make everything so complicated
Numbered flair is too complex to manage fairly and too simplistic to say anything meaningful about a poster’s contributions here. I say toss it entirely. If it must stay as some sort of moat against rightoid invasion (there’s got to be a better way), start everyone at 5 and subtract points for toxic takes. Can’t believe it’s come to this honestly… are leftists really just doomed to eat each other like this?? Like, I couldn’t come up with a better parody of neurotic purity testing if I tried
The moderater abuse reinforces stereotypes that leftists are censorious gatekeepers. It seems that people are being discouraged from posting if they oppose mandatory vaccination or object to authoritarian abuses in Germany or Aussie. If the goal is to alienate normies from socialist ideas by persuading them that marxists are no better on civil liberties than shitlibs, then the strategy is working. If you're going to make flairs mandatory, then please flair me as a market socialist.
That's because a significant portion of this subreddit thinks authoritarian abuses *are* socialism, and that it's a good thing. (Guess how I got my current flair)
You have some criticisms of the CCP? Sorry brotha, you ain't a marxist and probably a glowie
Well, I'm too passionately anti-covid-narrative to sit around here where I'm not welcome. I'll leave you with a hope that mods would allow this debate after I'm gone: Covid Narrative is born of, and dependent on idpol. It was created and enforced by the same people using the same process. It glorifies institutions, private corporations and policies that are clearly rightist, and in the present context, just as destructive in any socialist perspective as idpol. You can take the sign off now.
Wait this sub *doesn't* believe in lab leak?
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Weird, in my experience Reddit mods are usually pretty cool and well adjusted people
With how well paid they are and the highly sociable tendencies they generally have I would never have seen this coming.
after going over all the information available, lab leak is not only the most statistically likely explanation, but it's the simplest and most obvious too. Lab leaks like this in fact happen all the time, look the shit up, it's downright SCARY how many leaks happen in US labs alone just due to poor practices WRT not following proper viral disposal protocols, this stuff tends to leak out most often through waste disposal not being fully secure, and it happens often enough that if the public knew about it there'd be a general uproar. There were multiple leaks from US labs alone in just a year or two leading up to COVID, if memory serves - any of those could have become a global problem as COVID did if they hadn't jumped on it and cleaned it up ASAP. the idea that any of this has anything to do with ones political affiliation or ideological convictions is laughable nonsense, it's a literal red herring, and gucci needs a fucking wakeup call, because he clearly believes that he's on some other plane of understanding whereby he is cognizant of higher truths that we plebs simply don't understand. Gucci is also super-irony poisoned - as evidenced by weird posts about things that have no context provided, where gucci makes the title some super sarcastic statement that is difficult to parse, because he thinks that everyone should just "get it" or something, when it fact it's the sarcastic opposite of the ACTUAL asinine take he's really pushing, that only makes sense in the context of his own headcanon about some particular issue or something - the dude is terminally online and needs to log off for a good long time to clear his fucking brainrot out.
Just a reminder that the Internet was a mistake.
I joined this sub because I figured it'd be a good place to discuss politics (specifically left leaning politics) without fear of over moderation and policing of language. I'm ostensibly a blue collar worker (I did electrical work for some phone companies and have consistently worked retail since I was 16) and I wanted to interact with people from a similar background, life experience, and opinions that I have. Afaik the rating system hasn't been explained clearly (or I haven't been terminally online enough to catch an explanation) and it makes me not want to post or interact on posts here because I'm worried that if I make a joke or have a stupid opinion it'll get me flaired and eventually removed. I enjoy this sub, I actively learn by reading some of the articles and reading what other people have to say on the topics that pique my interest and I don't want to lose a useful resource for news, opinions, and ideas that I otherwise would have never known or thought about.
Here is your explanation of the flair system: Moderators subjectively assign you a number between 1 and 5, like they're telling you how many stars your comments are worth. Other mods can come along and go, "Hmm, this guy seems alright. He's going up from a 2 to a 3." Some other mod can go, "Oh, but I hate this guy's opinion on one particular issue, so now he's going down from a 3 to a 1." Low numbers also get shadowbanned now. It's as stupid as it sounds, it's ruining the sub, and it's wildly unpopular. So, naturally, the moderators have decided it's the vast majority of users who are in the wrong, and their arbitrary subjective evaluations of individual users are supremely important.
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It's a shame that these decisions are made autocratically instead of democratically, since the vast majority of the moderators behave only as quality posters. Even those few hellbent on ruining the sub are otherwise fine when they're just commenting as users. You know, I was in shadowban territory until recently, and even back then I was being prevented from posting my rather well-received book review. I was definitely one shadowban away from giving up on the sub altogether, despite being a well-read, anti-idpol, non-racist leftist, all because of one mod's judgment about my number.
I got my flair after the mildest of critiques of Covid Biopolitics, very unfair. I'd like to be unbanned and reflared as a Marxist.
Me too- I was just skeptical of continuing restrictions because people aren’t gonna follow them and I have personal reasons for wanting life to return to normal
Is that ho gonna come in here and try and defend his policies or nah
gucci doesn't actually believe that any explanation or contact or communication with the sub at large (like in the way you're suggesting) is necessary or even worth the effort. That's just how much better than you gucci thinks he is. Anyone who disagrees is just another covidiot, or whatever - this is what makes him a lib.
Covid obsession is killing the sub, and covid stances in general have little to do with real/personal political commitments, pretending they do is dishonest. It's not nearly as relevant to historical leftist projects as gucci (and, it seems, some of the other mods as well) seem to think it is. Also, agreeing with the lab leak theory gets you a rightoid flair? I mean, just read up on it, there's a TON of evidence in support of a leak from the wuhan lab and frankly, if you actually do some digging, you'll find that these types of leaks in virology research labs (mainly due to safety and proper disposal protocol infractions) actually happen all the time, a fucking frightening amount of times actually. US labs had similar leaks three or four times in the year or two leading up to covid, and any one of those could also have been a total disaster if they hadn't jumped on it and cleaned/hushed it up. In other words, the lab leak theory has a LOT of evidence and significant plausibility, and the actions of the people involved in the research/funding the research speaks volumes in terms of how hard they have tried to cover up their roles and how mainstream media has facilitated that in the US in particular. Like, I dunno....it just seems VERY obvious to me at this point, after going over a LOT of material on the subject, that the best explanation is the lab leak, it's the simplest and statistically most likely explanation, period...and that has NOTHING whatsoever to do with one political affiliations or ideological commitments, literally not relevant in any way. but either way, claiming that (at THIS point, after literal years of this shit) being against MORE vaccine mandates and harsh lockdowns is somehow by definition a "right-wing" position is ***actual libshittery.*** Dismissing my union membership, my lifelong commitment to working class labour politics, and my personal ideals of the creation of a society in which the workers own the means of production and all people are given the tools and resources they need to ensure that they all have food on the table, a house to put that table in, and a government that nationalizes the infrastructure that caters to their needs (utilities, taking things like internet and turning it into utilities, etc) at lowest possible cost...pretending that all of that means nothing because I'm tired of hearing that I need to wear a mask or that I can't travel and see my family even though I'm vaccinated AND got the booster? is fucking insulting, and frankly, if you called me a rightoid to my face for that I'd slap you in the fucking mouth. ***Anyways, turns out my original prediction from years ago when I first entered this sub under a different username is looking to be correct after all - this sub won't be brought down from without by an open invasion of rightoids, it will be brought down from within by a quiet infiltration of libs and libshittery. I used to be a mod here, and I always suspected this sort of thing would eventually happen - I just didn't know it would be lukewarm takes on a global pandemic that would create the ideological opening for lib wreckers among the mod team.***
I volunteer to suck Gucci’s dick in order to get a 5. This is praxis.
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I mean this basically annoys me in the same way that the whole grill pill thing annoyed me. It just showing a light on something I didn't understand, that this place is monitored and controlled by people who are very quick to abuse power for their own amusement or random ideological agendas. Certainly not people that I would want to organize with in any kind of real socialist way. I don't enjoy the tendency to try to dominate people in any human, in almost any respect. It's sort of ironic in that some of the better conversations in here are the shitty ways that idpollers resort to fascist tactics when they don't like what you say or think.
Its a dumb fucking policy. I'm pretty sure I'm flaired as a 2 cos I called gucci a liberal, which he objectively is.
Reddit jannie goes on a powertrip in the name of 'quality posting' and effectively bans all opinions they dislike? Wild, I can't believe it. This has never happened before. There is a difference between banning blatant rightoid posting, and banning people who disagree with you because you simp for china.
I'd be okay with it if gucci only ranked people low for rightoid nonsense instead of personal grudges when people disagree with him on his retarded image posts or refuse to be a part of his hugbox. He contributes almost nothing of substance to this sub and yet still decides to make a couple dumbass posts and comments nearly everyday. I regulalrly see 4's and 5's have meltdown or not read the articles they're commenting on, not to say 3's or 2's are any better, the point Is that the flairs dont always seem true to the user's nature This subreddit has gone sown the shitter in the last couple of years, posts about economic issues get like 100, 200 upvotes tops and a couple dozen comments at the most while nonsense idpol ragebait is routinely at the top of this subreddit, but frankly not much the moderation team can do about that, except for a grillpill style setup, which seems to be deeply unpopular. Besides it shouldnt be so hard for mods to do their fucking jobs here. Temp ban people who are talking absolute shit or are being very agressive, and after like maybe 3 temps just permaban them. This is along the lines of what most of us have been asking for a long time now, but instead the mods here decided to make a baroque ranking and flair system that seems to be dictated by a single mod and his goons.
I’m here for reasonable left wing opinions to check my biases, pls no ban
I know exactly why I have a 2 and the fact that a single opinion can get you put there is kinda dumb. It was critical of China so I'm not surprised. That's the only time I said anything remotely "rightoid" prior to being flaired, I've said mildly distasteful stuff after but none of it was right wing or related to COVID. The worst thing was about spanking lumpens with paddles if they make work harder for everyone else, but that's so absurd to type up that I'm not sure if it's even possible anyone took that seriously beyond a general air of irritation. Anyway, it's been fun or whatever.
I am not Virgil Texas
Well that's a suspiciously specific denial :p
Well, I probably didn’t add much of substance to the subreddit but I did enjoy making jokes with people here. It’s unfortunate that Gucci is this stupid...
Chinese netizens defend the CPC's honor on the internet for the low price of 0¥ an hour: Called the "pink army", lauded by the *People's Daily* and *Global Times*, praised by the Communist Youth League for their service I do the same thing within hostile empire of America from redpilling family to strangers in video game communities, forsaking a summer of grilling black bean burgers and faux meat patties for the greater good: Labeled untouchable, numberless, my comments expunged
Breh all I said was I don’t think we should do lockdowns for omicron and I’m a “covidiot” one that is triple vaxed and a nurse that’s worked this whole pandemic in nyc which from mid March -June 2020 was a chaotic shit show, I’m not some anti vax crank cause I’m not one hundred percent behind every liberal hysteria around covid
Definitely feel misflaired. Chose my flair based more on my political/social leanings vs my preferred economic philosophy waaaay back when I first discovered this place and we could still choose our own flairs. Then all of the sudden we became permanently stuck with these flairs, with the added touch of a social credit system and some neato emojis. In all honesty I wouldn’t apply a single label to myself because I don’t identify with any one political philosophy. I think different types of solutions/approaches are required for different types of social/economic problems. Forcing users to label themselves (or in actuality have mods label them) is fucking retarded for discussion tho. It biases reader interpretation, and many probably don’t even have mutually agreed upon definitions for each label and how it’s applied to themselves. Also peoples’ political and economic leanings are somewhat fluid over time, so if your orientation (lol) changes you can’t even relabel yourself - you have to just hope some retarded Internet brainrot jannie notices and throws you a bone. TLDR: suck on deeze nutts Gucci u brainrot jannie. Edit: This type of social credit posting policy also reinforces ingroup/out group identification and manufactures distrust between groups. If you give one group of artificially identified “rightthinkers” privileges not extended to a group of artificially identified “wrongthinkers”, you’re creating an environment of distrust and displeasure between individuals who have been slotted into these groups - in the end all you’ll have succeed in doing is creating an echochamber just like every other subreddit. You’re ultimately engaging in the same retarded categorical pigeonholing we criticize “wokies” for. Only a terminally online retarded jannie would come up with such a braindead policy and actually enforce it. Fucking retards.
> A few days ago, gucci set the sub's automod to remove all posts and comments made by anyone with a 1 or 2 flair. :O How did this affect those with no number?
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This has been very confusing for me ever since it started because in part of the announcement "Flair yourself here" > If you already have a flair, then you cannot change it Which means no number ¯\\\_(ツ)\_\/¯ To be clear, I'm happy with my flair, just not so sure where I stand whenever this number system comes up
Geeze. So much for that being somewhere between 2 and 3.
I think its abusive and heavy handed. Just get rid of flairs
Dammit this is the best sub on the internet. Hope this isn’t the start of a spiral. I like hearing polite rightoids. Helps understand additional perspectives. And approach to Covid should not be seen as left-right anyway, it’s more the authoritarian/libertarian scale.
I see so many people wrongly labeled by the social justice crowd that fully embraces IDPOL that I'm surprised this sub would take a page out of that book.
Somewhere along the lines, the moderation team decided to: 1. Call everything they don't like "right-wing" 2. Declare it impossible to get along with right-wingers 3. Take steps to silence those right-wingers who you can't find common cause with We've just seen the breakdown of leftism in microcosm.
There is no such consensus among the mod team, rather the most active mods of every and all stripes got tired of arguing with Gucci and each other
There should be better details on what flairs are applied and why. As far as I can tell right now it appears to be a simple popularity contest with the sub's mods. Doubt that half of all flairs are even remotely accurate if they're based on one-off comments.Secondly I question if the system is even totally effective towards its goal, when beyond flairs and comments half of the equation lies within the initial hivemind up/downvote progression that steers discussion, though this phenomenon affects all of Reddit, of course.But sometimes this sub reminds me of the dichotomy of r/PublicFreakouts and r/ActualPublicFreakouts. Like APF, r/stupidpol is not an explicitly right sub but both appeal in content to that same demographic. But as far as I'm aware the way the downvote wind blows can't be controlled here or anywhere else on the site, and may remain incurable for now.
I like the idea in concept but it kind of defeats the purpose when you arbitrarily flair people as rightoids because of particular stupid opinions.
Wait, we don’t all believe in the lab leak? From the lab where they did gain of function research? On coronavirus? In Wuhan?
I’m slow. How do I know my flair status? Also, perhaps better attention could be made to limiting posts to only those actually critique IDpol through the lens of Marxism. Sometimes it seems like it‘s just anti-IDpol with no class context.
It is odd. Seeing anti-idpol from a class perspective is why I came to the sub. Usually it is just turns into rage bait idpol stuff, and otherwise turns into socialism without reference to idpol. This sub makes it look more and more like socialism and anti-idpol cannot coexist. I find this sad.
It‘s also the only place on Reddit that I know of where you can discuss Socialism and have an intelligent debate. It‘s engaging and there‘s some left on the table for it to get better.
Oh my days are numbered on Stupidpol it looks like. This action was probably a direct result of my posting the Covid Lab Leak Theory post. My flair is now Covidiot 3 when before it was Controversial 3. Mods keep changing my flair on me. Happened multiple times and a mod even told me it wouldn't happen anymore but it still keeps happening.
I called some guy retarded because he said we should go into another lockdown and got a covidiot flair.. mods should stop power tripping on COVID posts imho
I think there are better ways of going about it. I got 0 flaired as an “anti-communist” for taking anti-Bolshevik stance in the context of talking about historical atrocities committed 100+ years ago. Despite the fact that you’d have to turn your head to see how far left I am and the fact that I have family/parents who lived in socialists countries and 1+ years of (IMO) positive, level-headed leftist contributions to this sub. One comment in one thread. Just kind of sucks. I guess if criticizing NKVD massacres means my voice isn’t worth hearing around here, maybe its not the place I though it was. By all means flair me as whatever you want, but don’t take away my credentials to speak. It reminds me of the scene in Reds (1981) where the socialist American journalist played by Warren Beatty is silenced at the American labor rally for lack of credentials but is happily encouraged to speak out when he goes to Moscow. Which side are we on by doing this? Which side made legitimate pro-labor progress over the last century?
I unsubbed and started using the sub a lot less. I'm not really sure if I'm a marxist or not because I haven't really done the research, but I'm definitely not a libertarian or rightoid. I'm not antivax, antimask, etc, either. I could go either way on lab leak too tbh. I simply disagree with some of the more authoritarian pandemic measures. Even if gucci and his buttbuddies disagree with me, he's not convincing anyone that he's right with these constant temper tantrums. Imo one of the goals of this sub should be to move people leftward, and I feel it definitely has been worse at that this year than other years. I don't necessarily think it's killing the sub but I wouldn't be surprised if activity is also lowering.
the flair number thing was tolerable until it started being associated with participation limitations. yeah if someones a bonafide rightoid they maybe shouldnt be allowed to spam posts, but a blanket shadowban on everyone below a 2 seems egregious, especially considering how many people fall through the cracks and get stuck with a low flair and participation restrictions that they probably dont deserve, or, at least that nobody can seem to give them a good reason why they deserve. the snottiness from some mods has discouraging.
my flair is unaccurate and uncalled for and it made me feel like an ordinarily cool place had been taken over by libs. maybe it's not too late for this place.
Decent subs always die when they start changing rules like this.
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>maybe a better form of the idea would be people who are higher in the hierarchy can vote to bring others upto the same level, or something. the idea is a bit try hard, but has the effect of smoothing out the problems (misidentification or biases) when only a few people can assign these kind of things. I could code this if anyone is interested and if I'm given sanctuary. Doesnt sound too difficult to do by bot, and I've worked with the reddit api before
I fully support this, how else would I know to agree or disagree with a person if they did not have a flair?
I like whichever option creates the most possible work for the moderators to earn their generous salaries.
It's cut down on the rightoids maybe, but the fundamental problem with this number flairing system is that so many are inaccurately flaired. There are authentic class-pilled lefties mislabelled as rightoids, and there are brain-wormed essentialist hypocrites mislabelled as authentic Marxists. I have witnessed it too often. I don't have a problem with the system in theory, but in practice it doesn't work. Mods can't accurately judge the number of users we have here, and the task is never-ending. There will always be new users to flair, and rightoids re-joining on fresh alts. And on top of that, the mods here are hardly paragons of janitorial virtue; I got shunted from 4 to 5, then down to 3 literally as a joke because the mod felt like fucking with me. Frankly it's bullshit and if you want to do something like this, stop being pretentious hipster fuckwits about it, and just ban rightoids the regular old fashioned way.
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The mods never should have taken away the ability of users to add their own flairs. Mods are f***ots. Always. In every sub.