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the_unfinished_I commented on
Original Poster1 point · 3 days ago · edited 2 days ago

Maybe what we really want is to get a sense of "I'm here to participate" rather than "This requirement is a minor barrier to my karma farming operation."

I can absolutely get behind this. I agree that we want people participating in the discussions, but I guess I'm not sure how the submission statement achieves this. You can profile accounts that have previously participated in discussions, but how can you tell in advance that they will?

I have noticed that even when prompted, people seem to struggle with this - even when you explicitly stress the "insightful" requirement.

I think what I find problematic here is on the one hand requiring that people spell out why an article is "insightful" or "relevant", but on the other hand providing no framework to what is insightful/relevant. Relevant to whom/what? It is such a broad and vague term, I'm not surprised people are struggling to conform to it. And the existence of vague laws invites arbitrary power, which is what I was trying to point out. It is doubly alarming since one of the mods has not tried to hide his disdain for some sources, calling them trash regardless of article's content. Without transparency, what's stopping him from arbitrarily using these purity laws to stifle articles he disagrees with?

I suspect that if we explicitly allow only a tl;dr, there will be more crap posted

I don't think so. I think that by allowing tl;dr, we ensure that a person actually did read the article and provide a more objective way to judge the submission statement. I find it contradictory that we are telling users not to edit the submission titles on the one hand, but allow them to soapbox and mischaracterize the article in their submission statement on the other. The result of which is inevitably people discussing the mischaracterized statements contained in the SS rather than what the article itself is saying.

I think I could also make a defense in most of those cases

By all means. I'm not sure I understand how this doesn't rise to the definition of explaining why this was relevant and demonstrates the stake the OP has in posting it. And I equally don't understand how this and this are not the definition of tl;dr without providing explanation to insightfulness.

EDIT: Grammer

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2 points · 2 days ago · edited 2 days ago

I think what I find problematic here is on the one hand requiring that people spell out why an article is "insightful" or "relevant", but on the other hand providing no framework to what is insightful/relevant.

I see your point here. Do you think it might be better if it was something like: "Explain why you found this article interesting" or "Explain why you wanted to share this article"? It seems like a minefield to try and define "insightful".

I think I could also make a defense in most of those cases

By all means.

On closer inspection, this might be a weaker defense than I had first imagined, but I'll share my thoughts anyway. Keep in mind that the other mods might have different opinions than me.

In my own experience, there are sometimes contextual factors. I might check in the morning and find an acceptable post from overnight that doesn't have a great submission statement but has generated an interesting discussion and has plenty of upvotes. It seems pedantic and somewhat pointless to chase the person to update their statement in this case. This is especially true if I it looks like the discussion has already run its course.

I think there are also submission statements that don't fulfill the "insightful" requirement but do seem to indicate that the person at least made an effort. This would be my thinking with the two "soapbox" examples you referenced (surveillance and immigration). I wasn't clear that people had to be totally neutral in their SS, as there's nothing in the rules about this. Do we want to apply this kind of restriction? I'm not sure there's such a contradiction here - the title rule prevents the sub from being full of posts like "Libtards strike again" or "Corrupt conservatives have no souls" - while people are free to talk about their subjective interpretation of the article they've shared in their submission statement.

You're correct about the environmental article - that had an acceptable SS. However, this was actually removed for changing the title of the post (rule 4) rather than for the SS.

With two of them (job creep and cannabis legalisation), I think you're mainly right. This might be due to the contextual factors I mentioned, or could simply be a failure to notice/act on our part. I won't try to change your mind if you want to take a less charitable interpretation.

In my own case, I have been biased towards not removing posts as much as possible and have probably been a bit too relaxed/inconsistent regarding submission statements, while the others have followed the letter of the law more closely. For example, personally I wouldn't have removed that environmental post for changing the title, because while it different from the title of the article, this didn't seem to have any impact in terms of editorialising the post. What I'll take from this is that I need to do a better job in applying the rules, because if they're not applied evenly, there can easily be (justified) concerns about bias.

Original Poster1 point · 2 days ago · edited 2 days ago

I see your point here. Do you think it might be better if it was something like: "Explain why you found this article interesting" or "Explain why you wanted to share this article"? It seems like a minefield to try and define "insightful".

Yes. I like both of these much better.

I wasn't clear that people had to be totally neutral in their SS, as there's nothing in the rules about this. Do we want to apply this kind of restriction? I'm not sure there's such a contradiction here - the title rule prevents the sub from being full of posts like "Libtards strike again" or "Corrupt conservatives have no souls"

I agree. Not allowing editorialized titles does help keep some of the vitriol down, but why are we not allowing to include an article's subtitle? Especially when it often helps to illuminate an editor's clickbaity titles.
I understand wanting to avoid placing restrictions on discussions in the sub (although there are already rules that restrict them) - but a submission statement, being the seed around which discussion often develops, needs to reflect the article (not necessarily neutral). Allowing editorialized submission statements leads to discussing a mischaracterized statements rather than the content of the article itself. And for this, a tl;dr will work well. Requiring more than this is hard to define (what is tl;dr is subjective) and is asking for soapboxing.


Here is a recent example of a poster who clearly read the article, is clearly demonstrating that he's staying around to discuss it, the post has gotten a lot of upvotes already, but a mod still requires that the SS not be tl;dr. All the while allowing this tl;dr to stand. This has all the markings of a selective purity test.

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Yes. I like both of these much better.

Maybe there's something we can do here. I'll talk to the other mods (or maybe they can comment in this thread).

...why are we not allowing to include an article's subtitle? Especially when it often helps to illuminate an editor's clickbaity titles.

I'm not too clear on this myself - maybe others can comment on this?

but a submission statement, being the seed around which discussion often develops, needs to reflect the article (not necessarily neutral). Allowing editorialized submission statements leads to discussing a mischaracterized statements rather than the content of the article itself. And for this, a tl;dr will work well. Requiring more than this is hard to define (what is tl;dr is subjective) and is asking for soapboxing.

I think we agree for the most part - but if we're asking why you posted something - won't this often be a non-neutral kind of thing? If I explain why I posted a longform article about how a political party is undermining democracy, surely part of the motivation will likely involve my concern that this is taking place. That being said, I can just as easily imagine a converse example where someone unnecessarily "pollutes" a SS with their politics or an overly partisan viewpoint - so it's a tough one.

I agree with you on the examples - both of those posts should have a SS with some further explanation if we're going to apply the rules evenly.

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the_unfinished_I commented on
theguardian.com/lifean...
Original Poster1 point · 2 days ago

This article explores the question: What if our fascination as a species with specialization and mastery is misguided and we would be better served by thinking about things with more breadth?

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Moderator of r/TrueReddit, speaking officially3 points · 2 days ago

Could you please update your submission statement? We want to hear why this article is worth reading. What did you find interesting about it? Just a couple of lines - it doesn't have to be much.

Rule 5: Submission Statements Are REQUIRED

Immediately post a submission statement according to the following or the post may be removed.

Submission statements should be: a 2+ sentence comment in reply to the post, in your own words, and a description of exactly why the post is relevant and insightful.

Submission statements should not be: mainly a summary of the article or mainly a quote/excerpt (and where a quote/excerpt exists, the limit is 2 sentences maximum).

the_unfinished_I commented on
2 points · 2 days ago · edited 2 days ago

As one of the new mods, maybe I should chime in here to share my opinion as well. When I read this thread, it looks like there's a couple of issues you guys are primarily concerned with:

  1. A prolific troll(s?) was unbanned and you're not sure why.

  2. Concern that enforcing civility will empower fascists or others who want to have a "polite discussion" about whether genocide is a good idea or whatever.

  3. A sense that the sub will become more restrictive through the pedantic application of new rules that you never signed on for.

[Let me know if I'm missing something].

So, to briefly give my view on this:

  1. I'm not sure I have all the background on this one. The idea that we can't apply the rules retroactively seems right to me. From what I've seen this person don't seem particularly pleasant, but in one sense I can't help but wonder what the problem is. If I accept for the sake of argument that unbanning them was a terrible idea - in that case you can just report them next time they break the rules and they'll be banned again in relatively short order.

  2. Having been active on reddit for a while, I'm well aware that there's been an effort to give some pretty nasty ideas a veneer of respectability over the past few years. I think we should call these ideas out when we see them. However, I'm not sure attacking people directly or adopting a combative tone is helpful here. First, it changes the sub from a place where people are debating ideas to one where people are throwing rocks at each other. It's not like telling these kinds of people to fuck off will actually cause them to leave - it just gives them permission to tell you to fuck off.

To a large extent, this problem might be self-corrective with some light moderation. These trolls are usually the first to attack users, which will be moderated when we see it or when it's reported to is. They also don't tend to put much effort into their posts/comments either, and we will moderate low-effort posts/comments.

Of course, "careful trolls" could put in the effort to create a detailed, well-thought out argument. Great, then lets explain why their ideas are insane and have that debate. If we later find that this approach results in a torrent of high-effort trolling posts that are undermining the sub, then we can discuss it and decide on an approach. I'm not sure this is such a risk however, and downvoting is always an option.

In my mind, this basically comes down to tone. Do we want a sub full of people shouting at each other or a place where discussions can happen? I think for the most part you can only really pick one. One of my favourite subreddits is r/geopolitcs. I don't want to overstate things - but there you can sometimes find people with quite divergent views having interesting discussions without being called a tankie or Putin's bitch or whatever.

3) We've only had moderation for a few weeks, and it already looks like we've seen an improvement. Can't we just give it a try? We can continue discussions on this sub as we go. I feel like there's probably a way to accommodate most concerns - and maybe there are other things we can do as mods to support transparency and ensure there's an understanding about what actions we are taking and why.

the_unfinished_I commented on

ICANN has stopped being controlled by the US government as of 2016 (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-government-no-longer-controls-160017929.html). Also while ICANN is responsible for the global allocation of DNS name and number space, each country (even the US) actually required DNS servers hosted in their country to comply with censorship laws (e.g. New Zealand blocks zerohedge).

China and Russia have had independent DNS systems for at least a few years, and there has never really been a globally homogenous internet that works the same way in every country.

There are also other separate branches of the internet (Tor is a famous example) which don’t rely on ICANN DNS servers. I agree with much of what you said about what Balkanization could mean in terms of the internet.

I just think we’re already at that point.

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2 points · 5 days ago · edited 5 days ago

While the US gave up its oversight role of ICANN (control is a bit of a strong word), it's still based in California and subject to US law. Presumably there are various wartime powers the US government has if things ever get really serious. In any case, this doesn't seem to prevent things like the Iran example I mentioned.

Not being a technical person, I'm not too clear on what Russia's national DNS actually involves. I assume it doesn't run alongside the existing global DNS and is intended as a back-up - and this is basically what I was getting at. Sure, there are alternatives, but once you start using them, you have a much more fragmented Internet. Also, we've only considered domains - there are also IP addresses which could be reclaimed by the Regional Internet Registries. This might have a much larger impact.

I do agree with your general point. Fragmentation probably shouldn't be thought of as a yes/no thing - the Internet likely started fragmenting almost immediately after it emerged. It's more like one end of a spectrum with total interconnection on the other. A number of different factors can pull us in either direction, with great firewalls, TOR, censorship, etc all increasing fragmentation.

To respond to the OP's question, I think maybe the message would be that once you break off from the Internet and your now-separate network continues to evolve in isolation - it's possible that you may have a difficult time reconnecting in the future. China has its great firewall today, but who knows what the future will bring. It would be a shame if it started using protocols that were incompatible with the wider Internet and was unable to reconnect down the line.

Presumably there are various wartime powers the US government has if things ever get really serious.

Yes; which is why China and Russia have already implemented alternatives.

It would be a shame if it started using protocols that were incompatible with the wider Internet and was unable to reconnect down the line.

Unless they end up dominating the future, in which case it would be a shame that the West gets left unable to connect to the wider internet.

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I'm not really debating you - as I agree with your points. All I'm saying as that both the (unlikely) possibility of US Gov action and the (largely untested) safeguards that Russia et al have deployed would further increase fragmentation.

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the_unfinished_I commented on
consortiumnews.com/2019/0...
Original Poster1 point · 5 days ago

Basically the judge threw out half of the Muller report and says Wikileaks stole emails from the DNC.

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Moderator of r/TrueReddit, speaking officially1 point · 5 days ago

Hey, could you update your submission statement? Read the rule in the sidebar - the key point is we want to hear why this is an insightful article that's worth reading.

the_unfinished_I commented on
nationalreview.com/2019/0...
Moderator of r/TrueReddit, speaking officially9 points · 8 days ago

Just a reminder that truereddit is a place for quality discussion. It's fine to disagree, but please keep the low-effort or incendiary posts to a minimum. If you see comments that break the rules, report them and they will be removed.

the_unfinished_I commented on
businessinsider.com/apple-...

serious question. Why should I care about facebook and privacy? I don't post anything on there I am not comfortable with the whole world knowing so what is the problem? I am not asking this rhetorically. I want to know what the issue is.

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Bruce Schneier has a good primer on this in his book Data and Goliath. You can catch a talk on this here - he's a good speaker and it's an interesting talk: https://youtu.be/GhWJTWUvc7E

My (his) take is that the people like yourself who say "why should I care?" are thinking about this in somewhat old school, analogue terms. Okay, I can see your comments where you talk about pro wrestling and I know what high school you went to - big deal, right? But this overlooks the (constantly improving) technologies that can parse, sort and analyse this data. The amount of information they can learn about you is staggering and it's always increasing.

Then there's the fact that this information is being held by anonymous forces that are using it to affect your life in ways you don't understand. Being in the world pre-Internet produced information, but you could largely understand and anticipate the consequences of your actions. If you show up to work hungover, Janet the office gossip will probably tell everyone - but you knew that was a possibility and could factor that in.

If facebook sells your location data to a data broker that scores your suitability as an employee and sells this information to that company you just interviewed with, what criteria is it applying? Does the fact that you visit a pub on a Tuesdays give you a black mark that prevents you from getting a job?

Also metadata is basically everything about your life. Enormously personal things can be discovered from this. Schneier gives the following example: A woman calls her sister at 6am on a Tuesday. They talk for one hour. Right after this she calls an abortion clinic for fifteen minutes. Five days later the abortion clinic calls her for 10 minutes. Of course we have no idea what this was regarding.

Also, while you may have nothing to hide, plenty of others do. Journalists reporting on government actions, activists, private companies with trade secrets, your pot dealer. Undermining their privacy affects the society that you are a part of - and likely indirectly affects you.

Finally, privacy is a right in itself - it is not contingent on particular outcomes (in the same way was you have a right to life that doesn't depend on you being useful). This is why privacy is enshrined in the UN declaration of human rights. Just knowing that you are being watched affects the way you speak and the things you will speak about. In my own experience I have felt how I often pause and sometimes stop myself from commenting online or in a private message following the Snowden relations. I've got a trip to the US next week, should I really share my views on US foreign policy in this reddit thread, or might it somehow result in me being questioned for 4 hours at immigration?

the_unfinished_I commented on
aeon.co/essays...
Moderator of r/TrueReddit, speaking officially1 point · 9 days ago

This looks like an interesting article - but without a submission statement it'll get removed. Explain in a couple of sentences why this is an insightful article that's worth a read.

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