The partisan censorship activities of the admins and mods insures that I will never pay for a Gold membership and that I will always run an ad blocker when using reddit.

Taking money out of reddit's pocket is the only language the reddit "powers that be" might understand, however it is more likely they will never understand and instead blame the users for falling profits. Once management decides to blame the users they will start engaging in a variety of punitive actions against us evil users. At that point it will be time to start looking for a new home, because reddit will soon be closing it's doors for good.

I was a senior mod on a top 10 subreddit. I quit in protest over things like this, large and small. Mods deleting posts and banning users for pointing out that the mods were paid shills (SolInvictus!) and mods using reddit as their own personal playground (BritishEnglishPolice) and mods defending and hiding the bad actions of other mods (countless) .... I have just about had it with this site and 95% of the people in charge of it. A few months ago I stepped down from modding voluntarily because I had spent a year trying to clean up a couple of the default subs and expose a couple paid spammers who had been made mods of large subs. When I quit, I was unceremoniously banned from the moderator IRC channel and Paradox spent some time spreading lies and rumors about me since I wasn't present to defend myself. I was accused of the very things I had tried to expose others for.

Frankly, I'm sick of this site. For months I was promised a moderator spot on /r/politics as part of an effort to balance things out with the upcoming election. For months I was put off for undefined, unexplained reasons. Finally I was told no, because I was a frequent poster in /r/libertarian and I would be 'biased'. Think about that one real hard.

I'm done with reddit. I'm done with the admins and mods who have no respect for the users and no interest in sticking to their own rules. I put 5 years into this site, 2 of them doing a ton of work to try to help out, and at this point, I wouldn't miss it if I never saw it again.

Deleting a self-post for being too similar to 'buying upvotes' is the last straw. Such a post would be lauded if it were an Obama supporter - oh my! Look how grassroots-y and genuine his support is! But it's Ron Paul, and we can't have him on our front page, now can we?

Fuck Reddit

Edit: this is not my normal account. I have been using this one lately (having made it to avoid a stalker last year) because fuck reddit and fuck having to watch what I say.

Another thing i hate is how they say support small business, but then have all corporate websites. Huffington post, ThinkProgressive, Media Matters, NewYorkTimes etc are always at the top. I posted one article and it got a huge ammount of downvotes after i spent an hour writing the post about why gas prices are going up. Infact here is the post so you can read it yourself.

http://businessinvestorpro.com/why-gas-prices-are-skyrocketing/

I don't agree with you on the business thing. I am a market capitalist, though a moderate about it as time progresses. And I do have to say at one point reddit did give free advertising to a Ron Paul moneybomb, through a sponsored link.

Would love to hear more of your story at /r/PoliticalModeration

Trying to bring some sunlight into political sub-reddit moderation.

This is unsettling.

I frequented Liberty Forum prior to reddit because it had zero censorship. Quickly got tossed from ATS and exited Digg over censorship, so here I am for the moment.

Libertyboard.org was great years ago. Sorens posted his original query into and proposal for the Free State Project on that board, and I had the luck of being one of the first 190 to reply and pledge.

Did you move to NH? And if so, how is it going?

So, where are you headed to from here? What's the next textboard / imageboard to migrate to? Ron Paul supporters gotta have somewhere to go...

They have plenty. I don't consider myself a Paul supporter. I am a supporter of certain positions and issues and concerns, and I back any candidate that represents those things. Paul, Kucinich, even Bernie Sanders and Barney Frank sometimes.

I think I phrased the question wrong: is there a reddit alternative that supports the free speech rights of its users?

reddit alternative? I don't know. I had my head up reddit's ass for so many years that now I'm just starting to look around for other places to read. Explicitly pro-Paul sites? Tons.

Would you be willing to do an AMA here on /r/conspiracy to find out more about the bullshit that goes behind the scenes?

after trying things like mixx and twine, eventually settled for rss feeds, it even means i can keep the parts of reddit i still like.

hubski

Alright, hold the phone here. Do you have some way to verify what you are saying? I have just realized, after reading the post and comments twice, that you have not verified a single thing you have said. I cannot honestly endorse your opinion without verification of your status. Furthermore, if you really wanted to help, perhaps consider doing an AMA or some sort of self post to gather attention to this growing problem? Forgive my skepticism - Reddit has made me very cynical.

IAmA is/was moderated by a lot of the folks he's calling out. That post would get removed for not being thought provoking or significant enough.

Which is precisely what would help his case! I'm not seeing a problem. The more people that actively highlight (with evidence) moderator abuse the more likely it'll be brought to the attention of the general user base.

I know who he is and seen him make the same statement before in another subreddit... The reason he's legit is because an admin actually talked to him or responded to what he was saying before. I could find you that post but I don't think he wants his identity revealed. But, from what I recall he also got shadowbanned for no apparent reason as well(later unbanned).

So you're a rightie who expected to get power in /r/politics.

I can't weep for you.

Rightie.

Reddit is not about money, it's about control. The powers that be have been alerted to its ability to mobilize the masses into collective action, and they are seeking to put a lid on it. However, I think there will soon be an evolved version of reddit that will allow users to cryptographically sign their posts and upvotes, and select which moderators to trust which will make it impossible to censor. This version of reddit will end up like Digg and will be replaced with the newer censorship resistance version.

Think kickstarter.

Yet when everybody was doing the EXACT SAME THING for Doctor's Without Borders that isn't buying upvotes? Hypocrites.

I feel like that came to a head and was stopped, wasn't it?

Interesting choice to pluralize the word "hypocrite" when this is really the offense of a single individual.

Bullshit, his decision is being upheld by multiple individuals.

Who exactly? Or are you just making a general accusation?

I wont play games with you.

That guy has several bosses and even more peers. Their inaction is says quite a bit.

If you really believe the "bosses" of reddit are that involved with the day-to-day moderation of a subreddit, then you have ludicrous expectations of how companies like this function. It's the failure of an administrator, now let's handle it in a constructive manner and make sure this BS is corrected. But you calling out all of reddit as "hypocrites" for not being immediately and deeply involved with the actions of one administrator isn't constructive at all, and it's the reason r/conspiracy has a bad rep.

Spare me.

When you enact selective enforcement for policies you have then theres a problem.

This lone wolf nonsense is nothing more than a lazy cop out. His bosses or even his peers can easily correct the issue. Their inaction speaks volumes.

It's almost as if you expect another administrator to publicly call out his peer for all of reddit to see in some grandiose self-righteous demonstration of how to avoid the most remote semblance of professionalism. Try to set aside this idealist view of how you wish a business was run, and be just a bit pragmatic.

Is it possible that you're correct in believing this admin's superiors are collaborating in a scheme to delete someone's post? I suppose. But until there's reason to believe that sort of meticulous (and tremendously inefficient) oversight is conducted by administrators' superiors, then your case isn't merely circumstantial, it's entirely speculative. There's no fundamentally truthful reason to believe your suggestions.

It's almost as if you expect another administrator to publicly call out his peer for all of reddit to see in some grandiose self-righteous demonstration of how to avoid the most remote semblance of professionalism. Try to set aside this idealist view of how you wish a business was run, and be just a bit pragmatic.

That was a terrible assumption.

I expect what any other person expects. Accountability. There is selective enforcement going on. Address it and fix it. If you do nothing and allow it to keep happening then you are clearly condoning it.

Is it possible that you're correct in believing this admin's superiors are collaborating in a scheme to delete someone's post? I suppose. But until there's reason to believe that sort of meticulous (and tremendously inefficient) oversight is conducted by administrators' superiors, then your case isn't merely circumstantial, it's entirely speculative. There's no fundamentally truthful reason to believe your suggestions.

Irrelevant.

There is clear evidence of egregious enforcement of their policies yet nothing is done. It is reasonable to assume that they are aware of the frustration being shown and yet still nothing is done.

So until proven otherwise, it appears that they have a policy of selective enforcement as they remain silent and allow it to continue.

Like I said when I first entertained your reply. I wont be playing these games.

Yeah that is why they won't allow it anymore, it has nothing to do with a conspiracy. Posts like these are just fucking annoying. I like Ron Paul as much as the next guy, but when I saw this post on my front page I shuddered for fear that we'd have another Doctors Without Borders incident.

If the policy "$ for up-vote" is banned, why are we even having a conversation? If somebody has evidence of selective banning (yet to see any) please bring it forward. The single post showing older "$ for up-vote" posts only brings the question of when the ban first came about. If the ban began with Paul, then it's worth discussing.

If the policy "$ for up-vote" is banned, why are we even having a conversation?

What about that time of doctors without borders post?

A ton of people basically did the same thing with the "I'll give them a dollar for every upvote". Why did they not stop that?

What if I said that I'll donate $1 to the, say, Romney campaign for every downvote this thread receives? Would you be fine with that?

the issue the admins have is that they see this practice as essentially "buying" visibility, up votes are given on the premise of money being donated which rises a post to front pages.

This is indeed true. I don't really see a problem with the removal although I will if they don't also remove other posts like it.

It could also be a marketer making clever use of the donation premise to get more attention focused on Ron Paul.

Your analogy is very flawed my friend. It would be correct if YOU made a post and said I'll donate $1 for every down/up vote this post receives.

How so? I'd still be promising to donate to a campaign based on the number of up/downvotes a post receives.

Do you not understand how analogies work? I know what you're saying, but your analogy is different than what has happened here. So, once again, your analogy is flawed.

How is it flawed, though?

It's not different. He just switched the person. All other conditions are the same.

That's an important component to this discussion. Why are we arguing this? It's not the same. You can't say (a+b) = c and then change it to (d+b) = c and call it the same.

This is about analogies, not math.

This isn't the first post to be deleted for the same bullshit.

they should remove charity ones too then

How is this any different than a "kickstarter" link on /r/gaming?

We need to start a new board and add the link to the sidebar, It'll take some time to repopulate a new board, but maybe if we link every submission we can from the board and keep all discussion on it, people will start signing up and we can drop reddit for good.

I remember other submissions that did the same paying for upvotes.

I have a feeling that a small group sent a ton of messages to the admins about this. Just a theory.

Hm.

Fair enough. It's equally reasonable to believe it's a single admin with a sense of fairness distorted by their own agenda.

LOL soon people will say things like Remember Digg oh Remember My Space. Woah who remembers Reddit?

Nope, because no-one but niche groups like r/conspiracy cares.

This is stupidity at its finest. I can promise you all this man wasn't donating money for the Karma.

The reason behind this is transparent. It is censorship.

Self post, no Karma involved.

reddit has thrived because of it's democratic freedom of user-submitted content. if admins are going to be censoring then reddit is on its way to becoming useless.

This site has been massively infiltrated just like all the others(Digg, Abovetopsecret, etc). TPTB have to keep up that co-intel pro!

There's evidence that suggest that some of the admins are Pro-Obama and tend to dislike anything Ron Paul related.

If you want to find facts about Obama I suggest looking at this subreddit to piss off a few of his supporters off.

Hey Cow,

When will you finally respect property rights? The admins have banned you from this site and you have no right to be here anymore. Stop being a hypocrite.

Are all Obama supporters mentally handicapped or something?

You people seem to attack others that have different views and start foaming at the mouth.

I am not an Obama supporter. Just asking you a question: Why don't you respect the decision the admins made? You are banned from this site, you are in violation of the ToS. Stay away. Stop being a hypocrite.

[deleted]

I have never posted on sonpiratard. By the way: Your sockpuppets are showing, I am having positive karma even when I have negative amounts of downvotes - you gotta improve so that the reddit algorythm doesn't notice you.

I'm not banned from the site dumbass. They unbanned me already.

Oh really?

http://www.reddit.com/user/cowgoesmoo

http://www.reddit.com/user/cowgoezmoo

http://www.reddit.com/user/proudlikecows

http://www.reddit.com/user/proudlikecowz

http://www.reddit.com/user/proudlikecowzz

http://www.reddit.com/user/VO1CEOFREAS0N

http://www.reddit.com/user/MRMANNERS1989

http://www.reddit.com/user/MrBeans1969

http://www.reddit.com/user/jcm267isMossadAgent

Plus more. So many more.

^ Known conspiratard Stalker ^ (Obama supporter foaming at the mouth for making /r/enoughobamaspam)

And I take credit for the cow accounts not the rest.

Btw, when he said banned from this site he meant IP banned moron.

And I take credit for the cow accounts not the rest.

Oh really? This has been promoted to Comedy Platinum(tm)!

You admitted to the other accounts already. Not to mention that you have a history about lying about your sockpuppets, even to co-mods of EnoughObamaSpam. You also pretended forever that ProudLikeCowz and CowGoezMoo were different people -- your "starcraft buddy," as you repeatedly said.

Keep lying. This is fun.

You admitted to the other accounts already.

Where am I "admitting" to using those accounts as well?

have a history about lying about your sockpuppets, even to co-mods of EnoughObamaSpam

HISTORY!

Oh shit, how many centuries of me do you have lying to others about one account?

Okay, on a serious note. Are you this guy? Because you kind of remind me of him with your baloney. :D

P.S. I'd like everyone to look at CitationGivens account and look at his history of harassing EnoughObamaSpam posters and if he deletes any comments it's okay I have copies as well. ;)

Where am I "admitting" to using those accounts as well?

Plain as day, right there in your comment. Continuing to lie when your admission is right next to your lie is just sad.

HISTORY!

Ah, the Cow we all know and love: faced with something impossible to answer; refuses to answer and changes the subject.

his history of harassing EnoughObamaSpam posters

The only "posters" I've talked about are you and your sockpuppets, Cow. One person.

It's pretty hard to go on the offensive when you say "these other accounts aren't me" despite admitting to owning and using those accounts elsewhere. You lied, and blatantly so -- you were caught. Game over, hypocrite.

The only "posters" I've talked about are you

Nope. You've harassed krugman as well when the whole IP Ban thing happened. You just deleted your old comments and keep trying to hide your history like a pussy.

It's okay though because there's a place for people like you to get the help they need. Just call 911 and tell them you're mentally incapable of living life normally and they will help you ASAP. ;D

I notice you're still ignoring this, so let's put it in bold: It's pretty hard to go on the offensive when you say "these other accounts aren't me" despite admitting to owning and using those accounts elsewhere. You lied, and blatantly so -- you were caught. Game over, hypocrite.

It's okay though because there's a place for people like you to get the help they need. Just call 911 and tell them you're mentally incapable of living life normally and they will help you ASAP.

Guess it's easier to call people crazy when you're backed into a corner, eh champ?

Guess it's easier to call people crazy when you're backed into a corner, eh champ?

I don't have to call you crazy since you already prove that yourself with all the stalking son.

Btw, I still don't where I'm "admitting" any of your dumb accusations.

Btw, I still don't where I'm "admitting" any of your dumb accusations.

Your claim: you are not any user other than the "Cow" accounts.

Reality, through your own admission: You clearly admit to owning the other accounts right here, when called out by crackduck.

Is lying as much fun when you're caught?

You clearly admit to owning the other accounts right here, when called out

So, you're interpretation to admitting is speculation?

No wonder you post in conspiratard, a subreddit meant for the mentally disabled. :(

I seriously feel sorry for you dude since you can't stop foaming at the mouth and the hatred towards me is pretty sad honestly.

EDIT: I guess he's done raging. I hope he didn't get a heart attack from all that anger pent up inside himself.

Isn't there already an entire subreddit somewhere for these posts about reddit censorship?

Because the posters were violating rules that have been in place for a while now. What a conspiracy.

Then they must have deleted all of these posts too. Oh wait... no they didn't.

This instance was politically motivated, plain and simple... and obvious.

4 months... Had to dig kind of deep to find that one, eh?

Somebody already mentioned that and that's why the rule was put in place.

find that one

One? Geez, there are 150 of them there.

I didn't have to dig at all. I remembered them very well.

Can you cite any prominent examples which are more recent?

There's no logical reason for me to even try.

[deleted]

the rule was put into place because of the Doctors Without Borders dollars-for-upvotes posts

A couple of people have said this but it's my understanding that the rule was in existence long before that. Do you happen to have a link to any discussion about enacting a new rule after the Doctors Without Borders posts?

There's also the issue that the admin that deleted the Ron Paul post admitted that it didn't actually break the rules, only came close to breaking them. That was in the first post here about the issue... and no, I'm not going to go hunting for it.

Since the Doctors Without Borders thing was largely, if not entirely, a product of /r/atheism, the announcement was in the sidebar of that subreddit, but is obviously no longer there. You can see that it was there in the Google cache, but unfortunately the announcement page itself is in the wind.

Since early December, the only donations-for-upvotes style posts I could find were in /r/circlejerk, or were downvoted into oblivion. We're talking about 5-6 posts here.

I went hunting so you don't have to. What you have on your hands is the first dollars-for-upvotes post in months, and the admins were uneasy about it. That's hardly a conspiracy, and I'll be happy if the mods continue to remove all such posts. It's good policy.

edit: Even the mod of /r/ronpaul agrees with the removal of the post.

I'll take your word that it's in Google cache. I don't use or support Google in any way. I use other search engines and The Wayback Machine for cached pages.

Even so, thanks for doing that.

Unless you want to be taken seriously, that is.

If you weren't taking me seriously then you wouldn't be trying to distract everyone from my original comment and link... not to mention bringing all your buddies over from conspiratard[sic] and EPS to downvote it en masse.

You, wattmeter, and sixbiscuit are quite entertaining now, trying to stage a role of information. You guys really are at the bottom of the barrel of intelligence. Right there with Romney supporters, birthers

Conspiratards questioning other folks' intelligence.

Go on...

Then they must have deleted all of these posts too. Oh wait... no they didn't.

This instance was politically motivated, plain and simple... and obvious.

4 months... Had to dig kind of deep to find that one, eh?

Somebody already mentioned that and that's why the rule was put in place.

Hm.

Fair enough. It's equally reasonable to believe it's a single admin with a sense of fairness distorted by their own agenda.