Posts by Brandon Castillo4

Fawkes, you've been granted moderator privileges for this thread (just this one, though).

Best,

I’m going to remind the admins one more time.

Hey Mickey, 🙂 🙂 🙂

we're really going to miss you, 🙂

This is such a great topic. 🤣 🤣

Nicholas King said:This is just swapping out the premise.

We aren't talking about some hypothetical "real changes" handed down from on high. We’re talking about the specific shifts that the owner of this forum actually announced and demanded. Because of that, any opinion or suggestion shouldn't be wasting time debating whether these changes make sense or not—it should be focused entirely on the best way to actually make them work.

The guy could have just as easily demanded a completely different set of changes, and if he had, our priorities for implementation would look totally different.

And just to address your point separately: I'm telling you again, I don't think we need a radical purge here, nor do I think we should be dancing on people's graves.

No, swapping the premise would be if I suggested that *you* were the one who said that. This is just using context as an example, following up on your idea about trying to teach old dogs new tricks. For instance, you might think it's enough for Nica admin to happen, or for Tyndall to step down, or for Anderlon to move on.

You're never going to please everyone. As long as the direction is positive, most things will sort themselves out as we go. Even operational moves like making Nica admin—if that becomes necessary, if Nica wants it, and if Anderlon decides it's the way to go.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying your logic is flawed, I'm just saying you shouldn't take this "all or nothing" approach. Every idea has merit, but how things actually play out is ultimately up to Anderlon.

Look, we’re trying, but you can’t please everyone. Like I said before, we’re all eventually going to move on anyway—it doesn't benefit me or anyone else personally, because none of us are going to be in fashion forever, and I certainly won't be.

I think implementing these changes is enough for now, because the only real boss of this Reddit is Anderson, as the owner. Based on your line of thinking, someone could argue that there will never be any real change until Anderson sells the site. And following your logic, you might actually have a point. 🤷

Let's try looking at it this way. I get that it isn't perfect, but maybe people are asking a little too much from the whole situation—both from the platform and from certain users. I'm not trying to blindly defend the edge, but have you seen what people are writing to him? If we lean too hard on the tools, it's bad because we're overmoderating; if you snap back at someone, you're being unpleasant, and that's considered arrogance (and I agree with both points, honestly). Now, even just having a bit of a cynical attitude gets you criticized, and once again, it's a lose-lose.

In my opinion, the level of communication is way better than it was previously (over the last few months, at least, not necessarily right this second). You can't expect a guy to call out the edge on seventeen different things and then have him respond with the most chill vibe ever. It doesn't always work like that. We all have our limits. I agree there shouldn't be any arrogance, but I think things are improving. We aren't machines. I’m primarily a user here myself, and I come here to relax and mess around, not to act like a bureaucrat or a clerk—and being a moderator was never meant to be exclusively that, either.

There will always be something to complain about. It's fine to say what you think, but it's impossible to satisfy every single demand. Besides, nobody is making any blood oaths here. I do this out of pure enthusiasm. I've done good things and bad things, but it's not like this is a position I have to cling to blindly just so someone doesn't hold me to some "you swore an oath" standard tomorrow.

I didn't swear an oath to anything. I just stated how I see things. Regarding everything, I'm going to give my all to help the team pull off this turnaround. I started with myself and my own sub-sections, my own approach, I publicly apologized for my mistakes, I made myself more available to the users, and I said that after eight years of moderating, I'm stepping down because it's time. I’ll power through this remaining period with enthusiasm, and then I'm hanging up the cleats for good. So from my perspective—as someone who will be a (super)mod for about another year and then just a regular user—my priority is simply making sure the site is as good as possible.

I’m being dead serious here. Look, Daniel Ward87 is the new admin now, which means we're looking at a major shift in how things run. But honestly, will that be "serious enough" for everyone? Probably not. I can already see it: one group will complain they need even more admins, another will demand four new moderators just to stay trendy, and some other crowd will probably scream to fire the entire board. Everyone thinks they have a valid point from where they're sitting, I guess.

I agree, but Maria Barnes is going to give us the final word. I sent her a DM so people don't just sit around waiting and end up stuck in limbo.

Yeah, but people were asking about what the deal is with linking out to other Reddit threads.

I'm going to tag Maria Barnes in this thread so you can get a straight answer on whether this is actually doable or not. I already laid out my own take, but there's no way I can single-handedly force my opinion on everyone else here on Reddit.

Look, it wasn't some massive flamewar, but you could find just about anything in that thread—some people were being civil, others were being total jerks (which is fair enough, though the way people treated those posting was pretty much all over the map). From what I could tell, Maria Barnes didn't even read the whole thread before jumping in; she just saw something interesting and decided to join the fray. And honestly, the fact that she showed up to apologize? That’s a class act on her part.

It's definitely not about fear. It's about the principle: if the rules say don't do it, then nobody does it. Even I can't go dropping links to other subreddits. This isn't just about "helpless users" either; there are entire moderation teams running other sites who aren't allowed to link them here. Personally, I think we should be allowed to do it, provided it doesn't cross the line where posts become nothing more than self-serving ads or straight-up spam. But that's exactly why the rule exists in the first place—not because of regular discussions, but because of those trolls.

Honestly, I’m not sure. It feels like everyone is debating this right now, so please correct me if the decision is already set in stone. Am I in favor of allowing it? Yeah, I am—straight up, without all the bureaucratic hedging. But I have to point out that rules, as usual, usually exist because of the people who abuse them.

Look, the rule against mentioning other sites wasn't created just because someone dropped a link to some random site like an old niche message board. It was put in place because certain people saw it as a golden opportunity to artificially boost their click rates by dragging crowds over to spam half of another community. Take Reddit, for example. Back in the day, you’d have someone flooding us with a billion links to a specific subreddit every single day, and the admins were forced to ban the mention of that term just to stop the link-dumping. Now that things have leveled out, those references are allowed again.

I hope you get what I'm driving at here: moderating and running a site like this is a massive headache. If they hadn't implemented that rule about not mentioning other platforms, someone who was being throttled for promoting another site would just complain, saying, "Why is he allowed to do it when I can't? I'm just ____."

Nothing is perfect, and this rule isn't any different. But I'm confident that, especially with the direction the site is taking now, we won't see any knee-jerk reactions. Everything is about balance. If someone posts a link just to farm points and leaves it at that, fine. But if it turns into a massive, 400-post deep analysis of a single thread, we have to cut it down somehow. You'll agree with me on that.

I think maybe the biggest takeaway from this whole "cleansing" phase the site is going through is that the admins and mods are trying to strip the emotion out of their decisions while still maintaining a cum grano salis approach that adapts to the situation at hand. Will it work? Who knows. But let's give it a shot.

Look, I’m all for saying that handing out permanent bans just because someone mentions another site is a massive overreach. But honestly? Obsessing over other forums is just a waste of everyone's energy. We’re seeing it happen right now on another thread—people are literally performing autopsies on some massive 200-page megathread, dissecting exactly who said what and where they said it. It's exhausting.

Is that actually constructive? Is it even necessary?

I say let people live without censorship or gatekeeping. If someone thinks they belong over at Unknown, then fine, let them be there. If they want to hang out in both places, they can sign up for both. It’s a matter of personal choice. Why are we getting bogged down in the weeds, analyzing motives or cataloging every single post someone made elsewhere?

wiredpanther3 said:Never. They just don't have the time.

Those so-called old-school anti-fascists (check out the local retirement home in a small town in Ohio) are finished. It’s just basic biology.

And those "young" anti-fascists? They’re just a bunch of basement-dwelling squatters and losers—wannabe punks and fake revolutionaries who can't hold a candle to the sheer energy of the patriotic youth showing up to see Marko Perković Thompson.

😁Besides, there isn't even hope for the next generation. How are they supposed to learn anything about the anti-fascists of the 40s when we've burned all their books, kicked them out of our libraries and schools, and torn down their monuments?

🙂So... anti-fa is out. It's just Darwinism at work.

I honestly can't tell which part of this is more delusional. 🤣 🤣

Oh yeah, because "energized youth" is definitely what we're looking at here. 🤦

urbanhawk17 said:From urbanhawk17 to just Papi?

I mean, everyone calls me Papi anyway.

Nick is busy.

I’m with you on this one. Total support.

Way to go. 🙂

mellowraven22 said:Straight Down, The New York Times, and the daily news outlets finally got kicked off the censored list.

I’m all for it. 👍

Byron, what’s the actual point of this thread?

Your last post felt more like half-baked manifesto mixed with a vague commentary on current events. You kept things super hazy—no names, no specific incidents, just general criticisms tossed out into the void without much substance.

So, now that we’re cutting through the noise, let me ask you: in a nutshell, what are you actually looking for here?
By the way, I’m not trying to be provocative or mess with you, I’m genuinely curious. Let's wrap this up and get to the core: where do we go from here?

I honestly rarely see the point in recycling anything—tribute bands, remixes, I don't even see much value in a DJ who isn't actually producing their own tracks. But hey, that's just my take. ☕

Tribute bands are absolute bottom-of-the-barrel garbage and I honestly can't stand them. Just go out there and create something original for once, damn it. 😁

I get where you're coming from with this idea, but honestly, we’ve tried stuff like this before in years past. It wasn't the first attempt, and none of them ended particularly well. My concern is that the conversation will just get too diluted because there aren't enough active users here to sustain a dedicated thread. For instance, whenever AC Milan plays Inter Milan, we already end up splitting focus between two different threads—the Milan thread and the Premier League thread—and it’s nearly impossible to keep things from overlapping. You basically end up with two competing discussions running at once.

Anything you want to say regarding AC Milan, just toss it into the Premier League thread. I'm sure people will be interested in hearing your take on things there.

Best,