Look, sorry, but you clearly don't get what constitutes trolling or what actually gets flagged here, and you seem to be rejecting the rules despite being told repeatedly how things work. You’re more than welcome to your opinions, but that doesn't change the rulebook. No matter how much you try to explain it away, calling the Republican Party a "fascist organization" or anything along those lines is strictly prohibited. It’s against the rules, plain and simple, and you’ll keep getting flagged for it regardless of how much you argue...
Personally, I couldn't be further from the Republican Party in terms of my own politics, but every time you post something like that, it earns a strike, and you'll keep receiving them for posts like that.
Regarding those specific posts you're calling "trolling" (those first five links), none of them qualify as trolling in my eyes, and I wouldn't have handed out a strike for any of them either.
Most of the other links you sent are just unnecessary because the user in question has been flagged numerous times already—sometimes we just issue cumulative strikes. Besides, you aren't getting flagged for every single comment that calls the Republican Party "fascist." Anyway, other users aren't the subject here, so you've picked a completely flawed example.
Then there's this one: which I personally would have flagged, though it isn't such an egregious insult that it demands an immediate ban, so it really just depends on how strict the moderation tends to be on that particular thread...
You seem to be struggling with how the points system actually works.
Commenting on moderation is a violation of the sub's rules and carries a 30-point penalty.
Trolling—which generally includes mild insults—comes with 35 points.
More serious insults directed at other users result in 45 points.
In the last five months, you haven't picked up a single infraction under those specific rules, so I won't dwell on it, but this really is quite enough...
1. This isn't a casual chat; you asked for an explanation, and you received one.
2. There’s actually a warning system for "playing dumb," just so we're clear...
3. If there were an "Ombudsman" here on Reddit, they’d give you a strike for spreading misinformation too, though I won't get into the fact that you probably think the Ombudsman spends their entire day sitting in an office manually editing the official website 🤦
So, stop playing ignorant and quit the trolling, because the next strike leads straight to a ban... you've been given a pass this time, so your post was just deleted instead.
You didn't get hit with two warnings for the same post, and if you look closely, you aren't even banned... You just got assigned a heavier penalty by mistake, so we pulled that one back and applied the standard 35-point deduction instead. Regular mods don't have the clearance to undo a warning, so the head admin handled it.
A whole handful of moderators have already explained what trolling is to you... Just dial down the rhetoric and stop twisting people's words just to manufacture an argument. Like I told you when the first warning happened regarding this topic—you know perfectly well that there was a typo or a wording error on the ACLU's website, and I’m really not going to waste my breath listening to you claim "I don't know"... Besides, we aren't talking about some official legal statute here, just a quick social media update posted for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and those same pages host actual documents that make it crystal clear what that percentage actually refers to, and I'm fairly certain you're fully aware of that too.
If you honestly want to act like you need a lecture on basic logic, fine... The claim isn't that 75-80% of women are victims of violence, but rather that women account for 75-80% of all reported victims.
If you want to complain that someone posted something confusingly or incorrectly on their site, or wonder why nobody corrected such an obvious blunder—feel free, you're more than welcome to reach out and let them know...
But stop treating one poorly written little news snippet as if it's some grand manifesto you can write essays about, draw conclusions about the "social climate," present "absolute proof" for your stances, and twist it into someone else's claim, because that's simply not what happened.
That's the bottom line... The trolling continues through your dramatic exaggerations of the data. Because even if this were an actual intended claim rather than a mistake (and as I said, it's a mistake, which you clearly understand), you still couldn't pull insane interpretations from it, like your "million men are killers" nonsense in the first warned post, or your "1.6 million male criminals" comment in the second... I don't even want to attempt explaining the first one, and as for the second, someone getting slapped isn't a criminal, and the person who got slapped is the victim.
We don't play these games of inciting raw emotion and all the drama that comes with it on this forum.
rustywalker42 said:Let's call a spade a spade. I've reported USAisfredom twice for trolling over the last few days, yet somehow, I don't see any actual consequences being handed out...
I won't get sidetracked by everything else, but regarding this particular point, I'm struggling to wrap my head around the idea that "no punishment is visible," considering USAisfredom is currently banned, and that marks the third time in an incredibly short window...
He was banned yesterday afternoon, so it’s not like it just happened...
crimsonjackal63 - you're not wrong, things have been slipping lately... mostly because this whole immigration debate is turning into absolute chaos, with thousands of posts flooding in every few hours. We're already on our third thread, and we've somehow managed to churn out over 20,000 posts in just over a week. A colleague had to step in and penalize those aggregate posts you left behind.
Speaking strictly as a fellow user here, rather than some official moderator making an announcement, I can't help but feel we should be offering a few more middle-ground options... because honestly, most people seem to be looking for something in between, whereas this currently feels like a choice between "everyone gets everything" or "absolutely nothing at all."
brightpuma said:You’ve completely redefined what "trolling" even means... basically, if you don't like something, you just slap a label on it and try to shut people down. Meanwhile, there are people who troll constantly—take that one user over on the USAisfreedom subforum, for instance—who get away with absolutely nothing. If you look at his last few dozen posts, it’s obvious he’s making fun of every single thread he touches. But he isn't trolling 😍
🤦🤦🤦🤦🤦
Not by any chance. He's just currently banned for trolling...
The rest of your post—and honestly, this one too—just shows you've reached that point where you can't actually hold a civilized, reasoned discussion anymore, so I'll just leave you at that 👋
brightpuma said:I mean, they handed him a ban just because he mentioned that some other site has content that’s prohibited here, so he wouldn't repost it... Honestly, what kind of moderation is that... 🙄
🤦
You're trolling at this point.
Yeah. That’s exactly what criticizing the mods looks like. He made a remark about how this place is run, and that's against the rules, whether you agree with it or not...
If you actually expect someone to sit there and give you a lecture on why commenting on the moderators counts as "commenting on the moderators," you might want to think that through again...
Actually, no. They were sanctioned strictly according to the site rules. You can love them or hate them—feel free to have whatever opinion you want—but the administration set the rules, and they followed them to the letter when they took action against that user. If there was any confusion about what constitutes "commenting on moderation," that PDF exists specifically to clear things up. It’s all laid out right there... it definitely counts as commenting on moderation. I think you should realize this isn't your call to make (nor is it brightpuma's). Otompot started a perfectly valid thread and asked a legitimate question, and he got his answer. Do you really think it makes sense for us to sit here bickering like children over whether someone is "right" or "wrong"...? It's just commenting on the mods. There's never a situation where you actually need to weigh in on this, so there really isn't an issue...
swiftstag66 said:I think there should be a clearly defined line drawn by the moderators, super moderators, and admins 🙂 so users don't end up getting flagged just because they didn't know the rules or because similar posts were allowed in the past.
They aren't... It actually makes sense that you missed it, since posts targeting the moderation team usually get scrubbed pretty quickly. Sure, the criteria need to be transparent and applied equally, but if you feel like they aren't, that's what the report button is for. If you happen to spot someone criticizing the mods on Politics in this exact style without any repercussions, it’s probably just because nobody caught it yet—as much as we try, we can't possibly monitor every single post dropped in Politics every day, which is exactly why those reporting tools exist...
The only other thing is that different subreddits can have their own specific sets of rules. I get how that can be confusing sometimes, but that's how this place has always functioned. It stands to reason that Politics would be more strictly moderated than Off-topic or miscellaneous, or that a spoiler for an episode that hasn't even aired on PBS yet would trigger an automatic ban in the Television / series section, whereas in Movies, you can discuss a plot the second it hits theaters in the USA. Then you have MK and ŽK, which have their own unique vibes—some rules are looser than the rest of the site, others are way stricter... That's why every subreddit has its own clearly marked guidelines.
So just to be clear, we are talking about Politics here. Finding a similar post in some random chat thread over on the Off-topic PDF doesn't really mean anything in this context... 😉
hiddenmarlin14 said:My bad, I think Mr. Alchajmer might have paid me a visit... 🤔 Drop the post here... 🤷
😁
That was just as much a mindless appeal to "freedom of speech" as yours was... 😉
Reddit has its own set of rules, which you agreed to when you signed up... There are also specific commenting guidelines that are laid out clearly, and honestly, everyone really ought to take the time to read them...
Not to get into how your question suggests you don't really grasp what "freedom of speech" actually entails—considering it’s never been an absolute right to begin with—or the fact that for free speech to even function as a human rights concept, there generally needs to be an actual person with a name behind their words... but on a platform like Reddit, you still can't just go off-topic, trash the moderators, spam nothing but emojis, drop foreign text without context, or post bare links with zero explanation. You also can't insult other users, or post anything racist, xenophobic, or otherwise hateful, and so on and so forth...
Those are just called rules, not some kind of "attack on free speech"...
hiddenmarlin14 said:Isn't that just a violation of free speech?
Real freedom of speech would be if we didn't have to delete and archive your post about the latest John Deere tractor models inside a thread about religion...
swiftstag66 said:I was actually thinking about something pretty similar just yesterday, how the line is basically paper-thin and impossible to pin down. People can always find some way to say things like "I could go on about this topic forever, but let's not derail this Reddit thread..." or "we shouldn't talk about this anymore unless we want to annoy the mods," and all those other little workarounds.
It’s far too easy to find a loophole that slips right past the moderation filters, so there's really no point wasting energy trying to issue warnings for anything that doesn't directly attack the moderation itself through some kind of value judgment. If you take that approach, any established precedent just gets lost in the weeds of technicalities, exceptions, and exceptions to the exceptions...
Sure, the line might be thin and elusive, but it's defined by the moderators—and ultimately by the admins and the higher-ups above them. That isn't being arrogant, it's just basic logic. Someone has to draw the line, and part of being a moderator is doing exactly that.
Your two examples are harmless (the first one isn't even commenting on moderation, and the second is about as benign as it gets), whereas the specific instance that caused all this noise and prompted you to start this thread is
"read the rest of it; if I posted it here on Reddit, I'd probably get a warning."
, which in our view is undeniably and unquestionably an unauthorized comment on moderation.
jadecyclist36 said:it might not be a direct jab at the mods, but it’s definitely a provocation...
I don't see the point in doing that, like, "I'd say so much more if I didn't want a ban"...
so you just hold back and skip the comment altogether...🤷 what's the purpose?
Exactly 👍
Like Dorian mentioned during one of his talks on this thread, having a different opinion is perfectly fine, but you all know the rules now, and they're actually pretty clear...
There isn't a single moment where it's necessary to write "but I'd get a strike" or "if I said this I'd get banned" or any variation of that nonsense. So let's just move on...
The threads on Reddit are meant for discussing the actual topics, not for airing your personal grievances or letting everyone know what you *would* have said if you weren't being censored...
Here’s yet another thread questioning whether our society is inherently misandrist: We really don't need multiple versions of this... especially not when people are digging up old news from seven months ago just to start a new argument...
rt isn't just spewing nonsense or spreading the kind of lies that get links banned in the first place. Even if he did mix up a few details himself in this specific instance... though that's a separate issue entirely (it seems someone couldn't be bothered to read the full piece carefully and ended up conflating two different points from the DW report) and he definitely leaned into the sensationalism a bit—using "warn" here feels pretty inaccurate and out of place—at least the core of it is rooted in truth.
rustywalker42 said:It’s hardly worth bringing up, since you’re just sitting there in a corner, completely out of arguments...
🤦 All you people who crown yourselves champions of the internet... you really are something else... 🙏
Look, it’s not about being "nice," it's about two simple things. First, leaking private messages is a total violation of privacy—besides, the people who actually need to see through the lies and distortions in your post already know what's up. Second, my job is strictly to address the issues regarding the credit cards, which I've already done... I'm not here to hold your hand or sit you down to explain every single thing you managed to misunderstand...
swiftstag66 said:For the first time since I joined Reddit, I’m seeing people claim that someone practicing self-censorship—you know, that whole "I'd say it, but I don't want to get banned" routine—is somehow an attack on the mods... which honestly feels like a massive stretch... It isn't even a critique of management, it's just someone acknowledging they actually understand how the rules work...
It’s not really accurate to say there wasn't moderation happening before, because this is just classic backseat driving regarding the mods... though I suppose context changes everything. You can believe that second part if you want, and that’s fine, but when things get heated on sensitive topics, there’s usually zero tolerance for nitpicking the rules, otherwise the whole thread descends into chaos once everyone starts crying about unfairness. Besides, saying "I’d say something, but I won't because I don't want a strike" isn't exactly a contribution worth keeping around... 😉 If you have something to say, just say it. But if you’re holding back because you think you shouldn't speak up, there's really no point in even posting here... 🙂
You’ve picked up three strikes in just three days. The first was for that suggestion about using force or conditional entry to control immigration flows. The second came from your direct shots at the mods, and then there's this yellow card—which is really the only slip-up on our end regarding procedure—for a post that skirted the line of hate speech, where you mocked the warm welcome refugees received in Germany by posting a video of Muslim extremists attacking women and trans people, essentially implying that's what all refugees are like.
That’s my take on it, though nothing else really warrants the breath...
Yeah, the stuff that got nuked—and will stay banned—is all that conspiracy nonsense about microchipping people, lizard people, Planet Nibiru, and that whole circus... along with the "portal" that peddles it.
Regarding that link you shared, just so everyone is clear, Nathan Brooks4 linked an article that has absolutely zero connection to what was originally posted in the immigration thread. What Nathan Brooks4 actually sent over was a story about dress codes in some American schools, which has nothing to do with immigrants or anything of the sort; they just prohibit things like short shorts or see-through tops, much like the similar, more or less strictly enforced rules you'd find in schools right here in the States.
The actual post that got scrubbed from the immigration thread was nothing but a total fabrication claiming some "small American town where the principal ordered kids to dress according to Sharia law."
End of story.
Mark Harris66 said:I’ve been following both the American and international versions of CNN for years now—and let me tell you, calling it anything less than a legitimate news outlet is just wrong. It’s a serious organization. They even have a TV channel operating in multiple languages (including Arabic, if you can believe it) and they’ve never been one for cheap sensationalism. It promotes United Nations values, and from what I gather, it's funded by either the German government or the United Nations itself. So, in my opinion, pulling that link isn't really justified... it's a perfectly valid source for news.
Doesn't matter, because nobody touched the CNN link. What got deleted was the link to that one site—which I won't name because I refuse to give them free advertising—that claims to reveal the "hidden truth" everyone is hiding... which I already described above.
So, I think deleting that link wasn't justified since it's a relevant news source.