Posts by Maria Barnes

Check out this thread for more info: Avatar Editing Guidelines and Tips. I'm closing this one since it's done its job.

Kate Thompson67 said:What’s actually hard to "steal" isn't the surface level stuff—it's what lies beneath. You're looking at a living, breathing entity. For something like that to grow, it needs an inherent sense of purpose and a vision for its own sustenance. That core idea, and more importantly, the way that idea is executed, doesn't need a copyright to protect it. It protects itself.

Exactly. I call it original inspiration. It’s a unique formula that you simply can't clone because it’s built on so much more than just what you see on the screen. It goes beyond sub-forum rules and structures; it’s fueled by passion, raw enthusiasm, and that initial spark that started everything. All the answers for the future are baked right into it. It's a rock-solid foundation.

As for me? Every single time I come back to Reddit after being away for a while, I feel that same rush of passion and excitement. Like it's day one all over again.

Kinda strange, isn't it?

Kate Thompson67 said:Look, I’m not talking about spamming here. I'm talking about mentioning. Is that allowed? And if so, how far can you go?

Mentioning things is perfectly fine, obviously. In my last post, I dropped a link to the absolute worst "competitor" just to illustrate a point and provide info.

But if "mentioning" turns into constant, forced nagging? Then it's out of line. Also, putting a link to a commercial site—especially a competitor—in your signature is a no-go. You can advertise a business, sure, but we probably wouldn't even take an ad from the competition anyway.

Kate Thompson67 said:Is there any vision for this Reddit where we stop viewing other forums as enemy armies and start seeing them as neighbors who might just have an extra jar of homemade jam to share?

The rule against linking isn't about being afraid of losing users. It's because we aren't running a free advertising agency.

Look at this site http://www.croportal.net/forum/. They didn't just scrape our subforums; they stole our subheaders too. Even the header for Men's Corner, which is Copyright by Drito or Walter. Fast forward a few years, and that forum was sold for a massive chunk of change.

The reason the ban on linking to Unknown was lifted is because it was indirect linking. Even if that were enough, the real reason is that I view Unknown as a friendly, non-commercial forum—a little test for competition. Because let’s be real: if people are jumping ship to a brand-new forum, leaving their work, their crew, and their memories behind, then something is seriously broken here. A no-link policy won't fix a sinking ship.

I believe that if a forum is actually good, people will always come back. That’s how it’s always worked. Back when we switched servers once, the forum just vanished. We told everyone to head over to the Index Reddit so they wouldn't get lost. Once the server was back up after days, maybe even weeks, everyone came right back.

That’s why Unknown can be a friendly space. It’s mostly made up of people from here—our own people, if you want to call them that. Besides, let's be realistic: they’re pulling nearly 5,000 visitors right now. Those are different gravitational forces at play. Are we banning people from posting there? No. Our own superstar supermod 🙂 - rustydrifter10 posts there, and Bliss does too... they see all our "secrets." If we actually felt threatened, we'd be doing something about it.

But if it turns out we're providing significant free publicity to someone else, sorry, but we'll shut that down. This forum has real clout. Look at Blogspot, which was catapulted by this forum along with Monitor. Blogspot quickly overtook both of them.

That’s why we don't allow free links to commercial sites. This forum lives on its connections.

Taylor Gonzalez79 said:So, is my guy actually for real?

Kid, please. You're tiny. 😁

mistyhound94 said:Says the guy without an avatar. 🤣

@Maria Barnes—are you actually joking about how hideous these avatars are? Please tell me you're kidding. 🤣

No, I'm not. An avatar is an aesthetic choice. It’s a tiny bit of art. A way to show personality. Aside from the logo and the banner, it's the only graphic element on this entire Reddit.

Get ready for an official contest for the best avatar on the site.

cosmiclynx57 said:@Tyndal

I honestly thought you and Maria Barnes had those massive avatars, but I just took another look and it still looks like mine is stuck at a tiny 50x50 pixels to me 🤷

Are you guys actually testing out the bigger ones and they just haven't gone live yet, or what's the deal?

Testing.

The problem with bigger avatars is simple: if most people pick ugly ones, the whole Reddit site just gets uglier.

Ha, you like my new avatar?😁 You want something like this? 75x75.

Sure, but only if you promise not to upload hideous stuff. And you better pressure anyone with an ugly avatar to fix it.😁

I noticed recently that my knee makes this clicking sound whenever I’m walking up stairs—kind of like when you crack your knuckles. It doesn't happen when I'm heading down or just walking normally. There’s zero pain involved; it's just the noise. If this is actually a sign of something serious, should I be rushing to see a doctor right away?

A sponsored profile is a Reddit service designed for sponsors and businesses to jump into discussions outside their specific sponsored thread, provided the topic relates to their business. Otherwise, advertising products or services—directly or indirectly—through standard posts is strictly against our forum rules.

The administration verifies every sponsored profile. These accounts act as official users who provide first-hand answers to product inquiries or offer expert commentary on relevant topics.

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To sign up for the Sponsored Profile service, send an email to the Reddit marketing team at marketing@forum.hr.

Here is an example of a sponsored profile: T-Mobile, an example of a single post, and here you can find all posts from T-Mobile.

One of the greatest films ever made. It’s easily in my personal top 10. I first saw it back in the 70s and was blown away—unlike that crowd claiming it was just some mindless Saturday night flick. This was the first time I saw a brilliant, young Jack Nicholson, still sporting a full head of hair.

I’ll definitely be watching it again. I want to see how it holds up against the test of time. Every time I revisit it, I walk away with a different perspective. One thing is certain: Nicholson's performance is timeless, and there are plenty of other pure, untouchable elements in this movie.

Morning News
Reddit officially makes its mark on the global digital map

Hey everyone,

We’re running a little experiment here. We want to make sure these ads aren't constantly getting on your nerves and, ideally, actually offer some value. Otherwise, what's the point?

And here’s the entire massive world map

We've heard reports that some users are having trouble accessing Reddit. Specifically, people trying to connect from The New York Times offices or certain college dorms are getting blocked...

If you're running into this issue, send us the IP address you're using so our tech team can dig into it. We noticed these access problems popping up right after we migrated our servers.

You can find your current IP address at www.ipflu.com and email it over to admin@reddit.com. Don't worry, we'll keep it private 🙂.

P.S.
Let’s be real: this message is pretty useless for the people actually stuck behind the block if they’re all on the same network. So, if you *can* get online and hear someone complaining about being locked out, please point them in this direction. Thanks.

Arthur Garcia59 said:Hold on. So just because certain directors—and most of them, actually—have their debut film as their best work, that’s enough to justify starting a thread? What's the goal here? To start a topic just to ask people to confirm or deny it? And then what?

Especially since you already agreed with me that this isn't the place to nitpick specific (debut) films.

Now that's an interesting premise for a debate. How? Why? Is it really true? Listing debut films is also a fascinating exercise. A director's early work holds a special place in their entire body of work; you can practically see what's coming next. It's their DNA. Any later shifts are just predictable mutations. Or are they?

Besides, there's a classic response to your complaint: if you think the topic is stupid, don't troll. Some people actually find it interesting.

Arthur Garcia59 said:Honestly, this thread is stupid because there are so few great directors, especially if you exclude those swallowed by the industry like Hawks or Ozu, whose Debut film was terrible.

This topic is great, and I’m surprised it didn't exist sooner. It’s not about whether good directors have bad first movies. It’s about the weird phenomenon where, for quite a few people, their debut is actually the best thing they ever made. Looking at the list so far, I’d put Godard, Tarantino, Mendes, Zvyagintsev (though his career is still ahead of him, so I fear he might struggle to top his debut), Guy Ritchie, K. Smith, Šijan, Kasdan, and Menzel in that category. Plenty of others are close. I’m certain about these guys.🙂

If we looked at their first two films, the list would be way longer.

I agree—this isn't the place to nitpick individual movies. Use specific threads for that. If one doesn't exist, start it.

The list is already pretty thin. 🙂

Michael Nichols - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Clint Eastwood - Play Misty For Me
Ridley Scott - Duel
Emir Kusturica - When We Are Branded
Robert Benton - Bad Company
Danny Boyle - Shallow Grave
John Singleton - Boyz n the Hood
Slobodan Sijan - Whistleblower
Lawrence Kasdan - Body Heat
Bertrand Tavernier - Rendez-vous with a Stranger
Jiri Menzel - Closely Watched Trains
Danis Tanovic - No Man's Land

Why are debut films so much better? I noticed this a long time ago. If an auteur is authentic and has potential, it shows right out of the gate. A first film—much like a debut album—is the absolute "best of" everything the director has learned up to that point. Without the trap of falling into a predictable routine, you get these incredible, once-in-a-lifetime achievements. What’s most interesting? Most of these were made on shoestring budgets. It just proves money isn't everything. Only Orson Welles seemed to have top-tier resources from day one, and he never saw those conditions again.

The Sundance Film Festival counts both the first and second films. If we included second features, this list would look way more impressive (think Tarkovsky - Andrei Rublev, Chabrol - The Cousins... etc.).

rustywalker42 said:No, they're just going through the motions. When has anything concrete actually been done regarding any issue when we talk about the UN and its agencies?

I don't know how important it is. But if it matters—if they're calling it an ecological disaster—then people need to be talking about it, informing the public, mobilizing them. Why is it disappearing?

You don't even know what's going on, yet you're foaming at the mouth about how nothing is being done.🙂

The deal is, back in the day in the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, the Amudarya and Syr Darya rivers were diverted into a massive canal system to irrigate cotton fields for the industry. Since the lake lost its water source, the logical result followed: it dried up.
Besides, it's all right there on Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

Can it be prevented? How? (How much money?) Is this a local or a global issue—could something similar happen in our neck of the woods? Anything but shrugging your shoulders and saying it's "old news." This problem is definitely more significant than swine flu (just look at how the world was successfully mobilized by the media over a made-up problem to pull in cash). Here, the problem is plain as day.

It can't happen here. For one, we don't have projects like that, those kinds of rivers, or a landscape that's that water-scarce. Plus, in the States, irrigation is used on maybe 0.8% of arable land. The only potential danger of that scale would be a 250-year-old project like the Danube-Sava Canal, which has its own thread on this forum.
To prevent this or restore the Aral Sea, you'd have to destroy Uzbekistan's cotton industry—which is one of the biggest in the world—and dump billions upon billions of dollars into returning the rivers to their original beds so they could supply the Aral Sea again.
What else do you want to know? I'm planning on visiting, so if I go, I'll post a travelogue here.😉

I don't know how much this matters and I want to find out. (The Great Lakes dried up too, so it's not exactly a catastrophe—except Canada doesn't have a coastline.) But at first glance, it seems important enough to push back against anyone trying to downplay the whole thing.

rustywalker42 said:Anderson, I’ve been following this case for years. I know exactly why I said what I said.
Of the two countries bordering the Aral Sea, only one actually decided to save what little is left. The other one? They just don't have the cash. Apparently, the project is too expensive and takes way too long.
Sure, raising awareness is fine, but what does it actually achieve? Every few years, we get the same headline while the lake—well, at least the part doomed to die—just keeps disappearing.
So, since you're so eager to offer suggestions, tell me: what exactly would you do?

I'd argue it all comes down to the media. If the press decides to hammer on a disaster, they can wake up the public. Once the public is awake, they can pressure politicians, donors, and activists to actually act. If nobody knows about it, nothing happens. I noticed today that plenty of outlets are covering this—even Ban Ki-Moon was involved. Clearly, there's a push starting. People are paying attention.

I don't know how much weight this carries. But if it matters—if we're talking about an ecological disaster—then we need to shout about it. Inform people. Mobilize them. Why is this happening? Can it be stopped? At what cost? Is this a local issue or a global one that could hit our own backyard too? Anything but sitting around shrugging and calling it "old news." This issue is arguably more critical than the Swine Flu scare (look at how the media successfully mobilized the world over a manufactured crisis just to rake in funding). Here, the problem is right in front of our eyes.

Bottom line: spread the word and pass on the facts. 🙂