r/HumanMicrobiome • u/fightingforourfuture • Jun 13 '23

[Meta] A farewell from /u/MaximilianKohler. Moving off Reddit. Probably to a hosted forum.

53 Upvotes

The following post was written by /u/MaximilianKohler.

Previous discussion: https://old.reddit.com/r/HumanMicrobiome/comments/bg11hl/meta_anyone_interested_in_moving_the_wiki_and/

Reddit has only gotten worse since then.

It's a waste of time to put effort into making high quality content on Reddit subs you don't mod yourself, since so much content gets secretly (or otherwise) removed, and if a mod simply disagrees with something you said (anywhere on Reddit, not even just on their sub) they can and do remove years of your content and permanently ban you.

So I gave up on most of Reddit years ago. There were a handful of subs with respectable mod ethos' similar to this sub's. But even they have nearly all gone down the same corrupt path one by one. Reddit is now nothing more than a propaganda front, where individuals and special interest groups manipulate content & discussions in order to further their personal agenda. That, plus the amount of users confidently spreading misinformation on this site, results in me not trusting anything I read here anymore.

And now, it's not even viable to put up important content on subs you mod, since it's all at risk of being secretly & permanently removed by the admins. For example, they secretly and permanently removed this important historical thread, and wouldn't provide any option to restore it. I have no idea (and they wouldn't tell me) how many other threads may have met the same fate.

They’re also seemingly turning admin duties over to a bad AI with only a specious ability to appeal. So accounts are wrongfully getting permanently banned and there’s nothing you can do about it. Reddit doesn’t care and won’t respond. It seems like in the past few years they hit some tipping point and realized “we can do whatever we want”. So they are. Eg: [1][2][3][4][5].

Accounts and subs are all at risk of unpredictable admin decisions. They've been banning communities without warning for a wide variety of reasons. And frequently introducing new controversial “features” that degrade the user experience.

Given Reddit's dedication to making major, unpredictable changes in the pursuit of profit, it's not a safe and reliable place to build communities anymore. They seem to be cracking down hard on dissent and anything that may impact their profit.

You're probably aware of the current 3rd party app and API issues resulting in many subs protesting: https://old.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/147b2qz/eli5_why_are_so_many_subreddits_going_dark/

The Reddit admins have made it clear that this is their website, they'll do whatever they want, and they don't like /u/MaximilianKohler. Possibly due to their focus on monetization, and my history of being a long-time public critic of theirs. I know there are laws in some countries that prohibit what the Reddit admins are doing to me, but I'm not aware of US laws. I'm seeking legal council on it, and if anyone has info on this please share. But it's likely not a good use of time to fight with the Reddit admins. It's been time to leave for a long time.

A few other recent instances of people agreeing that Reddit is not acting in good faith:

It's not a good idea to leave yourself at the mercy of such people.

The benefits of Reddit?

Furthermore, many people seem to shy away from Reddit in general, and prefer standalone websites.

One would think that a major benefit of a Reddit sub would be the reach to the rest of Reddit. Yet this forum/sub is tiny compared to a variety of other non-Reddit forums, and even other Reddit subs that cover related health topics which are arguably much less important/impactful. Hopefully the new site can expand our reach on the important topics that get covered here.

Reddit has everything needed to be a high quality site, to create and share high quality information, and participate in important endeavors. Yet my experience here over the past decade has largely been the opposite of that. Lack of support & reciprocation, lack of participation in community efforts; hostility; anti-scientific, willfully ignorant attitudes, and worse. I've been so incredibly disappointed by this website and my experiences here. I drastically reduced the amount of effort and advice I give out, due to all of this.

Sites that seem prone to low quality content, and which aren't designed for high quality discussion & information sharing, ended up being vastly more supportive and useful than this site.

Sharing information here seems nearly useless. More often than not it seems to go in one ear and out the other, and people continue to spread the same incorrect or low quality information no matter how many times it's debunked or higher quality information is shared. And that higher quality information is ignored rather than spread.

Reddit has been becoming more and more like Facebook. Both in regards to the design and the low quality content. I think Reddit is dysfunctional because people are dysfunctional. My hope is to be able to address that by improving people's health & function via the gut microbiome.

So we'll try to reach a different audience.

Where to go?

I've been following /r/RedditAlternatives for many years, but there's yet to be one that seems like a viable option. A hosted forum seems like a big commitment, and forums have taken a big hit on search engines in recent years, but it still seems like the best choice right now. Feel free to share your feedback.

Discord, Facebook, etc. are not valid replacements due to their private nature and inability to be indexed by search engines.

A short overview of forums: https://old.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/141fys3/just_remember_forums_exist/jn1dq32/
A site dedicated to them: https://www.theadminzone.com/

XenForo seems to be the best https://www.theadminzone.com/threads/which-forum-software-is-the-best.147142. $60/mo for them to host it, or it could probably be hosted for ~$20-30/mo as long as the traffic is minimal. Given that picking a forum software is a long-term commitment I'm hesitant to cheap out on the lower cost options, but I'll do some more reading on it.

I know you can move forums, but it's not without issues. When Overclock.net moved lots of old links went dead.

For now, I'll be in the new discord server: https://discord.gg/Hnea7fN4vZ

The future of this sub?

Any sub that's not strictly moderated will inevitably contain lots of misinformation, which is something /r/HumanMicrobiome was created to prevent. So the mods will likely have to implement further restrictions.

We may lock comments but still allow submissions. We'll probably disable text-posts, and if you want to make a text-post you can post it on your own blog, or elsewhere, and share the link here.

24 comments

r/HumanMicrobiome • u/HumanMicrobiomeMod • Jul 24 '23

Mod post New Human Microbiome forum up and running

41 Upvotes

https://forum.humanmicrobiome.info/

Reddit is no longer a reliable place to create, host, and grow communities, so a new microbiome forum has been set up to be a more reliable location. If you have posted content on Reddit that you feel is worth preserving, it would be a good idea to post it on the new forum.

Reddit has been rapidly and drastically changing their longstanding policies. One of which is making subreddits no longer autonomous. Meaning that communities and users no longer have any assurance that they will be able to independently operate under the Reddit Terms of Service.

They've also allowed trolls and malicious actors to have free rein. And issues with massive bot networks are increasing; making moderation much more difficult, and decreasing the trustworthiness of content. Many important individuals and services are leaving and ending (Eg).

The person who created this sub, and most of the content here, including the wiki, has moved to the new forum. You should be able to get better info & answers there.

You're welcome to post your content there and then link to it here for higher visibility.

Our primary goal will remain as stopping the widespread misinformation on the topic of the microbiome. Since we no longer have someone dedicated to correcting and preventing misinformation, comments and posts here will require preapproval. Some types of content (questions) may be restricted completely since we no longer have reliable people dedicated to providing evidence-based answers.

But you're welcome to ask your questions on the new forum and post the link here.

UPDATE:

Is the moderator of the forum also the owner of the humanmicrobes.org domain? Is that a conflict of interest?

15 comments

r/HumanMicrobiome • u/mintdrops_in • 6h ago