Can someone explain Gab.ai?

[–] PMYA 5 points (+5|-0)

You can't even complain about it either. If you do, you're a Jewish shill, but in reality it's just exhausting and uninteresting for every topic, discussion or piece of content to revolve around something political.

forum-like sites need compartmentalization to avoid hive control

I think there may be some truth to this. Perhaps part of the reason Reddit has gone downhill is because the communities just got too large. Obviously there is a much larger problem with the site administration though.

[–] caliban 5 points (+5|-0)

Edited

Yeah, there's been a kerfluffle over on reddit because of the latest round of subreddit-banning. Caught the attention of voat-ers because some redditors listed voat as one of the possible alternatives. voat-ers proceeded to come to reddit and insult everyone (to put it lightly), then claim that if you're not doing the same then you're against free speech. Attempted to take them at their word for a day, and it was just exhausting and at the end there was nothing of value. Maybe I've re-learned the "don't feed the trolls" lesson?

Edit -- I did find, and am now exploring, phuks.co -- so far that seems like a win!

[–] PMYA 4 points (+4|-0)

A lot of the people here started using Voat around the time the Reddit sub blackout happened. Once they scaled up to make room for new users, Voat was actually pretty great for a while. A combination of "normal" Redditors going back to Reddit, the hate sub banning fiasco shifting a ton of users to Voat and the 2016 US election kind of ruined it though.

It's small here and pretty slow in terms of content but it's nice to have a place that is dramaless. Were you one of the users who browsed the gundeals, darknetmartkets etc. subs that recently got banned? Personally I was more pissed off about the fake celebrity porn being banned because that is literally the only reason I still looked at Reddit.

[–] caliban 3 points (+3|-0)

I mostly browsed some of the other firearms-related subreddits (not the more politically-oriented ones), the science / stats subreddits, and of course whatever randomness was on the front page -- gotta have my regular 'hold my beer' gifs!

I'm personally someone very much "in the middle" politically -- I grew up in a very 'conservative' area, but have lived and worked in a much more 'liberal' area now. I find that when I go back home I'm 'the liberal' and when I'm at work I'm the 'the conservative'. I know lots of friends/family back home who couldn't imagine voting Clinton the last election, and friends from work / grown up life who couldn't imagine voting for Trump the last election.

I find all my politics can pretty easily be summed up largely by "allow consenting adults to do what they want if they aren't directly hurting someone else." I do a lot of scientific computing/stats for work, so in my free time I often dig a lot into the stats behind controversial political things, and very often find that public discussion on this is ... very low quality, and instead often driven by whatever statements of statistics can generate the most outrage from own side.

For a while reddit felt like a place where I could get reasonable conversation from strangers on controversial topics. I've really, really enjoyed it.

In large part, it feels like it still is a place where reasonable people can talk reasonably about controversial topics -- but of course that can't happen at all if Reddit the company shuts down an entire subreddit. No discussion, no debate, just throw the switch (and announce it from a throwaway account).

I feel like I see the writing on the wall -- today (or yesterday? earlier this week?) Reddit essentially self-selected to take on the mantle of the ATF (self-regularting the sale of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms).

I don't think it will be much more time before they start becoming much more active, directly banning politically controversial topics.

That's really too bad. A lot of my views have been shaped (and moderated!) by seeing both sides of an issue and talking it out on subreddits. Now more than ever we need forums where we can talk about controversial topics with people who don't agree with us, in a productive manner. Seems like that is moving towards ending on Reddit. It's not there yet, but definitely going that way.

That was my prompt to really start looking around. I'll still stay involved in Reddit but want to start building communities elsewhere.

I browsed gundeals occasionally but not much of the other subreddits that were caught up in the ban -- although at least some of that might have changed if I'd found them earlier. Scotchswap sounded great! I *mostly* browsed some of the other firearms-related subreddits (not the more politically-oriented ones), the science / stats subreddits, and of course whatever randomness was on the front page -- gotta have my regular 'hold my beer' gifs! I'm personally someone very much "in the middle" politically -- I grew up in a very 'conservative' area, but have lived and worked in a much more 'liberal' area now. I find that when I go back home I'm 'the liberal' and when I'm at work I'm the 'the conservative'. I know lots of friends/family back home who couldn't imagine voting Clinton the last election, and friends from work / grown up life who couldn't imagine voting for Trump the last election. I find all my politics can pretty easily be summed up largely by "allow consenting adults to do what they want if they aren't directly hurting someone else." I do a **lot** of scientific computing/stats for work, so in my free time I often dig a lot into the stats behind controversial political things, and very often find that public discussion on this is ... very low quality, and instead often driven by whatever statements of statistics can generate the most outrage from own side. For a while reddit felt like a place where I *could* get reasonable conversation from strangers on controversial topics. I've really, really enjoyed it. In large part, it feels like it still *is* a place where reasonable people can talk reasonably about controversial topics -- but of course that can't happen at all if Reddit the company shuts down an entire subreddit. No discussion, no debate, just throw the switch (and announce it from a throwaway account). I feel like I see the writing on the wall -- today (or yesterday? earlier this week?) Reddit essentially self-selected to take on the mantle of the ATF (self-regularting the sale of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms). I don't think it will be much more time before they start becoming much more active, directly banning politically controversial topics. That's really too bad. A lot of my views have been shaped (and moderated!) by seeing both sides of an issue and talking it out on subreddits. Now more than ever we need forums where we can talk about controversial topics with people who don't agree with us, in a productive manner. Seems like that is moving towards ending on Reddit. It's not there yet, but definitely going that way. That was my prompt to really start looking around. I'll still stay involved in Reddit but want to start building communities elsewhere.

Load more (1 comment)

[–] InnocentBystander [OP] 3 points (+3|-0)

Voat was actually pretty great for a while.

I still tear up when I remember the golden days.

US election kind of ruined it though

That was the tipping point I think. At the time I thought the site would recover if we could just weather the storm.
I was wrong. It didn't die overnight, but there was no turning back. The hive had rooted.

Load more (1 comment)

[–] pembo210 3 points (+3|-0)

Edited

Welcome,

We're mostly outcasts from both sites that decided to build a similar style site for ourselves. We're not big on advertising because it tends to bring people who want to "test the fence" to see what they can get away with. We pay the bills ourselves so we don't need ads or trackers. We'll squash stuff if you get shitty to other users or spam bad sites full of ads or dangerous stuff. All of our code is open and that site is connected to your account here, so you can ask for features or report bugs and then track the progress. We have some better docs comingsoon, probably, maybe one day..

The chat box on the homepage connects to our dev channel. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions :)

[–] caliban 3 points (+3|-0)

That...all sounds great. My first hour or so has been nice.

Let's say I stay around a while, find I really enjoy the place, and then want to give back -- what are the options there? ($$ is probably easiest I imagine, but I'm also a programmer -- mostly scientific/statistical computing with Python/R/C/C++, almost ... many almost 20yrs experience, time flies. That said time is much harder to donate, as I'm sure you know.)

Load more (2 comments)

Can someone explain Gab.ai?

37 comments

/s/AskPhuks