Hey
@BillsBayou , you and I have spoken before on the sub, I really enjoy your content and comments. I spent a few hours repotting trees with Evan who earlier this year visited us here and travelled from your part of the world. I have a lot of respect for you. I am sad that you've decided to criticize the sub in
this way, as a sarcastic list.
I don't know which other mod you're referring to regarding the ficus, I can't speak for them, but I really wish you didn't perpetuate this equally nasty habit of shitting on other forums. A tiny handful of volunteers with day jobs and families can't realistically wrangle a minimum of 260,000 people who say whatever they want and often operate in emergent brigades and mobs which are often composed entirely of beginners or bonsai-unaware people just raging about tree torture or anti-yamadori sentiment or upvoting whatever looks cute without knowing whether it's bonsai or not. We are all in the same boat, really. I don't envy the jobs of the mods on bnut, but the difference on reddit is that we're many many
many times larger and sometimes have to deal with some really unhinged people whether we want to or not, because we if we don't we get a flood of complaints in the modqueue.
You may see what seems like an unfair ban from a reasonable sounding person which was "made on bonsai grounds". But bans are not made on bonsai grounds. 99% of the time, bans are made on the grounds that someone has started to get into vicious fights with people. Perhaps you see a couple reasonable comments, but that is all you see after the post-fight cleanup where we've had to delete someone resorting to names or racism or whatever. The mods meanwhile will see dozens of hidden comments in flamewars and fights -- we get floods of reports on these comments in real time as they happen.
If you see a properly unfair ban, I am actually very interested in seeing that, because I feel like I completely share your sensibilities about this, and I'd argue at least that
@jeremy_norbury does too . You could ping me about that, or you could ping
@jeremy_norbury , and I promise I'm interested in looking at that in a thoughtful and fair way. We're regular-ass people with full time day jobs and families -- you, me and Jeremy all know common people / artists / teachers / growers in the real world. We're not faceless basement-dweller randos cackling with glee as we finger-flick yet another dipshit off the sub for trivial reasons like "glued on rocks" or "we don't like your bonsai" or "get that stupid ginseng outta here" or "your definition of the word bonsai isn't correct".
That is not how any of it works. If you think it does, all I can say is that the sub you imagine in your head isn't the one I'm trying to contribute to and build.
This is sometimes very frustrating and challenging
because I actually get about 100X more direct and indirect comments that our moderation isn't strict enough and that the content/experience is TOO friendly, TOO beginner, TOO welcoming, TOO accepting of what Bonsai people consider "bonsai". Imagine for a moment bnut had traffic in the millions per week, that 260,000 people are active subs on that hypothetical bnut, and that it's all one single giant superforum, not a dozen subforums. What can you reasonably expect? How are you going to herd that many cats? How are you going to account for people who are trolling the sub for sport, day and night? If you were one of our mods
@BillsBayou , (hey, you seem passionate about this, are you interested in helping? Serious question), would you let every single pointless fight over word semantics rage uncontrolled a dozen times a month, allowing the sentiment to build up that your sub sucks and that it freely allows assholes rule the day?
Do we listen to voices like
@trigo and
@Srt8madness and put up a rule "no sticks in pots or you get banned!" and then get floods of appeals in the modqueue? (I wish! I'm tired of mallsai and indoor junipers too). Do we listen to folks like yourself who think the sub is too ban happy and just let everything go, but still get a flood of daily flaggings in the modqueue, because people are upset that angry antisocial people are overrunning the subreddit, beating up on noobs? (I wish for this too. No unfair bans, ever. Every argument settled down and made whole in the end). Can I convince you that in the balance between those two things, given what Reddit is and what it can never become, that we currently arrive at what is possible, but not ideal, because that'd take a big staff of people, restructuring of how reddit works, or else a big stick wielded too capriciously? And that we're actually trying to improve in whatever way we can?
If y'all don't like what you see on the sub but still visit it often anyway, all I can say is that you should try to do what I did and contribute. Help lead the way with a positive friendly approach while modelling highly civil, mature, unflappable, unpetty behavior.
This bnut post didn't lean that way today,
@BillsBayou , and made me feel a bit deflated after what I thought was some progress over the last couple years. But in spite of the pile-on, I hope you and others change your minds and help us gently nudge the unconstrained herd of cats in a better direction, even knowing that it is a very difficult task, even knowing that we're going to get crapped on by trolls or people who want to fight anyone that claims black pine can't grow indoors... Because for better or worse, that sub is probably numbers-wise the planet's biggest firehose where a major portion of bonsai-curious people who speak English eventually end up. PHP-powered forums are invisible to a huge portion of the planet and always will be. The big stage is messy but you can reach a lot of people if your passion is to help and spread knowledge. Be the change you want to see. And ping me when you see unfairness. I am 100% interested in that.
