I originally posted irregularly on a sub and when I asked a mod for help as to why my posts weren’t being approved, he randomly banned me from the sub without asking. I messaged and he said in the future I will be allowed again, he said 30 days.
When I logged out of my first account on my pc accidentally, I had to make a new one because I hadn’t written my password down.
On my second account, since the 30 days passed, I made a post on that sub. I woke up to seeing reddit saying I got permabanned for ban evasion, and they won’t reply to my pleas.
I found it really frustrating. I tried waiting 3 weeks after that and Making a new account. It got banned in 8 hours. Next week I make a new account, again banned in 8 hours.
I’m extremely disheartened that I got banned over a mistake and now I’m unable to use reddit at all.
Anybody else relate to this?
I use reddit for university subs as well so it’s very frustrating I can’t ask questions anymore.
I once got permabanned from a politics subreddit (I think it was /r/canadapolitics) that had a “downvoting is not permitted” rule, because there was a guy getting downvotes and I offered him an explanation for why I thought he was getting them. That counted as evidence that I had downvoted him, I guess.
My response: I sent one message to the mods that was essentially “really?” And then when there was no response I unsubbed from that subreddit and moved on. I see no point in participating in subreddits with ridiculous rules and ridiculous enforcement.
Granted, unsubbing from politics subreddits is generally a good idea even when not banned. But eh.
The only other subreddit I’m banned in is /r/artisthate, which I never visited in the first place. Apparently they scan other subreddits for signs of users who don’t hate artificial intelligence enough and preemptively ban them. That was kind of hilarious.
Anyway, I guess my advice is don’t get too deeply “invested” in a community that can be so easily and arbitrarily taken away from you in the first place. And also manage your passwords better.
The problem, though, is when so many companies are outsourcing their customer service to social media like Reddit. And communities, like OP’s school, which have nothing to do with the current situation on other subreddits. “Ban evasion” is nothing but a power trip if the ban was bullshit to begin with.
If all Reddit had was pictures of cats and porn, then getting banned would not be as big a deal. Now that it is public, being used for legit reasons, and has “money”, I am waiting for a bunch of people who are being banned for arbitrary reasons to file a class-action lawsuit. I might even join, even though I haven’t been back since the APIcalypse. I was banned from /r/funny years ago and to this day I don’t really know why. (In fairness, though, that might have improved my life…)
My advice against getting too deeply invested applies to those companies and communities as well.
It’s worth noting that investment in community isn’t the problem per se. People’s digital lives (indeed their digital personhood) are arguably more important than their corporeal ones now; the ability to sustainably organize online around everything from hobbies to political goals matters. The problem is we collectively keep picking the corporate-run shitware to build on, like Reddit - platforms over which we’re excluded from any sort of influence, where the only real currency is perverse incentive.