Seriously this place has changed. I don't see afungi or throwaway. What happened to those two guys. From what I remember afungi had good content and throwaway kept this place cleaned up. I like the updates but something seems off without throwaway. I see a few afungi things but the clarity isn't here anymore.
So someone explain wtf is going on and what are we doing about mods?
Posted Oct 23, 2011, 7:20 AM UTC
Like Throwaway said, he and afungi had some disagreements, they both left, and I got added. This was right at a time when we were getting multiple posts about the subreddit going to shit (like we've been getting for 3 years now), and I figured that'd be a good time to add some guys who were devoted to actual moderation (in the same manner as Throwaway, but hopefully with less of a biased approach). There's no question that Throwaway did good things, but it also doesn't seem like there was much discussion going on- so one guy was making a lot of decisions, and other guys disagreed with some of them.
As far as the coaching stuff is concerned, if anyone can show me the direct negative impact it's had on seddit, that'd be great. Until/unless that happens, I don't see how it's had any effect on the community here.
That is not at all what happened. I didn't "leave," I was kicked out as a unilateral decision of one person, who then left. Do you think it's proper for afungi to determine the course of seddit's future, when he left and obviously did not care about seddit? He wrecked seddit and then left others to clean up his mess. Your description of the events is completely inaccurate.
Chronology:
The specific user complaint was that I had been deleting videos by SimplePickup. These videos are staged, and I have argued to death that they are destructive to the community. afungi argued that users have the right to make that decision by up/downvoting. I had been deleting those videos for over a year, with full knowledge and consent of other moderators. Suddenly, there was one complaint to the moderators by wollercakes that he liked the videos and I was abusing my power by deleting them. I explained in modmail, to him and in front the other mods again, in the interest of full transparency and full disclosure, why those videos were destructive and did not add value to seddit, in fact, they destroyed value in seddit and incited other low quality content. afungi suddenly changed his mind, after previous discussions up to a year ago about why I was deleting these videos, and unilaterally kicked me out. Almost immediately, a SimplePickup video was posted that showed faked videos of those goons picking up girls while showing them dildos, anal beads, tranny porn, and while sniffing panties. It was disgraceful. But that is what afungi wanted. And it is what wollercakes wanted. I want to show you the type of comments wollercakes makes on reddit and you can decide if this person has the maturity to judge whether SimplePickup is material that adds value to seddit.
But like I said, that was just a pretext to kick me out. It's all about the "official" paid coaching. It was only described to me in advance as a new effort to connect sedditors with mentors. I thought it was going to be a program like the seddit locator map to connect people with other PUAs, for free. With the long term resistance by seddit mods to all forms of commercial exploitation, I could not possibly conceive that seddit moderators would create a program to convert the efforts of sedditors, given freely with no thought of remuneration, into a forum that operated for the commercial benefit of a few selected people who were "approved" by their moderator friends. This immediately created a class divide between sedditors and the small circle of "officially" endorsed PUAs, like ImKumarYo, heckz, MaysonNSS, afungi, etc. These were mostly Bay Area Lair guys. IMHO they should have run this through their local lair (since these were most local, in-person services) and not used seddit as a whole, and in particular afungi should not have purchased a domain name using the term "seddit" without a broader consent of sedditors. The moderators do not own seddit, but acted as if they did.
So, you want to see direct negative impact? I got kicked out. That's direct negative impact. seddit started going to hell without me spending many hours each week moderating and writing comments to guide discussions. People started complaining about seddit selling out, and many significant contributors left seddit in disgust over what was happening. But the most direct negative impact was from the "official" seddit "coaches" who felt they had a position of privilege that should not be challenged by other PUAs and their products. For example, this thread. An effort to produce a free product was challenged because it conflicted with a commercial product in development by one of the "official" seddit coaches. This is the slippery slope I predicted, paid products would push out free contributions by other sedditors, given only with the goal of contributing to the community with no thought of financial reward.
Money corrupted seddit. Moderators made decisions based on their financial self-interest, and have actively acted to protect the financial interests of their personal friends. My own moderation actions were solely motivated by what I believed was best for the seddit community. That conflicted with the interests of a few who sought to exploit what sedditors built, freely and generously, with no thought of money.
So now I am exiled from seddit. I am not banned, but I cannot contribute content under these circumstances. I would only be contributing to a corrupt system that acts as an advertising medium for the benefit of a few cronies. And it's only going to get worse. But from the continual complaints expressing dissatisfaction about what is happening now, it seems that sedditors generally agree that seddit was better when I was a mod, and that my actions were right and proper, and afungi made a bad decision that damaged seddit, probably beyond repair.
I haven't seen any active advertising beyond what's in the sidebar and the one post that was made about offering services. Those guys still post and comment, and if it was my prerogative to get paid for shit, I'd be doing the exact same thing: I'd make sure people knew about it, but I wouldn't push it on anyone. That seems to be what they're doing, and if you think you can connect that to the "downfall" of seddit, then I think you're an idiot and the only reason you'd try to make that claim is because you disagree with the paid services so much that you're willing to make up some bullshit about it affecting the community.
And I don't think you're an idiot. I just think your opinion about certain things is really strong and can't be changed. I have no problem with the coaching shit and especially no problem with the Simple Pickup shit. It's not meant to be serious in the first place, and if anyone's stupid enough to believe it's the best way of doing things (without even looking at other material), that person can't be helped anyway. Otherwise, it's humorous, and they provide more in-field shit than anyone else I've seen, even if it's stupid or staged or whatever. And when I watched their first or second video, they did a lot of things that were similar to what I do, so I know that sort of cheesy shit can work really well in the right context. In other words, even if they don't necessarily add value, I don't see how they're subtracting any either. Most of the time you put on your mod hat to make a comment about a post, your comment was downvoted by everyone else. I saw that in most of your comments. I know you did a lot of good things, and I wouldn't mind if you were made a mod again, but I think you could've done it in a friendlier way.
A moderator has to be prepared to do what is unpopular, because it is the right thing to do. You're not. That's why they picked you as a mod to replace me.
I'm trying to add some value to the discussion and hear everyone out so I can make the decision that's actually good for the community, based on the feedback I get from the community.
I think that is an unfair comment to make.
To be fair I barely see any official seddit coaching shit these days.
I think you are right about the app though. I don't care about the competitors thing but testmypatience shouldn't be using his mod hat to promote something.
This is not about who has the right to promote something and who is abusing their position, either as moderator or as "official" coach.
This is about why we even have this situation happening at all. If we didn't have people who felt entitled to their privileged position, created by the commercial endorsements, this conversation would not be happening.
ABC Nightline just did a segment on us which will be airing early November (we'll post it on YouTube and FaceBook after it airs). They made us dress up and we did our shit LIVE with a correspondent listening to us as we successfully picked up girls. They also interviewed the girls afteward and responses were all positive.
If any of the mods here think our shit is fake, you can come out with us in LA any weekend and we will show you how BAUSES pick up girls (srs).
Email us at [email protected]
Congratulations. Your exploitation of the community and blatant attention whoring has gotten you what you wanted: nationwide publicity to promote your personal careers. And you only had to make the entire community look like assholes to do it. If you had any respect for anyone besides yourself, you would stop what you are doing.
Yeah, I also miss throwaway. If anything, he was older than me :-)
I just got added as a mod right as afungi stepped down. Frogma, Tofu, myself, testmypatience are all active at this time.
What exactly happened to throwaway?
wtf side2 and testmypatience are the same person, not sure what his motive was to post this tho, easy to figure out if you look at both's post history(lots of relationship problems and talks about kids alot in the same context) plus dates of when side2 quit posting under that account and started using testmypatience
The moderator who did the most (me) was kicked out by a senior moderator who did the least (afungi). Then afungi quit.
The core issue is that I objected to the "Official Seddit Coaching" program which was created by afungi and TofuTofu and released without informing me in advance. I particularly objected to products like a $400 video coaching product sold by.. afungi.
I stopped moderating and commenting after that "30k" announcement, I didn't see any point in continuing to create content that attracted sedditors that would be subjected to "Official" marketing of commercial PUA products. I hoped that the other moderators would see how seddit would go in the wrong direction without my efforts. seddit immediately descended into chaos. This chaos is what they created for you.
I was never a fan of you as a front scene moderator but Tofu has told me multiple times how much you've done for everyone behind the scenes. I had no idea you weren't informed of the coaching. I would have talked to you if I knew you had issues with it. It clearly was not as well thought out as it should and I'm guessing your perspective would have been gold.
Just curious but, do you or Tofu have issues with him being moderator? Let me rephrase that, would either you or tofu have kicked him out or was that someone elses call that was made?
I'll answer. I think it was purely afungi's call in the heat of the moment. He also added me in the heat of the moment. I have no issue with Throwaway being a mod, as long as he exercises some constraint in his handling of various things- aka, I don't want him stating his opinion as fact without asking anyone else. As far as seddit is concerned, I have the same feelings as him about a ton of shit. If I were to just exercise my authority- even if it's what I think is "best"- the whole subreddit would be totally different, and probably not something that most other people would agree with- and if most people disagree, it's probably not the "best" option.
I know Throwaway can handle his shit though, and if he's doing that, I have no problem with him being a mod.
My limited knowledge regarding at all to Throwaway is that I mentioned to Tofu on 2-3 occasions how Throwaway's attitude on the boards sucked and each and every time Tofu defended Throwaway. That's all I know.
Well, afungi's gone, and nobody's peddling that "Official Training" bullshit, so I think that we, as a community, could use you back around.
The "Official Training" link is at the top of the sidebar. It is advertised on every single seddit page.