The thing is, the line between freedom of speech and censorship/polarizing something is razor thin. I know you know this. I’m an old school (former) r/Calgary member, like 10+ years, just under a different name. But this is the fediverse, not Reddit 2.0. At least I hope it isn’t.

I don’t envy anyone that wants to volunteer to moderate in this heavily polarized and post-pre-fucking-whatever-era-of-covid-we-are-in, let’s get that straight up front. I mean good on ya. If someone posts like racist transphobic shit or whatever, fucking quietly whack it and no one will oppose that I don’t think. Or if someone posts like super XXX shit or ads for t-shirts or whatever, like fuck right off with that shit. But let’s not list a whole bunch of rules straight off the hop, if ever here. Let’s make something new, because Reddit and especially r/Calgary are not healthy places, and they certainly aren’t places of freedom of speech or robust discussion, any longer. Not like the old days.

If I could give you Coles notes of what r/Calgary disolved into, I mean reading the rules is like reading an encyclopedia, the power mods then contradict those rules or make new ones up on the fly to shape the agenda. It turned into a bad echo chamber, like hyper polarized left wing bullshit. And that’s coming from a dude thats pretty left wing. If you wrote Nenshi isn’t the best mayor we ever had, you’ll get hundreds of downvotes, people DMing you calling you everything but an honest boy, everyone is so insulted, and the mods amp it up, because they let things disolve into echo chambers. But if anyone posts something contradictory, it’s immediately locked down or censored. I remember someone posting a COVID parade and saying like I don’t disagree with this guy’s sign and BOOM locked down. That’s actually how I got perma banned, because I dared to question why they locked the thread down, like it didn’t violate any rules. I mean everyone’s a critic, but fuck…

Its hard to explain, like it’s not their fault that a bunch of people don’t agree with me, or that whack jobs are DMing me, don’t worry about that, I can dish er out, and I love to chirp. But it’s like that because they are incubating that sort of environment over there with their terrible moderation. Like all the old regulars are now banned. I’m not talking ol’ Texy or anyone like that, I’m talking rational characters that were a part of the sub a decade ago. Everyone’s gotta have like 40 alt accounts if you want to participate, and trust me, you don’t. Your mental health and sanity is all the better for it. But when you pulled out of there, it just quickly turned into a vortex of bullshit.

Some of us have been on here for weeks. It’s been just fine without any moderation. I’m sure with the collapse of third party Reddit, the hoardes will come. Eventually so will the bots and whatever. But quiet moderation rules the day here, not loud attention whoring moderation that locks every second thread and shuts people down from discussing. I agree, it’s new and it’s been WAY better than Reddit so far. It’s actual passionate, pioneers (if you will) for right now. That won’t last though. Thanks for joining us!