What to do about Raddle: [EDIT:] Perhaps we should keep talking until a solution emerges and actions are taken. Let's try to find something agreeable collectively.

Submitted by An_Old_Big_Tree moderator in meta (edited )

Hey all

I'm sure that by now many of you have a lot of thoughts about the state of raddle, where it's going wrong, and who is responsible. I do.

Many of us like Raddle because we have already have experienced it as a special place. There have been periods in Raddle's existence when there were a handful of solid people here, with good politics and unique ways to contribute to conversations. In particular, I would like to hear from those people here.

Really all of our many problems are are more or less manageable for me but one; as much as I'd like to, I don't have full faith in either ziq or emma, both of whom we rely on for vital functions of the space (hosting and developing/webmastering respectively). I understand that people are all in the world, dealing with the shit the world gave them and the selves the world made them into. The world is shit and I try to take responsibility for the space beyond myself because I think that mutual aid is the closest thing to a desirable core value, and so, as well as for many of you I feel responsible for those two people.

Raddle already takes up a lot of my time and energy, though I have generally not an easy life and have experienced some terrible things lately. There's only so much I can do. Leftous has tried hard to pick up some slack for us, but for whatever reason I have not understood his position on much since he became admin, which has been less reassuring than I would have liked, just in terms of my confidence in the space.

As things stand, I haven't got the emotional energy at the moment to ask ziq what their relation to this space is going forward. Perhaps they will come here to answer that for us. So far as I understand, emma is often in two minds about whether she wants to continue participating here in any way. Neither of these two things bode well for the space. As for me, I preferred when I was just a user on this site and not an admin, but have been willing to do it given our current circumstances.

So. What do you all want to do? Let's hear it.

This is officially a post that doesn't have room for people being shitty or vicious or generally spiteful assholes to each other. If you want to do that, you are welcome to create your own post for your circlejerk.

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Comments

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Xylanthius wrote (edited )

Why is it such a big deal that Ziq had alternative accounts?

He really cared about this community. Everyone who posts here has just as many mental problems and traumas that he has. I don't understand why he is being a scapegoat when no one's hands are clean here.

He even apologized. I think that was really big of him considering how everyone has been treating him on this site. I think it's cool of him that he's still willing to host the site.. it kind of shows how much he cares about the community.

I think he cares about the vision of the community.

I think Emma does too.

I'm not sure anyone knows the best way to move forward at this point. I thought it was a pretty strong site before all the drama. It's unusual how one seemingly little thing resulted in killing the site. It's been pretty stale around here since all that happened.

I don't understand why all of this stuff has to be taken so personally. It doesn't seem practical or efficient.

I work in a center for geriatric care. these people get old and injured all the time. Some of them work through their problems with a higher vision. some of them let one injury cripple their whole mentality. These perspectives make a huge difference in their whole life as well as the rest of their functioning. One thing leads to the other. This is how systems work.

The community is like a system. I vote that we have to stay focused on the bigger picture. The site was more efficient before the straw landed that broke raddle. Why can't we recover from that? And are the reasons why we can't stronger than the reasons why we can?

Life is too short to focus on hate. Life is really all about mentality.

I'm not sure what the big fear is.

If Emma decides to stop coding for the site, we will live on. efficient lives.

If ziq decides to make a new account, we will live on.

While all the members are talking, I also think it might be interesting to hear what ziq and Emma have to say without anyone else interfering. Maybe they could have an open conversation with each other and everyone else can simply listen and support their decisions if anything. I wonder how the two of them feel about all of this since they are the ones who started the site in the first place.

What do you all think about that?

I think that Ziq contributed something to the site. His missing presence has left a void.

While Tequila Wolf says she doesn't have faith in others, I wonder how realistic it is to hold these strangers from the internet with such high expectations in the first place? If this is a community we should act like it and support each other vs attack each other. Ultimately that is what is killing the site.

Forgiveness is divine.

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Xylanthius wrote

we should treat each other with kindness over all things.

It's better to be kind than it is to be "right."

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Xylanthius wrote

In Lilo and Stitch they say "Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind."

One thing about Ziq is that he is very reliable.

A lot of people on this site have "problems." A lot of people on this site could benefit from getting some sort of mental help. I don't think that that is related to the politics of the site though. It doesn't seem like to me that Ziq had set out to intentionally or personally hurt anyone more so than others on this site have set out to do to him.

I personally would like this community to continue... It's a great little community.

It's challenging for me to see it continuing to the same effect without Ziq considering his activity. I personally don't care that it could have been from alternate accounts, nor would I have cared if it were from the same account.

In fact, I think it's kind of a cool personality quirk that he made all those other accounts. I don't understand why no one else sees that. It's kind of funny even. :-)

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jaidedctrl wrote (edited )

Why is it such a big deal that Ziq had alternative accounts?

It's completely destroyed the image of raddle most of us had.

raddle wasn't a genuine community like we thought it was— a fair amount of faces we'd got to know were lies— and raddle wasn't democratic like we thought it was— they used these accounts to fake votes and completely sway dialogue in their favour (one of the more egregious things, IMO).

What they've done really hurt emma, and has hurt a couple others here because they acted with nothing but vitriol at times. Most of us really tried to forgive them. I went for bat for them just a couple days ago. But they've just fucking doubled down on this stuff after they apologized. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

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Xylanthius wrote

Who is "we?" Who are you speaking for?

Are you saying that by making multiple accounts that he really hurt Emma and "others" because he was being cruel? Was he acting as cruel as some of the people act on this site on a normal day? Was he acting even a fraction as cruel as people act towards him ten times over?

When you say we, you are not speaking for every user on the site. I know this for a fact.

I don't think what he did was intentionally meant to hurt Emma. Emma was and is his friend. I believe that when he was aware that what he did was hurtful, he made a good effort to make amends as well as apologize not only to Emma but to others on the site. I think that if we all put a fraction of the effort we put into scapegoating Ziq into making the site better we would not be in this predicament.

I think that we could all be apologizing to ziq if he chose to take any of the things said to him as personal attacks. There have been many hurtful personal attacks towards Ziq. Things have been said to him that would have made me very confused, hurt, and angry. It is apparent to me with him gone the amount of effort he has put into the site. He makes a huge contribution. If I were him I don't even know if I would want to come back to the site after how the site has treated him. However, he is a person who is acutely focused on his values which is how this site came into existence in the first place.

Ziq is reliable, and when he says he is going to do something he follows through on it. If he does something he thinks may have hurt someone, he thinks about it within the terms of what HE did wrong, and what he could have done differently.

There is no reason to scapegoat him. I think that we can move forward from here.

I know for a fact that I am not the only one within this community who believes in Ziq. However, I also know that many don't want to take a stand or make a statement because they are afraid of the vitriol they may face from other users in response.

That is not good you guys if there are people in the community afraid of speaking their mind because they are afraid of getting personally attacked and stalked because of their beliefs. I think that is even worse than creating multiple accounts.

The only thing that bothers me about the multiple accounts thing is that I feel like we should feel like we have a safe space where we can be our authentic selves without fear being stalked or attacked. I would be surprised if Ziq would even want to come back and contribute again like he was before after all of that. If he would then that simply proves his dedication to his values which have been the foundation upon why this site was built in the first place. This man has a full-time job, a life, a family, a wife, hobbies, talents, and visions. Beings depend on him. He's a dedicated being. There is much more evidence being that he is a reliable person than not.

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sand wrote

raises hand yeah i've kinda scared to speak up tbh. idfw the ziq hate, but it's been easy to avoid posting about it when the abominators are really invested and seem to be into doxxing

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jaidedctrl wrote (edited )

When you say we, you are not speaking for every user on the site. I know this for a fact.

Yea, that's a given. “We” is a good chunk of people here, but clearly not all of them.

It is apparent to me with him gone the amount of effort he has put into the site. He makes a huge contribution. If I were him I don't even know if I would want to come back to the site after how the site has treated him. However, he is a person who is acutely focused on his values which is how this site came into existence in the first place.

They've done some crazy shit. They've downright toed the line of gaslighting, made alts just to attack people, and then used alts to sway discourse in their favour (as recently as just fucking yesterday).

I'd totally get it if ziq stopped, if there was some reason to think they changed. I thought they did. I jumped right at their defense as soon as they revealed all of the alt accounts. But they just keep going at it. Yesterday was the stick that broke the camel's back for me.

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Xylanthius wrote

He's done "some crazy shit?"

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leftous wrote

Come on dude, doesn't this get old?

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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leftous wrote

Lol I've prevented you from doxxing yourself multiple times. But sure, at least you continue to show me youre completely full of shit and untrustworthy.

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ziq wrote

Idk what you're on about but you have no high ground here. What you did was downright nasty. I've never done anything to you.

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leftous wrote (edited )

People have a right to know how many times you've done this exact shit. Why don't you disclose it to them?

You said you only did it to increase activity, but that is a lie since you did this for years on Reddit. You have serious problems, and I gave you several chances to figure your shit out. But it looks like this was all for nothing since you're still intent on being deceptive, manipulative, and just shit overall. It is beyond disappointing.

(And btw I see your multiple accounts being created and heavily voting on comment posts. Lmao)

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ziq wrote (edited )

Will you stop with the damn conspiracy theories?

You don't even seem to know the basic history of this site. Raddle started as a reddit sub. My reddit sub. A nihilistic humor sub that mainly lampooned the reactionary currents on the left.

Of course I had other accounts. How do you think that sub grew into what it became and then morphed into raddle? It wasn't even a secret, everyone made parody accounts on that sub and we were completely open about it. Growing that place taught me how to turn raddle into a thriving community.

I deleted my original reddit account like 4 years ago because it was doxxed. My next one I deleted when reddit banned my sub. Then I switched to one of the parody accounts I used on my sub, which got admin banned. So I switched again and deleted that when gnuponut started stalking me a few weeks ago. Fucking satisfied? Or do you need to know what I ate for breakfast on Oct 8 1989?

And btw I your see multiple accounts being created and heavily voting on comment posts. Lmao

Are you serious right now? What the hell is your problem? I'm pulled over on the side of the road in my car replying to your bullshit, I'm not making any fucking accounts.

Stop attacking my mental health. Stop demanding I compromise my security culture. Stop spreading conspiracies about me. And stop acting like I owe you anything. I don't. I don't know you and have no interest in knowing you.

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[deleted] wrote

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ziq wrote (edited )

When I created socialanarchism I only had my original account. Didn't make alts until long after that account was deleted and I was top mod on the humor sub. Stop fucking stalking me and stop lying through your teeth about what you find. I'm not using any reddit accounts.

I think you need to take a step back from all this and take some time to figure it out

disingenuous garbage. Leave. Me. Alone.

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Xylanthius wrote (edited )

You sound like a narcissistic parent. Did you not get enough love as a child? It seems like you are projecting your mental health on others. Are you okay? I want to give you a hug..

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leftous wrote

Lol have fun talking to yourself. Your trolling really is garbage

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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ziq wrote (edited )

Your grasp of my politics is even worse than your piss poor understanding of anarchism.

It's a youtube account. I have no remaining reddit account.

If I were an admin still I'd ban both of you for invading my security culture / doxxing me and for your repulsive paranoid attacks on innocent users that make the unforgivable mistake of not hating my guts like you want them to.

You lot ran amongstclouds out with this maoist shit and you're not doing it to this person too. I care about this person and I won't stand for it.

You're a skeevy little stalker. Every time you open your mouth malicious lies flow out of it.

Enough.

Do not engage me again.

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[deleted] wrote (edited )

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[deleted] wrote

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ziq wrote (edited )

You have no fucking right to my identity. If someone wants to delete their account and use another they will do so. I will speak my mind. I will not sit idly by while you spread your lies and take every opportunity to attack me and spread rumors about me. Bribing my way back?? You're so full of shit.

STOP ENGAGING ME

Leave me alone right fucking now. I am not explaining myself to a doxxing stalking lying rumor-mongering pos like you.

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[deleted] wrote

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DissidentRage wrote

They've asked you to stop engaging them several times, yet you persist. Really think some people harp on this shit just to keep it going instead of engaging in good faith try try to actually work through shit.

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[deleted] wrote

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Xylanthius wrote

He didn't harass or manipulate anyone. he insulted some people's political ideology with defasher and so they personally attacked him and continue to do so.

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ziq wrote (edited )

raddle wasn't a genuine community like we thought it was— a fair amount of faces we'd got to know were lies—

Everyone on a message board is anonymous. None of us are showing our real selves. I'm not even the only admin who used alts. It's normal to want to keep your admin account seperate for security and practicality (people ragequit when admins disagree with them).

and raddle wasn't democratic like we thought it was— he used these accounts to fake votes and completely sway dialogue in his favour (one of the more egregious things, IMO).

My favor? No. I voted multiple times in the thread about making f/mediation because I was concerned about the wellbeing of the site.

My initial strategy to deal with people using f/meta to mount witch hunts against dissenters was to parody them with utterly ridiculous ban proposals against defasher that would be mocked and quickly fail.

That way, the kind of people mounting the witch hunts would not feel empowered to continue their reactionary behavior.

When f/mediation was suggested, I saw that as a better solution to safeguard raddle from the struggle sessions and the looming threat of tankie takeover and took direct action to support it.

Democracy is an incredibly dangerous thing when the people wielding it have problematic politics. I'm honestly not sorry for that. I did it to get people to mediate instead of demanding we ban their enemies. The goal is more important than the method. Raddle's wellbeing was more important than a naive attachment to 'democracy' on an anonymous messaging platform where anyone with a keyboard can cast as many votes as they want.

If irl democracy doesn't work, idk why you have any faith in message board democracy. I influenced policy the same way I tried to influence people to embrace good politics. I'm not a communist. I don't believe in democracy. I'm incredibly skeptical of self-declared 'leftists'. Nothing I did contradicted my own postleft politics or my vision when I built this community.

The only promise I made to r/@ when I made this site was that I wouldn't let tankies take it over and destroy it. I honored that promise until my last day as admin. I'm now no longer an admin or a user of this site and it's up to all of you to continue to safeguard raddle if you wish to.

I poured 2 years of my life into this site and I don't owe anyone anything.

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mofongo wrote

First of all, I want to thank you for the hard work you have done for the site. We really couldn't have asked for a better admin.

Hosting

I think paying in advance will ease the tension that it could shut down on us at any moment We could do is make a pool to pay for it for several months/years in advance. Right now it only costs $10/month and $20/year for the domain. So for $140 we are safe for a year.

Website development

The only thing we can do is trust emma will continue development until one of us gets good enough in web development to contribute or take over postmill. If none happens, our choice is to run the zombie code until it stops working or switch base to one that fits our needs.

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Random_Revolutionary wrote

If we only use the onion link, the hosting costs go down to 0.

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Fossidarity wrote

Why would they go down to 0? You'll still need a server to host the website right? The only thing you don't have is the cost of the DNS every year but I doubt that's the biggest cost.

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sudo wrote

It wouldn't be quite 0, but it would be far less, especially if we self-host it. Then it would be whoever owns the machine paying for the electricity to keep the computer on.

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Fossidarity wrote

It's still possible to self-host it and forward the DNS to your own IP. A .me DNS should be around 10$ a year. I can't imagine that being a big cost.

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ziq wrote (edited )

People I care about have asked me to comment, so here goes.

I stepped down as admin and completely threw my privacy / security culture (and dignity) out of the window because the others (tw and emma) asked me to. I wanted to do whatever was best for raddle, and emma made it clear she would have no association with the site unless I did that. You all wanted emma back, so I did everything that was asked of me; figuring the site is bigger than my pride / security.

After I stepped down and apologized, I was relieved that I could finally stop playing the role of some kind of polite radical ambassador and just be myself.

So I spoke my mind to set the record straight when shiningwing and their clique started spreading malicious lies about what went down between us to paint me as some kind of monster.

Her clique were originally forgiving, but the moment sw turned up to throw her hate at me, they edited their comments to join her spite-bandwagon. Their cliquish, twofaced behavior has always been atrocious, like Maoist struggle sessions, and I was really hurt that tw and emma refused to call them out in public or defend me when they knew they were spreading lies.

I felt like they were both scapegoating me just so they could placate these malicious, hateful people with godawful politics.

So after I responded to shiningwing's venom and tried to set the record straight about some of the blatant lies, the new admin leftous tried to ban me. Essentially for talking back to a tankie. For trying to defend myself. For not buying into some respectability politics shtick that I have no want or need for.

Telling me I can be myself now, and then trying to ban me for not eating some spiteful teenaged tankie's shit? No thank you. On top of that, leftous was fanning the flames with reactionary fearmongering, repeating things said about me by my doxxers on reddit, and inventing new conspiracies... So I left the site and didn't look back. Completely removed raddle from my mind so I could get on with my life.

Yesterday, leftous and the rest of you invited me to come back. I didn't want to come back as ziq because I knew the moment I tried to be myself and did anything other than bow down to the clique and eat their shit, I'd be ostracised again by all the angry little shiningwing groupies that take their halfassed ideologies way too seriously. I also didn't want to use an account that has been doxxed on 8chan and voat.

Yeah I made a mockery of tankies when I was an admin. Yeah I made a mockery of transhumanists. Yeah I have no respect for those people's politics. I apologized to them for making them feel unwelcome and was met by them with pure venom. They were out for blood and clearly wouldn't be satisfied unless raddle was burned to the ground. Yet from what I can tell, they continue to stick around here, on a site they clearly want to kill - even trying to get r/anarchism to remove the raddle link from their sidebar and promoting nettle instead - a platform designed by one of them, that is nowhere near close to working.

So I didn't feel comfortable coming back as ziq, knowing these kids would continue to attack me and mount struggle sessions against me whenever I spoke. Instead, I tested the waters, came back with another account, spoke my mind, tried to set the record straight about the latest stream of lies (mostly being spread by my replacement leftous).

But the struggle sessions, disinfo campaign and witchhunts continued, with me and anyone who tried to defend me being attacked by the mob. The clique were quick with the passive aggressive remarks. "Look ziq came out of hiding! We know it's you ziq!" "Haha the dictator is back!"

Amongstclouds was being accused of being me for daring to break from the clique's evil-ziq narrative. Which was exactly what I was complaining about. You have to respect people's privacy. No one has a right to accuse people of being other people.

I quickly saw nothing had changed. The same little Mao Juniors were in control of the place, even using bots to downvote me 400 times so my version of events wouldn't be seen.

I denied being ziq because I want my privacy. I don't want to be set upon by these pissed off kids every time I open my mouth. But then tq basically ordered me to stop denying I was ziq. I consider that a complete violation of my security culture, and because I have so much love and respect for tw, I was incredibly hurt by it, to the point where I got no sleep last night and haven't been able to eat.

Then Leftous doxxed me in this thread. For some fucked up reason they think they have the right to give out my youtube username, which links to my real life identity. They got that username by stalking me. It's fucked up, and the last straw for me. The admins don't respect my privacy. I've been doxxed repeatedly in the past by incredibly dangerous people because of that username leftous spitefully drops while calling me a troll.

You can villainize me all you want for making fun of people on an internet message board, but doxxing me because I'm not polite enough for you? It's all kinds of fucked up and the couple of people that have been supporting me through this ordeal are right that raddle is no longer a radical space. It's been destroyed by these struggle sessions and I can't be around it because of my own mental health. I don't want to be here.

If tw no longer has faith in me, then I feel horrible but I need to move on and stop being weighed down by all this stress. I'm an incredibly private person and being exposed like this has wrecked me.

I previously offered the domain to both tw and emma but I no longer feel like I can trust either of them to continue my vision. Raddle has turned into everything I worked my ass off to prevent. It's eating itself with paranoia and shitty reactionary politics that make me want to crawl up into a ball and never speak to anyone ever again.

Raddle was my one and only social outlet. Now I have no one to talk to. Being pushed out of here has affected me a lot more than any of you realize. Leftous and the other user demanding I 'get help' are completely out of line. The user who called me 'demented' has no fucking right. I don't owe any of you anything, least of all the right to judge my mental health as inadequate. Even in this thread, anyone that dares defend me or point out that you're overreacting to my internet silly message board antics is being flooded with downvotes. That isn't radical. Silencing anyone that disagrees with a toxic clique's worldview isn't anarchy.

Mutual aid is important, tw is right about that, but only when the people in the community are worthy of it. The people I lampooned with defasher / chomskyist; the people who insisted all their contributions to raddle be deleted because they didn't appreciate their ideologies being scrutinized - these people have no place in any radical community. They have no interest in mutual aid and I don't deserve to be scapegoated by people that claim to care about me, to avoid offending these petulant, jealous, hate-filled little liars. I'm hurt and I'm angry, and I'm incredibly depressed to realize I have not a single friend in this world.

If there's another round of mass departures because of this, maybe I'll try to pick up the pieces and rebuild on my own. But as long as the witchhunts continue, and the admins continue to fan the flames and completely violate my privacy, I can't be here.

I'll think about everything that's being said in this thread and revisit things later. If the good users are still here and the reactionary struggle sessions are over with, great. If not, and you all bail, then I guess I'll try to rebuild on my own from scratch again at some point.

Raddle was never meant to be some kind of mural to morality, and it was certainly never meant as a place for dangerous and toxic 'leftist' politics. It's just a message board for privacy-advocates and radicals. No one owes anyone anything, least of all me. I'm just a person, you're all just people. There's no perfect communist utopia where no one speaks against your ideology and everyone puts in equal effort and receives equal say. We still live in the real world. Some people are more dedicated to a cause. Some voices are louder. We all have different goals and experiences in life. We are individuals.

Raddle isn't and never was a collective organism. A lot of you are treating it like it is, and that's dangerous.

Edit: typos, added some more stuff

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An_Old_Big_Tree OP wrote (edited )

Hey ziq,

I don't have a problem with you being anonymous or using alts (which is something I've said on many occasions), just with you framing people as being crazy when they assume you are who you are. I'm not sure why it isn't clear that my problem was with gaslighting, since I said exactly that. It might be because I recognise it in different ways to you. Maybe that's why you think I ordered you to do anything.

Let me try to get this clear in case it's not for everyone.

If you're working to discredit people based on their messed up headspace (ie. "weird commie groupthink") and in the same breath you're positing a lie that is made stronger by your discrediting, that's gaslighting. I wouldn't have a problem with you denying that you're ziq or even critiquing some groups' ways of thinking, but the way they were framed together was, as I said, "too close to gaslighting".

I hope I have cleared that up some.

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ziq wrote

I can't read your comment right now because I'm at work in the middle of a dangerous task and can't get emotional.

But I want to say you're the heart of this place and I appreciate you and your hard work more than you'll ever know.

I have a lot of anger in me and a strong dislike of certain users on this site, but the last thing I want to do is cause you any unhappiness. The main reason I can't be here right now is because I can't help myself. As soon as gnuponut starts with the passive aggressive snide remarks I take the bait and rage at them. Then you and emma get caught in the middle.

When I designed the raddle logo, I made it blue so it would be neutral. Emma changed it to red. She chose a red color scheme for the site. Put the hammer and sickle at the bottom of the page. There has always been a rift between the communists and the anarchists on this site from the get go, and I feel it's gotten further and further away from my original intention.

These things can't be left unsaid any more, the genie is out of the bottle and everything needs to be addressed, not just my antics. However much drama it causes. The rifts will always be here unless things are resolved.

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ziq wrote (edited )

Despite what it says on the label, this place was not coded by communism. It was coded by emma, an individual. In all the time she has been coding raddle, she's been at it all alone despite several skilled coders offering their services and then never following through.

A lot of the people raging because I 'manipulated their democracy' never contributed a thing to the community. A lot of them never even bothered to vote in meta. Others (the ones calling themselves communists) contributed themes and then selfishly took them back.

Emma did a shitload of work here. Tequila did a shitload of work here. Most of the people throwing tantrums because they thought this was some kind of collective utopia of equality have contributed nothing of value and have no right to demand my blood after I humbled myself, apologized and gave up running my own site to make amends.

Before the clique wakes up and starts up the vitriol again, remember that I don't give a shit. I have no respect for any of you or your makebelieve-communism.

If I stuck around, I would continue to stoke controversy because that's just who I am. People really, really don't like me talking back to them and I can't stop myself from doing it.

This community can still thrive if you want it to. But there are things that need to be addressed, like the paranoid accusations and outing of people as 'trolls' that come straight from the cointelpro guidebook. Whoever sticks around, please don't let raddle be dragged down by this ickiness. Ban people that are engaging in that kind of behavior and don't ask for their permission to do it. No one has the right to your identity. No one has the right to spread rumors about you or your mental health. No one has the right to link to your social media profiles.

This all started because of how important privacy is to me. Gnuponut stalked me and demanded info about me from emma. I reacted in a bad way to having my privacy threatened. I reacted the same way when leftous started digging for dirt on me. But there can't be any compromise when it comes to guarding user privacy on raddle. A lot of us are put in a lot of danger when this happens.

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DissidentRage wrote

Despite what it says on the label, this place was not coded by communism. It was coded by emma, an individual. In all the time she has been coding raddle, she's been at it all alone despite several skilled coders offering their services and then never following through.

Yeah, I feel really bad about that. I've been having some really crippling motivational issues from being in a depressive funk for the past six months. I get into this place in my mind where I don't have the energy to work on something I want to work on, then I don't do anything to pass the time because I feel guilty about not working on a project. I try to motivate myself but at this point the attempt to motivate myself consumes energy faster than the motivation generates.

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Xylanthius wrote

You should talk about that in the mental health sub. I think many people would be able to relate to these struggles. It's better than feeling alone and guilty/shameful. We are here to help each other out and support each other.

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DissidentRage wrote

I never thought of that to be honest. I'm so used to having to work through and resolve my issues on my own. Therapy, for instance, has always been something out of reach.

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Xylanthius wrote

We are not alone here. It's 30934589034x more helpful to listen to someone authentically talk about what they are going through because then we no longer feel alone. We are all going through similar struggles together generationally in many ways. Support groups are really powerful. I struggle with very similar issues. a lot of us do.

Self-sabotage is about as real as it gets in this society. A lot of us struggle with these feelings in our generation within this western society.

There is a lot of psychological theory behind procrastination and self-sabotage that are much deeper than superficial social stigmas. The guilt and shame that is faced by the individual who doesn't understand it can be paralyzing as well as reinforcing. You are not alone. I often read literature about these topics as well as watch psychological lectures on utube relating to it.

I like to imagine this community as an acceptable safe space and supportive environment to each other. I believe we are capable of this. It's obvious to me that we all have demons here. It's something that brings us all together in some way.

I often don't post on here because of how I have seen others get personally attacked because of their individual views which are their own personal opinions. I know for a fact that I am not the only one who feels that way and has felt that way as I have talked to others on this site of whom I will not name. It doesn't have to be that way though. Authenticity is my highest value. That is why I'm here..

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jaidedctrl wrote (edited )

I want to thank you for how much work you put into raddle… it's been a island, for a while.

I'm not sure where exactly, but I have a strong, looming feeling that this community will be somewhere else soon enough.

Honestly, I don't feel like it's safe to talk too much about this community's future on raddle. But…

Hosting: We need a good member of the community to host Raddle-2. I (and I'm sure everyone here) would trust you to do a great job, but you have more than enough on your plate already. I'd do it, but I'm in the US.

We're at a do-ocracy point right now. If someone can and is willing to host it, just go for it. Get a domain, and set up a Postmill instance as a spiritual successor to Raddle. Just go for it. I'll jump aboard as soon as I hear of it, and I hope most of us would do the same.

Technical Aspect: Emma's had some pain from this community… but if she can come to heal and join it again (as developer or not), that would be nice… But if she does (as developer), then hopefully Postmill will do for some time to come.

If she does (but not as developer) or doesn't, then we'll need PHP developer(s) to take the helm. Hopefully one of us will learn enough PHP to take on the task.

If not, then we can jump to a new base. Nettle, perhaps? I don't know. I've been working on wiki software in Clisp for a couple weeks, and I feel like I could write raddle-esque software in it if need be. It wouldn't be as technically interesting as Nettle, of course.

Hopefully we can stick with Postmill.

Whatever happens, this community can just go upward. :)

EDIT: In the immediately-short-term, join the Matrix room-- #raddle:disroot.org

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dele_ted wrote

You hit the nail on the head.

Where is Raddle being hosted right now? Does the community have any preferences for hosting solutions if someone were to buy a new domain and setup Raddle 2?

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jaidedctrl wrote

Where is Raddle being hosted right now?

It looks like it's being hosted on Digital Ocean

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dele_ted wrote (edited )

Alright. Are you completely sure that buying a new domain and abandoning Raddle is a good solution? I really doubt it would fix anything. Letting ziq generously host it all haven't caused any issues yet (besides the fact that Raddle could go offline at any moment), the real issue seems to be ziq's alts and the moderation/administration system, none of which would be fixed with a new domain.

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jaidedctrl wrote (edited )

I agree completely—but setting up a more democratic system would take a good amount of time, whereas a temporary solution (new host) would take almost no time at all. Tackle the immediate issues, then the long-standing ones.

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ziq wrote (edited )

I'm fully in support of actually creating a functional deciding mechanism and applaud your efforts to attempt it. My only suggestion is that it's consensus-based instead of rule-of-the-majority. Raddle never had any policy deciding system to speak of because no one could code one. I never expected an anonymous voting system to be at all functional and was forever afraid it would be used by bad actors to destroy the site.

I made multiple proposals early on to create an actual policy-deciding system that wasn't open to abuse, but had no idea how to go about it myself.

Any system that uses rule-or-the-majority will exclude minority voices and turn the site into witchhunt central. Please take into account how much 'democracy' has fucked over the world.

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dele_ted wrote

That's good to hear! Konsent is almost purely based on concensus, especially after we've added discussion during phase two, and are planning to implement stand-asides along with the veto system.

The two points where direct democracy is being used (phase 1, voting for the more urgent issues to go first, and phase 2, voting for the best solution), it is completely onymous. If a solution that doesn't take the minorities into serious consideration is voted for, it'll be vetoed instantly, and will have to be reformed.

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surreal wrote

Look after yourself more and don't spend so much energy on raddle. This is all an autonomous social experiment and it's nice to be a part of regardless of the outcome and i've learned that people are a very troublesome kind to the point of laughs and tears.

I don't trust anyone with even a little amount of power but raddle is not the codebase or the hosting servers. If the community wants to survive it will find ways to do so even if that means it will split and become part of other communities or whatnot.

Raddle as it is will eventually die, but isn't that what happens?

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dele_ted wrote (edited )

I suggest that we somehow get rid of administration and hierarchy. I might be completely wrong, but it seems to me that most of the issues Raddle face are due to the administration system, and the hierarchy that creates. One way to do that would be Konsent, which I think is almost ready for limited beta implementation. That doesn't fix the hosting issues though, and they're probably more urgent right now... I have no idea what to do about that.

What I do know is, until things are more stable, I think we should all make an effort to be a little more tolerant with each other than we usually would be, and to not feed the trolls that seems to appear everywhere lately. I've been pretty bad at these two things myself (specifically I want to apologize to /u/amongstclouds). I'll definitely do my best to avoid anything like that from now on.

edit: I made a new post to discuss the implementation of Konsent here.

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Fossidarity wrote

I want to thank everyone that put a lot of energy into Raddle, it's the only online community in many years that I feel it's worth actively participating in.

I personally see two types of issues: trust and technological issues.

The trust issues mainly stem from being anonymous and the ease of creating alt accounts, these are very difficult issues to solve and I don't see any feasible solution for them without risking losing privacy.

For the technological issues I would like to see a fully decentralized solution in the future. I think /f/nettle in combination with something like IPFS can be a good solution for decentralized distribution/hosting and /f/Konsent for decentralized decision making.

I really like Postmill and all the effort /u/emma put into it but I think it's not technically in line enough with anarchist ideals due to it's centralized hosting/administration, of course a lot of elements could be reused.

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this_one wrote

Whatever happened seems like it's a bit of a touchy topic, so I don't know how to ask this safely, but is there anywhere I (and other people out of the loop) can get a rundown of what happened? I don't want to put pressure on Tequila_Wolf or anyone else who's feeling drained or doesn't have the energy to explain, but if anyone else feels comfortable explaining (or if there's an existing explanation somewhere that someone could link me to), I'd greatly appreciate it.

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[deleted] wrote

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this_one wrote

Oh jeez... After reading that, I'm kind of glad I don't know more :P

Thanks for the link <3

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thelegendarybirdmonster wrote

you could do admin elections between "old" users to take some weight off you and leftous's shoulders.

I dont see much difference on my homepage between when you two vs ziq were admins. You're not doing a bad job :)

the ideal solution would be using /f/nettle in the long run. Decentralisation would get rid of the problems linked to admis and hosting. Also lisp is a really easy/fun language.

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____deleted____ wrote

I'll be honest; I've defended /u/365degrees before, but they do have the mentality that threatens Nettle in the long run. Could jeopardize it by simply retracting what they've done and fucking it over. Of course, its copyleft nature minimizes that chance, but the point is I'm not certain I can trust a technical solution with them at the helm.

inb4 zb

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jaidedctrl wrote

but they do have the mentality that threatens Nettle in the long run

how so..?

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____deleted____ wrote

Pulling their themes back and all; minor, but worries me personally

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365degrees wrote

As much as my words might be worth nothing, I'll make sure that doesn't happen. It seemed quite quick, but there was a lot of decision making and talking with other people before I sabotaged my themes.

It's a good idea to make copies of any software you like, too. Not only might the author pull out, change license or really mess up their contributions, the hosts of their work might pull the plug on them too if the author doesn't host it.

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leftous wrote (edited by a moderator )

My positions have entirely been about resisting the toxic influence of a manipulative troll. I thought it would be possible, but ziq has shown 0 intention to seriously change and many people here still don't realize ziq has a very long track record of doing this exact shit.

Unless there is someway ziq/defasher/etc. gets help, or if somehow someone else takes over ownership of the domain and server, this project is done. There is no way to move forward with Raddle with ziq involved.

My only suggestion is reorganizing elsewhere. You can remove me as admin.

Edited by T_W for sharing private information publicly.

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891284 wrote

Woah. I slept through all of this. Raddle is not a huge part of my life - I come here for stuff to read that's more likely to align with my personal politics and philosophy than Reddit, and I appreciate the community here but don't participate a ton and don't have much to offer beyond occasional link sharing. So I just plain missed all of this.

Sigh. I can understand why people are upset and hurt by this, and don't really know what the answer is.

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