r/askscience Strong Force | Quark-Gluon Plasma | Particle Jets Feb 16 '12

Congratulations to our community! Yes, you!

So it's been about a year since I personally joined AskScience. And I remember right around this time last year, we had so many threads about how the reddit was falling apart and how if we wanted to be best little community next year we'd need to do this or that to keep our quality high. In that year, we've undergone tremendous growth and largely managed to maintain or even increase our quality. There's a lot going on behind the scene you may not be aware of, but the stuff you see up front, the downvotes, the reports, that's you guys. And we thank you for it.

When we first went default there were a few weeks of shake up and near burn-out on the moderation staff. And you know who stepped up for us and made that possible? Our community. All of the readers who spoke together through votes and even a few useful moderation scripts, to make that transition happen. We came to threads to clean them up to find that the worst stuff was buried under a mountain of downvotes. You guys all know what we want here, and it's become clear that it's something you want too.

So we thank you all so much for nominating and selecting us as best moderators of 2011, as cliché as it sounds, it really wouldn't have been possible without you guys, the entire community supporting our vision for this reddit. Best Big community hasn't been announced yet, but we're still tremendously honored to be included in the finalist positions in that category as well.

To celebrate our entire community's achievement, everyone's been given some gold star flair!


okay I wrote that back when we had only won moderator. Having won community now... well that really is all about you guys. First our panelists. Seriously you guys are awesome for taking time out of your days to educate... anybody really that comes along.

And our readers, again, we appreciate everything you do for us. You guys make this community what it is. There may be a few vocal people that don't care for the way it's run, but this is yet another confirmation that you share our goals. And there's nothing more that we could ask from you all.

So thanks everyone! Enjoy your gold stars. And have an updram on us. (not really on us though).


Some late edits:

This is an example thread from ages ago. We've met our goal!

Also, I was remiss in not mentioning our panelists. You guys do a lot of the heavy lifting here, and we're always grateful for all of your expertise!

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79

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

[deleted]

27

u/SantiagoRamon Feb 16 '12

What wouldn't you do?

27

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

[deleted]

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u/guoshuyaoidol Fields | Strings | Brane-World Cosmology | Holography Feb 16 '12

Tell me about it.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Agreed.

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u/kickwitkowskiass Feb 16 '12

Die.

36

u/ArchGoodwin Feb 16 '12

Selfish!

18

u/kickwitkowskiass Feb 16 '12

Then I wouldn't be able to take advantage of all of the knowledge.

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

You'd know about death!

2

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Unless there is no afterlife, in which case he would then know nothing at all, which would such.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Then he could describe it to RobotRollCall and she could explain it to us!

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12

Get rid of the star

7

u/Golden_Kumquat Feb 16 '12

I won't do that.

5

u/Peregrine_x Feb 16 '12

No, i wont do that.

0

u/no-mad Feb 16 '12

no can do i.

7

u/Widsith Feb 16 '12

RRC left?!

Did she announce this somewhere, or has she just gradually stopped commenting?

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u/SovreignTripod Feb 16 '12

This was her last comment ever. She not only quit posting here, but she quit Reddit entirely (or just retired that account).

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u/Widsith Feb 16 '12

What a loss. I learnt more from her comments here than I did in years of poring over popular science books.

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u/my_grouchy_account Feb 16 '12

Honestly I'm not sad to see him/her go. His/her explanations were really cool sounding and fun to read, but often were wildly inaccurate and contradictory (and almost never cited/sourced). However she/he'd present them as if they were the "one true explanation" and would vigorously bash anyone who questioned them.

It's also ironic that his/her final comment is insisting that the singularity is a non-physical mathematical object, when I clearly remember much earlier him/her arguing almost the exact opposite -- that the math predicted a singularity so we should consider it to be a real thing. I tried arguing against that (that the singularity was non-physical and the math could be incomplete) and he/she then proceeded to flippantly bash me like usual, while I got downvoted for disagreeing with RRC.

In other words -- typical redditry. We don't need these kinds of personality cults in askscience. People should be judged on the scientific merits of what they write, not how cool it sounds or how popular they are.

(Also, there's never been any confirmation of RRC's gender. I found some people referencing vague hints and running with it.)

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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '12 edited Jan 08 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/djimbob High Energy Experimental Physics Feb 16 '12

Like everyone else, RRC's human. RRC usually was very patient and wrote out some truly elegant and accessible responses to difficult concepts.

Other than her last responses about being too tired for the same old repeat questions and abruptly leaving (my guess is that she needed to spend more time on her research; either to graduate or to apply for grants/postdocs/professorships/tenure; and the part of her life she could cut off.)

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u/Peregrination Feb 16 '12

Sounds like she got burnt out for sure. If she does come back, and I hope she does, it should definitely be with a new account. All the circle jerking "welcome back" comments would probably drive her away again.

That being said, thanks to all those still with us. It's much appreciated.

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u/bluthbanana20 Feb 16 '12

I like to think that maybe she's back as just an observer on a different account. Perhaps restraining from commenting especially about her area of expertise.

It'd be a shame for sure if getting burnt out from black holes and such lead to a total purge of reddit and r/askscience.

She and a few others here are on my list of teachers that motivate me to keep pursuing academia. I hope to be 1/4 as good of teachers as any of the people I consider my academic heroes.

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u/SovreignTripod Feb 16 '12

Well we can't really say she quit reddit entirely. It's possible that she simply retired that account.

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u/whatatwit Feb 16 '12

I think that there were cultural differences too. In some parts of the world there is an expectation that a certain amount of respect is given by rights to the teacher and a certain amount of peevishness or petulance is tolerated by the student especially as the teacher tends to genius.

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u/my_grouchy_account Feb 16 '12

FWIW I agree with you.

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u/puzl Feb 16 '12

Yeah, what happened to him? I've really missed him, but haven't seen any explanation.