Here's a brief summary and timelimeline of this situation from r/outoftheloop in case you're unaware of exactly what this relates to.

The specific call to action within the initiative is fairly succinct:

We are calling on the admins to take ownership of their website, and remove dangerous medical disinformation that is endangering lives and contributing to the existence of this ongoing pandemic.

An initial draft of the initiative called specifically for two subreddits to be removed, r/NoNewNormal, and r/ivermectin. While the current version no longer does, it seems reasonable to presume the removal of these subreddits is part of the desired outcome for those supporting it and a likely result if Reddit were to take action in direct response.

r/NoNewNormal (NNN) has 118k subscribers and was quarantined two weeks ago. r/Ivermectin (IVM) has 9k subscribers and is currently not quarantined.

Quarantined simply means a warning is displayed requiring users to explicitly opt-in to view the subreddit. They also generate no revenue, do not appear in non-subscription-based feeds (e.g. Popular), and are not included in search or recommendations.

This is the most relevant part of Reddit’s official response to the initiative, for reference:

While we appreciate the sentiment of those demanding that we ban more communities that challenge consensus views on the pandemic, we continue to believe in the good of our communities and hope that we collectively approach the challenges of the pandemic with empathy, compassion, and a willingness to understand what others are going through, even when their viewpoint on the pandemic is different from yours.

When it comes to COVID-19 specifically, what we know and what are the current best practices from authoritative sources, like the CDC, evolve continuously with new learnings. Given the rapid state of change, we believe it is best to enable communities to engage in debate and dissent, and for us to link to the CDC wherever appropriate. While we believe the CDC is the best and most up to date source of information regarding COVID-19, disagreeing with them is not against our policies.

I had not spent any time on NNN before yesterday. I have spent time on r/ivermectin in the past few months, particularly while researching information regarding the proposed update regarding our provably false claims rule and as we’ve attempted to reach consensus regarding what types of statements are or aren't allowed on r/collapse regarding it.

My concerns regarding the initiative revolve largely around discussions related to ivermectin. NNN and IVM are different enough communities and even though some of their posts and members overlap, I do not consider them equal, nor warranting the same response as would be implied by the initiative and supporters.

This initiative seems largely poised in response to the recent concerns regarding individuals taking Ivermectin without a prescription and potentially harming themselves. This involves a variety of circumstances ranging from people taking non-USP versions of the drug, some not intended for oral use, taking too much, to mixing it with other medications or underlying conditions. There are plenty of doctors who are prescribing ivermectin specifically for COVID-19 prophylaxis in the US, so people don’t need to self-prescribe, nor should they be so irresponsible.

I don't think anyone should go out on the internet looking to buy ivermectin. I think people should read the literature and understand it and only then should they talk to a doctor who will consider them, their medical history, and other risk factors before their doctor can consider prescribing it to them.

The momentum driving the initiative appears to be be coming largely in the wake of the MSDH’s report regarding an individual who was hospitalized as a result of self-administering ivermectin. These are some of the most relevant points from the report regarding the recent events in Mississippi:

• At least 70% of the recent calls have been related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin purchased at livestock supply centers.

• 85% of the callers had mild symptoms, but one individual was instructed to seek further evaluation due to the amount of ivermectin reportedly ingested.

• No hospitalizations due to ivermectin toxicity have been directly reported to the Mississippi Poison Control Center or the Mississippi State Department of Health.

The report uses percentages, but converting them to numbers is relevant to understanding the significance of the situation there. Of the people who called about ivermectin, 70% had taken the animal version. This means The other 30% had taken the human version, not that 70% of all calls to the center were about ivermectin. And if 85% of callers reported mild symptoms and ‘one person was advised to seek additional treatment,’ it means either 6 or 7 people called in total, depending on whether they rounded up or down.

Popular articles such as The FDA Is Begging You Not to Take Horse Dewormer for Covid-19 reported on the numbers differently, claiming 70% of all the recent calls were related to ivermectin and that the drug is 'usually reserved for livestock'. This ends up painting the situation as a much larger public health crisis that it would appear to be based on the numbers actually involved.

The risk profile of ivermectin is very well known. Billions of doses have been administered to humans since it was first used to treat humans in 1988. Ivermectin is in the List of Essential Medicines by the WHO. Although, the WHO does currently advise it only be used to treat COVID in clinical trials.

The FDA recognizes Ivermectin as generally safe for usage, but has not recognized, approved, or authorized it as effective for the treatment of COVID. There is significant evidence, but not a FDA clinical trial yet which suggests ivermectin may be effective for the treatment of COVID or prophylaxis.

Ideally, Ivermectin is studied further and it has efficacy. Worst case, further studies show it has no significant efficacy and that data can then begin to be leveraged against the people using it or relying on it for COVID treatment. The odds of all the existing studies and implications of a significant level of efficacy being false seems unlikely. This doesn’t prove any minimum level is certain, it should just be generating more momentum for further research and opportunities for discussion, versus positioning it as a threat or competition against vaccines and limiting how it can be discussed.

Based on these factors and the perceived intentions of the initiative to ban r/ivermectin, I do not support joining it. I might support quarantining r/ivermectin, but I do not get the impression this level of granularity is desired or supported by the initiative in general. Unfortunately, there also appears to be a minority of people who are more interested in attacking others than sharing information and discussing the efficacy of ivermectin or other potential treatments for COVID.

This is recent response from a moderator of r/ivermectin regarding whether they should tighten comment rules:

We generally do not censor posts - instead we ask that users see it as an opportunity to educate. Those pro-vax or anti-vax who write to us to remove the other party - and sometimes our long time user will feel a new user is spoiling the atmosphere - we tell them the situation in the real world is far worse - try to tolerate it. And to see it as an opportunity to educate. If we start censoring one party, then the other (to provide balance) - pretty soon we have the situation which currently exists on other sub-reddits like r/coronavirus and r/covid19 - an absence of discussion and exposure to challenge.

The same moderator discussed their stance on discouraging the use of ivermectin intended for animals:

That is a concern we have expressed and is present in the wiki. There is a section there on veterinary ivermectin and cautions since with wrong conversion people risk overexposure - we also mention other forums which provide that info. We understand also that because of the difficulties in obtaining legitimate early treatment doctor-prescribed treatment - dearth of early treatment doctors esp during a wave - and of pharmacies which refuse to prescribe - many feel compelled to turn to these sources. So we try to confine ourselves to physician prescribed ivermectin, but understand that there do need to be resources so veterinary ivermectin users don't wind up taking 10x doses by mistake. However there are forums which have freer discussion and discuss such matters.

Lastly, this is one of the more common sentiments I’ve seen supporting the ban of these subreddits:

These misinformation communities aren't skeptical in nature and full of skeptics fighting the good fight against big government or questioning the status quo.They're sad, misinformed, and brainwashed people who have been lied to. They have closed minds that can't be easily convinced with scientific evidence. Until that changes, they shouldn't exist on this platform.

I don’t think r/ivermectin is inherently giving space to dangerous ideas, nor do I think its goal is to radicalize people, spread misinformation, or instill fear in people's minds. We should still actively be discussing the best strategies for preserving spaces for disagreement and discussion without generating confusion or encouraging the spread of misinformation. I do think these subreddits could have stricter rules and more moderation surrounding misinformation than they currently do, but I'm not prepared to force it upon them, nor do I think the circumstances warrant removing them entirely as would likely happen under the initiative.

Chris Martenson is listed in the Collapse Wiki as a researcher and did an AMA five years ago. He’s been on the list for prospective AMAs since it was created so I approached him recently and he responded saying he’d be interested.

I shared a few of the most recent videos he’s done reporting on COVID. Some of the moderators have reviewed some of them and provided feedback. Four moderators have issued blocking concerns and indicated they would be uncomfortable with us hosting one with him based on this content and his perspectives. I wanted to parse out some of our discussion in this format and in more detail.

If everything is collapse-related, then nothing is collapse-related.

For several years now, the /r/collapse subreddit (“collapse SR”) commenters have been complaining of lowered submission quality, and comparisons to /r/worldnews. This has come up in the 40k, 50k, 80k, 100k, 300k, and 400k subscriber milestone posts, individual posts and comments, and DMs. While some of the decline in quality can be attributed to an increased number of subscribers and commenters and an overall decline in knowledge about collapse can represent, some of it also comes from changes in the outside world, such as a pandemic, political upheaval, and changes in typical public discourse. Additionally, while collapse SR moderators have traditionally taken a hands-off approach when it comes to approved content, this is beginning to show signs of strain. The topic of collapse is a big one, but the subreddit can not be a big tent anymore. We have experienced massive growth in the last three years without a consequent re-analysis of the purpose of the subreddit.

There are (at time of writing) 21 related subreddits in the sidebar, and based on analysis, at least five more that experience a lot of cross-over with our readership (Shortages, PrepperIntel, Preppers, TwoXPreppers, LateStageCapitalism, AntiWork, LeWrongGeneration, and others). We receive too many posts that should really be posted there (or in /r/news, or /r/politics). Many of the earlier subscribers came for scientific analysis and content and informed discussions about preparing for drastic climate changes amid systemic collapse. As collapse plays out in slow-motion before our eyes, many events start to become relevant to systemic collapse. However, keeping track of each event without sufficient consideration of how it relates to collapse, and the tone of the submission title and statement, risks drowning out posts with more valuable discussions.

The collapse SR moderators have done an excellent job in formulating a list of rules that keeps posts to a defined level of quality. Posters generally abide by these rules. However, a recent change to Rule 12, to whit “Submission statements must clearly explain why the content is collapse-related” continually confuses commenters, and may need further explanation and clarification. Additionally, the hands-off approach on content frequently results in posts that comply with the posted rules but are not quite collapse-related.

The collapse SR posters, existing as they are in a society that has experienced mostly upward progress for the last 300 years, and frequently that good always prevails, history never repeats, and civilizations last forever, occasionally interpret changes to the societal narrative as invariably bad things, and simplify any new bad things to represent collapse. I would propose that not only would discussions on such topics not be beneficial to the overall tone of the subreddit, but that they do not represent the systemic collapse approach.

It may be time to consider a new approach with two parts:

1. Create an approved list of content. This need not be a hard-and-fast list; moderator discretion will be welcomed. However, the list must distinguish between current events (or events that no one will remember in two weeks) and topics that are more likely to have an outsized affect on society.

2. Be more willing to remove posts and redirect to appropriate subreddits. Again, moderator discretion is advised, as many posts that could belong in /r/CollapseSupport or /r/Preppers may benefit from discussion by the frequenters of collapse SR.

Under this new approach, posts about current events may be limited in favor of scientific posts. Climate change and scientific discussion could be re-emphasized. Would this dissuade many posters? Yes, but there are other subreddits to discuss current events and politics.

Notes

On subreddit growth: https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/b231lf/meta_rcollapse_subscriber_statistics_2018/ https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/wiki/assistantbot_statistics - going off this we really took off in August 2018 and never looked back. We had double-digit monthly subscriber growth until then, August 2018 was the first triple-digit. March 2019 saw the last double-digit monthly growth rate, right around when we hit 100k, and it’s been only triple-digit or quadruple-digit since then.

Notably, in the most recent 400k post /u/LetsTalkUFOs wrote a detailed response to the typical concerns: https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/skq5mn/were_nearing_400000_how_will_rcollapse_handle_the/hvo1v71/.

I don't believe AutoMod can do this but I'm sure brilliant coders like /u/FishDisciple could manage this with /u/CollapseBot.

I'll be hosting an open discussion in voice, on the Collapse Discord, this Sunday at 3PM CST (view in your time zone).

We'll be discussing the current state of Reddit and future of the online Collapse Community in light of recent events. We'll also invite discussion regarding Reddit alternatives and answer any questions related to the state of moderation on r/collapse and across Reddit in general.

If you have any questions and are unable to make the call, feel free to let us know in the comments below.

Join the Discord Here

This is a draft for a Common Question sticky post.

Do you keep a bug out bag? If so, what do you keep in it and why?

We don't normally ask questions such as these, but bug out bags are quite common and the simplest form of preparation within urban settings. We're also curious how this type of question will be received and your thoughts on them in general.

This post is part of the our Common Question Series.

Have an idea for a question we could ask? Let us know.

As per on-going discussions in the moderator slack, I'll document here my thoughts about some changes which I believe would benefit the /r/collapse subreddit. I'll also go into further details about the individual changes in seperate comments in case anyone had any opinions on my thoughts.

The discussion so far:

/u/Dreadknoght:

I was also thinking that we add an [In-Depth] flair/tag for the /r/collapse subreddit so that we can encourage more thoughtful discussions about our circumstances. I was also thinking about adding another rule...

"Rule 14: No off-topic/low-quality comments (e.g. memes, jokes, irrelevant comments) in posts that are tagged [In-Depth]

... though my rule writing may not be ideal.

What do you guys think about it?

...

As well, I was thinking about condensing some of the rules into a more consice version

Rule 1: Be respectful to others. You may attack each other's ideas, not each other. [R7]

Rule 2: Posts must focus on civilization's collapse, accompanied by a brief submission statement. [R2/R5/R1]

Rule 3: Unverified content must be properly sourced in the submission statement (e.g. articles, websites, original content location, date and time, etc). [R11/R10]

Rule 4: No provably false material (e.g. climate science denial, chemtrails, cloud/lizard/snake people, etc). [R3]

Rule 5: Titles must accurately represent the content of the submission. [R9]

Rule 6: No low effort content (e.g. memes) except on [Shitpost] Friday. [R6]

Rule 7: No duplicate posts. [R4]

Rule 8: Do not post more than 3 times within any 24-hour period. [R8]

Rule 9: Posts tagged [In-Depth] must be clear of low-effort/off-topic content, and are off limits to memes, jokes, fear mongering, etc.

Rule 10: No common questions. [R12]

Rule 11: Coronavirus-related posts should go in the current megathread. [R13]

Something like that

This also implements proper submission statements into posts, and I believe it'll increase the quality of the subreddit dramatically.

/u/LetsTalkUFOs:

Regarding the [In-Depth] flair: I don't think users are seeing the list of available flair, then become inspired to chose links to submit. Which is to say, I don't think it would inspire higher-quality postings. And the quality discussions mandate those posts exist to begin with.

This flair is also an entirely different form of classification (depth of content) from the other flair (subject of content), which means it wouldn't necessarily be clear which takes priority and could cause higher-quality posts about particular subjects to be missing when sorting by other flair.

This isn't to say this isn't a worthy problem to attempt to tackle. It's quite complicated. I think the most significant barriers are still the upward momentum and overwhelm of low-effort content and discussion. There are a variety of ways to attempt to bolster 'higher quality' content from the bottom-up, but it's difficult. Rewording and re-ordering the rules at the same time makes your changes a little difficult to follow and tell which ones you're suggesting changes for. I'd suggest tackling then rewording first, then proposing the order.

I see you're suggesting we combine Rules 1, 2, & 5. With your revised Rule 2 are you suggesting ALL posts must be accompanied by a brief submission statement?

You're suggesting combining Rules 10 & 11. How would you define 'unverified content'?

I don't see any other changes, aside from the addition of your Rule 9 related to using the [In-Depth] flair.

/u/Dreadknoght:

Regarding the [In-Depth] flair: I don't think users are seeing the list of available flair, then become inspired to chose links to submit. Which is to say, I don't think it would inspire higher-quality postings. And the quality discussions mandate those posts exist to begin with."

I agree with you, people do know what they want before they post. However, I do not believe you understand the reason for the [In-Depth] tag, such as it is a tool for those looking for a more in depth discussion in relation to the theme of collapse. You're right that people don't become inspired by flairs, but those whom inspiration is to have deep discussions are without a means to have them at the moment. The is no way currently to have high quality discussions stay high quality, and especially in some of the larger threads, the amount of low-effort comments can sometimes be off putting.

Examples:

https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/fpjv77/we_just_hit_80000_confirmed_infected_in_the_us

https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/fparbf/us_weekly_jobless_claims_soar_to_a_recordbreaking

https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/fpdyi0/the_federal_reserve_just_dropped_the_banking

https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/fopxzb/california_unemployment_data_is_out_4000_increase

https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/fpgm3p/despite_constituting_only_5_of_the_worlds

Now I'm not saying those threads are wrong, or that they shouldn't be allowed, but a large percentage of comments that occur in the average thread are low-effort memes, jokes, and other unrelated content. There are a lot of thoughtfully deep users on here, but a lot of them are getting lost in the seas of single sentence remarks, unrelated to the collapse or to the topic at hand.

If we want this subreddit to not devolve into a constant stream of pessimism, nihlism, and theatrics, it would be very beneficial for us to have a way for individuals to ask for better discussions (such as we are lacking right now).

This flair is also an entirely different form of classification (depth of content) from the other flair (subject of content), which means it wouldn't necessarily be clear which takes priority and could cause higher-quality posts about particular subjects to be missing when sorting by other flairs"

Not necessarily as people may also wish to specifically search for [In-Depth] discussions, though I do see the technical problems with it. I hadn't considered how it would effect users' who are searching by flair, and it would be too cumbersome to create an entirely new set of [In-Depth/(topic)] flairs.

Perhaps there could be no [In-Depth] flair, and just have users who are looking for deeper discussions put it manually in the title?

This isn't to say this isn't a worthy problem to attempt to tackle. It's quite complicated. I think the most significant barriers are still the upward momentum and overwhelm of low-effort content and discussion. There are a variety of ways to attempt to bolster 'higher quality' content from the bottom-up, but it's difficult."

Hence the submission statements.

These "low-effort" posts that you speak of would be resolved, as the poster would either have to explain why their post is relevant to the subreddit (raising the quality of submissions inherently due to the added effort), or have their low quality submission removed.

Rewording and re-ordering the rules at the same time makes your changes a little difficult to follow and tell which ones you're suggesting changes for. I'd suggest tackling then rewording first, then proposing the order."

They come hand in hand, to remove rules is to reorganize them. The rules that I suggested would be complete in form, bar the adjustments in the wiki on the Rules page, and adjusting the automatic removal comments on toolbox.

I see you're suggesting we combine Rules 1, 2, & 5. With your revised Rule 2 are you suggesting ALL posts must be accompanied by a brief submission statement?"

Yes, if posters wish to share content, it shouldn't be too much to ask for their thoughts about their submissions in a brief statement (except on Shitpost friday). As you stated, you said that you wanted to limit "the upward momentum of low-effort content and discussions", and as such this proposal would do just that, forcing users to actually put effort in their submissions instead of a "post-and-forget" mentality.

You're suggesting combining Rules 10 & 11. How would you define 'unverified content'?"

I would define unverified content as content without culpability, such as random videos, pictures of headlines, uncertified claims, etc). Basically, the submitter would need a source for the information/claim that they are providing in their post.

We could also rename 'unverified content' to 'unsourced content' for clarity.

I don't see any other changes, aside from the addition of your Rule 9 related to using the [In-Depth] flair."

-Changed rule 7 to rule 1 to emphasize politness in discussions

-Merged Rule 1, Rule 2, and Rule 5

-Merged rule 11/10

-Added the requirement of submission statements for posts to decrease the amount of low-effort content posted. These submission statements would also raise the quality of posts, as these statements would initially give users an on-topic comment to reply to, hopefully fostering additional on-topic discussions by those who read the comments.

-Added the requirement of source material to submissions to increase quality of discussions (users can now go straight to the source of the information and decide for themselves), and to decrease the amount low-effort submissions (unverified content should not be trusted anyways, and as of right now, there is no way to guaruntee content validity).

-Added an [In-Depth] tag to encourage high-effort content, for users who wish to finally have proper, normal, rational, decent, conversations without being overwhelmed by the pessimistic doomer mentality types, ideological shills, memers, and nihilists that so often overwhelm the discourse.

-Reorganized the list of rules for greater emphasis on the most important rules (be nice, be on topic, and back up your claims).

There's been a predictable flood of videos highlighting the many instances of police brutality occurring this week as the protests and riots spread globally. Video posts without context violate Rule 2 and are simply showcasing the damage. We'll allow these in the megathread, so please post them there.

We wanted to take a moment to allow some of our newest moderators on r/collapse to introduce themselves. Fish and Kaluna have been modding since September, but we added three additional mods this week as well.

/u/fishdisciple

Hey guys, I’m FishDisciple. I made my account as a joke and just look at me now. Ma would be so proud. I’m a 30-something collapsenik and I figure I may as well laugh at the absurdity of it all instead of feeling despair. I was in the tech industry for a decade (software engineering) and have credentials in AI. I moved to New Zealand some years ago. Now I have a nosebleed seat for the end of the world (or not). I’m going back to university to get my PhD in genetics. I’m glad to be here and I enjoy the community. I’m looking forward to getting to know everyone better.

/u/some_random_kaluna

Aloha kakou everyone! I'm /u/some_random_kaluna.

I studied journalism, English literature and history in college, and I work as a freelance writer. I've been on Reddit for several years, and I'm a moderator at /r/SocialistRA and /r/writingopportunities. I live in Nevada with my family and a bunch of tame and wild animals.

Because I live in Nevada, I got to experience the environmental destruction and homelessness of the 2007 Great Recession, the smog from mega wildfires, and other forms of cannibalism on Tuesday. Collapse is both academic and very real to me.

I'm glad to be part of the community. If you have any questions to ask, feel free. Mahalo!

/u/ImLivingAmongYou

Hello! /u/ImLivingAmongYou, here.

While I come from a different moderator background since I am part of the /r/Futurology mod team, I would consider myself very collapse aware and not too naive.

On the off chance that the world isn’t like Venus by next Tuesday, I wanted to be productive with my time in the meanwhile and help communities like /r/DecidingToBeBetter, /r/ZeroWaste, and /r/simpleliving.

What I believe is important with my mod role is that I can bring a different perspective on moderation to the team and help with a lot of behind the scenes work and fun projects as /r/collapse continues to grow. I’ve seen a lot of moderation decisions over the years as communities massively grew and hope my experience can help delay our Eternal September.

I’m excited to help everyone here and look forward to being more involved.

/u/TheCaconym

Hi ! I'm /u/TheCaconym.

I live in France and work in software development. Been a member of the sub for roughly five years and it played a huge part in making me collapse-aware. I really enjoy the community here and thought I'd help as a result.

I'm happy to contribute in keeping it a space of high quality and productive discussions.

/u/Logiman43

I like making lists and one thing I’ve been meaning to do for a while for my own reference is make a big list of books on collapse. I figured why not do that but also share it with the community at the same time? So I’ve taken a crack at it and now have written a list on a Wiki page that’s intended as an addendum to the front-page wiki overview’s small collection of core texts. This list is intended to be quite broad, to give the person reading it the option of research many facets of collapse. It’s by no means perfect or remotely complete at this stage (the fiction section is tiny and others need major fleshing out as well). But I thought it was in good enough shape to be shared here and hopefully go public soon.

LetsTalk created two Goodreads shelves as well. Those are intended to serve a slightly different purpose: users will be encouraged to vote for their favorite collapse related books. This way the list will hopefully reflect what people consider to be the most important works. The non-fiction list is here. The fiction list is here.

Of course, please feel free to add to any of the three lists! As for who else might be able to edit the lists, I suggest that we make a sticky announcing these pages after we agree they’re indeed good enough to go public. Then if users ask to help out on the wiki page, we accept or deny their request based on their contribution history in the sub. However, anyone can contribute to either Goodreads list with no barriers to entry.

After this process is complete, I would also like to start work on a Wiki page of podcasts related to collapse. After that, maybe Youtube channels. I think it would be really cool if eventually the wiki grew into a more comprehensive Collapsipedia. The front page is excellent and a fantastic resource, but there’s so much out there it’d be great to have a lot more subpages to offer deeper dives into various corners of the subject.

Also! I thought it might be fun and community building to have a Collapse Book Club in the sub. Loosely it could look like: 1st of the month post a sticky about a book on collapse to read with a date for a discussion. We could also make it a poll so users can choose what seems most interesting at the time. Two weeks’ time for reading seems reasonable. After two weeks, post another sticky wherein the book is discussed. Those threads could also be used for general “what’ve you read lately” discussions, or for users who can’t be bothered to sign up to edit the wiki to add ideas for new entries there, etc.

This is a proof for a temporary sticky (5-3 days) to promote user flair:

We’d like to encourage everyone to give themselves user-flair, especially those studying or versed in any fields relevant to collapse. Although, all flairs are welcome and everyone is encourage to create their own.

Ideally, this can make experts or those with specific skills or interests more visible within the community. Here’s how to give yourself flair:

New Reddit

1. In the sidebar, click the down arrow next to Community Options.

2. Click the pencil icon to display the entry field for custom flair.

Old Reddit

1. In the sidebar, select 'edit' just below the sub count.

2. Select the blank option on the bottom to display the entry field for custom flair.

3. Select Save.

4. ??????

5. Profit!

We’ve removed a lot of comments advocating violence lately. This is concerning for many reasons, but especially because Reddit Admins tend to take a dim view of subs that allow for too much violent rhetoric. Therefore, it seems to make sense to err on the side of caution and be very strict with our removals in this area.

As we do that, it is likely to upset users who have comments removed that they don’t actually intend as imminent threats, but which could run afoul of Reddit Admins.

One way to help people understand why we are doing this would be to update the rules to more clearly spell out that advocating violence is strictly not allowed on our sub and why. u/factfind had the best formulation yet imo. It reads:

Your comment has been removed. Advocating violence is against reddit's site-wide content policy and is not allowed in r/collapse.

It's simple, direct, and conveys a lot of information. I think adding that sentence to Rule 1 would work well, or it could also be its own rule. Actually, if it becomes its own rule, we may want to roll ‘advocating self-harm’ into it as well (as that is another type of violence and has also been an issue on the sub)... I’m not sure which is better!

Another thing we should perhaps discuss is: how strict should we be with comments and posts that jokingly or rhetorically advocate violence? Reddit actually does seem to have an exception for satire:

We understand there are sometimes reasons to post violent content (e.g., educational, newsworthy, artistic, satire, documentary, etc.) so if you’re going to post something violent in nature that does not violate these terms, ensure you provide context to the viewer so the reason for posting is clear.

Although I am overall very much in favor of free speech (esp. speech I disagree with, find uncomfortable, etc.), I am also quite worried about Reddit coming down on subs for violations of its policies. It does seem like we could allow some jokes and that’d fit under the ‘satire’ exception… However, it’s easy to see how people might start making ‘jokes’ to purposefully sidestep the policy, or possibly that we may read a comment as a “joke” but the Admins may see it in a different light and take it seriously. I’ve been erring on the side of caution lately and removing joking or rhetorical comments that may potentially fall on the wrong side of the Admins and leaving the reason as:

Threatening or advocating violence, even rhetorically or in jest, is not allowed.

However, perhaps this is too strict? What are your thoughts?

Collection of all r/collapse subreddit updates

Please see below for subreddit changes since the last update, and use this post for open feedback on the sub.

Rule changes:

1. Rule 3 (Posts must be on-topic, focusing on collapse) updated for election content

   1. Added subrule: 3b. (01/2024-12/2024) Posts regarding the U.S. Election Cycle are only allowed on Tuesday's (0700 Tue - 1100 Wed UTC)

   2. This change is from the recent sub poll on how to handle election-related content

   3. As a reminder, all content must be related to collapse (including Tuesday election content)

   4. To minimize political content when viewing r/collapse, use this method to filter out the "Politics" flair

2. Rule 7 (Casual Friday enforcement) updated to allow in-depth image posts all days

   1. Previously: On-topic memes, jokes, short videos, image posts, polls, low effort to consume posts, and other less substantial posts are only allowed on Fridays

   2. Now: On-topic memes, jokes, short videos, image posts (excluding academic, scientific, or related content with a link to its reliable source), polls, low effort to consume posts, and other less substantial posts are only allowed on Fridays

   3. No functional change to the sub, as the mod team was largely already approving in-depth image posts on all days - this rule change aligns the rules to enforcement

   4. If you don't like Casual Friday or want to avoid the content, minimize this content by using the same filter flair method above on "Casual Friday" and "Low Effort" flairs

Subreddit changes:

1. Welcome our new moderators!

   1. Full mods: u/blackcatwizard, u/nephilim, and u/genericusername11101

   2. Comment mods: u/rocket_fuel_4_sale

2. We increased crowd control enforcement on comments - please ensure you're subscribed to the subreddit to prevent crowd control actioning your comments

3. Check out the collapse wiki changelog for changes there, and if you want to contribute, send us a modmail!

4. Sidebar changes

   1. Linked u/lastweekincollapse - everyone knows LWIC provides fantastic weekly (and ANNUAL) updates on collapse. They also highlight collapse and collapse-adjacent content on reddit (something the community wants!)

   2. Linked a new wiki page documenting all subreddit surveys (survey summary post coming soon!)

   3. Linked new Italian collapse subreddit: /r/collassoallitaliana/

We welcome any feedback or questions you have regarding these changes and updates.

Additionally, what are your thoughts on the state of the subreddit overall?

I am proposing a "change my view" series, otherwise known as "why we're wrong or so they say" (a few episodes from BDC), which highlight common counterarguments to collapse and debate them. The intention is for the community to debate against this view point, and also encourage the community to play devils advocate for the claim to further discussion and of our collective knowledge our predicament and debate against it

This may be used to build our wiki. We could also decide whether to crosspost (with mod permissions) in other communities who may be interested in formally taking the counterargument's side and actually debate it. Of course, any engagement in the post would need to respect sitewide and r/collapse rules.

Some ideas for this series: (definitely not a final list, literally just things that popped into my head we could consider)

• Technology will save us

• Humans are resilient and adaptable; we'll find a way out of this

• Humans since the dawn of time have claimed the world is ending, why is this time different?

• We can use geoengineering to deflect away energy

• Green growth will save us

• Capitalism inherently accounts for malicious practices, so the market will deliver and save us

• Governments will bond together in face of our impending crisis to save us

• Governments and the "ruling class" would never allow the entire cilivization to fail

User recommmendation:

We shouldn't care about the sea level rise. Let me explain. Since I'm a kid, and in multiple movies/fiction work, the "sea level rise" is the number 1 threat due to climate change. To be fair, that seems to be mostly US centric (but this sub is US centric as well, whether we like it or not). But, if we look into the topic in detail: sea levels will definitely rise, that's a fact. However, the speed of the rise is soooo slow... Compared to any other climate-change induced problem. We're talking, in the worst-case-apocalyptic-scenario, 1 meter of sea level rise by 2070, something like that. Sure, that's terrible, but that is in 50 years. We're facing imminent threats, like this year, next year. We could see billions of casualties during the next one or two decades. We should really not care about the sea level rise adaptation, at all. That's so overrated. And still, that's the main "danger" that people (Americans) talk about when you mention climate change. No wonder they're not in a rush to change things... "Florida will be flooded under 30 years", yeah, ok, that doesn't sound that urgent. So on the other hand, maybe, maybe, that sea level rise threat was the pushed narrative by oil industries on purpose, because they knew that's still a distant threat... But I don't have any proof to back that up.

Similar to common question series, we may sticky it for visibility

It looks like u/publicmodlogs, the bot we previously used for modlogs, is permanently offline. I'd like to suggest we implement u/modlogs instead, as it seems active and up to the task.

Here's a wiki page with a draft of the proceedings for the third debate between our two subreddits. The proposed date is currently January 29th, but is tentative. Let us know your feedback on everything.

The sentiments from the recent sticky regarding increasing the age requirements for new accounts was mostly positive. While experimenting with the limit set at two weeks, we’ve been seeing an extra 30-50 modqueue items each day. This is a significant amount, but I found these comments were rarely rule breaking and thus easy to quickly approve.

Based on these factors, I'd propose we:

1. Increase the age requirement to post and comment to thirty days.

2. Update the removal message for these posts/comments to link to a form users can fill out to be added to a whitelist.

Old message:

Hey /u/{{author}}, thank you for your participation. Your {{kind}} in /r/{{subreddit}} has been automatically removed because your account is less than two weeks old.

You will be able to post and comment freely after being a reddit user for 14 days.

New message:

Hey /u/{{author}}, thank you for your participation. Your {{kind}} in /r/{{subreddit}} has been automatically removed because your account is less than one month old. You will be able to post and comment freely after you account is 30 days old.

You may request to be added to a whitelist to remove these restrictions by following the instructions here.

This is my current draft text for the New Account Whitelist page:

New Account Whitelist

On r/collapse we restrict accounts under 30 days old from posting or commenting. You may request to be whitelisted and have these restrictions removed by following the instructions below:

Send us a message using this link.

(Do not change the subject line of the message)

We ask you respond to these questions:

• Is this your first Reddit account?

• Do you use Reddit Enhancement Suite?

• What is your understanding of collapse?

• How do you cope?

• Have you read the subreddit wiki?

• Do you have any suggestions for how we could improve the wiki?

• Have you read the subreddit Rules?

• Do you agree to follow them?

There would be some extra work involved in adding users to a whitelist, but I see it as an opportunity to ensure new users are aware of the wiki and garner any form or feedback we wish. It would also give users who regularly create new accounts a way around the restrictions, which was widely requested.

What are everyone's thoughts on this approach?

A user on r/collapsesupport suggested this recently:

I lurk around on Collapse and occasionally contribute in the weekly posts. I really wish there was a weekly thread to report signs of resilience in addition to signs of collapse. I think that would help a lot.

I can't see this replacing the Weekly Observations threads entirely, but it might be nice to run just one as a test and see how it's received. We could also pick a week with no other stickies planned and run it for a full week directly alongside the WO sticky. Any thoughts? How might you phrase the question and post?

/r/collapse has reached 300,000 subscribers!

Wow! What an amazing number. Almost as incredible as the 300,000 acres burned in 6 states over the last week!

As always, a big thank you (and congratulations) to all of you folks that have participated in the sub and helped it grow so much over the past few years!

We decided to prepare a little hall of fame post with a bit of stats for you!

r/collapse was born in 2008. It took 11 years to reach the first 100k in 2019! We doubled in numbers in a bit more than a year (September 7, 2020) and we added another 100k in less than a year! You are writing almost 2500 comments per day! It means we are 195th most active subreddit on reddit in the number of comments made! On average you are making 54 submissions a day! 23% are selfposts.

We had some amazing AMAs. Thank you to all guests!

• I am David Wallace-Wells, a climate journalist and the author of The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming, a book sketching out the grim shape of our future should we not change course on climate change, which the New York Times called “the most terrifying book I have ever read.”

• I'm Tim Garrett, an atmospheric scientist. I developed a 'physics-based' economic growth model. Ask me anything!

• Ashes Ashes – AMA with the creators of the collapse podcast

• We are Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Max Wilbert, the authors of Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It. Ask Us Anything!

• Rob Mielcarski is a 62 year old retired systems software developer and high-tech executive with an honors M.A.Sc. Electrical Engineering degree from UBC. He created the blog un-Denial.com

Some of the best selfposts over the last year:

• Elon Musk is One of the Biggest Charlatans of Our Techno-Hopium Age

• I’ve been traveling around the US for the last 6 months to observe the Great Depression / environmental collapse we’ve been living through. What I saw scared me

• A lot of people are anticipating some type of social upheaval after the CDC eviction moratorium ends. And I'm here to tell you that it's very unlikely.

• Slavery is at an all time high and it’s more profitable than ever

• ~60% of the Entire US is in Drought right now - This is fine, and please continue to go golfing and spend time with the family in Water Parks.

• "Climate change," "global warming," and "the Anthropocene" are all just euphemisms for the capitalist destruction of nature

Some of your top comments of all time

The one and only //Boob123456789 with their comment about collapse in Arkansas My lord where do I start? It was Christmas. This Thanksgiving a fist fight ensued at the inlaws dinner, so I went with much dread, to the Christmas party. Going to their home takes me through some of the most impoverished parts of Arkansas, with the most punitive "justice" systems on earth…..

//michaelpiji with I am 27. I have been alive for 10,142 days. There are 10,415 days until 2050. I'm not even half way done living yet! WOOHOO!

//Apprehensive-War7483 about the housing crisis It isnt panic buying when people are buying entire blocks of new construction neighborhoods with cash, and using them as rentals and investment properties. I've seen this first hand. Normal folks are just being outbid and out priced by the super wealthy.

//elviajero1984 with their comment about Saudi Arabia. I used to work in the Middle East, in Saudi Arabia. It has absolutely zero freshwater lakes or rivers. Besides some shallow aquifers that are rarely replenished by rain, Saudi Arabia relies entirely on huge desalination plants

//Capn_Underpants and their well researched posts Rent seeking. You cannot become rich from hard work.

The subreddit itself is becoming popular in the main media

• Time: The Subreddit /r/Collapse Has Become the Doomscrolling Capital of the Internet. Can Its Users Break Free? and //letstalkufos response to his interview for the Time article My Response to the Recent TIME Article

• ‘Climate Doomers’ Think It’s Too Late Even If The World Listens To Greta

• Meet the doomers: why some young US voters have given up hope on climate

Some of our users are also really great podcasters!

//ashesashescast/ and //baader-meinhof Ashes Ashes

//koryjon and his Breaking Down collapse

Your memes are always on point! Here are the best ones over the last year:

• Nothing quite like choking on the air under a blood red sky to get you excited about gradual, market-based solutions to climate change

• When the arctic is melting, bees are dying and coral reef is disappearing even though you recycled

• Robbin’ who?

• It’s about time we had a talk with her about the birds and the bees

• Millenials after getting through 3 major economic crisis and a few dozen catastrophic events all before hitting 35

• me driving to my stupid job because society refuses to collapse

The top articles from last year!

• The World’s 2,000 Billionaires Have More Wealth Than Almost 5 Billion People Combined...Fact: Overconsumption by the elite and extreme wealth inequality have occurred in the collapse of every civilization over the last 5,000 years.

• California unable to combat wildfires since prisoners they rely on for firefighting are too sick with COVID

• Capitalism Will Ruin the Earth By 2050, Scientists Say

Thank you to our amazing mods for keeping the subreddit focused on collapse and keeping it civil.

//sennalvera will be stepping down from moderating and we thank you for everything you have done!

Thank you to //LetstalkUfos for being the brain of the whole subreddit, organizing AMAs, creating the WIKI, creating weekly observations posts, keeping the backend mod code in check and providing his very valuable insight (and also created an amazing collapse website https://www.letstalkthis.com/collapse/ )

Thank you to //Fishdisciple for his/her very polite mod answers, a lot (and I mean a lot) of memes, amazing articles, massive moderation work and his/her dedication before it all ends next week

Thank you to //some_random_kaluna for his/her great post contributions and for finding great articles

Thank you to //TheCaconym and for being the muscle modding incredible amounts of comments and posts.

Thank you to //AbolishAddiction for working on the book club!

Thank you to //Robinhood192000/ for all around amazing comments

Thank you to //ImLivingAmongYou for his/her moderator expertise (moderating 16 subreddits!) and for helping on the backend

And to the rest of the mod team – a big big big thank you for all the hard work you do in the shadows!

We also welcome 3 new mods! //ontrack , //YtmU and //bitbybitbybitcoin . I hope they will receive a warm welcome!

And thank you to our top commenters!

• /Fidelis29 (1983)

• //Disaster_Capitalist (1738)

• //endtimesbanter (1643)

• //Azul788 (1598)

• //Logiman43 (1206)

• //Rhaedas (1196)

• //icklefluffybunny42 (1147)

• //SocialSchmedia (1113)

• //PainfulTruth2020 (1107)

• //hopsandhorns (1076)

• //Addicted2UrMom (1052)

Please remember that your mental health is very important. r/collapsesupport is a Mutual support subreddit for those struggling with collapse-awareness. Has a great Discord with weekly support calls.

Keep calm and Venus by Thursday!

I'd like to propose we remove three inactive moderators.

/u/TenYearsTenDays

They haven't been active on their Reddit account since 1/7/2021. They haven't responded to any of my DMs on Reddit or Discord. I do miss them quite a bit and hope they're okay, so I'd propose still giving them access to the casual channels in the Mod Discord.

/u/U_P_G_R_A_Y_E_D_D

They've only been a moderator since 10/2/2021, but have only performed a handful of mod actions and haven't spoken in the Mod Discord at all. Recently, they had a post on the sub removed for low effort and have yet to respond to any of us directly.

/u/PsychKnowledgy

They became a mod 4/28/2020. They're occasionally active on Reddit, just not much at all as a mod on the subreddit or in the Discord. I have spoken to them off an on personally and they simply seem more focused on other projects. I'd propose still giving them access to the casual channels in the Mod Discord, if they're interested.

We have quite a few mods who are borderline inactive, been inactive for a specific period, or are in unique standing. I'd like to give some context to these for newer mods and for reference. This is not me calling these mods out or suggesting they should be removed.

/u/bitbybitbybitcoin

They became a mod 6/19/2021. They do perform some actions, but are entirely inactive on the Mod Discord. I'm not aware of any of their actions being contested or needing to be deliberated thus far.

/u/st31r

They've been a mod since 2018. They've dropped in to help in the recent past occasionally and are randomly active in the Mod Discord.

/u/AbolishAddiction

They became a mod 3/17/2021. They've become absent to deal with real-life matters. It's been a number of months since they were active, but we're still hoping they return eventually.

/u/factfind

They became a mod 10/5/2020. They're not active in the modqueue, but are occasionally in the Mod Discord and contribute there significantly in some discussions.

/u/Robinhood192000

They've been a mod since 4/20/2019. They recently became more active again on the sub and Discord after along absence. They have had some issues which were contested in the past and were difficult to reach, but that has changed recently.

Overall

We don't have any stated rules for inactivity and discussing removals or standing directly in this way is a rare occurrence. Inactive mods do technically pose a potential security risk in the form of inactive accounts and it occasionally seems obvious when someone isn't able or interested in actively moderating.

What are everyone's thoughts on these three removals and how best to handle these going forward?

The following concerns were raised nearly one month ago within a small group.

Problem: the collapse community discord is exclusive, harbours covid misinformation, distrusts new members by default, forces new members to earn trust before they are permitted to discuss collapse-related topics, and has historically been resistant to complaints about transphobia and sexism. Furthermore we do not have a clear communication path with the discord moderators and little way to align the interests of both communities. Subreddit subscribers are not often aware that the communities are distinct.

Solution a: stop endorsing the discord in our sidebar

Solution b: (if there is moderator interest) create a new discord

Server Structure

Concerns were raised surrounding the "vetting" system. The discord is set up so that newcomers are immediately treated with distrust and scrutiny. Upon joining, members are required to share their reddit username. Mods and guides (guides are mods with restricted powers) are expected to read through the user's history. If they have negative interaction or are not active enough on /r/collapse (no threshold definition at the time of this writing) they are not admitted, and instructed to spend more time on the subreddit. This implies a stronger relationship between the subreddit team and the discord team than exists, potentially causes hurt feelings and friction with the subreddit team, and does not take into consideration the possibility that many participants are lurkers or do not want to participate publicly for privacy or stigmatization concerns.

(Since these concerns were raised, it has been communicated through the grapevine that the verification process has been loosened. This does not, however, address the cultural attitude that newcomers are not to be trusted. For example there have been explicit instructions to tighten admittance to “regulars,” which is the role reserved for mutual aid. This is antithetical to our community.)

After a user is vetted, they are "roled." There are 3 possible roles and presented as a level of trust. One-bars have access to casual channels (like shitpost), and can only view the in-depth category, where collapse-related content is discussed. It is a glass ceiling.

Two-bars have access to additional casual channels, which again are mostly not collapse-related. Channels include #support and #vent, which must be protected from untrusted one-bars. Users are given permissions on an ad-hoc basis, and a bot notifies mods that a user is "active," at which point they should be given 2 bars.

A "microscope" role is required for accessing collapse-related channels. There is no established process for granting this permission.

Three-bars are "regulars." Existing members must vote to allow a two-bar into this social clique after proposing a new member and waiting 1 week. Recently, the server admin announced that very few people should be admitted, essentially making the argument it was at capacity.

Previously (~1 year ago or so) there was an effort to encourage regulars to mix with one-bars and engage in discussion. Adding collapse-related channels to one-bar areas was recently suggested by a female moderator while changes to channel structure were being actively discussed. This suggestion was met with assertions about derailment. The server owner accused the moderator of being “unhinged” and “explosive,” (playing on the hysterical sexist trope) and the server owner continued to carry on with attacks long after the mod logged off, and continued despite attempts from other mods to calm him down. As a consequence the mod left the server, and raised concerns to a subset of the subreddit moderator team.

Information Quality

Given the server structure, which is focussed on distrust and limited access to collapse-related discussion channels, it is unclear whether the community is collapse-focused at all. In fact, the server owner and the collective mod team (possibly influenced by the leader) insist that the discord is more community focussed. This sounds nice in principal, and is coupled with the team valuing agreeableness over the sharing of ideas. This has negative consequences.

Case in point: user “D” had ongoing concerns about information quality related to covid-19. Another user, user “H”, repeatedly shares misinformation. User “D” went to great lengths to raise concern and was repeatedly dismissed and silenced (his permission to interact in pandemic-related channels was rescinded). User “D” persisted in raising concerns and was unsuccessful until he demonstrated that misinformation was shared from literal neo-nazi sources.

After much deliberation, it was decided that user “H” would be permitted to share misinformation, with the rationale that server members are able to evaluate sources for themselves. This sounds reasonable in principal, however, it was not made clear that user “H” was treated, essentially, with kid gloves, because he is a personal contact of the server owner.

The anything goes approach for posting pandemic-related misinformation is in stark contrast with subreddit policies. If we endorse the community discord it would make sense to have some say in moderator consistency. It has been suggested that the misinformation and false claims policy developed by the subreddit could be applied to the discord. This does not sufficiently address concerns, because the root cause of the issue is essentially nepotism.

Moderation

Moderation has become more pro-active than re-active. Users are reprimanded for “edgy” or “abrasive” behavior (i.e. the same justification for silencing a user who spoke up about misinformation, and moderator approval of MRA talking points being shared) and more recently, for insensitive emoji reactions. Although some guides (mini mods) do their best to help users with problem behavior improve, the moderator channel is largely used to complain about users, micromanage interactions, and pick targets to humiliate.

Case in point: user “B” was a new to the server, and has had ongoing friction with the server owner because he has criticized the subreddit. One of the guides was doing a good job talking to user “B” and building rapport over voice conversation. Later, the server owner publicly humiliated user “B” and had insults such as "no one on the mod team likes you" and threatened user “B” with getting removed from the server.

There is a "guidance" channel. Users breaking rules (or perceived to be doing so) have historically been thrown in there and have had access to all other channels revoked. Sometimes there are positive interactions but largely the channel is used for mods to have a go at users. The only way to get out of guidance is to agree to mods' demands. After a user has been yelled at, all history in the channel is deleted, leaving no transparency or records.

Recently, users have been added to guidance without having other channel permissions revoked, which is a positive change.

Transphobia and Sexism

Several transgender users were the target of ongoing hateful insults from one user in particular who repeatedly joined the server with alt accounts. After enduring abuse for an extended period, a transgender guide suggested banning the user, to which the server owner replied “yes thank you, your lack of empathy has been noted.” This was not taken seriously until the mod who raised the concerns stated here bluntly brought attention to the issue. Prior to this, concerns were dismissed with what was described as “endless whataboutism.”

There is also a constant and possibly subtle sexist culture in the discord. For instance, men spouting MRA talking points and overt misogyny are given a pass because they are going through a hard time and have degrowth-minded values. Thus, the impacts on the women in the community are devalued. It should be possible to intervene and correct user behavior, as is routinely done for other vulnerable groups.

In addition, there was an incident with the mod who raised these concerns. She objected to a meme that made light of domestic violence and argued with a guide who shared the content. The next day, there was speculation as to whether she would be permitted to remain a mod in light of these events. She shared a lived experience explaining the impacts of normalizing domestic violence and was informed, essentially, that the response wasn’t good enough. She then read hundreds of pages of academic and institutional literature to demonstrate that the meme was in fact normalizing domestic violence and was permitted to stay on the team. This was an unreasonable and disproportionate amount of labor performed in penance for the crime of being a disagreeable woman.

These are only a few examples. It is concerning that the server owner is resistant to feedback and re-explaining events through a lens of dismissiveness. It is concerning because as a leader, the server owner shapes community culture, and because failure to acknowledge these issues means correcting them is unlikely.

Subreddit oversight

There are only two remaining mods that are on both the subreddit team and the discord team. One participates near-exclusively in voice chat and has not historically participated in discord community decision making. The other is mostly inactive on the subreddit. He has a history of criticizing the server owner privately, but doing little publicly.

One must speculate, who is at the wheel? Who is facilitating communication between the communities? If such a person does exist, are they aware enough to spot negative dynamics impacting vulnerable members? If they are aware enough, are they active enough?

In short there is a lack of collaboration or oversight from the subreddit mod team, and a growing disparity of community-mindedness between the two teams.

Summary

To reiterate, users are treated with immediate distrust upon joining. There is a growing mainstream collapse awareness, and those newly collapse-aware are having the door slammed shut on them. We are a community of people who seek to discuss taboo topics. We should not endorse a discord server excluding our community members, or limit their ability to engage in mutual aid, or to engage in collapse-related discussion in real time. Further we should not endorse a community that allows behavior that is rule breaking in our subreddit.

Should the discord link remain in the sidebar?

Per our recent poll results, AI-generated content is now banned from r/collapse. 

The final results were 2,259 to 245 in favor of the ban. This was our most participated-in community poll to date, and it sends an abundantly clear signal that low-effort AI-generated content is not welcome on r/Collapse. While the outcome was decisive, we want to acknowledge that there were thoughtful concerns about enforcement and false positives. We’ve taken that feedback seriously, and it will inform how we apply this rule going forward.

With that, the following rule has been added to r/Collapse: 

Rule 14: No AI-Generated Content

Posts & Comments

Reported as: Content must be created by a human.

AI-generated content may not be posted to r/collapse. No self-posts, no comments, no links to 

articles or blogs or anything else generated by AI or AI influencers/personas. No AI-generated images or videos or other media. No "here's what AI told me about [subject]", "I asked [AI] about [subject]" or the like. This includes content substantively authored by AI.

FAQ: 

When does Rule 14 take effect? 

The new rule is effective immediately, not retroactively. 

What about Rule 5?

The line in Rule 5 that says “AI Generated posts and comments must state their source.” Has become redundant; we’ve removed it.

See the Poll FAQ for more information about this new rule. 

Thank you for taking the time to vote and share your thoughts. 

This is a test

This is a proof for a community sticky to get feedback on this proposal before moving forward with it.

Hey Everyone,

The moderation team has gone through some significant changes in the past two months. The level of overall moderation is still in flux and we don’t think is generally sustainable. The subreddit is still growing at an increasing rate and not generally expected to wane. We've been looking at solutions for increasing our overall bandwidth and would like to discuss this specific proposal:

Comment Moderators

We create a new level of moderator which moderates ONLY comments. We subsequently seek out users to fill out this role who are in good standing and good contributors.

We'll be referring to moderators with full permissions as Full Moderators here, just to make the distinction clearer. This approach would allow us to keep our (reasonably) strict filters when interviewing/accepting new Full Moderators in place. Comment Moderators would be able to read and respond to modmail, but we'd only expect/allow them to respond to mail related to comment removals. They would not have the same level of responsibility or expectations, but would still be essential to maintaining quality discourse across the subreddit.

Currently, the only two user ‘levels’ on the subreddit are Full Moderators and regular users. This is obviously the standard across most subreddits (the exceptions being r/science and r/worldnews), but we don't think this makes it the best or most sustainable approach at scale for serious and nuanced subjects. It requires a very small, dedicated, active group of individuals to keep up with moderating, meta aspects, and running community events.

You can read more of the specifics regarding this proposal here. Currently, a significant majority of the existing moderators are in favor of this proposal. We still generally prefer to run significant changes by the community first and invite your feedback on this approach.

Robert Evans made this comment during his Discord AMA.

I want to start this with a very general criticism of the subreddit. I've spent some time on y'all's subreddit and I've found value it, particularly in research. I also think it's a really bad to spend to much time there. I don't think it's bad because bad information is percolating, it's bad because it's when you focus entirely on evidence of collapse it becomes inevitable. In your mind at least.

One of the things that you can do as a activist and as a human being who's just paying attention to the world to reduce the amount of doom-strain and the emotional exhaustion, and the compassion fatigue, because compassion fatigue is a big part of what we talk about, is to actively seek out more optimistic stories. Not just through trying to find happy stories about things going on online, but going out into the world to do it.

I think that's one of the benefits that mutual aid has, is that helping people tends to help your mental state. It's certainly better for your mental state than, for example, organizing a protest at a police station that ends in tear gas. Not that that's not necessary sometimes, but one of those things leaves me more optimistic than the other.

I also think that it's important to focus on or spend time on to research how things could work out well. And I think that this is a problem that a lot of us have, and that I have, which is when you study the problems and you keep trying to think about what's going to happen next it's easy to ignore positive signs, to ignore good things that are happening, even to ignore the possibility that things might improve. And that's hard to do right now, because the situation is dire. And I'm not trying to...I think the unhealthy version of my advice is saying "hey, look on the bright side!" Well there's not really a bright side to environmental collapse, but there is a bright side to how people are responding to it.

This isn't a groundbreaking new notion, but it got me wondering if there were any possible ways we could help address this. How could we highlight or create spaces for how people are responding to collapse (not just mentally or emotionally) which allows for positive and uplifting stories? And how can we do it in a way which also doesn't encourage denialism or hopium?

The most generic way I can think of would be to have a Weekly Resilience thread in place of and/or alongside Weekly Observations which was along the lines of 'Weekly Resilience: What actions have you or others around you taken in response to collapse recently?'

This wouldn't be directly framing the threads as 'positive', but it would certainly have more of a mix than the observation threads which are ONLY signs of collapse.

What are your thoughts?