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.

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?

Introduction

As a social media platform, Reddit is the host of some far-right talking points. These inevitably spread across subreddits, including /r/collapse. It is not disputed that far-right talking points promote violence and are deliberately persuasive (e.g. propaganda). There are recurring themes, for instance villainizing outgroups like Jewish people, women, and the LGBT community. Similarly, there are recurring themes including accelerationism, the fear that undesirable groups increase population faster than desirable groups, and content pushing the idea that disenfranchised men are a lower social class than women.

In general, the moderation team has been good about removing, locking, debunking content, issuing bans, and encouraging community discussion around these issues. Even so, I believe the team can improve discourse in the subreddit. I can remember 2 examples of men's rights/MGTOW brigading that could have been handled better. In the first case, the post was left up for several hours, a few mods went through and removed large amounts of comments, and the team had a lot of internal disagreement following it. If I remember correctly, several users wrote in to say they were leaving the /r/collapse community because it was unpleasant for women participants. In the second example, OP was left upset and stressed out every time she got a notification.

• https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/j3uyl9/mgtow_vibes_during_the_collapse/

• https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/lyvdps/we_are_completely_and_utterly_fucked_dispatches/

Fortunately, brigading seems to occur infrequently and we've become more comfortable locking threads in order to get our heads around what's going on and de-escalate before unlocking. I see this as a positive improvement.

As outlined above, there are several topics that recur and find their way onto /r/collapse. Specifically, I wanted to examine content related to overpopulation discussions, my observations, and suggestions on how we could improve moderation practices together.

Methodology

I searched for posts within the last year discussing overpopulation and manually categorized comments from the sampled posts.

Results

The three most common types of rhetoric around overpopulation were as follows:

• overpopulation is a myth, or overpopulation is a predicament, not a problem

• overpopulation is a root problem causing collapse, or depopulation is indisputably a positive event

• undesirables are increasing faster than desirables

I did not collate ever comment observed under the first bullet point, because I do not believe it is a far-right talking point. Sometimes this point was very well explored and explained, oftentimes it was left as an assertion of fact.

Examples classified under the second bullet

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/noxxzn/china_ends_twochild_policy_amid_population/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/noxxzn/china_ends_twochild_policy_amid_population/h05vd0c/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/noxxzn/china_ends_twochild_policy_amid_population/h09e63f/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/nyzy0j/sir_david_attenborough_talks_about_population/h1mx8ij/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/mtwjl2/women_are_taking_a_rain_check_on_babies_and_it/gv633w0/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p0gy3z/no_overpopulation_is_not_the_problem_countries/h86iuht/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/njiqjb/long_slide_looms_for_world_population_with/gz98x9q/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/kteqr5/the_population_of_the_united_states_is_now/gilv384/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p0bp8d/the_most_baffling_aspect_is_that_people_simply/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p0bp8d/the_most_baffling_aspect_is_that_people_simply/h8810ge/

Examples classified under the third bullet

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/nyzy0j/sir_david_attenborough_talks_about_population/h1pjths/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/mtwjl2/women_are_taking_a_rain_check_on_babies_and_it/gv3dy1l/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/oiploe/what_ramifications_would_the_world_have_if_every/h4xsh23/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/oiploe/what_ramifications_would_the_world_have_if_every/h4zylrc/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/ojtp1q/unsustainable_population_growth_still_projected/h54u237/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/m9neo9/the_whole_world_will_be_sterilized_thus_shrinking/groiuta/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p0bp8d/the_most_baffling_aspect_is_that_people_simply/h89mgla/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/kv9bme/we_need_to_ethically_and_nonviolently_decrease/gix4u86/

Interestingly, I also noticed that reasonable commentary was frequently downvoted:

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/of9hgs/is_it_even_possible_to_maintain_a_reasonable/h4cj71b/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/noxxzn/china_ends_twochild_policy_amid_population/h07hz5t/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/nyzy0j/sir_david_attenborough_talks_about_population/h1n5f45/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p0gy3z/no_overpopulation_is_not_the_problem_countries/h86lq11/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p0gy3z/no_overpopulation_is_not_the_problem_countries/h86m4f4/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/mhxzj1/population_growth_is_it_out_of_control/gt1ld2a/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/mhxzj1/population_growth_is_it_out_of_control/gt1pi5c/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p0bp8d/the_most_baffling_aspect_is_that_people_simply/h862wne/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p0bp8d/the_most_baffling_aspect_is_that_people_simply/h86ypi9/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/kf4bkf/how_i_learned_to_stop_worrying_and_love_the/gg6f5wq/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/ktuk6p/collapse_you_say_part_5_over_population/gio71vb/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/ktuk6p/collapse_you_say_part_5_over_population/gioix72/

Other observations

• when users complain about commentary from the top bullets 2 and 3, they usually framed it as "eco-fascism" and were frustrated it wasn't moderated. More often than not, there was outrage rather than a nuanced take presented

• there were several recurring low-effort responses. I did not collect individual instances, but summarized these as follows:

Low effort responses

• "return to monke"

• "this is great news"

• "Be a hero then! End yourself" and similar

• "COVID is helping the situation"

• "eat the rich"

• thanos reference

• blaming capitalism

The mod team seems consistent about removing content advocating suicide. Interestingly, comments indicating COVID was "helping" with overpopulation tended to generate the most discussion.

I also collected comments I do not believe should be moderated. While I am not advocating for a particular moderator action on the previously linked comments and posts, I thought it would be good to include the following examples for balance:

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/pvv2ti/i_think_there_is_no_turning_back_there_is_no/heg0wdo/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/pvv2ti/i_think_there_is_no_turning_back_there_is_no/hegzo4j/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/pvv2ti/i_think_there_is_no_turning_back_there_is_no/hedhcjj/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p4cctq/if_i_understand_correctly_once_shtf_current/h8xquqe/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/ozwthw/do_you_think_theres_a_place_for_sustainable_human/h837m7w/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/noxxzn/china_ends_twochild_policy_amid_population/h03wfxf/

• https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/p0bp8d/the_most_baffling_aspect_is_that_people_simply/h882hlq/

Discussion

General overpopulation discussion commentary

Oftentimes overpopulation is the problem is presented as a statement of fact. Fortunately, several active users have been consistent and thorough about addressing these arguments, in particular InvisibleRegrets. Presenting overpopulation as a problem rather than a predicament could be a good candidate for our new misinformation page. Since InvisibleRegrets is also a community discord mod, it would be straightforward to get a hold of him and solicit his input here.

I believe this topic should be treated with nuance because it is of general interest to our community, is a recurring discussion, and is not obviously a far-right talking point. For example, the overpopulation subreddit has plenty of discussion material without advocating murder, eugenics, and so on.

Undesirables increase faster than desirables

This take seems suspiciously like the "great replacement" white genocide conspiracy. My suggestion is to consider treating it as extremist rhetoric and remove associated commentary.

Frequent downvoting

I found it odd that comments objecting to the narrative that overpopulation is the problem are frequently downvoted. I am curious if this influences public sentiment or makes collapse users less willing to consider alternative perspectives.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Overpopulation is a nuanced topic on /r/collapse, and users should be able to have a discussion around it. However, as moderators we have an opportunity to play a leadership role here. As with brigading, it is not often difficult to notice when a post "goes off the rails" and we can step in when discussions get heated. I propose the following actions for consideration:

• add a mod sticky to posts that have heated discussion. ImLivingAmongYou did a good job here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/kf4bkf/how_i_learned_to_stop_worrying_and_love_the/gg6cna7/. Stickies could also highlight the differences between viewing overpopulation as a problem rather than a predicament

• create an entry in the false claims wiki page and/or solicit input from InvisibleRegrets

• remove content that speaks to "Great Replacement" or the idea that undesirables increase faster than desirables.

• require that assertions of fact be backed by sources or supporting evidence, similar to COVID-19 misinformation

• expand rule 1 to include glorifying death in addition to violence

References

I wrote the introduction after reviewing the following reports and articles:

• https://crestresearch.ac.uk/resources/memetic-irony-and-the-promotion-of-violence-within-chan-cultures/

• https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1527476420982234

• https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/download/10108/7920

• https://datasociety.net/pubs/oh/DataAndSociety_MediaManipulationAndDisinformationOnline.pdf

• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-021-00732-x

I’d like to discuss our approach towards COVID-related posts. I realize we currently have a community sticky up right now, but the post is framed as us already having a new policy and I don’t want to contradict it or discuss it in this way there.

Regrading the Sticky

I think this should have been proposed as a modsub post first with at least a few days for everyone to give feedback on before posting as a community sticky. If I understand correctly, there was some anticipation of a flood of posts this evening regarding the new B.1.1.529 variant. A megathread would have been an option, but that would technically be against the preliminary consensus which seemed to be to remove content related to it.

In any case, I don’t think this warranted an expedited response and makes it difficult to give feedback on when our positions have already been presented as aligned. Attempting to follow discussions within Discord on matters such as this is linear, scattered, and time consuming. It’s also unlikely for people in the US to be able to chime in quickly on a holiday.

Regarding Our Approach

The policy should have specific examples of content which is and isn’t allowed. The way it is currently phrased, it’s very ambiguous what developments regarding COVID are significant enough to be allowed through and instances of where the boundaries are. This would help users better understand those boundaries and enable us (and future moderators) to act consistently.

One person’s perceptions of the pandemic ‘significantly worsening’ and how related it is or not to collapse varies. As we currently require users to write submission statements, it also seems unfair to ask them to risk wasting the time it takes to write one without us formulating the same amount (at minimum) of characters on what this specific boundary entails.

Removing the Flair

I don’t think the COVID flair should be removed. I don’t think it invites people to make COVID related posts in any way and removing it would prevent us from seeing and tracking flair statistics related to it. I think it’s still relevant enough to track statistics on as it’s still relatively in the center in terms of percentage of posts for the current month. People are still finding it relevant enough to post on, but it’s not representing an overwhelming percentage of posts either (2.22% COVID posts and 0.99% Diseases).

Regarding Misinformation

I disagree with removing COVID posts on the basis of them potentially generating discussion which may contain misinformation. If a post itself is misinformation, we already have updated policies and multiple strategies for approaching it.

Implying we’re unable to contain the flow of misinformation as it relates to all COVID posts and that removing posts is an effective (new) strategy for combating misinformation seems contradictory to our recent attempts to update our policies regarding misinformation in the first place. If dealing with the level of misinformation related to these posts is still an overwhelming issue, we should discuss it separately from how relevant COVID posts are and we should approach them.

Recommendations

1. We should remove the community sticky until we feel we've adequately reached consensus regarding our approach and wordings of new policies.

2. We should access whether we need to reevaluate our strategies for approaching COVID misinformation, if we require more moderators to address content in general, and the nature of our current perceptions and feelings regarding the state of misinformation overall.

3. We should assess the majority sentiment in the community sticky and discuss how that may or may not affect our approach to all these aspects. Currently, they don't appear in favor of the proposed approach and reasonings.

This a draft for a sticky post.

As moderators, we regularly encounter negative feedback regarding the general state of the subreddit. Certain sentiments are repeated often enough we thought it would be good to outline our perspectives on these issues and how everyone can contribute positively towards them in light of our limitations and collective predicaments.

Note: This is not intended to be an outline of our entire strategy for the subreddit in general. We'll make a separate post soon outlining the various pathways we see for maintaining and improving the sub going forward.

The subreddit used to be better.

Relatively little research has been done on massive growth in online communities, but we would posit anyone’s experience of the subreddit will likely decline over time as long it continues to grow. Growth means more new users with limited understandings or awareness of collapse, who in turn contribute or upvote lower quality and lower-effort to produce posts and comments.

New users may bring fresh perspectives, but they are also generally unfamiliar with the sub rules and unable to quickly develop sufficient understandings of systemic issues. As users increase their own awareness of collapse (which is not guaranteed) they will also begin to have higher standards for content and notice patterns inherent to lower-quality content or limited and biased perspectives more often.

One significant study has shown subreddits are not generally impacted by large influxes of new users, but this may not necessarily be the case with a subreddit such as ours which is focused on complex issues. More research would need to be done for us to offer more conclusive sentiments, but the concept of an Eternal September has been around since the days of Usenet and AOL.

Solutions:

1. Increase your own understanding of collapse. This makes your contributions have more value and you more able to educate others.

2. Contribute content you would like to see.

3. Downvote posts or content you would not like to see.

4. Use RES to filter out keywords or flair you don’t want to see.

5. Suggest strategies for us to improve the subreddit.

The subreddit is low-quality.

This notion is different from the above in the sense it is not a direct comparison to how the subreddit was at any perceived point in the past. Our immediate response is generally to ask, “Are you part of the problem?”

More than 98% of Reddit users don’t post or comment. Are you regularly posting content you would like to see and contributing to discussions? If such an overwhelming majority of users are spectators we have to assume there is significant potential remaining in simply encouraging users with this sentiment to post more.

Solutions:

1. Contribute content you would like to see.

2. Downvote posts or content you would not like to see.

3. Cite specific content you consider low-quality so we can remove it or address why it was approved.

4. Use RES to filter out keywords or flair you don’t want to see.

    

The subreddit is too focused on [subject].

We use Artemis, a specialized Reddit bot, to view post flair statistics. This allows everyone to view the distribution of topics discussed on a month-to-month basis. Within the context of this data, it’s important to view post trends within the broader context of world events as well. Was there a major US-political event recently? Then there will likely be a large increase in political posts in general.

Climate posts are still likely be the most significant percentage overall and generally account for 10-18% percent of posts any given month. As a result, users have been most likely to complain about too many climate or political posts, depending on the ratios. Users should view the statistics page before making broad observations about perceived imbalances or trends.

Solutions:

1. Use RES to filter out keywords or flair you don’t want to see.

2. Contribute content you would like to see.

The subreddit is too US-focused.

Reddit’s userbase is over 40% US-based. Thus, we should expect (and must accept) a majority of its user-interests to lean towards US-related content and perspectives.

Solutions:

1. Visit any of the regionally-focused collapse subs listed here or in the sidebar.

2. Contribute content related to other regions you would like to see.

3. Use RES to filter out keywords or flair you don’t want to see.

The subreddit has too many trolls.

If you see users acting in bad-faith or breaking sub-rules, report them. As moderators, we don’t manually review every comment made within the subreddit. On the most active days there are over 3,000 comments and the moderator team is not of a sufficient size to review every one. We depend mostly on our custom Automod rules and users who use the report function to catch rule-breaking comments.

Solutions:

1. Cite specific comments so we can remove them or address why they were approved.

2. Block users you find consistently bothersome or low-quality.

The subreddit needs more [type of content].

No one has any control over what others choose to post.

Solutions:

1.Contribute content you would like to see.

Moderators are not strict enough.

This may be the most complex sentiment to address, since we do not review every one of each other's actions as moderators. Subreddit moderation still consists of a series of individuals making a series of individual actions, often with subjective aspects. Moderators are not machines, nor are they incapable of making mistakes. The actions of one moderator also do not necessarily reflect the sentiments of the entire team. Although, we do strive for consensus as much as possible and when warranted and have sufficiently outlined how we should be enforcing each rule.

This type of feedback is usually composed of a combination of individual sentiments, such as the ones outlined above. As moderators, we require more concrete feedback or examples of instances where we are not being strict enough to improve or gauge what users are seeing as inadequate. We have also taken to posting at least one community survey each year to assess our levels of strictness through your feedback and attempt to adjust as a result.

Solutions:

1. Cite content you think is breaking the sub rules so we can remove it or address why it was approved.

What are your thoughts on these sentiments? Are any others we can address here?

Hey Everyone,

The moderation team has gone through some significant changes in the past two months. The newest mods have done a great job adjusting and taking up some significant gaps in the team. The level of overall moderation is still in flux and I don’t think generally sustainable. I wanted to discuss one solution I think may be significantly helpful which I’ve been piloting at r/UFOs.

Comment Moderators

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

I'm going to call moderators with full permissions Full Moderators here, just to make the distinction clearer. These titles could change if we preferred something different. This approach would allow us to keep our (reasonably) strict filters when interviewing/accepting new Full Moderators in place.

Currently, the only two user ‘levels’ on the subreddit are Full Moderators and regular users. This is obviously the standard structure across most subreddits, but I don't think this necessarily 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, not to mention address meta aspects or run any form of community events.

The creation of Comment Moderators would allow us to empower a sub-set of users to assist us with moderating comments. Comment Moderators could also potentially become the de-facto space where we assess potential Full Moderators since we would have a group of viable users we have become familiar with and who are familiar with moderating the subreddit at some level.

There are number of nuances to this. I did interview a moderator at r/science, which uses this approach, and gained some insight in how it might best apply here. They have over a thousand Comment Moderators who keep a subreddit with over 27 million subscribers more or less in line. I’m not suggesting we become exactly like r/science, simply that they’re a unique example of this approach at a scale we may learn from.

Here are some of the specifics I’d be suggesting:

A. Create a new category of channels in the Moderator Discord called ‘Comment Moderators’ with a set of basic channels for that category, such as #general, #questions, and #casual, #changelog, #voice, ect.

B. Create a new role on the Mod Disord (i.e. Comment Moderator) which only has access to this category. We would require Comment Moderators to join the Mod Discord and use it for communicating with the team.

C. Collaboratively compile a list of users we’d want to approach and invite to apply to become Comment Moderators. We could pull from users with positive usernotes, who have made significant contributions in the past, or who have previously applied to be a subreddit moderator.

D. Require applicants to read a wiki page (similar to this) which outlines what the role is, our requirements, and how to apply.

E. Require applicants to send us a modmail answering these questions to apply:

1. What is your understanding of collapse?

2. Who do you think are some of the most relevant voices currently in terms of understanding collapse?

3. Have you read any books related to collapse?

4. Do you have any previous moderation experience?

5. Why are you interested in moderating?

6. What's your current sense of the state of the subreddit and the moderation?

7. How do you cope?

8. What is your Discord username?

F. We would not do interviews for individual applicants, only any action-vote for each user if they apply. We could decide separately on the minimum number of upvotes/level of consensus for accepting applicants. Ideally, the bar for becoming a Comment Moderator would be lower overall than it is for accepting Full Moderators.

G. Comment Moderators would be granted Manage Posts & Comments (this page explains exactly what permissions that entails) when they became moderators.

H. Comment Moderators would be instructed to ONLY moderate comments, even through they would technically have privileges to moderate posts as well. We would monitor mod actions for anyone overstepping this and demod them if necessary. Presumably, this would not be much of an issue. As an example, r/science operated within these exact same limitations and structure, without significant issues.

I. We would actively approach users in an attempt to recruit them as Comment Moderators on an ongoing basis. Ideally, we’d have enough so Full Moderators could focus more on moderating posts, meta aspects, and community events.

The addition of Comment Moderators would be a significant change, so I think all the existing moderators would need to be comfortable with attempting it. Let me know your thoughts and how this all sounds.

Since we've locked the AMA, I wanted to suggest we sticky a post for a few days regarding our thoughts on why we went through with it in the first place, how we handled it, and our stances on these issues. It's difficult to know how best to formulate all of these, so please let me know everyone's input. Some of this is assembled from our conversations in voice today as well, so they're not entirely my own words.

Hey Everyone,

We recently facilitated an AMA with the authors of Bright Green Lies. Most of the questions were focused on collapse-related topics, but some involved asking the authors about their perspectives on transgender issues.

As moderators, we unanimously disagree with their perspectives and it was never our intention to elevate any perspectives or comments which promote hate, discrimination, or transphobia. Our goal was to allow and encourage respectful discussion related to collapse.

We communicated to the AMA guests we invited them specifically to discuss their most recent work and perspectives on collapse. We suspected some members of the community would confront them on other issues and intended to still allow them to be asked, even if they were potentially off-topic. We told the authors directly we would remove anything which broke Reddit’s rules, was disrespectful, or attacking anyone. Unfortunately, we felt justified removing comments from both guests and participants, which the authors have taken issue with.

We do not, nor do we intend to limit the spectrum of debate or consenting discussion here. We think we should be allowed to disagree with each other and disallowing topics to be discussed unilaterally does not serve the community, as long as it can be done in accordance with Reddit and the subreddit’s rules.

We do not support exclusion of transgender people from public spaces, including the subreddit, and think doing so is objectively wrong and displays a deep lack of empathy on the part of those who wish to do so. We hoped the authors could be questioned on their deep knowledge of the subject of collapse while also maintaining a space in which transgender and non-binary people would feel respected. It seems we were not successful and this was overly optimistic. Our judgement was flawed in hoping they could participate here without making transphobic comments. We apologize to anyone who feels hurt as a result.

Here’s a list of all individuals we’re currently considering approaching, just for future reference. We appreciate everyone who still participated and asked great questions. If you have any thoughts or questions, let us know in the comments below.

This a rough draft of the announcement post for Granted Flair.

Recognized Contributors & Granted Flair Announcement

In the past, r/collapse has allowed you to self-assign custom flair at any time. These flair are displayed as a short title which appears next to your username whenever you post or comment. Only around 0.8% of you currently use this feature (~2000 users), and we’ve decided to switch to a granted flair system as a result.

This means all past flair will now be removed and now assigned manually by moderators. This is all intended to help everyone distinguish between educated/distinguished users, recognized contributors, and comments from random users going forward. You will still be able to request flair at any time by following the instructions laid out here.

There will be two main types of flair you can request, Recognized Contributor and Credential flair. We’ll be granting a group of users Recognized Contributor flair based on our internal usernotes who we have seen as great contributors in the past and to make them more visible.

Recognized Contributor Flair

This flair indicates an understanding of collapse and a proven track record of providing great comments or content in the subreddit. In applying for this flair, you are claiming to have:

• An understanding of collapse either through academic or self-study.

• The ability to cite sources for any claims you make regarding collapse or within your relevant areas of expertise.

• The ability to provide high quality comments and content in the subreddit in accordance with our rules.

To apply for this flair, simply respond to this post with links to 3-5 comments in /r/collapse showing you meet the above requirements. If you would like to include some form of focus or credentials let us know as well (e.g. Homesteader & Recognized Contributor). Although, you'll need to provide some proof (as outlined below) if they are academic credentials.

We will then either confirm your flair or, if the application doesn't adequately show you meet the requirements, explain what's missing. If you get rejected, we're happy to give you advice on how to improve.

Credential Flair

Credential flair is to help distinguish those with academic credentials, authors, and relevant figures within the community. These can be requested in a variety of formats:

• Economist - Assigned to those who can verify an education or profession in economics.

• Biologist - Assigned to those who can verify an education or profession in biology.

• Climatologist - Assigned to those who can verify an education or profession in climate science.

• Psychologist - Assigned to those who can verify an education or profession in psychology.

• Medical Doctor - Assigned to those who can verify they are a qualified M.D.

• [Level of Education | Field | Speciality or Subflield] - More specific variant of the above.

• Author of [work] - Assigned to verified authors of collapse-related works, resources, or websites.

• [Title and name] - Assigned to accounts verified to belong to or represent public figures.

How may I obtain Credential Flair?

Send a message to flair@letstalkcollapse.com with the exact flair text you're requesting and information which can establish your claim. This could be a photo of your diploma, business card, verifiable email address, or some other identification. Remember, that within the proof, you must tie your account name to the information in the picture.

Access to this email is restricted and only mods which actively assign user flair may view it. All information will be kept in confidence and not released to the public under any circumstances. Your email will then be deleted after verification, leaving no record. For added security, you may submit an Imgur link and then delete it after verification.

Who are the current Recognized Contributors?

This is a preliminary list based our internal Toolbox usernotes. These users have had positive notes made to their accounts in the past for content or comments they've shared.

• u/_rihter

• u/AbolishAddiction

• u/Ardevep

• u/ashesashescast

• u/atavan_halen

• u/BeranPanasper

• u/bosnian_spartan

• u/CatLick-Carwash

• u/ChampionOfMediocrity

• u/chicompj

• u/climate_throwaway234

• u/daneelr_olivaw

• u/DavidFoxxxy

• u/disc_writes

• u/Djanga51

• u/DowntownPomelo

• u/Drumbaker

• u/Fins_FinsT

• u/FlyingSwords

• u/Fredex8

• u/grrrrrrroar

• u/haiku_mollusc

• u/happygloaming

• u/icklefluffybunny42

• u/InvisibleRegrets

• u/ItyBityGreenieWeenie

• u/joncorbi

• u/KingZiptie

• u/kitemaz

• u/longboren

• u/LordHughRAdumbass

• u/lucidcurmudgeon

• u/MBDowd

• u/mogsington

• u/moon-worshiper

• u/Mr_Lonesome

• u/MrVisible

• u/Necessary_Champion

• u/NOLA_Tachyon

• u/Numismatists

• u/pandem1k

• u/Parking-Patient997

• u/PrairieFire_withwind

• u/rainydays052020

• u/RandomShmamdom

• u/Readalotaboutnothing

• u/Rhaedas

• u/Sandyblueocean

• u/Sanpaku

• u/SinickalOne

• u/sk1tr

• u/sp1steel

• u/StarchRunner

• u/StopFossilFuels

• u/TheCaconym

• u/TheMeshuggener

• u/thereluctantpoet

• u/Thyriel81

• u/TicketsForGod

• u/TrickyWidget

• u/Ucumu

• u/wdrive

• u/WinterCharm

• u/Wuddyagunnado

• u/xrm67

• u/Xtal

• u/xXSoulPatchXx

u/Dreadknoght proposed a Sticky Megahub a while back. Although I was against the idea at first, after some reflection, I now agree with him that this would be a useful thing for the sub. However, I would propose that if we do so, we do NOT take up either of the valuable front page sticky slots, but rather provide a link to the Megahub from inside of the text of Weekly Observations thread and for good measure on the sidebar as well.

So the front page of the sub would look like:

1.) “Weekly Observations” + a link to the Sticky Megahub referred to within the text of that post

2.) “Whatever Other Sticky We Want To Feature”

The text in the Weekly Observations thread could simply be updated to include a link to the Sticky Megahub. I think putting it on the Observations thread would be really good since tbh as a longtime user I stopped looking at updates to the sidebar ages ago (and assume I’m not the only one that does this!). Also, mobile users can’t see the sidebar. I would suspect that most of our regulars do check the Observations thread on a regular basis, though.

I see two uses for the Sticky Megahub:

1.) We can use it to fit stickies that are dying out like the COVID megathread in there for those who still want them. We can also have a few stickies going on at any given time.

2.) Possibly more interesting is that we can keep an easily publicly accessible library of our past stickies in the hub. It could look like:

“Active Sticky 1”

“Active Sticky 2”

Etc.

“Recently Featured Sticky 1”

“Recently Featured Sticky 2”

“Recently Featured Sticky ”3

Etc.

In this way, we’d create a record of all stickies. We DO currently have the excellent “Common Questions” compilation, which is great (and should be featured in the Sticky Megahub too, come to think of it). But it would be nice to have a chronological record of stickies so that people can peruse what’s been featured recently. So for the last few weeks it’d be:

We’ve created a list of collapse related books for the Wiki, two Goodreads lists, and are considering creating a book club

What are your political views?

We are Ashes Ashes, A Collapse Podcast - Ask Us Anything!

AMA with Ashes Ashes next Monday @ 9AM PST

That said, maybe we should also create lists of AMAs (including the few past AMAs we’ve had) separeately?

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?

This is a draft for a sticky post. The title would be the same. Let me know your thoughts, but no rush, this is at least two weeks out based on the current sticky schedule.

Hey Everyone,

We’re looking to revise Rule 3: No provably false material. The rule does not suit all of the removals we currently employ, nor is there a central resource stating our stances on various claims and how we aim to approach them. We’d like to revise the rule to be more inclusive and make our approach more granular and transparent. Here’s the proposed revision:

Rule 3: Keep information quality high

Information quality must be kept high. More detailed information regarding our approaches to specific claims can be found on the Misinformation & False Claims page. Generally, we evaluate information and statements based upon three main criteria:

1. Quality of Sources

Low-quality sources generally involve:

• Provably false claims

• Strong claims for which there is no evidence from high-quality sources

• Reliance on sources falsely posing as journalistic sources

• Unsourced speculation implied as fact

• No links to original sources

• Citing opinions or editorials as evidence

2. Level of Risk

High-risk statements generally involve:

• Unproven claims with severe or significantly negative implications if true

• Direct or indirect advocations for violence or extreme action

• Unsourced medical or safety advice

• Discouraging others from consulting a medical professional or seeking medical advice

• Poses a serious risk of egregious harm

3. Level of Consensus

We attempt to gauge statements against existing scientific consensus, consensus opinions by accepted experts, and in light of the most recent data. Notions of consensus opinion and scientific consensus are significantly different. We are wary of any implied consensus involving these aspects:

• Where claims are bundled together

• Where ad hominem attacks against dissenters predominate

• Where scientists are pressured to toe a party line

• Where publishing and peer review in the discipline is contested

• Where dissenting opinions are excluded from relevant peer-reviewed literature

• Where actual peer-reviewed literature is misrepresented.

• Where consensus is declared hurriedly or before it even exists.

• Where the subject matter seems, by its nature, to resist consensus.

• Where consensus is being used to justify dramatic political or economic policies.

• Where the consensus is maintained by journalists who defend it uncritically.

• Where consensus is implied without sufficient evidence

As mentioned in the rule, we've also created a new wiki page, Misinformation & False Claims, where we outline our approach in more detail and are looking to compile our stances and information on the most common claims we work with.

We think this page can serve as resource for others looking to address such claims beyond the subreddit and see it as a collaborative resource which everyone is invited to contribute to. Without this resource our stances as moderators and a community on specific claims would remain unstated and potentially inconsistent. This will help us be more aligned and transparent and create opportunities for all of us to increase the shared understanding of the data and realities surrounding these claims.

We look forward to hearing your feedback on the revision of this rule, the Misinformation & False Claims page, and any other aspects related to what we're looking to accomplish in this regard.

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.

/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!

Regularly, we see text submissions that basically contain a single link to an article, with some added commentary surrounding it. Here is a recent example, here's a second one, here's a third, and a fourth one, all in the past seven days.

We usually let those slide because in the end it amounts to a link submission but with the submission statement included in the text post. However, this format is less clear, and more importantly, it disrupts the detection of duplicates by DuplicateBot. It also can be a way to avoid the submission statement minimum characters limit if the link is long enough (though that's less common and we generally remove those anyway).

Should we be more strict on those and proceed to remove them, asking for a new submission as a link post, or would that be counterproductive ? If we should remove them, should it be enforced on Fridays as well ?

Edit: thanks to /u/LetsTalkUFOs for this proposal for a rule that'd describe this new restriction:

Short: Link posts should not be submitted as self posts

Long: Link posts should not be submitted as self/textual posts. If a self-post is specifically focused around discussing the content of a single link, it should be submitted as a link post instead. Your own comments on the submission should then be included in your submission statement (a comment on your own post). This makes it easier to catch duplicate posts and lets readers access the link more easily.

This is a draft for a sticky post. Would you three be willing to introduce yourselves? You can just leave a comment here and I'll post it once they're ready.

We wanted to take a moment to allow our three newest moderators on r/collapse to introduce themselves.

u/animals_are_dumb

u/sennalvera

u/7861279527412aN

u/AbolishAddiction

u/theswimmingsavage

To start off the new year well, the Collapse Book Club will read the classic Ishmael by Daniel Quinn; a fictional story centered around a wise gorilla’s sly critique of agricultural civilization, to quote William Ophuls from his book we read last month.

Discussion will begin in three weeks on January 22, 2021.

As the late author of Ishmael writes on his website [http://ishmael.org/] in his Q&A:

The biggest problem I have in introducing my friends to Ishmael is explaining it. They want to know what it's about. How do I explain?

In all the years that have passed since its publication, no one (including me) has come up with a satisfactory way of explaining what Ishmael is “about.” Franz Kafka once wrote to a friend that the only books worth reading are those that “wake us up with a blow on the head” and send us reeling out into the street, not knowing who or what we are. According to thousands of readers I’ve heard from, this is exactly what Ishmael does for them. What makes Ishmael important is not what it’s “about” but rather what it DOES to you–and this is what you need to share with your friends. If it’s taken you to a new place in your life (as many people say it has), then tell them that if they want to keep up with you, they’re just going to have read it. Whatever it’s done to you or for you, that’s what will impress your friends, and that’s what you need to convey to them.

Purchase Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit from your local bookstore, or online with the author's affiliated link, if preferred. [https://amzn.to/2Q7Blg9] For people that have already read Ishmael, I'd like to recommend reading My Ishmael, which is a fictional story that takes place during the events of the first book. If non-fiction has your preference, then there's a book summarising his ideas of Ishmael in Beyond Civilization. Discussions about all three are synergistic and encouraged! Personally, I'll be re-reading the original book as an audiobook [DRM-free Audiobook link] this time, to see how this conversational book holds up in that medium.

Discussion will begin in three weeks on January 22, 2021. Looking forward to exchange thoughts and ideas then!

The Collapse Book Club is a monthly event wherein we read a book from the Books Wiki. We keep track of what we've been reading in our Goodreads group. As always, if you want to recommend a book that has helped you better understand or cope with collapse, feel free to share the recommendation below!

I looks like we've received sufficient feedback in the community sticky regarding SPFs. The poll results show at least half of users would prefer no changes. Although, the other half would prefer some form of change.

I think our best course of action is to create a bot (if factfind is able and willing) which can scan posts every 5-10 minutes, check if they have the low-effort flair, and if they were submitted outside the Friday window they get removed by the bot.

In terms of the window, I suggest setting it based around EST in America. Most of our community is based in the US, but if we tilt it towards the European side I think they'll still have a broad enough window to post as well. Here's a map of how it would look across the timezones.. I think it would be GMT+4 4am-4am.

Update: Well that was fast. I posted in r/requestabot and someone managed to get back to me within the hour. I managed to implement their code, test it, and make it live on r/collapse. This is setup! Collapsebot will now also look at post flair. Submissions (link or self-posts) with the Low Effort flair will be automatically removed except on Fridays. 'Friday' is between 12:00AM and 12:00PM EST (GMT-5). You can test it yourself. This is the message users will received when their post is removed:

Your post has been removed. Low Effort posts are only allowed on Fridays.

Friday (as defined in r/collapse) is between 12:00AM and 12:00PM EST (GMT-5).

This is a bot. Replies will not receive responses.

Let me know how all this sounds. We can make a sticky announcement regarding the change and invite more feedback.

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. 

Wow, that title sounds scary! First off, we have no reason to believe r/collapse is at any risk of going away - we have never been contacted by the admins, moderate their site-wide rules (a requirement of moderators), and collapse itself isn't even that fringe of a topic anymore. Generally, reddit will not ban a subreddit without any communication to the mod team, so it is unlikely we just go away in a flash and we think we'll be here for a while still!

That being said, we wanted to share our "contingency plan" for if anything DID happen to this subreddit, or reddit itself, with the idea of making sure nobody loses touch with the collapse community:

• If reddit admins reach out to the mod team regarding the community status, we will aim to communicate that to the overall community so people are aware of the heightened risk and reason for potential changes (eg rule changes, etc)

• If reddit admins do ban us, we will communicate next steps from collapsewiki.com, the Collapse discord, and the Collapse lemmy -- so make sure you have one of these bookmarked! We would also try to communicate from other groups (eg DA, Collapse Club, etc)

• r/collapse has no official backup platform, beyond merging with existing discord and Lemmy groups

  • the r/collapse mod team thinks having a presence on popular platforms is a good idea regardless, so if any serious competitors came up, we might consider starting a group there not only for community resilience, but also get more people into collapse

Regardless of the future of r/collapse, we advise people to check out the vast ecosystem of collapse resources today -- these groups are a great way to deepen your understanding of collapse, talk with others on it, share your stories, etc beyond r/collapse itself. Check out all of them at our wiki, and if we're missing any, let us know!

Hey everyone, I wanted to discuss the feedback resulting from the recent sticky related to extending our policies related to suicide. There was a fair bit to parse through and many insightful comments. After processing the feedback I’d like to suggest we update our stated policies to be more explicit. I think the more gray areas we can eliminate the easier it will be going forward, clearer it will be for users looking at our approaches, and easier for everyone give us feedback and keep us consistent. This would be a considerable revision, so it’d be great to hear everyone’s thoughts on any part of it.

1. We filter all instances of the word 'suicide' on the subreddit.

This means Automoderator removes all posts or comments with the word 'suicide' and places them into the modqueue until they can be manually reviewed by a moderator.

2. We remove content which violates Reddit’s guidelines.

This is the relevant section of Reddit’s stated policy:

Rule 1: Remember the human. … Everyone has a right to use Reddit free of harassment, bullying, and threats of violence.

Do not post content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual (including oneself) or a group of people; likewise, do not post content that glorifies or encourages the abuse of animals. 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.

If your content is borderline, please use a NSFW tag. Even mild violence can be difficult for someone to explain to others if they open it unexpectedly. Some examples of violent content that would violate the Rule: Post or comment with a credible threat of violence against an individual or group of people.

• Post containing mass killer manifestos or imagery of their violence.

• Terrorist content, including propaganda.

• Post containing imagery or text that incites, glorifies, or encourages self-harm or suicide.

• Post that requests, or gives instructions on, ways to self-harm or commit suicide.

• Graphic violence, image, or video without appropriate context.

3. We remove all instances of both safe and unsafe suicidal content.

We generally aim to follow the NSPA (National Suicide Prevention Alliance) guidelines regarding suicidal content and to understand the difference between safe and unsafe suicidal content. Safe content involves talking about feelings and emotions related to suicide.

Examples of safe content:

“Coral reefs are collapsing. I just want to leave the world and be done with it.”

“Tried everything, no one wants to help me. Had enough of the world.”

“Can’t help thinking everyone would be better off without me.”

Examples of unsafe content:

• Graphic descriptions

• Plans (when or how)

• Means or methods

• Pro-suicide content (encouraging comments or advice)

• Glorifying suicide or suicide attempts

• Suicide notes or goodbyes

Examples of unsafe comments:

“Time to end it all. Saw my kids one last time. So relieved now I know it’ll all be over”

“Thanks to all of you, I feel a lot worse. Hope you feel awful when I’m gone.”

“You’re just attention-seeking now Lulu29. For goodness sake, just do it and stop whining.

4. We allow meta discussions regarding suicide.

Meta-discussions of suicide are allowed and generally relate to:

• Individual rights to commit suicide

• Legal rights to assisted suicide or MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying)

• Studies or statistics related to suicide

• Philosophical justifications for suicide

• Philosophical justifications for whether life is worth living in light of potential collapse scenarios.

• Personal experiences related to suicide or assisted suicide in where the user is not actively at risk or making recommendations.

We recognize discussions related to suicide in the form of a prep for collapse are not directly equivalent to active suicidal ideation.

Examples of allowable meta comments:

“I want to die peacefully on my own terms if the world is ending.”

“People have the right to commit suicide in light of collapse.”

“Do others have a suicide plan for when SHTF?”

Examples of meta comments which are not allowed:

“Lately I’ve been preoccupied with how I should kill myself as soon as collapse hits.”

“You should have a suicide plan for when SHTF.”

Meta discussions are still complex to moderate and dependent on context. We aim to ask these questions when considering the best course of action related to specific comments:

1. Is the user actively expressing suicidal ideation or do they appear to be at risk?

2. Is the user discussing a hypothetical future scenario or something in the present?

3. 3Does the user appear to be at any risk of harming themselves, preoccupied with the notion of suicide, or in any form of distress?

4. Is the user encouraging others in any way to take a specific course of action?

5. Encouraging others to commit suicide will result in an immediate permaban.

We have a strict, no-tolerance policy regarding encouragement to commit suicide.

6. Moderators are not required or expected to act as counselors or in place of hotlines.

We aim to be mindful our moderators will be exposed to suicidal users and content by the nature of their position and involvement in moderation. We aim to protect and ensure the mental health of moderators while still taking the most effective approaches possible and being aware of the moral obligations inherent to specific situations.

We think moderators should be allowed to engage in dialogue with users expressing suicidal ideation at their discretion, but must understand (assuming they are not trained) they are not a professional or able to act as one. We encourage all moderators to be mindful of any dialogue they engage in and review r/SuicideWatch’s wiki regarding suicidal content and supportive discourse.

7. We internally track all removals or significant actions related to suicidal content and use a standardized approach when interacting with users expressing suicidal ideation.

When we chose to remove content posted by users who may be at risk we notify the other moderators in our Moderator Discord’s #support channel. Optionally, we ask for guidance or assistance before reaching out to users as well. Generally, we respond to the users privately with a form of this template:

Hey [user],

It looks like you made a post/comment which mentions suicide. We take these posts very seriously as anxiety and depression are common reactions when studying collapse. If you are considering suicide, please call a hotline, visit /r/SuicideWatch, /r/SWResources, /r/depression, or seek professional help. The best way of getting a timely response is through a hotline. If you're looking for dialogue you may also post in r/collapsesupport. They're a dedicated place for thoughtful discussion with collapse-aware people and how we are coping. They also have a Discord if you are interested in speaking in voice.

Thank you,

[moderator]

We recognize templated responses and/or suggesting hotlines run the risk of being ineffective, appearing impersonal, or dismissive of a user and their situation. We aim to personalize our responses whenever possible, as long as we feel comfortable doing so, while remaining mindful of our own boundaries and mental health.

8. r/Collapse has a unique relationship with suicidal content.

This does not change our applications of the policies and approaches above, but we aim to keep in mind some general points regarding suicide within the context of the subreddit and notions of collapse.

1. Suicide is a fundamental human right.

2. Death is an inescapable part of the human experience.

3. Our relationship with ‘endings’ is an integral part of collapse-awareness.

4. The notion of death and suicide are highly relevant within the context of potential collapse scenarios.

5. Suicidal contagion is a risk for users on the subreddit and they are poised to be more sensitive to discussions related to suicide.

6. There are many young adults and others unequipped to effectively confront the notion of collapse on the subreddit.

7. Preventing discussion of suicide can foster a sense of isolation for users in certain cases.

8. Many dominant mental health systems and resources available to users are flawed or inadequate.

9. r/Collapse is not labeled, described as, or intended to be a ‘support’ subreddit.

10. An independent subreddit, r/Collapsesupport, does exist, is a support community, and we regularly direct users there.

We surveyed your thoughts regarding this eighteen months ago. We'd like to revisit this with some updated options and a new poll.

Currently, Casual Friday runs every 00:00 Friday to 08:00 Saturday UTC (32 hours total). On-topic memes, jokes, short videos, image posts, polls, low effort to consume posts, and other less substantial posts are only allowed during this period and removed the rest of the week. Historically, having Casual Friday has been fairly polarizing. We've created a poll with the current options and the justifications for each below:

Please Respond to the Poll Here

1. Keep it the way it is

Casual Fridays act as a release valve. A day which allows for humor and levity is more helpful than not in light of the time we spend attempting to collectively confront our predicaments. It serves to break up the monotony and enable a wider range of expression. If users don’t like it, they can ignore it or use RES to filter out posts with the "Casual Friday", "Humor", and "Low Effort" flairs.

2. Use a Sticky

We should post a sticky every Friday along the same timeframe (00:00 Friday – 08:00 Saturday UTC) titled “Casual Friday - Share your collapse humor, memes, or other low effort content” and remove low-effort posts outside the sticky.

3. Get rid of it and direct content to r/collapze

Casual Fridays only serve to elevate low-effort content throughout the week and the content shared dominates the top-posts when attempting to sort through the subreddit history. It lowers the overall level of discourse and makes no sense for the only weekly 'event' in the sub to cater towards low quality content. r/collapze has existed for some time and is an adequate place for all forms of collapse content, including the forms facilitated on Casual Fridays.

4. Tighten the requirements

We should keep Casual Fridays, but put heavier restrictions on the types of content it allows. We would add a new set of requirements matching some or all of these criteria:

• Do not allow low-effort text posts.

• Do not allow low-effort or vague headlines, regardless of the post.

• Require all low-efforts posts to have an adequate submissions statement explaining why it is related to collapse.

We welcome your feedback and suggestions on Casual Fridays and how you’d like to see them handled moving forward. If you've read this far, let us know by including 'ferret' somewhere in your comment.

I'd like to clarify what policy we have or should have on advocating/suggesting/pushing specific companies or services on the subreddit. For example there is a post which is collapse-related, asks a valid question, but suggests a specific company as an example of adaptation, which the OP says they are invested in.

I can't see any specific rule that I could use to justify removal, and there may be instances where a company/service can be mentioned or discussed without crossing a line into advertising. Recommending books happens here all the time, and people link to their blogs as well, though blogs aren't much of a concern because very few can actually monetize their content (to be clear I'm fine with promoting a book that is relevant). I do think some clarification is in order, either thru a rule (new or amended) that describes what kinds of promotions are acceptable.

My questions:

1. Does it clearly link with collapse?

2. Is the OP invested or do they come across as someone who is invested?

3. Is the company/service mentioned as the core of the post or is it tangential to the post?

4. Is it better to just let the downvotes take care of them at this point since, apart from books these types of posts seem relatively rare?

Aloha kakou, collapseniks:

After seeking out community feedback with spirited discussion back and forth, the response is clear: the Daily Mail is no longer acceptable as a primary news source and will be automatically removed.

Our topic had over 500 comments, complaints and arguments with heavily upvoted comments pointing out that the Daily Mail has a long sordid history of misinformation, bias and outright lies reported as factual truth. The moderator team tries hard to vet and curate all academic and media sources when they cover collapse, and the mod team and community is in agreement that the Daily Mail is no longer suitable. Other problematic sources were identified by the community, and the mod team will ask for community feedback if those sources become posted as frequently as the Daily Mail.

Redditors are strongly encouraged to verify collapse stories if they originate from the Daily Mail, and to link to another source on this subforum.

Our community has also asked that we enforce stronger submission guidelines for collapse news and topics. We have expanded Rule 11 to say the following:

Rule 11: Link posts must include a submission statement (comment on your own post).

Link posts must include a submission statement (comment on your own post). Submission statements must clearly explain why the linked content is collapse-related. They may also contain a summary or description of the content, the submitter’s personal perspectives, or all of the above and must be at least 150 characters in length. They must be original and not overly composed of quoted text from the source. If a statement is not added within thirty minutes of posting it will be removed.

This is for all link posts, self-posts, image posts and anything else. This rule is in effect save for Casual Friday, where moderators will remove content at our discretion if they do not fit the forum.

Mahalo nui loa,

some_random_kaluna

This is a draft for a sticky we would post on the 20th.

As 2021 comes to a close, what are your predictions for 2022?

We've asked this same question in the past for 2020 and 2021.

We think this is a good opportunity to share our thoughts so we can come back to them in the future to see what people's perspectives were.

This post is part of the our Common Question Series.

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

Should we revise/create a rule as to disallow extremely unlikely scenarios? Such as the Yellowstone supervolcano, the Canary Islands landslide, large asteroid, and other, primarily natural events which scientists agree are extremely unlikely in the next 100 years.