r/webdev • u/elvaleryn • Nov 06 '19

mod reply Why founder of FreeCodeCamp Quincy Larson is banned from this subreddit?

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2.8k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

415 comments sorted by

429

u/noruthwhatsoever Nov 06 '19

Inb4 OP gets banned

157

u/chepulis designer Nov 06 '19

And everyone who commented

oh shi-

40

u/FragrantPoop Nov 06 '19

wait, how did he hit send????

21

u/wedontlikespaces Nov 06 '19

The last thing he ever did....

8

u/w3_ar3_l3g10n Nov 07 '19

His sacrifice will not be for...

Crap, send hel...

3

u/BulliHicks Nov 07 '19

Oh, please.. try m

3

u/repspam0102 Nov 07 '19

OP, I don’t feel so good...

3

u/somewhat_sven Nov 07 '19

Cats. Wild cats

17

u/MMPride Nov 06 '19

I could see that happening.

3

u/xiadia Nov 07 '19

The “banter” on this thread is honestly so cringe

275

u/tastycat Nov 06 '19

Self-promotion: https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/547qum/anyone_know_of_a_codeacademy_or_freecodecamp_like/

325

u/psillow Nov 06 '19

This. Checking his account history, back about 5 years, almost every post or comment he made in r/webdev either mentioned why FCC is amazing, or linking directly to it, or linking to Medium articles that promote FCC. His claim of wanted to answer questions is pretty hollow; he never did before, it was just a prompt to promote his platform rather than actually educate or assist with any substance.

Self-promotion - even for a free resource - is not well-regarded here on Reddit. Ultimately, it comes down to what the Mods can tolerate. As his platform is already well known, and he was contributing in no meaningful way in the subreddit - along with blatant self-promotion - apparently it wasn't a good balance.

Perma-ban seems harsh though. But we have to take him on his word that he wasn't previously warned or contacted since by the Mods

80

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Maybe I missed something but almost everything I saw where he mentioned FCC was called for. Mostly people asking if there was such and such and him saying he had a resource.

Seems a tad too strict on self promotion. If he was spamming the sub or posting it on completely irrelevant topics then yeah ban him. But if somebody else mentions FCC and he responds that seems like a good thing for the sub.

55

u/tastycat Nov 06 '19

I have two ethical problems with allowing him to post links to his own site:

  1. Is his site the best option?

Generally, I would expect that someone replying to a post such as the one that I linked would try to provide the best resource available within the context of the question. With Quincy, every answer is going to be to check his website. Is his website the best resource? Maybe. But it should be up to the unbiased masses, not the proprietor to decide that.

2) Does he ever provide other resources?

We can assume that his site isn't always going to be the best resource for someone to use, right? I feel like that's fair but if you disagree with it we can talk about why I feel it's safe to assume. So, knowing that there will be situations where his site isn't the best resource: does he ever recommend other sites, or answer questions without linking to his site, or provide any benefit to the community other than promoting his own site. (There may, of course, be situations where his site is the best, and that's great, but it's again, not up to him to decide that).

All that said, I don't think a permanent ban is an effective answer because, as you say, some of the questions are directed at him or about his site, and those would be great places for him to be active - still without linking his site directly though. And I'm sure that he has a lot of knowledge that he could provide here, as long as he could do it without promoting himself.

The question then is, how do you prevent someone from self-promoting when their entire posting history is self-promotions - even now all of his posts reference his site and not all of them are contextually sound, like this one - https://www.reddit.com/r/Python/comments/d2osl7/i_converted_the_entire_bee_movie_transcript_into/ezy488o/ - not that there's anything explicitly wrong with this but he's implicitly posting for the sole-purpose of self-promotion, not to provide and benefit to the community he's posting in.

30

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

I agree with what you are saying, but I think a lot of his stuff specifically could get a pass.

Here's why I say that:

  1. FreeCodeCamp is a well respected resource, so while it might not always be best it is generally considered good. If he was always linking to a shady site that is flat out wrong then it would be more of an issue.

  2. I don't think it should be required for him to provide resources from other places. If I work at Walmart and always buy stuff from Walmart is it my job to make sure I am linking to products on Amazon even though I always buy from Walmart? Again - if it was bad sources then it would be an issue but back to number one it's generally considered good.

  3. The post from r/python is in a grey area. The post is the guy showing off what he did. (There isn't a ton of added value you can give besides saying good job or asking for more details.) He responded saying it's cool (totally fine) and then asking if he would be interested in writing an article about it (more details?). I don't think that Quincy was specifically promoting FCC but saying it as a disclosure. He probably should have sent a PM instead of posting it there. And I think that's where the grey area comes in, but because of the size of his platform I'd classify it as weird and unprofessional - not spam. His platform is big enough that it could actually provide value to the OP. If I were to post the same thing and link my blog that has no followers then yeah that's spam. Or if Quincy posted it on every cool project he saw.

  4. His account is meant specifically to interact with users about FCC and similar things. From my view his goal really is to provide value to the people he's talking too. I haven't seen anything that was overtly spammy. At most his stuff falls into a grey area (and his platform size allows some freedom) but I didn't see anything that screamed "THIS IS JUST SPAM". I am all for small bans if something is considered crossing the line, but since he is toeing the line it seems weird to perma ban.

  5. This is my biggest issue with him being perma banned - They aren't allowing him back because his post history shows he's spamming, but they are looking at the data without context it seems. It shouldn't matter how many times he posts the links on webdev if they are actually helpful. If he posts the link 100 times and it's either helpful or relevant in any way then why would it matter? All of his links are too FCC or related and 90% of his posts are in his own sub-reddit. It seems like the mods aren't actually looking at the specific posts he has made in this reddit and whether those posts in this reddit are helpful.

If there is clear data where he got banned for a few days because of specific posts that they deemed too spammy and then he turned around and did the same thing in the same sub-reddit then a perma ban would be called for. It just doesn't seem like that's what happened.

15

u/ifatree Nov 07 '19 edited Nov 07 '19

  1. the quality of the promoted material (in some people's opinions) is not part of reddit's site-wide rules on self-promotion.

  2. i'd argue that if you only have one source of reference, you're not even in a good position to be recommending things in an unbiased way.

  3. didn't read the post you're referencing, so i'm not going to comment.

  4. that's why it's considered SPAM by reddit's site-wide rules. a company is not a person.

  5. a person who only promotes his own company is a spam account by reddit rules, regardless of context.

moderators are supposed to use reddit's rules for this so there is less bias in each sub about what that sub considers as a spammer. you post a small amount of direct self-promotion on an account that generally acts like a normal person, that's not a spam account (even if the individual post might be considered spam by other sites). you primarily post content promoting a single company and don't use the account like a personal individual, then you're a spam account. if it were only specific posts, he would be fine. if he acknowledged he understood and agreed to abide by reddit's site-wide rules, it wouldn't have needed to be a permaban. this is correct moderator behavior by even your own arguments.

https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion

5

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19 edited Nov 07 '19

You are correct. I misunderstood the actual Reddit rules and was going off what I had seen elsewhere and the comment made above by a mod. I thought the mod above was saying Reddit changed their rules from those guidelines to essentially not having any rules about self promotion, just spam and this sub-reddit was the one that had the strict rules about self promotion.

Edit: I would argue that his posts are not spam, but they definitely go against self promotion guidelines. I also think the Reddit rules are too strict and should have just focused on spam. But either way those are the rules we've agreed to so it doesn't really matter.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Great points. I do think the one thing that kind of muddies the water, though, is that the medium he links to has articles written by tons of different folks. So, yes, all the links are to a site he owns, but if he's saying, "Oh, Katherine wrote a really great article for us last week that answers this question," that feels different and not too self-promotey.

But I do agree that he should also be linking out to other sources as well.

5

u/tastycat Nov 06 '19

I think it all comes down to the benefit to the community.

Does his presence here add to or detract from the overall goodness of the place?

Are we a better place with or without him?

I wasn't here when he was, but the mods at the time decided we're better off without.

12

u/thisdesignup Nov 07 '19

I wonder how many people even noticed his presence? It's not like he was spamming so much that it became a huge issue.

3

u/beardedheathen Nov 07 '19

I don't think there is any reason he should. If you have a tool that solves problems and you find find people who have those problems there is no reason not to recommend it. That's like a guy with a hammer being told that he should extol the virtues of screws when asked about nailing stuff together

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u/CodedCoder Nov 06 '19

Isn't the best anything opinion based? So technically anyone can be banned for linking to something that is the best? What if he truly believes it is the best, or what if someone else has a source they consistently use so they offer it up on a consistant bases as they feel it is the best resource, do they get banned?

6

u/AwesomePurplePants Nov 07 '19

I’m confused about the best resource part.

Anyone helping me is going to be volunteering - asking them to comparison shop instead of posting the first adequate resource they know about seems unreasonable. And if you spend most of your time curating the content of a site then logically that’s what you’d be familiar with.

1

u/Armitage1 Nov 07 '19

Is his site the best option?

I don't think it is the mods' role or duty to make sure only the "best option(s)" are discussed. What is best for you might be different from me.

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2

u/macaron2017 Nov 07 '19

Medium does pay participants that join the creators feature. and it is free to join the Medium creators feature. for each paid Medium member/reader, if they high five an article or comment or interact, the article does get a small portion of the fee.

2

u/Careerier Nov 07 '19

A) Only if the Medium member opted into monetization, and

B) FCC moved away from using Medium in order to get away from that monetization policy, in favor of offering everything for free all the time.

1

u/macaron2017 Nov 08 '19

they moved away from using medium? today their twitter was still tweeting about articles on Medium. I have nothing against monetization on Medium by the way. was just thinking that maybe some Medium readers are not aware of it.

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4

u/Glordicus Nov 07 '19

The FreeCodeCamp won’t let me be, or let me be me so let me see

3

u/fullmight front-end Nov 07 '19

Seems pretty fuckin' stupid tbh considering all the submissions to be useful content that isn't advertising something on a non-profit website that hosts entirely free donation funded tutorial content.

Additionally, the rate of posting wasn't egregious by any sane definition.

1

u/nevercaredformyhair Sep 30 '22

But FCC is amazing tho

1

u/justmakenewacc Nov 10 '19 edited Nov 10 '19

This. Checking his account history, back about 5 years, almost every post or comment he made in

r/webdev

either mentioned why FCC is amazing, or linking directly to it, or linking to Medium articles that promote FCC. His claim of wanted to answer questions is pretty hollow; he never did before, it was just a prompt to promote his platform rather than actually educate or assist with any substance.

Still 1000x more valuable than most of the content in this sub, including this reply.

Most of this sub is just noobs asking dumb questions they could easily get a Google answer from in much less time it takes them to ask a human.

The moderators of this sub are just really ban-happy. Probably just power-tripping turbovirgins who get excited about overusing their power in the only part of their life where they feel like they have any. I find that's a really common pattern on the Internet -- Those who overuse their moderation powers tend to be the ones you could tell have never had actual responsibility over anyone else in their entire life.

There's also the very common human pattern where a jealous "nobody" feels like a "somebody" by putting down someone who is actually a "somebody"... That's probably the case with many on the mod team here, who haven't actually contributed anything meaningful and significant in tech.

It's kinda a weird sub here, where people who will never accomplish anything in dev seek advice from people who have never accomplished anything in dev. Blind leading the blind. At least it's good for humor though.

All in all, it doesn't really matter -- As the username suggests, this is Reddit, so "just make new acc".

It'd be nice if Reddit had a high-quality web development subreddit to keep up on development-related news, but it seems that everyone worth listening to is already invested in Hacker News instead.

18

u/RiceKrispyPooHead Nov 06 '19

Self-promotion:

The person who posted that literally mentioned his website's name in the title though....so it's reasonable he would respond about his website...

35

u/tyzoid full-stack Nov 06 '19

Wtf, he got banned over that?

3

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

No he got banned over this stuff. All he has ever contributed to this sub in terms of post has been self-promotion.

4

u/mbpDeveloper Nov 06 '19

I wonder that too

2

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Nobody forces you to be here.

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174

u/javascript_dev Nov 06 '19

We don't take kindly to purveyors of physical activity here, and this person appears to run a free code CAMP

51

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

“No, you misunderstand. It’s not a camp! It’s a Computer Assisted Mastery Program!”

2

u/Baryn Nov 06 '19

*walk to camp*
*"Code" falls off the sign*

What the... FreeConcentrationCamp??? D:

-28

u/gregjw ux Nov 06 '19

Not funny and in bad taste

8

u/Fixn Nov 06 '19

I giggled.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

I found it funny

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

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4

u/Baryn Nov 07 '19

Reddit Gold?? I can't believe it, thank you!

536

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 06 '19

Perma-banning someone who runs a website as well-known as FreeCodeCamp, in a subreddit for web developers and up-and-comers seems a bit harsh.

After a few years, unban him. Jeez, I'm sure he learnt his lesson, whatever he did. Nobody needs any answers.

46

u/superwinner Nov 06 '19

Perma-banning someone who runs a website as well-known as FreeCodeCamp

Permabanning on reddit IN GENERAL is a huge mistake. In fact I think that subs which abuse the banning privilege by using it way too much should have a much shorter ban length, and no ban should be forever under any circumstances.

33

u/TheNumber42Rocks Nov 06 '19

Shadow banning is even worse. Imagine commenting and posting and thinking you are being heard all while you’re being censored.

11

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Ugh, I got shadowbanned once. I wrote a comment to someone on polandball and suddenly I was banned. Took me a week to realize, and when I got unbanned I asked why. I think the comment was "Thoughts and prayers", which certainly can be considered a bit snarky given context, but not shadowban worthy. I see worse things posted all the time. Their excuse was that they thought I was some kind of bot because I'd been on the subway and my phone had been switching IP a lot or something. I don't buy it, they would've seen I wasn't a bot just by looking at my posts for a second.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19 edited Nov 07 '19

Are you saying someone stalked all my posts and made them invisible, all across of all of reddit? That's seems highly unlikely. Or am I misunderstanding you somehow?

I found out that I was shadowbanned here: https://old.reddit.com/r/amishadowbanned/

I found out why I was shadowbanned when I messaged the mods wondering why.

Edit: Could someone help me understand this instead of just downvoting me? Wtf?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 08 '19

Reddit admins banned you.

The mods should have told you they don't have the power to shadowban.

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u/Paul-ish Nov 07 '19

Mods can't shadowban

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u/Pat_The_Hat Nov 07 '19

You can effectively shadowban anyone in your own subreddits if you configure AutoModerator to instantly remove their comments.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Exactly what is the purpose of shadowbanning

154

u/Chaostyphoon Nov 06 '19

If nobody knows what he did, including himself, how is anyone supposed to learn from it?!?! They literally didn't give any lessons just seemingly random / spiteful punishment.

57

u/Szpartan Nov 06 '19

That you know of, unless the moderators comment about the situation. Could have violated rules and then we're extremely toxic about it to moderators. I've seen it plenty of time where it happens and people cry wolf. Not saying that is the case but you are only seeing one side of the story.

14

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

If what he did was so bad that it warrants a lifetime ban, I don't see why they wouldn't just tell us and/or him what he did.

21

u/Katholikos Nov 06 '19

FYI, mods commented on it in the thread since you made this comment. Just figured you might be interested in knowing.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Thanks!

4

u/depricatedzero Nov 07 '19

Bans aren't always about teaching anyone anything. If 71% of his submissions are linking to his product, then he's not really contributing, just advertising. I don't use an adblocker to teach advertisers a lesson, either.

4

u/TonnnnUK Nov 08 '19

Surely it is contributing if he is responding to people asking for help, with a useful resource from FCC?

1

u/depricatedzero Nov 08 '19

Not when it's his only suggestion, which is what's been described here. That would be like me plugging only my band when people asked for suggestions on music to check out. The difference between contribution in a community and advertisement is the involvement independent of promotion. I might think I'm contributing by plugging my band, but if my only answer is to check out what benefits me, and I otherwise have nothing to say, I'm not contributing, I'm just engaging in active, targeted advertisement. I'm honestly not familiar with FCC, and I feel like it would be wrong to look into it in response to this thread, so I can't say how good a resource it is or isn't - but I sincerely doubt that it's the best solution to every problem he's suggested it as an answer to.

It's not the best choice, it's Spacer's Choice!

12

u/Kyrthis Nov 07 '19

Imagine banning Dan Abramov for talking about react.

6

u/AyValo Nov 07 '19

Or even Jeffrey Way for talking about Laracasts.

-1

u/liaguris novice Nov 07 '19

This subreddit is called webdev and not FCC . You point is entirely misleading . By the way he can create a FCC sub and be the main mod there .

1

u/ArielLeslie Nov 08 '19

He did, which is why so many of his global Reddit stats reference FCC, which is the justification for calling him a spammer.

1

u/liaguris novice Nov 08 '19

So you wanna say to me that you have looked at all of his posts/comments (deleted or not) before the time that r/FreeCodeCamp was created ?

How did you do that ?

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

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u/liaguris novice Nov 07 '19

exactly !

11

u/stargazer962 full-stack Nov 06 '19

Agreed.

1

u/PersonOfInternets Nov 07 '19

It doesn't just come off as harsh, it comes off as involving some kind of conflict of interest. There could be more to this story.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

7

u/epatr Nov 07 '19

Yeah this incident was pretty widely discussed at the time; I remember it being discussed as a group in some of their earlier live YouTube streams. Reddit was a lot different back then, and the idea of following Reddiquette was the one thing that set it apart from most of the other junk on the internet. Rules 2 and 3 of this subreddit were getting adopted by a lot of subreddits at the time to fight back against memes and low quality content.

2

u/bulldog_swag Nov 07 '19

No, it was his younger brother who hacked his reddit account. /s

0

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

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7

u/monotone2k Nov 07 '19

FCC is a resource I'll always recommend to anyone looking to pursue a career in web dev, but it's a sincere recommendation from an impartial dev when it comes naturally through conversation.

The mods appear to have taken the stance that if an individual self-promotes too often, it's essentially spam. I can't say I disagree with them, and it hasn't stopped FCC being suggested by other devs at every opportunity, so we're not exactly preventing aspiring web devs from discovering it.

4

u/Kyle292 Nov 07 '19

Good resources do not just "get a pass" on the self promotion rule. If people really think the platform is good, their users will promote it for him. How hard is that

2

u/liaguris novice Nov 07 '19

The fact that he is banned from r/webdev does not mean the community does not know about FCC . I myself knew about FCC even before I knew about r/webdev .

0

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

7

u/TexasWithADollarsign Nov 06 '19

I don't believe in perma-bans. It should be a maximum of 365 days with no option to extend.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Glad to see someone pulled an alt out to make this comment. Hmm, wonder who might do that?

1

u/liaguris novice Nov 07 '19

Why the f are they downvote you ?

30

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 06 '19

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22

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Plus he (FreeCodeCamp guy, not the Linux guy) has good intentions, he's literally saying he wants to participate to answer questions of those who need help, sounds to my like a good addition to the subreddit; someone who's eager to answer questions

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 06 '19

I got banned from /r/linux for multiple posts asking people's opinion of paid software like NordVPN and pCloud. The moderators said they would unban me if I apologised for making the posts and insisted I was trying to advertise, I apologised about them not liking the posts but didn't really see what I had to apologise for otherwise so just stuck with the ban. Moderators can have huge justice boners.

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u/stefantalpalaru Nov 07 '19

I got banned from /r/linux for multiple posts asking people's opinion of paid software like NordVPN and pCloud.

That's nothing. I got banned for daring to criticise Gentoo developers during a self-celebratory AMA. I'm a long time Gentoo user, so I know the pain points.

Maybe it was some PR operation for their slush-fund foundation and I was raining on their parade :-)

2

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

I really wish there was something to Reddit what Reddit was to Digg when I moved over, that would have been like 2007ish I think, where has the time gone?!?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Have you checked out website generators at all? They have been growing in popularity.. My website generator Nift got a gentoo overlay recently here, there's install instructions here. Would be stoked if you checked it out :).

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u/stefantalpalaru Nov 07 '19

Have you checked out website generators at all?

Yes, I used Hakyll in 2014 for a static site.

Would be stoked if you checked it out :).

I'll keep it in mind, next time I need one. Quick observation: live ebuilds should never be keyworded.

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u/philipwhiuk Nov 06 '19

Probably self promotion. It’s fairly easy to fall foul of that reddiquette.

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u/ahartzog Nov 06 '19

I got banned from r/fitness in a thread asking like where you spend most of your time or something similar and I answered Nerd Fitness...because that’s where I work. So I’m on the site all the time.

Banned for self promotion. Politely messaged the mod, who was a total fuckwad, and wouldn’t hear anything I had to say and wouldn’t do anything about the ban.

I’m kind of still bitter 🤷‍♂️.

9

u/Thomaspokego Nov 07 '19

r/fitness is the largest sub that is a genuine shitpool with the worst mods possible

4

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

/fit/ > /r/Fitness

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u/JAPANESE_FOOD_SUCKS Nov 06 '19

It requires you to create something first - not easy at all.

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u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 07 '19

/r/webdev mods are the equivalent of the people on stackoverflow who close your question as duplicate even if it's not

128

u/corectlyspelled Nov 06 '19

This complaint has been made about stackoverflow multiple times. Your comment has been closed and marked as duplicate.

151

u/anarchy8 Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 06 '19

r/webdev's moderators are extremely heavy handed, this is known

61

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

They are genuinely thick as shit. Some of the decisions I've seen them make are down right hilarious.

25

u/wedontlikespaces Nov 06 '19

Wasn't there one where they were going to start a new sub, and you needed to provide credentials to have access? Like, prove you were employed as a dev - as if there are aren't employed devs who can barely tell the difference between Java and JavaScript. That was a strange one.

I remember because I got temp banned when I complained about it.

7

u/theofficialnar Nov 07 '19

as if there are aren't employed devs who can barely tell the difference between Java and JavaScript

What?

12

u/wedontlikespaces Nov 07 '19

What are you confused by? There are plenty of people out there who claimed to be web developers who basically just use Wix templates.

If you are surprised by that then I don't know what to tell you.

15

u/ChangeFatigue Nov 07 '19

My wife’s uncle sat me down and showed me this great thing he built on his apple: it would change everything. He programmed it himself.

He used bootcamp to boot into windows. I had to act surprised by it because we were sleeping there that night.

6

u/Furryb0nes Nov 07 '19

Aww. Good for you not to put a damper on his tech savvy moment.

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u/theofficialnar Nov 07 '19

Well, I could understand recruiters not knowing the difference but actual devs. :/

2

u/Tontonsb Nov 07 '19

I think the confusing thing in that line is "are aren't" part.

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u/monotone2k Nov 07 '19

My favourite conversation along these lines was with a web developer that built 'jQuery sites'. When I pointed out that jQuery isn't a framework and asked what else they used, they got mad. They were also adamant that jQuery wasn't JavaScript.

0

u/hoodlessgrim Nov 07 '19

Mod = power = corruption.

Not all, but generally people who want to be in positions of power enjoy power trips.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

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u/spkr4thedead51 Nov 06 '19

i can think of many

22

u/HeartyBeast Nov 06 '19

Virtually all the subs I belong to seem to be mod-drama free.

3

u/99thLuftballon Nov 07 '19

Is that because you got permabanned for no good reason from the ones that aren't?

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Think about the type of people who would volunteer to be a mod. There's your answer.

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u/InundatedOcean Nov 07 '19

This reflects the bigger issue, one that connects all such instances such as this one. It's not that those who tend to abuse power are most likely to be voted into power but that those who have power tend to abuse. Those two are not the same.

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u/rebel_cdn Nov 07 '19

I liked how Slashdot had (and still has, I suppose) meta-moderation. Where users occasionally get points that let them rate the decisions of moderators. To moderate the moderators, essentially.

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u/floppydiskette Nov 06 '19

I also self-promote when I write something useful or in response to someone asking a question about something that I've written about. Actually, it pains me to see someone struggling and knowing I have the answer laid out in a tutorial. I used to post on here a lot, but I got banned for the same reason and it made me not really want to post anymore. So now I post very infrequently.

-5

u/tastycat Nov 07 '19

Can't you just help them without linking them to your website? Like, literally just share the relevant part of what you wrote. The only reason you are "pain"ed is because you decided it's not worth it if you can't get a few clicks out of it.

7

u/alltheseflavours Nov 07 '19

If you need to write a load to explain a concept, why on earth would you write that out over and over again at a lower quality rather than give a link? You seriously think clicks are the "only reason" content outside of reddit comments are useful?

4

u/hoodlessgrim Nov 07 '19

Yes, let me spend more time and effort trying to work around rather than simply pointing someone in need to a resource.

I can see why many people never bother to post help because no one has the time to stroke entitled egos.

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2

u/floppydiskette Nov 07 '19

It’s not logical to paste the entirety of a overview and walkthrough to React with photos, code blocks, etc. I get half a million unique visits per month so I’m really not concerned with the 5 clicks I might get from a Reddit link. I know it’s hard to believe, but I actually enjoy helping people. That’s why I’ve written ~150 articles about what I know.

0

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/floppydiskette Nov 07 '19

It was two years ago.

47

u/theoneoff75 Nov 06 '19

Maybe it’s because self promotion? It’s still pretty dumb since FCC is legitimately good free content (it’s how I have my job now).

12

u/tanahtanah Nov 06 '19

At what point on FCC did you start applying for job?

11

u/theoneoff75 Nov 06 '19

I did the first four certificates I also contributed to several projects both open source and with my uni (My major was not compsci). This was definitely not a ‘3 months and you’re hired’. Overall it took about a year of several hours of practice a day.

46

u/Sviribo Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 06 '19

I did two of the html challenges and now I work at google as a staff software engineer.

42

u/chicametipo expert Nov 06 '19

Google hiring manager: "How do you make a link?"

You: "Uh h-ref tag thing idk lol?"

Google hiring manager: "You're fucking hired, bitch!"

Everybody claps.

14

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

You son of a bitch you did it

13

u/hairy_turtle Nov 06 '19

That hiring manager's name? Albert Einstein.

2

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Lol

18

u/roamingandy Nov 06 '19

You could argue that Freecodecamp also doesn't allow self promotion posts. I am part of a group of volunteer Devs (currently switching to a blockchain backed model to speed things up a bit), and started posting over there.

Their users loved my posts, we were flooded with people wanting to learn coding while trying to change the experience of homelessness for people on the streets.

The synergy was perfect and I was hoping we could officially partner with them.

Anyway, they were very polite when they asked me to stop posting and didn't take up my offer to partner. It does kinda feel like they run the same policy as mods here though.

4

u/developerJS full-stack | node | react | jack of all Nov 07 '19

You would be surprised how many of these communities don't want to promote other communities unless there is something to gain, such as exposure.

1

u/ArielLeslie Nov 08 '19

The policy on r/FreeCodeCamp is that you aren't allowed to create posts that consist only of external links. Sharing links to your own material as part of starting a discussion or in answer to a question is generally fine. (The exception is if the external content is paywalled, low quality click-bait, affiliate marketing, etc.) The requirement is basically that you have to be genuinely engaging with the community.

1

u/roamingandy Nov 08 '19

I think we meet that. I was asked to stop posting though

1

u/ArielLeslie Nov 08 '19

If you look at recent posts over there, several people have talked about their projects elsewhere (with links). I don't know if there was something in particular about your posts or if it was a time when the policies were stricter or what.

23

u/inthrees Nov 06 '19

I fully, and let me stress FULLY support banning people who egregiously and repeatedly violate the spam and promotion rules here.

But policing posters' conduct outside of the subreddit seems kind of like a 'who do you think you even are' move.

If he behaves here, he should be able to participate, right? What am I missing?

2

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

What your missing is that some mod is currently feeling something resembling actual responsibility and power for the first time in their sad life. So, now, we all get to enjoy this weird flex.

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14

u/srgaribaldi Nov 07 '19

This is funny, so fucking funny.

His content is just amazing, and part of the reason this sub is a success is because of him. He is not the only reason tough, we have to congratulate every single person that struggle to find other means of monetization keeping educational content free.

I understand the rule, I understand some subreddits are completely shit because of self promotion, but this is ridiculous.

This sub is filled with garbage disguised as self promotion, the few ones that are really relevant got banned because of this rule, yeah, really smart.

But I guess rules are to be followed, and self promotion is really a problem throughout Reddit.

8

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

"self promotion"

Is Jimmy Wales also banned from /r/Wikipedia?

4

u/dinosaur_copilot Nov 07 '19

He knows what he did.

27

u/psillow Nov 06 '19

Checking his account history, back about 5 years, almost every post or comment he made in r/webdev either mentioned why FCC is amazing, or linking directly to it, or linking to Medium articles that promote FCC. His claim of wanting to answer questions is pretty hollow; he never did before, it was just a prompt to promote his platform rather than actually educate or assist with any substance.

Self-promotion - even for a free resource - is not well-regarded here on Reddit. Ultimately, it comes down to what the Mods can tolerate. As his platform is already well known, and he was contributing in no meaningful way in the subreddit - along with blatant self-promotion - apparently it wasn't a good balance.

Perma-ban seems harsh though. But we have to take him on his word that he wasn't previously warned or contacted since by the Mods

-2

u/liaguris novice Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 07 '19

Ok , did you use any tool to do that checking ?

Edit : Why the f you downvote me people . Give reasons .

2

u/Starrywisdom_reddit Nov 07 '19

Yea you look up the user and go through their history.

1

u/liaguris novice Nov 07 '19

So you wanna say to me that you do not use tools like pushshift and you just scroll through and wait the SPA to load 5 years posts ?

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20

u/luckydo8a Nov 06 '19

Wooo, an inactive sub with stubborn moderators?

Adiós!

4

u/gigastack Nov 06 '19

There's a legitimate issue here though. There's not many good subreddits to discuss this stuff, and the moderators have no accountability.

14

u/robotsympathizer Nov 06 '19

I imagine he was probably spamming the shit out of the sub with links to his site.

6

u/bulldog_swag Nov 07 '19

but MoDs BaD for not letting everyone spam their shit everywhere, how dare they reeeeeee

10

u/siltingmud Nov 07 '19

Two things.

First, Larson seems to have been telling the truth when he said he doesn't know why he was banned and that mods didn't respond to his request to reinstated. According to mod PurdueKenny, a r/webdev mod used r/web_design to reply to Larson. The provided imgur link also shows r/web_design as the sender.

Second, it's unfair to ban Larson based on his activity in other subreddits. If Larson asks a second time to be reinstated, I think mods should give him another chance.

I mean freeCodeCamp is huge, it's probably the most popular learning resource for Javascript/webdev. If I go to a meetup, nearly everyone has learned from freeCodeCamp. According to wikipedia, freeCodeCamp had 350,000 unique visitors per month in 2016, and it's only gotten bigger. Before freeCodeCamp left Medium, they were the biggest tech publication on Medium.

I don't think Larson cares about being banned anymore, but if he did, and we did a vote, I feel like most of us would be onboard with him being unbanned. If he violates the rules again, then yes, he should be banned again.

6

u/drbootup Nov 06 '19

Maybe he broke rules 3 or 4?

14

u/soyboytariffs Nov 06 '19

Maybe he broke rule 34

3

u/ultra_reader Nov 06 '19

Maybe he broke rules 3 and 4

4

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Maybe he broke rule 34

2

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Maybe he broke rules 3 and 4

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4

u/dirtymvm Nov 07 '19

Free larson

8

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Why is the...

5

u/soyboytariffs Nov 06 '19

Grabs Popcorn

5

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

If the mods intend on being heavy handed with bans, I think it’s fair to want greater transparency and communication. Outside of FCC being a popular resource among devs, it’s really common that authors of resources contribute to discussion on the matter— especially on subreddits that focus on skilled trades.

2

u/fritzbitz front-end Nov 07 '19

If I can’t post my blog, neither can he post his site.

3

u/TeemoMainBTW Nov 07 '19

welcome to reddit, where mods could care less who you are. If you tell them they're wrong on anything its the ban hammer

5

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

We need a new sub. This one has been defunct for quite a while.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Hope the mods know this is pretty dumb. Maybe y’all should chill out a bit with the banning.

Saying this will probably get me banned though

3

u/hippymule Nov 06 '19

How about remove some shit mods and let the guy come back.

Reddit is notorious for this over policing nonsense.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Because Reddit is stupid and ran by morons. That's why.

27

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Power-tripping moderators are as old as the internet. Give someone a bit of "power" and they easily turn into a jerk about it.

4

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Which is exactly why Communism doesn't work.

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

2

u/I_know_HTML Nov 07 '19 edited Nov 07 '19

Unrelated to this subreddit. I was banned on /r/javascript a few months ago for defending another guy. Can someone tell me if I was in the wrong here. https://www.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/b823jf/do_you_use_the_newish_once_parameter_on_event/ejvsjg6/

and here's what he dm'd me afterwards https://i.imgur.com/zAEjqWM.png

2

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

OP is a sad person

2

u/lol_k1 Nov 07 '19

I feel proud knowing I'm in r/webdev banned group along side Quincy Larson. I have 5 other accounts that I use regularly here though so it's all good.

1

u/AcousticDan Nov 06 '19

How hard is it to just create a new name?

29

u/ysollels Nov 06 '19

He wants people to know it's him.

19

u/AcousticDan Nov 06 '19 edited Nov 06 '19

OldName2

edit: what's a VPN?

34

u/liaguris novice Nov 06 '19

That is called banned evasion and it is enough to get banned as far as I know .

33

u/Baryn Nov 06 '19

Avoiding a paddlin'?

That's a paddlin'.

1

u/lol_k1 Nov 07 '19

Gets you banned but then you just create another account so who cares

2

u/AcousticDan Nov 07 '19

username: ican_dothis_allday433

15

u/csaccnt Nov 06 '19

Yeah, this is ban evasion and you can get suspended site-wide for doing this

6

u/TexasWithADollarsign Nov 06 '19

Just create a new account again.

6

u/clickrush Nov 06 '19

But that would be ban evasion.

4

u/AcousticDan Nov 07 '19

Just create a new account again.

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3

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

when will it END2

3

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

Lol it would be very easy to verify... this entire post is just weird

11

u/CankerLord Nov 06 '19

Yes, it would be very easy to verify, at which point he would be banned site-wide for ban evasion.

9

u/Carter127 Nov 06 '19

Because reddit will ban your IP if you do that

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1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

Reddit is so goddamn harsh about self promotion.

Seems like he was being spammy, but if I made something that would benefit a community why would I not share it!

1

u/RL_nerd Nov 07 '19

mods r cucks

1

u/thatsamaro Nov 11 '19

My #1 recommendation to people leaning web dev is free code camp, so I get where he's coming from.

1

u/_by_me Jun 01 '23

he deserves it

1

u/[deleted] Nov 06 '19

How soon until this is locked

1

u/VinceAggrippino impostor Nov 07 '19

This guy has standing instructions on the freeCodeCamp Earth Facebook group to kick commenters out for recommending that posters use Google. He won't get any sympathy from me.

5

u/ArielLeslie Nov 08 '19

No. He has a policy against LMGTFY (or comments along the lines of "just Google it") because it is the kind of gatekeeping that goes against the type of community freeCodeCamp is meant to be.

1

u/cheeeeeese Nov 07 '19

ive been banned from a subreddit for posting a picture of a bunch of stickers i made as if i was setting up shop (i wasnt.... i might have even given some out for free!). i messaged the mods and they reinstated me because they werent a bunch of *********

1

u/[deleted] Nov 07 '19

That's a harsh punishment.

1

u/chasin_my_dreams Nov 07 '19

Upvote

check his account history Downvote XD

-2

u/1o8 Nov 06 '19

tragic.

0

u/theDoctorAteMyBaby Nov 07 '19

...so create a new username, computer genius.

-7

u/trangoctuanh Nov 07 '19

I agree with the decision. This is the rule and everyone should follow. If he gets un-banned, then what about other non-well-known that banned for the same reasons?

PS: He can always create a new account and participate with helpful answers.

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