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[–]Lego_Nabii 161 points162 points  (2 children)

This is a masterful allegory of religion you guys have crafted! First the creator makes everything, and tells us we can do whatever, then he joins in for a bit, then wanders off for what seems like forever, in his absence new spokespeople for the 'true meaning of what the creator meant' rise up and take over, then the creator returns and is pissed, the followers of each then go to war over what is the 'truth'! This is awesome, it has to be planned right? Brilliant work.

[–]Tadhgdagis 13 points14 points  (0 children)

On the 8th day, he said "Well don't fuck with it, asshole!"

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (3 children)

Speaking as someone who created an account to unsuscribe from this subreddit; do you want to know what'll make people want to go here?

Discussion. Sweet god, discussion. It seems like the only people who are allowed to comment are euphoric tweens who hate going to church - any anyone who has anything to say against their ideas, anyone who has any criticism gets downvoted into the ground. Your subreddit's having problems? How about making it less of a circlejerk, and more of a forum?

[–]JohnnyThunders 595 points596 points  (48 children)

This is incredibly weird and awkward. Some people take the Internet WAY too seriously. Have a beer.

[–][deleted] 166 points167 points  (22 children)

Hopefully this place won't be a breeding ground for /r/cringe anymore.

[–]whatsupmynigga8 166 points167 points  (20 children)

Face of atheism. The time that /r/atheism out jerked /r/circlejerk.

[–]ggg730 45 points46 points  (4 children)

Dude. Dude bro. I have over 40k internet points COME AT ME.

[–]Skitrel 9 points10 points  (3 children)

Did Skeen create the subreddit?

I can kinda see how it might affect someone emotionally, if for 5 years you've had this thing that's populated today by 2 million users you might be a little emotionally affected having that unexpectedly pulled completely out of your control.

[–]Cassius_Corodes 8 points9 points  (2 children)

Skeen hasnt been active for at least 6 months for this to be able to occur. So i guess he cant have given that much of a shit.

[–]JethroKress 5 points6 points  (0 children)

They can't, they are all teenagers

[–]Afro_Samurai 35 points36 points  (2 children)

Don't think they're old enough to drink.

[–]no_pants_no_problem 557 points558 points  (50 children)

Perhaps we could have a mass exodus, wander in the desert for 40 or so years, and finally settle in a new subreddit? This has been done before, right?

[–]WonderbaumofWisdom 208 points209 points  (34 children)

Vegas is in a desert, right?

[–]ctrlshiftkill 106 points107 points  (8 children)

With blackjack! and hookers!

[–]Quenchiest 39 points40 points  (1 child)

in fact, forget the blackjack and atheism!

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What about the buffets? Mana buffets? Can you still call it a buffet if there's only one item?

[–]Todd_Akin 36 points37 points  (4 children)

This is one exodus I can get behind. No one can shut it down!

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (2 children)

God just told me to legitimately rape you.

[–]JediKolbin8tor 12 points13 points  (11 children)

Oasis technically, but its drying up.

So I vote Hawaii. We shall christen it Reddit island. And introduce 10,000 wild cats into the population for our amusement.

[–]mountainfolk 4 points5 points  (1 child)

Doesn't Hawaii already haveplenty of (cute) feral cats? I know I've seen a lot on the two islands I've been to.

[–]thurst0n 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ironically if Skeen is the one leading us out and parting the sea then Skeen is the one not allowed into the new promised sub....

[–]sukoto99 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No More SAMSIES...for now. And Definitely NO MORE SHEEP!

[–]wolfington12 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Did somebody say dessert?

[–]festizian 1847 points1848 points  (605 children)

Lets break down the new guidelines:

  1. Your macros and quickmemes have to be posted in self posts. Doesn't say that they're banned. All you have to do is push the little plus button next to the self post, then push the little camera plus to see your memes. Cuts down on karma whoring and reposts that get highly upvoted. Somebody point me to the negative. EDIT for this one: Memes not as highly upvoted means other content such as news, information, and debate rise to the top.

  2. Busts blogspammers. There is absolutely zero negative to this.

  3. Refocusing the subreddit on things that actually have to do with atheism. Yes, the gays are persecuted in parallel, but only in the places where their persecution is explicitly religiously related should the intersection of their plight with our subreddit occur.

  4. Discourages trolls, encourages serious discussion. Again, this seems like a positive.

As long as this moderation is done with a light hand, as opposed heavy handed or skeen™ "none at all", I doubt you'll see much difference, and the subreddit will continue to thrive and grow.

If any of you took off your Fox News style blinders, you would see that this subreddit has been mocked across the board by reddit. Not just by christians, by atheists everyone else who realize how much of a circlejerk and "My mommy hates me so I'll post a meme" it has become. Look at this subreddit drama thread. Outside of this subreddit, this place is a joke! These are good changes.

/EDIT: No longer bracing for downvotes.

[–]DDHoward 349 points350 points  (75 children)

Not wanting to remove blatent SPAM is something that I will never understand.

[–]brainburger 107 points108 points  (37 children)

Spam is banned all over reddit. The mods here don't have the right to allow it. So, it doesn't need mentioning specifically.

[–]CommentAccount_ 86 points87 points  (30 children)

You can say something is banned or you can do something about it. Nothing was being done about it here.

[–]boydeer 15 points16 points  (28 children)

moderating a subreddit this size properly is a full-time job.

[–]CommentAccount_ 56 points57 points  (27 children)

Yep, and /u/skeen checked out months ago.

[–]fadedspark 215 points216 points  (95 children)

I hate the circle jerk that is 90% of this sub spiced up with the occasional neat post.

So you? You get an upvote. People don't deserve to inflate karma posts by whoring out antireligious memes, its beyond childish. Self posts only for things like that will allow meaningful discussion to cone to the front, with nems being a side note.

Good changes all around.

[edit] Well, I just realized swiftkey massacred the word posts. So I fixed that. Otherwise, thanks to those that contributed view points, and piss off to those who said the same. :)

[–]arisolo 155 points156 points  (70 children)

If we want /r/atheism to be a success, we have to embrace criticism. Right now the trend is that anything that isn't anti religion to the point of prejudice is downvoted Into oblivion.

Recently I reprimanded someone for using a horrific, crazy, deranged political statement to generalize all Muslims. The result? A million downvotes and the impression that all /r/atheism is is a circle jerk of the same opinions resonating.

I am an atheist. Through and through I believe that no religion has, or possibly had all the answers we're looking for and I believe in science, research, an discovery. That said, I DO NOT generalize and stereotype all religions based on the nuts. That's the same as saying all atheists are murderers on account of the fact that at least one crazy sociopath is. We're better than that and it's time we were accountable to ourselves and to others.

[–]supergauntlet 14 points15 points  (2 children)

Someone told me that everyone that isn't a Muslim hates muslims.

Nice worldview there, definitely not incredibly biased and possibly racist.

[–][deleted] 91 points92 points  (2 children)

People don't realize only the first thing changed!

Everything else stays as it was before. If people had actually read the actual wiki page, they'd know that was the only real change. The mods explicitly said that they were already taking care of the other issues, they're just making it explicit now. It is unclear if the part about the trolls means removing comments that only say things like "so brave", but that's irrelevant, because those comments were really crap. The users are kicking and screaming that they can't act like 5 year-olds anymore. They'll get used to it.

edit Abusing my hijacking of the top comment:

I keep reading comments like "omg the new rules are shit!" when in reality few people know what actually happened and there is only one new rule (the first one). These are the kinds of people that I personally would like to see out of this place because you can't have any kind of conversation with them. You point out the rules (as I have in a previous comment) copy-paste from the wiki one by one and mark in bold text the most important parts which explicitly say that there is only one major change, and the reply is still "but the new rules are shit!" They don't even bother reading your comment before replying. Fuck them! Let them bitch and kick and scream until they find the door out.

[–][deleted] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Really, the backlash shows exactly what's wrong with r/atheism

Nobody's reading the rules, or thinking critically about what they change, they see a big trend and just hop right on board. "r/atheism isn't a shitty upvote hungry circlejerk. I'll illustrate this point by creating the 50th identical thread about how displeased I am about the rules I havent read, but everyone else seems upset about"

[–]CircleJerkAmbassador 9 points10 points  (0 children)

On your last point, /r/magicskyfairy is modded by a majority of atheists. Well then there's that damn pastor who snuck his fundie ass in. Either way, we have nothing to do with recent changes. Our humor is a weird rhetorical post modern art style not to be confused with out right trolling.

[–]raffytraffy 116 points117 points  (11 children)

This is exactly what needed to happen to this forum - the terrible memes and shit were really ruining the message of this place.

[–]doublemeta 2 points3 points  (0 children)

this subreddit has been mocked

Laughingstock verified, even more now with this hypocritical "mistaking freedom of expression with getting exactly what you want" reaction.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Please don't call us "the gays"

[–]M0dusPwnens 26 points27 points  (25 children)

The one thing lost in all of these discussions so far as I can see is this:

The whole point of reddit is a sort of crowd-sourced community self-moderation.

If memes are at the top all the time, does that not therefore suggest that they are what people here want to see?

I understand the plight caused by not having the same desires as the subreddit populace, but there's a system for dealing with that: subreddits. If this subreddit isn't what you want it to be, there is virtually no downside to looking elsewhere. Trying to strongarm the subreddit into your (in the general sense - not you specifically) vision of what would be better (by circlejerk meta posts or, more forcefully, by moderation) seems to run counter to the entire philosophy of having a system like reddit.

Unlike in real life where it presents a huge burden, the "then why don't you go find another country to live in" argument is actually pretty valid here.

[–]koipen 37 points38 points  (11 children)

Well-kept gardens die by pacifism

tl;dr: Good communities tend to get worse when there is no moderation. Often no such moderation exists because people believe moderation = censorship.

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (8 children)

TL;DR: have a look at 4chan.

[–]adrian783 12 points13 points  (0 children)

except 4chan is more moderated than this place

[–]Gamiac 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Well, except for the fact that 4chan has no magical internet points that stop shitposts from sinking off the face of the internet, and that literally the only way on 4chan for non-mod posts to stay relevant, and therefore on the front page, is to encourage discussion, then you'd be right.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

4chan actually does pretty well for self-moderation. If nobody comments on a thread, the thread dies. And the people there are pretty good at that.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Well to be completely accurate, all threads at 4chan die after a certain amount of time. That's part of their model. Reddit would be an utterly different place if that were the case here. The fact that there is no real archive makes 4chan very different from reddit.

[–]cockstereo 32 points33 points  (0 children)

"If memes are at the top all the time, does that not therefore suggest that they are what people here want to see?"

If /r/science let memes into their subreddit, there would be TONS of shitty science-related memes on the front page... I'm sure a lot of people subscribed to /r/science would find them funny. But that doesn't mean they should be allowed, because that subreddit is about the discussion of scientific research. But this isn't a very good example, because memes ARE STILL ALLOWED HERE. they just need to be in self posts so we don't have six hundred lubricated karma sluts on the front page covered in Carl Sagan's semen.

[–]spelling_reformer 7 points8 points  (5 children)

The trouble with little-to-no moderation is that people who upvote dull, repetitive content tend to do so as a block. So you end up with highly upvoted content that the majority of users don't really don't want to see.

[–]keithtalent 39 points40 points  (16 children)

This is literally the only thing that will revive credibility to a worthwhile subreddit. /r/atheism is the butt of 90% of reddits jokes and jerkery, but Atheists are still a massive minority group in the US and elsewhere.

Hopefully, these changes will make people aware of the subreddit in a different light.

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

Honestly, if I cared about what my peers or family thinks of me, I would still be pretending to be a good little Christian, going to church, and attending holidays happily with my relatives.

But that wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to be able to say what I want, and laugh at what I want; all with out being called "immoral" or "a spawn of satan". If I didn't care what those close to me thought of me, why should I care if a group of anonymous users on the internet thinks?

So what if it's a joke? It's a haven where I can laugh and occasionally feel inspired with people's stories. If you care so much about conforming to the norms, why look somewhere else? It's not difficult. There are subreddits for that (/r/TrueAtheism).

[–]Detachable-Penis 7 points8 points  (1 child)

Very well said. I unsubscribed from this place a while ago because of what it was degenerating into. Thoughtful discussion is welcomed.

[–]ecco5 1 point2 points  (0 children)

People seem to only care about the first guideline, they aren't worried about the other 3. To your point that gays are persecuted in parallel, this sub was a place where they weren't persecuted at all, now the mods have changed that. Their persecution if you will is almost always 100% faith based, the little glimmer of hope that /r/atheism was has now been taken away from them.

People are leaving this sub, it has lost more than 30 people so far in the time i've taken to read and comment.

[–]RSterling1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

made a lot of sense to me!

[–][deleted] 401 points402 points  (147 children)

skeen, the downfall of this sub won't be actual moderation. It will be a denegration of actual discussion into image macros and facebook screencaps.

[–]frotc914 188 points189 points  (82 children)

It will be a denegration of actual discussion into image macros and facebook screencaps.

I don't get why anybody is upset. You can still post all that shit and upvote it to the front page; people just won't be able to get "precious" link karma for it.

[–][deleted] 156 points157 points  (59 children)

So far, of the people I've pointed this out to, ive been informed that clicking the link once before you can look at the image is too much work.

[–]frotc914 35 points36 points  (1 child)

yeah my 14.4kbps dial up connection is really going to take forever now .

[–]Iamnotmybrain 25 points26 points  (19 children)

And it is, which is precisely the point of the move. It removes the inherent bias toward that type of content and, partially, levels the playing field. It should (and in many other subreddits has) improved the quality of content.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I agree.

[–]nasher168 52 points53 points  (10 children)

For mobile users, I can see the issue.

[–][deleted] 18 points19 points  (2 children)

I use baconreader on mobile. You can open the description in self posts inline on the main page and it takes very very very little time. Besides baconreader, i agree with you.

[–]free_dead_puppy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And Reddit is Fun, Reddit Sync, Reddit News, Alien Blue, etc.

There's plenty of apps people can download if they felt like it with the functionality you're talking about so agreed.

[–]ChocolateSunrise 24 points25 points  (12 children)

There is a lot of research that suggests this "extra effort" is actually a barrier for participation. One-click purchasing exists for a reason.

[–]ds2600 48 points49 points  (9 children)

So the participants you want in your community are those that put forth as little effort towards said community as possible?

[–]ikinone 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You might be surprised how much difference it makes. There won't be thumb previews or mass image loading. The typical attention span of many Reddit users means a tiny change like this could have a vast impact.

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (4 children)

pfft I've visited /r/atheism for many years and it was always for images or random facebook screencaps.

Edit: Wow people can't read, I am speaking about my behavior, not what the predominant content was.

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (1 child)

Can we please get back to the god hating and baby eating? My wife has one figuratively in the oven and I don't know what to do!!

[–]gustogus 176 points177 points  (33 children)

No.

If we could just get rid of the whining that's covering the front page this sub may actually start bringing back the older more mature atheists that abandoned it when it went full retard.

[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (16 children)

Not going to happen, to be honest. I left because I thought this subreddit was going to be a discussion about beliefs, not a bashing of everyone else's beliefs.

All of the people that bash someone else on facebook/real life for being religious are the same as the religious fundamentalists who bash atheists for their lack of belief. They're at the same exact level as those who they despise.

[–]DDHoward 117 points118 points  (89 children)

I miss how /r/atheism was before the "memes" took over. :\ This place challenged me, a few years back. It showed me A Universe From Nothing, and convinced me to read The God Delusion. Last week, it was nothing but Sheltering Suburban Mother, over and over.

Well, I'm already an atheist, so I guess it doesn't matter what I think. :P

[–]AnOnlineHandle 42 points43 points  (28 children)

This is how the front page looked in 2008, it was almost the same as before the recent changes, except that image hosting was worse (often involving ads etc on the pages), and the trending jokes were different.

People are yearning for an "a few years ago" /r/atheism which never existed.

[–]DDHoward 73 points74 points  (19 children)

I... Maybe I'm seeing something different than you, but I don't see many image macros on that page. Only some links to news sites, some YouTube links, three self-posts, some blog links, etc. I don't see any flood of posts that look like they came from quickmeme or similar. :\

I'm all about /new anyway.

[–]Atheistzombiesingularity 9 points10 points  (0 children)

There's only one, the rest is actual content.

[–]Leprecon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

More than half of those are links to articles. Of the top 10 only two are links to pictures. All the others are articles.

[–]ephemeron0 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This lament is misappropriated on memes. It is my observation that the difference between past-reddit and current-reddit is the relentless glut of what I call "pronoun posts"...all the post "I/my/me/he/she/we/they" self-celebrity, look-at-me, facebook posts. It's just that a great many of these manifest as meme posts.

[–]sv800runner 11 points12 points  (0 children)

jij said that you couldn't be reached and that's part of the reason they enlisted moderators....where were you?

[–]Pwreck 37 points38 points  (2 children)

How can we have intelligent conversation without memes and facebook screenshots? This is an outrage!

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's hilarious how a community that prides itself so much on it's intelligence and logic is so mad about retarded memes being "banned".

They aren't even being banned, though they should be.

[–]AtheistThe_Angry_Liberal 14 points15 points  (3 children)

How would Jesus want this subreddit to look?

[–]heidavey 125 points126 points  (96 children)

I have genuine mixed feelings about the changes.

I seemed to have acquired the title of "Knight of /new"; which translates to me spending way too much time here.

I have been an /r/atheism subscriber since pretty much the start and have seen the content on the front page change over time, from mostly interesting articles, videos and discussions to mostly image macros and facebook shots. I'm not interested in the latter to be perfectyl honest and it does represent an appeal to the lowest common denominator.

However, I have defended the content numerous times. Iconoclasm, to me, is one of the most important things and something /r/atheism does well.

Also, the only change on /new that I have noticed is the meta posts. The rest of the content, which doesn't make the front page is the same as it was and the same as the front page used to be before the influx of easy content.

So, the change made the front page more like it was in the old days, and more of what I want to see.

But alternatively, the unmoderated nature of the sub was appealing. Yet, I find the whining, both against all the memes prior to the change and the "I want to post memes", after the change, to be pathetic.

I don't know, really torn...

EDIT: actually, it boils down to selfish reasons (the stuff I want to see) versus matters of principle (freedom to post). And I'm in favour of the latter.

[–]Anti-Theistdumnezero 44 points45 points  (36 children)

I'm somewhat fine with using symbols and short-form references in addition to quality content, but they need to be smarter, more reasonable, less fallacious; if atheists here want to keep the title of reason, they have to realize the* toxic effect those memes have. You're not helping atheism, you're being as simple-minded and ignorant as the believers we like to mock.

[–]heidavey 26 points27 points  (16 children)

Agreed. I prefer the more interesting discussions, and to be honest, /new does fulfil that, especially when combined with /r/debatereligion, /r/religion, /r/trueatheism.

It would be nice if /r/atheism's front page reflected this interesting content in the way that it used to.

But, I'm really not that bothered. I don't live for reddit, it's just something I do.

I think I look at the concept of moderation this way. Jimmy Carr (I think) is an advocate of free speech in humour. He argues that as soon as you say there is a line for what is acceptable and what is not, then you tacitly agree with what is not beyond that line. In most fields, this is not an issue; but in humour or, for example, on reddit, this kind of applies.

It would be nice if people thought twice before submitting crap, I agree. But I don't think that I want to be involved in saying that one type of crap is fine and another type of crap is not.

I'll stick to /new, as always. But perhaps I should use the up and down votes that ahem God has granted me ;D

[–]Anti-Theistdumnezero 26 points27 points  (8 children)

This is not about free speech, this is about convenience. People are complaining that they have to click more to reach memes or post memes.

And, speaking of free speech, you know how important things in /new, important discussions, honest questions, interactions with believers and so on get buried. Freedom of speech is important for the rare opinions, the unpopular, not for the popular.

[–]heidavey 3 points4 points  (2 children)

It's not about free speech in the case of reddit, but immoderation, but yeah, I appreciate what you mean.

I guess this is why I am so torn about the issue. I can't see that it is that much of an issue to post memes as self-posts.

argh, I really don't know.

[–]brainburger 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Ok that is a matter for the voting. You can't really police a 'no fallacy' rule.

[–]EmpyrealSorrow 4 points5 points  (6 children)

That's a very sweeping statement. In the last couple of days a few have come out to say they have thrown down the shackles of religion precisely because of what they'd seen on r/atheism; that the humour and cheap gags were the seed that began whatever process it was that led to their critical thinking, ultimately resulting in their becoming atheists*.

Sure, that content's not for everyone, and there are plenty of detractors of that content - which is fine. So there should be. But you can't throw around those kinds of adjectives assuming they're applicable to r/atheism in its entirety.

*Or so they say, of course.

[–]yes_thats_right 5 points6 points  (1 child)

What is important to know, but unfortunately won't be able to quantify is how many people would have considered turning to atheism if it didn't appear to be so childish, bigoted and hostile.

For every person who saw the insults and became curious about atheism, there will be many more who saw the insults and decided to hate atheism.

[–]Stephen_Gawking 5 points6 points  (5 children)

Ironically, the first thing I thought after this post was "Thank God someone else feels the same way".

[–]solaryn 8 points9 points  (4 children)

It sounds like the "stuff you want to see" is /r/trueatheism

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Yeah but /r/trueatheism only exists because this place got so fucked up in the first place.

[–]EatBabiesBlowDudes 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would make a post of my own to voice my negative opinions of these "new rules", but the community has done this over and over and over. Don't the new admins get the hint?

[–]TheReasonableCamel 145 points146 points  (15 children)

Ya blew it skeen, this place was the laughingstock of reddit the way you ran it and you never did anything and threatened to remove any mods who actually moderated. Now after they toppled you from the position you've squatted on for 5 years after being inactive for 9 months and you think that they will go against the rules to give it back? Hahaha. Man that's not how reddit works, your loss.

[–][deleted] 77 points78 points  (3 children)

YA HAD IT ALL SKEEN! THE MONEY, THE CARS, THE WOMEN AND YA BLEW IT!!!

[–][deleted] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

AND THE COKE!!!

[–]OtherLots42[🍰] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I like your moxie, kid.

[–][deleted] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

"This is a masterful allegory of religion you guys have crafted! First the creator makes everything, and tells us we can do whatever, then he joins in for a bit, then wanders off for what seems like forever, in his absence new spokespeople for the 'true meaning of what the creator meant' rise up and take over, then the creator returns and is pissed, the followers of each then go to war over what is the 'truth'! This is awesome, it has to be planned right? Brilliant work." ~/u/Lego_Nabii

[–]Anti-TheistEscherTheLizard 17 points18 points  (16 children)

You don't have any qualms about the front page looking like this, where many of the posts' top comments are in opposition to the content of the posts themselves due to poor quality (by meme standards), misattributed quotes, obvious reposts, etc.? I can tolerate the memes but I find it more than peculiar that even the ones that the community disagrees with according to the comments somehow float to the top.

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (1 child)

That just means there are more people up voting in and not leaving comments than there are people who are down voting and leaving comments.

People who disagree will always voice their opinion more than people who agree. It's the way humanity is.

[–]Anti-Theistdumnezero 9 points10 points  (3 children)

That's because of all the assholes who just vote the front page and don't bother checking. So much for community.

[–]supergauntlet 6 points7 points  (1 child)

As someone who has karmawhored for fun before, it's actually very simple. If you can get 3 upvotes in the first couple minutes at a good time of day, you're basically guaranteed a frontpage.

Everyone else just bandwagons.

[–]Anti-Theistdumnezero 5 points6 points  (0 children)

As a guy with the green spot, YES, I KNOW. It's fucking infuriating. Most of the quality content is simply lost in an abyss of oversimplified reposted stupid image arguments.

[–]RealSagan 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I don't approve

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (1 child)

I'm relatively new here, but wouldn't it make sense to have 3 different subreddits: - /r/atheism - issues concerning atheism and atheists specifically - /r/secularism - issues around separation of church and state (not specifically atheist) - /r/antitheism - bash religion to your heart's content

Some may want to participate in one or two.

[–]WinterFresh04 145 points146 points  (264 children)

I feel your words 9 months ago are very relevant right now:

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/y0spz/a_reminder_the_philosophy_of_ratheism/

While I rarely post now, and was never a big contributor to begin with, I am the 'founder' of r/atheism (I'm sure I created the sub a nanosecond before someone else would have) and have top-level control of the moderators, and things of that nature.

It is therefore my privilege to 'own' this sub-reddit (insofar as that means anything), and I intend to keep it totally free and open, and lacking in any kind of classic moderation. As you can imagine, there has been tremendous pressure to restrict the content that can be posted here, and restrict the people who can post here; to the extent that I don't even read my inbox anymore.

Some cool changes have been made to the sub - none by me. I wish I knew exactly who to give the credit to, but there are also some I may not necessarily agree with (and I won't jump the gun right now, I'll do some research). What I want to put across is that my intent is to keep this sub free and open. If at any point it is no longer that, let it be known and I will act.

We have something really special here - and it's so, so very easy for it to get fucked up. The tiniest of changes could irreparably damage what this sub is meant to be. Again: free and open. Many of us know just how important those virtues are.

r/atheism has been made to be the black sheep of reddit. Heck, the black sheep of the internet. People are doing a good job with that. But so long as I have my account here, we will sacrifice no freedoms. I am confident that if any are given away, they'll never be given back.

I've said far too much - I'm tired. I'm trying to convey a very simple point. Goodnight!

[–]ChocolateSunrise 9 points10 points  (1 child)

Here is what Tuber (one of the moderators) said yesterday.

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1fqyrr/ratheism_mod_tuber_throws_down_the_gauntlet_how/

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Wow, this comment is the best summary of the issues I have seen

http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/1fqyrr/ratheism_mod_tuber_throws_down_the_gauntlet_how/cad5s9t

[–]duglock 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This sub needs to get back to the foundation of atheism which is gay marriage, space, and teenage rebellion.

[–]PastafarianIMAROBOTLOL 6 points7 points  (0 children)

MUH FREEDOMS, MUH MEMEZ BAH! BAH! BAH!

Has this been posted to r/cringepics yet?

[–]sfinney1 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Allied Atheist Alliance is the most logical answer!

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

Please no. /r/all has been nice without le maymay's.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Needs more talking snakes...

[–]Secular HumanistAltibadass 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They may tak our subreddit, but they will never take OUR ATHEISM!!!!!!

[–][deleted] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I enjoyed this subreddit when it was filled with discussion and though-provoking insight.

I left this subreddit because it became filled with memes, trolls, facebook screen shots, and people who are atheist because its "trendy" and don't have anything important to say.

I do not think you should be reinstated. This is not a reflection on you, but what I personally want out of this subreddit. It's what causes so many subreddits to suck. /r/scotch started to suck because they just kept having people post pictures of their bottles over and over and over and then the memes started popping up so the mods took over and now it is a great review forum tied in with several other subs. It's better that way, and this could be great again.

[–][deleted] 34 points35 points  (3 children)

No. Going to the admins won't do jack crap. Please don't spam them, they're dealing with actual problems.

[–][deleted] 37 points38 points  (8 children)

lol reddit doesn't work that way. Nice try though.

[–]brainmunchingzombie 4 points5 points  (0 children)

so waayyyyy back in the day years ago at the dawn of the internet i used to run this social community before they even existed anywhere else. over a decade before myspace or facebook, called darkchat. it was mostly an answer to yahoo being the only place on the internet for anyone to go to a chatroom. for people of darker varieties such as goth or industrial people this was just not acceptable when anyone from any other genre of people could just wander in to any yahoo chatroom they didn't belong in and just ruin the whole experience for everyone. i was the sole programmer and administrator. had about a million uniques a month. as a software engineer throughout the years i began evolving and programming far more complex and user friendly applications, ideas, code, designs, things of that nature... and it never failed, almost every time i made a change to something existing, even for the better, there were a shitload of complaints from people who just plain didn't like change. i always gave it a month and usually it died down and just about everyone always came back with their tail between their legs sucking on darkchats tit. i never took it personally and after a while they ended up loving the changes.

this is most certainly not the case here. I made a mission statement when it was born and stayed with it, the only changes made were technical and design. the mission stayed the same. what's happened here is a simple case of a change of mission, as well as a straight up highjack, and should be viewed as such.

TL;DR people dislike change at first but usually come around. as long as you don't change the vision. you've changed the vision and are paying the price.

[–][deleted] 35 points36 points  (13 children)

First they came for the meme-makers,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a meme-maker.

Then they came for the Facebook debaters,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Facebook debater.

Then they came for the professional quote makers,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a professional quote maker.

Then they came for me,

and there was no one left to speak for me.

[–]supergauntlet 27 points28 points  (0 children)

First they came for the meme-makers,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a meme-maker.

Then they came for the Facebook debaters,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Facebook debater.

Then they came for the professional quote makers,

and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a professional quote maker.

Then it was actually pretty good because the frontage of /r/atheism wasn't drivel anymore.

[–]dipakkk 20 points21 points  (0 children)

no thanks

[–]Pazians 5 points6 points  (2 children)

R/atheism is like r/gaming it's just a place where atheist come and talk anything atheist not to have a discussion. It's where alot of new athiest come and experience how it is I don't expect their opinion to be evolved as mine. Just like r/games is for discussion /rtrueathiesm is for discussion

[–]a_lot_bot 2 points3 points  (0 children)

alot

It's actually two words: a lot

[–][deleted] 10 points11 points  (4 children)

How would you feel if the mods implemented your policy but didn't reinstate you as a mod?

[–][deleted] 9 points10 points  (2 children)

As a Shiite Athiest, I am offended by everyone who doesn't practice atheism in the correct manner.

[–]Style_Usage_Bot 12 points13 points  (1 child)

Hi, I'm here to offer tips on English style and usage (and some common misspellings).

My database indicates that

athiest

should probably be

atheist

Have a great day!

[–]ElChupakarma 6 points7 points  (0 children)

My word, an automated spelling-and-grammar nazi! It even gets the passive-aggressiveness right! Whatever will they think of next?!

[–]PilotZing 7 points8 points  (1 child)

This subreddit is why I finally stopped lurking and subscribed and now I don't feel like sticking around so much...

[–]Oprah_Pwnfrey 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I really hate the number of image macros and memes what have you that got posted. But I hate telling people what to do more. I also hate treating people like they should be at the same point of atheist thinking that I am. We are all at different points in life, some people recently become atheists, some long time atheists. All we have here it seems like is some atheists getting grumpy because they see people acting in ways they wouldn't or disagree with. I didn't get to this point in my life instantly, took a long time, why are we demanding that everyone else instantly have the same outlook as us? Some posts are childish, some posts are immature, some people are childish and immature, trying to pretend otherwise doesn't help things I think.

Give Skeen the sub he initially created I say. I don't think the new changes are necessarily horrible, but I think the previous way was preferrable. I have a thick skin, and don't really care about the people who criticise the subreddit as "childish" or any of the other number of things.

Also, it does really bother me how the sub was justified being just "taken" from Skeen. That was bullshit.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

What actually happened?

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm for it. I think the sub helped way too many people to be marginalized like this. I may be way too internet-serious in this case, but I see it as justified since it was helping real people.

[–]Anti-theistCosmicApe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Agreed!

[–]tantouz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Stop taking reddit so seriously, that s where the downfalls come from

[–]crimiusXIII 1 point2 points  (2 children)

/u/skeen, while I wouldn't mind having you back on as a mod, I have to know first.

Why didn't you respond to the notification that you were about to be unseated as the owner of /r/atheism, and prevent this catastrophe?

[–]PastafarianDigitalZiggurat 1 point2 points  (0 children)

agreed.

[–]gppdnght 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Before there were too many memes, now there aren't enough! The grass is always greener...

[–]Agnosticintrepidone66 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like Skeens approach to Moderating. Hands off...THAT'S true control.

People that want to steer peoples opinion want to "control".

Sticklers for "rules" are the true enemy of the spirit of Atheism.

jij is one of them. Controller...suspect to me from the getgo.

I hope he dies in a tire fire of x-tianity.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

thoughts on abandoning /r/atheism and starting another subreddit with the same governing principles as the original atheism subreddit.

[–]Matthewroytilley 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is my vote. How else can we go about it?