This is probably the best illustration of the 'no broken windows' theory at work on the web. You can start a new community and keep it 'clean' from day one, but you can't let your community turn into a cesspool and then one day decide to clean it up, the inmates will be able to achieve critical mass and they'll happily burn down the asylum if they can't have their cesspool back.
What I really don't get is that they choose these 5 subreddits to ban, reddit has at least 50 (and probably more) subreddits that are arguably a lot more offensive than the ones they just blocked.
> What I really don't get is that they choose these 5 subreddits to ban, reddit has at least 50 (and probably more) subreddits that are arguably a lot more offensive than the ones they just blocked.
I think this is the key thing that's really got everyone all in a tizzy. There are a pile of subreddits that the vast majority of Reddit users would like to see gone: topics that aren't just politically divisive, but are offensive for the sake of being offensive. Instead, the only thing that's consistent about Reddit's decisions to police subreddits is that it's inconsistent. Reddit's administration looks like they're generally OK with whatever's on the site up until it gets some kind of exposure elsewhere and only then does it get banned, and then the reasons given for it don't make any sense given the site as a whole.
I think Reddit is actually in a unique position to start cleaning up their site. They don't have any real competition at the moment and they have a huge userbase. They could probably institute and enforce new consistent site-wide policies and actually get away with it. But this blindfolded "pin the ban on the subreddit" game is only succeeding in irritating their users and making the admins look ham-handed.
On a side note, I was a little disappointed to see kn0thing's name prominently on the announcement. He's always seemed like a smart, level-headed guy. I'd genuinely love to hear from him how the subreddit banning policy makes any kind of sense. (Alexis, are you lurking here?)
The point wasn't that they were banning subs that had offensive content, it was that they were banning subs that were actively harassing individuals. In my opinion, judging by a rough timeline I have of events, the final straw was when /r/fph went after imgur employees.[0]
What I find funny about people complaining of censorship is that the sub in question would routinely ban people for saying positive things about the people they were trying to harass.
What I really don't get is that they choose these 5 subreddits to ban, reddit has at least 50 (and probably more) subreddits that are arguably a lot more offensive than the ones they just blocked.