[RECAP] Unibanned! A recap of the fallout of reddit's poster child being banned. (self.SubredditDrama)
SubredditDrama
224 ups - 0 downs = 224 votes
Unidan is one of reddit's most popular users, well known for his knowledge about animals and his sickeningly happy attitude. Before yesterday he was ranked at the second highest comment karma of all time as archived here.
On Wednesday, Unidan gets into a slapfight about animal terminology. The argument itself is pretty inane, but revolvs around referring to jackdaws as crows. Unidan is a biologist who specifically researches crows, so this apparently stikes a nerve. This is posted to /r/subredditdrama and he shows up himself in the thread, and everything seems to be all in good fun.
A couple of hours later, Unidan is shadowbanned. Nobody knows why, including himself. He sends this message to fellow moderator /u/preggit:
>Apparently you have been shadowbanned. :( I really hope it was a mistake. Do you have any idea what's going on?
>from Unidan[M] via /r/babyelephantgifs/ sent 6 minutes ago Haha, truly no idea, I sent a message to the admins as I'm a bit confused.
Speculations abound, with news of the ban even making its way to /r/conspiracy. There is zero speculation about anything other than "unidan was a dick" at this point so it's more of a preemptive "this will probably turn out to be jews". Can't hurt to be prepared!
There are two prevailing theories about his banning.
SRD thinks that because he was participating in both the crow thread and the SRD thread he was caught by a bot that thought he was brigading.
>Unidan was posting in both the original crows vs. jackdaws thread and the SRD thread that was started about it. He probably clicked the np link back to the original thread from the SRD thread, switched over to normal participation reddit to say something in the original thread and got in trouble by a bot for it or something. They'll probably reverse the ban when they realize he was already part of the original thread.
>Yeah, there was a ton of pissing all over that thread. A lot of people probably got justifiably banned and unidan got caught in the dragnet.
>I feel like there's gotta be a ban-bot. So many users get Bob'd then re-instated after ~24hrs. Likely he just tripped that and he'll be back in a couple of days.
/r/adviceanimals thinks that he was banned for, uh, getting too angry and thinks it's somehow the fault of the teenage girl he was arguing with. So they immediately deploy le reddit armey on her. All of her posts are downvoted below -100 points. A choice quote:
>She's just a teenage girl.
> >Imagine that you are a bull-headed ignorant teenage girl. If nobody is able to teach you how to reason, won't you just become a bull-headed ignorant woman?
That's right folks, the reddit army is here to fight for reason!
[SRD discussion] (http://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/2c6ixt/uecka6sentirecommenthistorybrigaded_after/)
For anyone concerned about the brigadee's account being ruined, cupcake is on the case to deal with and presumably ban some expert memers. Extra comment chain where she says that while the karma cannot be reset, she'll look into removing the limits on /u/Ecka6's accounts.
Cupcake eventually clocks in and brings an explanation with her. Unidan was Unibanned for blatant, consistent vote manipulation. SRD discussion
>He was caught using a number of alternate accounts to downvote people he was arguing with, upvote his own submissions and comments, and downvote submissions made around the same time he posted his own so that he got even more of an artificial popularity boost. It was some pretty blatant vote manipulation, which is against our site rules.
Unidan finally shows up under a new account to explain himself and admits his wrongdoing:
>Unidan here! Completely true, mainly used to give my submissions a small boost (I had five "vote alts") when things were in the new list, or to vote on stuff when I guess I got too hot-headed. It was a really stupid move on my part, and I feel pretty bad about it, especially because it's entirely unnecessary. Completely understandable catch on the side of the admins, so good work for them! I've already deleted the accounts and I won't be doing that again, obviously. I always knew I'd go down in a hail of crows, but who knew it'd be on the internet?
This comment is linked to, as totes reveals, by worstof and bestof. The bestof discussion is the interesting one, as UnidanX, reddit's darling boy turned pariah, shows up to defend himself.
>The alts were made well over a year ago, and the only times I'd really use them were to get submissions out of the 'new' queue and to hide comments that were essentially misinformation.
His bullshit is called pretty quickly with an admin quote:
>He was caught using a number of alternate accounts to downvote people he was arguing with, upvote his own submissions and comments, and downvote submissions made around the same time he posted his own so that he got even more of an artificial popularity boost.
Interestingly, before the bestof debacle his posts were upvoted. This comment pretty accurately summarizes reddit's sudden reversal in opinion:
>There's a real lofty feel to his confession: "...to hide comments that were essentially misinformation." Can you smell the 'I did it all for education!'? Reddit celebrity went to his head. It wasn't "pretty dumb," Unidan... it was more like fucking embarrassing, a grown man pulling this shit.
Unidan gives up the ghost:
>I completely agree with what the admin wrote, in the reply I say that's completely true! It was a shitty thing to do, completely.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, /r/adviceanimals is now simultaneously brigading Unidan's new account and the lady from the original crow post. SRD discussion
Unidan ventures into /r/TIFU to either apologize or continue to whore for attention, depending on if you're Unidan or anyone else. /r/TUFU isn't having it at all, and delivers an amazing smackdown.
Please tell me if there is anything I missed! There's lots of spin-off drama from /r/adviceanimals that I have a feeling will develop into its own dramawave.
Added after the fact:
/r/conspiracy mention, cupcake's comments about /u/Ecka6
348 comments submitted at 18:50:39 on Jul 31, 2014 by tha_real_stabulous
Here you go:
"Hey guys!
First off: sorry.
Secondly, sorry for abusing your trust. The whole shadowbanning incident was due to me having created five alternate accounts which I never posted with, but would use mainly to bump things out of the 'new' queue by upvoting myself and downvoting others. This is shitty for Reddit's voting system for many obvious reasons, and the rationale that I had behind it was selfish, mainly wanting things I was submitting to get more views, be it for a photo I thought was interesting, an AMA I was involved with, or a new video I had produced. Regardless of my intentions to share stuff with Reddit, it was wrong.
Thirdly, sorry for flying off the handle during arguments. Some of the votes would be to bury misinformation or things I wholeheartedly disagreed with. It's also a shitty thing to do, since that's what the voting is for, not for me to control.
Lastly, to set the record straight, if people still want to believe me, I've never raised any money for personal profit, or advertised anything that gained revenue from views that would benefit me, and not the project. The projects we raised money for on reddit studying animals and creating books for children are entirely clean, I swear that on my life.
So, mainly, I fucked up. I'm genuinely sorry I did any of this stupidity in the first place and hope it can be forgiven. If not, hey, that's your choice, I can't use a alt to change that.
If the administrators are okay with it, I'll be continuing to post science material and chat with folks under this account, and hopefully get back to my roots without all the drama.
And, of course, I will never do something so stupid and trust-violating again.
Sorry."
Jackdaws are crows.
Links from reputable sources:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/j/jackdaw/index.aspx http://www.wildengland.com/wild-animals/resident-birds/-crow-family http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_jackdaw
LOL
Dude in my opinion, just start again. let it go, lie low for a while. I know you're enthusiastic about science and stuff but do not underestimate how addictive this place can be or how crazy its userbase can be. You will forever be associated with this debacle. Surely a clean break will be good for your mental health if nothing else?
You benefited. Stop with the whole I didn't make any money. I saw you on CNN or some shit. You have personally benefited through fame and opportunities you would not have had without reddit. Since you were vote manipulating since before your reddit fame, it is possible that your reddit fame happened dishonestly (at least in part). To continue to deny that you have taken anything away from your posting here is disingenuous at best and it is beginning to illuminate a troubling pattern of dishonest manipulation. You say that it was a dumb mistake, but it was one that you continuously made, up until you were exposed yesterday. I believe if your motives were truly apologetic and remorseful you would have abandoned this username, took a break and respected the ban you were given for vote manipulating and came back at some other time and continued to do what you enjoy doing. However, you are clinging very hard to each lie and only giving them up when forced to. It makes me believe that your only real regret is getting caught and perhaps how that will effect your professional life.
Unidan - The dream of reddit
UnidanX - The reality of reddit.
Seriously, can this attention monger just hit the road already with his whole "I sowwy" act?
That's completely true, sorry if that seemed disingenuous, I was mainly referring to benefiting monetarily, but you're right, I absolutely received opportunities via the account.
How does this account have 4,436 comment karma when all of your posts have been downvoted to hell?
Anti-brigade coding.
Which ironically did fuck-all to help /u/Ecka6.
/r/TheoryofReddit has a good post about exactly this:
The mystery of comment Karma: Unidan's new account UnidanX is 12 hours old, and nearly all the comments are in the negatives. So how/why does he have 3,377 comment karma and counting?
If you downvote from someone's profile it doesn't actually work
Are you eating crow right now or jackdaw?
http://i.imgur.com/vncZ8J3.gif
Here's what he's talking about, admittedly it's pretty hilarious
I appreciate the fact that you're open about it and not denying it now that you got caught. And personally I think using a meaningless website in tandem with your extremely esoteric knowledge to leverage a few dollars out of it is fine too, with the caveat that you're honest about it; the guy who wrote that fantastic short story about the boy and his friend, the horror story (/u/1000vultures i think) ended up getting published and making money off of his book, and none of us had a problem with it because it was direct.
But it just begs the question: you have an audience that receives you unconditionally, you're universally well liked, and you have a good deal of knowledge in your field, which le uber science loving NGDT circlejerk reddit loves. Why not just let what you know speak for itself? What was the point of getting your comment 'up' and everyone else's down with alternate voting? I don't understand what that necessary step was for.
Because this dude loves attention. Which isn't unique to him or a life-altering problem in any sense. It's pretty much human nature.
He just doesn't know when to switch off.
The vast majority of the abuse was on submissions in that regard, since, though it may seem surprising, the new queue can be hard to get out of, even for my old account, so the +/- 5 boost for my post and posts at the same time sometimes made a difference. I mainly used it on things that I wanted to get attention on, of course.
As for the comments, that was way more petty, mainly if I felt someone was really wrong about something. Just internet rage, I guess?
You've done the correct thing. Apology unconditionally. That's all you can do. We've (all people) have erred/cheated or lied or stolen and harping-on is disingenuous.
I've always enjoyed your posts
Or he could just leave, and quit with the whole "I'm truly sorry for everything I have done" crap.
Had he not been caught he would be still doing the same thing, and is only sorry that he was found out.
How do you feel about your wiki page saying you should be stoned?
Are you not benefiting monetarily from the children books?
Nope, I don't see a dime of that money, the collaboration was done for free.
People are using the up/downvote feature very incorrectly here. Your comments are the most relevant of anybody's in the thread, but people forget that up/downvoting isn't "agree/disagree."
That's not to say you didn't use it incorrectly as well, but two wrongs don't make a right.
Dude...just take a rest. You don't need to be here. You're making things worse.
Just figured I'd help out by showing people what it said since it was deleted.
Put the shovel DOWN, Unidan. You're not helping yourself. You're not helping anyone else. Put the shovel down for a week or two; do something else with your time. Come back when it's in part blown over. Then, maybe, you'll be able to earn people's forgiveness.
It's not just that. Just get off reddit. Your 15 minutes are up. No one likes you any more. It's fucking creepy how cheerful you are. Bro just leave. Have a drink, fuck a girl, do something but don't come back it isn't worth anyone's time.
How else can he remain the center of attention?
Thanks
I still like you
I enjoy seeing you milking this for all that it's worth. Saying you're "sorry" immediately after committing an offense is practically useless.
You're sorry you got caught. You should have simply left with your dignity.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, I never had dignity.
We can see that now.
I don't why you're getting downvoted for that. I thought we had all agreed that was true.
Because the best way to stop a downvoting brigade is with a downvoting brigade.
I don't Reddit enough to understand the logic but okay.
Oh wow, self-deprecating humor!
We take back everything we said. You're clearly The One.
its sad that you already have 4k karma.
This guy is a liar. Dont let his words fool you. Hes like a serial killer being interrogated by police, master manipulator. He did probably make a lot of money off his status for personal gain. And now hes back on reddit acting all Jolly and shit pretending he dosnt care about his account. Quit being fake, and just make a new account and dont tell anyone who you are. If you really want to gain our trust back, create a new identity and start from scratch, the legitimate way.
Puke
Dude needs to just cut his losses, get off reddit, and take a walk in the park or something. Christ, you can smell his desperation.
You're just sorry you got caught.
>you got caught
To be fair he likely only got caught because he was popular. Considering vote cheating remains a large issue on this site, and he was just one of many.
I don't think that's why he was caught, it is just the reason we all know about it.
A fair point, but I also know that there are several people who are likely vote cheaters that to my knowledge weren't banned. I also know (and I'm aware /u/unidan admitted to vote cheating, but this is an alternative possibility in other instances that I am legitimately curious about how admins differentiate) that there are supposed to be some sort of mechanisms in place that auto counter votes from identical ip addresses (which is why my wife cannot vote on my account's posts, because they are automatically downvoted) leading me to question how vote cheating is practical or even possible...
i crei evertim
whoops
You need to send /u/ecka6 an apology at least. Lenny saw red and went for her after seeing your passing.
That is an amusing metaphor for big dumb reddit. Made my day. Thanks.
I did, I sent her an apology via PM the other day.
Good to hear. Don't vote manipulate again ya nitwit, even jackdaws know better.
That was very topical.
shut up science bitch
The Ecology? You're labelling yourself as an entire field of study? wat
Hey don't downvote him guys. People need to see this.
The people who are downvoting him are not reading the comments. This is called mob-mode, where reddit suddenly stops reading into the comment more than the username, and starts reading into the username more than the comment.
It's pathetic.
/r/AdviceAnimals is the main brigader, which has gotten some hopes up that it will be banned, since it brigaded both ecka6 and Unidanx.
That may be true but it's probably just as true that this "mob-mode" worked the other way for Unidan just a few days ago. You reap what you sow.
> Some of the votes would be to bury misinformation or things I wholeheartedly disagreed with. It's also a shitty thing to do, since that's what the voting is for, not for me to control.
Seriously? The system can be gamed, it's a shitty thing to do BUT HEY I CAN DO IT! You should go into politics, and it's not a compliment.
I'M NOT READY TO SEE YOU AGAIN
>The whole shadowbanning incident was due to me having created five alternate accounts which I never posted with, but would use mainly to bump things out of the 'new' queue by upvoting myself and downvoting others.
Didn't you know they could track that? You can have multiple accounts, and post with them, but you have to remember never to up or downvote the same submission with different accounts. That they can tell.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people feel a bit upset for gilding you often.
If it helps, I think this is blown way out of proportion. You're an ass, sure. But reddit is always ready for a witch hunt, and I think you were unlucky to be the only target in the crosshairs.
Shit, there's people dying in Gaza, Ukraine, possible economic crises in eastern Europe, more of the usual sneaky political obfuscation in the US plus Israeli rearmament — and the fuss is on you. Thank goodness it's primarily just SRD with the Unidan focus, and not r/all.
But dammit man, if you were going to slip and get caught, couldn't you have slipped in a more peaceful time?
Only target? Have you seen u/Ecka6's account today?
And she's been vindicated, and rightly so.
What else do you want? 500,000 karma to her? Unidan's 16 years of reddit gold?
Oh, I'm sure she's received a fuckton of sick PMs. Heaven knows that's how people on the internet roll. But what exactly do you propose for adequate compensation?
Should we be paying to fly Ecka6 to some sporting arena, where Unidan is bound to the floor and she can laugh as 80,000 people pelt him with rotten vegetables?
Oh wait, this isn't about Ecka6, is it? This is about all the thousands of people who had their trust betrayed. Yeah, let's get them their time in the arena, one whip of the lash for Unidan each.
>Oh, I'm sure she's received a fuckton of sick PMs. Heaven knows that's how people on the internet roll. But what exactly do you propose for adequate compensation?
Well some bans for those who brigaded her would be nice.
And I am all for it. In a perfect world, these fucking assholes who worshipped Unidan and went after her should all get outed too.
But it's not a perfect world. The reddit admins have never demonstrated a strong moderation policy, and they're sure as hell not starting now.
There's nothing to be gained from this continual anti-Unidan circlejerk.
What I hope is that people learn from this, that you don't blindly trust anyone's words online, be it wikipedia or r/askhistorians. That people will learn to do their own research.
But I don't know if that'll happen.
What kind of comparsion is that? Just because there are problems in the world people shouldn't express that gaming reddit is bad? It's like one of the very few rules on this site and its not really hard to follow it. It's not like you can accidently make a few accounts and always upvote yourself and then be like "ooops, my fault, sorry!"
Gaming reddit is bad, sure. But what else is going on in the world today? Why is Unidan so fucking important that everyone is taking time to shit on him?
So he personally benefited from reddit. Yeah, I think his apology about not profiting or whatever is horseshit. But so does every fucking celebrity doing an AMA.
So that's the issue here? Vote manipulation? So Unidan could have followed the rules and taken money indirectly, and it's all fine and dandy?
He's one dude. He's not a president, not a CEO, not some separatist general who shot a fucking civilian plane out of the air. He's a grad student.
People are losing their shit over a grad student who engaged in vote manipulation.
Wow. I mean, I thought people would rather go after politicians or corrupt businessmen, but I guess these fucking grad students need to be taught lessons not to undermine the great reddit democracy.
Well, according to your comment, why are you losing your shit over "people losing their shit"?
Shouldn't you do something about Ukraine?
Wow. I mean, I thought people would rather go after politicians or corrupt businessmen, but I guess these fucking people that care about the integrity of their favorite site need to be taught lessons not to discuss about it.
Integrity of their favourite site. So Unidan is taken down. Great victory here. Guess that sends a really big message to never engage in vote manipulation again, huh. I'm sure that scared the fuck outta those other people who didn't get caught.
Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. That's not the point though, is it? We have prisons but people still do crimes, does that mean we should get rid of the police?
The police, right now, are crowing over their victory over Unidan.
The users of reddit are reddit's police. A community built and governed by the users. The admins don't take an active hand, because they count on the users to report suspicious activity for them.
But right now, the users are happy for their one victory. Five, six new topics in SRD just to recount their glorious victory. And when Unidan is sufficiently beaten, they'll happily worship the next guy, Newnidan or whatever, and never even think that the new fellow could be a vote manipulating ass too.
I can't stop this mob mentality, and I'm sick of seeing this on SRD. You win.
As far as i know, the admins banned him and HE confessed. I don't know how that is a victory by doings of the users or how you could even take my analogy and put it that way.....
I think the UnidanX constant downvoting will become a new joke in itself as we move on to the new chapter of your time here. I hope you continue to not let it discourage you as I did enjoy learning random biology facts from you. The AMAs with you and your colleagues were especially interesting.
I forgive you, Unidan. It's unfortunate what happened, but I'm not going to sit here pretending I wouldn't do the same thing in your position. Some here may pretend to be above above such pride or greed or pettiness, but the reality is that most are not. Keep on.