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How To Get Banned From Reddit For No Good Reason |
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Written by Kila Morton
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Monday, 21 January 2008 |
 Maybe it’s just me, but, I just had a really negative experience with Reddit. In fact, I will never use that site again. Now I’m sure that many of you have used Reddit before, so, I’m not going to give you one of my long stories or a drawn out analogy (I just love those). Let me just tell you what happen to me and why I have been banned from Reddit.
I signed up for a Reddit account at the beginning of this month. I’m not sure of the exact date. I decided to submit three of my articles to Reddit. One article was the list of 25 Things A Newbie Would Do, the other was the list of social networks and the third was a list of bookmarking sites. I submitted the first two articles without a problem. After a few days I went back to submit the third article and guess what???? I could not do it! I contacted Reddit to figure out what was wrong with my account. At the time I had no idea that I was banned.
I submitted my service request on January 14th, 2007. On January 21st, Alexis Ohanian who identified himself in his email as the co-founder of Reddit.com, informed me that I had been reported as a spammer! What!! Me?!?!?!? A spammer?!?!?!?! You must be kidding me!! Here is what he said in his email.
Hi Kila,
It looks like you recently got reported as a spammer by the community. redditors tend to frown upon users who submit content from only one or two sources (especially when it looks like a personal blog or website).
It might be worth checking out this community-generated reddiquette page (reddit etiquette) http://reddit.com/help/reddiquette
This'll help you get a better idea of what users are looking for in submissions.
best,
Alexis
I was pissed! I am not, nor have I ever been, a spammer. When I submit my articles to places like Blogging Zoom, Blog Engage, Digg or any other site, I make sure that I respect the rules of that site. I don’t even submit ALL of my articles. I submit what I would consider to be most useful to the readers of that site. I rechecked the rules to make sure that I wasn’t crazy. I looked at the rules when I joined the community. Maybe I missed something.
reddiquette
Please do:
* Search for dupes before posting something. That said, sometimes bad timing, a bad title, or just plain bad luck can cause an interesting story to fail to get noticed. Feel free to post something again if you feel that the earlier posting didn't get the attention it deserved and you think you can do better.
* Post links directly to interesting things. Because reddit is a meritocracy, old content and some self-promotion are okay, but submitting content from only a select few sources is discouraged.
* Put the file type at the end of the title if it is something other than html or text, like [pdf] or [video].
* Add a link to a direct version of a media file where possible, if the article links to a streamed version.
* Link to canonical and persistent URLs where possible, not entry pages where the content may temporarily feature. In particular, use the "permalink" for blog entries, not the blog's index page.
* If you are going to downvote a post, it helps the poster improve their post quality if you tell them in the comments why you downvote it. However, you only need to do that if you really think your criticism can help the poster improve.
* Read the new page and vote on it: someone has to! Regard it as a public service.
* Actually read an article before you mod it! This sounds trivial but it seems that it is becoming more and more common to mod articles based just on the titles. This behaviour considerably harms the system.
Notice the parts that I put in bold. First, the rules say that submitting content from only a few sources is discouraged. Well if you can only submit one article at a time, that article is only going to be from one damn source! I submitted two items and was banned! So you mean to tell me that submitting two articles from the same source classifies as an offense worthy of banning? I didn’t even get a chance to submit any other articles from any other place!
Second, the rules say that self-promotion is ok. Well if you are self promoting aren’t you going to submit something you wrote or created? Then the rules say that you should link to the Permalink of a blog. That must mean that adding an article from a blog is ok right? Is my level of understanding somehow impaired? Here is what I sent back to Alexis.
Oh my goodness! I only submitted a few of my articles! I'm not a spammer!
What can I do? Can you look at what I've submitted please?
I've only submitted a few of my own articles.
Is that against the rules? If you look at my blog you will see that these are just my own articles from my own site.
Thanks,
Kila Morton
PureBlogic.com
Here is the response Alexis sent back to me.
Hi Kila,
The reddt community tends to frown upon users who submit content from only one or two sources (especially when it looks like a personal blog or website). The site is supposed to be about the best content on the entire Web -- surely there's other interesting content beyond your own website.
It might be worth checking out this community-generated reddiquette page (reddit etiquette) http://reddit.com/help/reddiquette
This'll help you get a better idea of what users are looking for in submissions.
best,
Alexis
OK. That’s really useful. ‘surely there’s other interesting content beyond your own website.‘ WHAT????? If I think that my lists are interesting and someone else things the same then what is the problem?
This was my response back.
Hi Alexis,
Thank you for that response, however, right now my account is locked out!!!!!!!!
That is why I sent the message in the first place.
I looked at your rules and I was not doing anything to violate them.
Can you look at what I submitted and unlock my account please?
I am NOT a spammer! I just submitted a couple of quality articles with great content!
That's all!
Can you unlock my account please?
Thanks,
Kila Morton
Alexis did not respond to me again. I guess he is not going to. I may be just one person, but I will never use this site again. I submitted two quality articles. Maybe I’m too ignorant to use Reddit J! I think I’ll shorten my prior list of places to promote your site by 1. Reddit is off of my list. Thankfully, there are a multitude of quality sites out there to use. So Alexis/Reddit, you may have banned me, but I’m banning you too.
Posted By Kila Morton
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