automod filters made reddit an absolute nightmare. pouring my heart out on the depression sub and getting it removed because it didn’t have 300 characters or it was image post saturday or god knows what. you basically just don’t get to post on any sizable sub — before it was at least a lottery! post, see if people will like it! but now you can’t even get a post through!
there are 50 automod filters on everything, forbidden words or topics, perfectly good questions cast away to megathreads no one reads!
it’s a dire, awful landscape, and really terrible user experience, having something on your chest and wanting to post, but oh hey this won’t be posted until our ‘mod team’ ‘reviews’ it. isn’t that what voting is for? please stop treating me like a spambot or troll by default!
Voat was batshit crazy, but some of the things done there were done well. I really liked that the ‘big subs’ were considered voat run, so the moderators didn’t get to make their own little kingdoms of folly in the most popular areas. The commitment to free speech was great. It just went down so hard because the first people who went to it were the type to scrawl on the walls of their house in pastel crayon and neon spray paint.