Jack_Alexander needs to go.

hax0r · 2009-07-26T05:26:35+00:00

I'm not surprised. You and I obviously have different values with regards to recreational drug usage. Honestly, I don't know what the hell you are thinking. I've done my best to defend you, but at this point I see how silly it all was. I've been thinking of quitting reddit for a long time now. You've just made that decision very easy for me. I've done my part and now I think I'll say goodbye. This is for the best. Reddit has served its purpose for me. While I was unemployed, this was my outlet and place to vent and gave me something to do with my time. But I recently found a full time job, so I don't have time for this nonsense anymore anyway. Reddit has completely gone into the toilet over the past couple of years anyway. So long! My other subreddits are in good hands. I would encourage you to moderate properly and decisively. If you think that leaving the moderation up to the community is going to work, you're wrong. If you think you can moderate this subreddit all by yourself, you're wrong. Take care and try not to be a hypocrite. I'm moving on with my life, I'm outta here.

hax0r · 2009-07-26T04:34:25+00:00

Apologies are a two way street, maybe Jack overreacted, yeah, he did. But so what, you know? Maybe Jack had a bad day, maybe he had just dealt with some kid who ended up in the hospital over some bad, moldy shrooms? (He's a real drug/substance abuse counselor) But the backlash from the community was by far more of a much worse and nastier, spiteful and hurtful form of an overreaction. A whole bunch of people went so far as to go to his page and downvoted all his comments and posts there, and then came back here and bragged about that, several even posted screenshots. That's pretty much unforgivable right there, so, no, sorry, but no way in hell are those people gonna get unbanned. If anybody wants to get unbanned, then they'll need to request very nicely to be unbanned, then I suppose, and only then maybe we'll think about it.

So, don't blame Jack for banning people, because he didn't ban anybody. If you are concerned about a particular comment or user who was banned, feel free to ask me about it, but I feel that the comments and users who were banned deserved what they got.

hax0r · 2009-07-26T04:07:33+00:00

Dildonic wrote:

Freezing supposedly works. Check them for black mold. If anything looks remotely questionable don't even bother. Bad trips and vomiting and shitting till your brown eye is red aren't worth it. If anything sell them to someone you could care less about... maybe?

Maybe you were joking or being sarcastic, as moderators, we can't really tell. However, you should realize that it's a very serious thing to sell someone bad or moldy shrooms. People can get very sick or die. Also, they can have a horrifyingly bad trip which can land them in a mental institution for severe psychological trauma. I'm not kidding. You don't joke around about selling moldy shrooms. Maybe at the time you wrote the comment, you thought it was funny, witty, sarcastic, whatever. In retrospect, I hope you can see that it's not.

This comment caused a huge uproar because some people took your comment seriously, while others saw it as a joke. "Haha, sell some moldy shrooms, haha.." sorry, but I don't see it that way and neither did a lot of other people.

Jack had originally threatened to ban this comment. When Jack made the threat, it was not obvious he had intended to ban only this particular offensive comment, and not the entire user account.

Unfortunately what ensued afterward was a very ugly, unfair and misguided witch-hunt against our venerable moderator, Jack.

But now it's obvious that the right choice is to leave the comment and let the community actually raise awareness of the danger of selling moldy mushrooms and to highlight exactly how uncool, unfunny and downright dangerous such an action would be.

People, please do not think of us moderators as authoritarian figures who would squelch your freedom of speech. Nothing could be further from the truth.

However, it is our job to try to protect the innocent wherever possible and if someone is blatantly promoting some action which could harm an innocent party, then I do feel we have an obligation to the community to step in and try to counter the potential threat.

As far as the recreational use of mushrooms, so long as you are going to talk about using them responsibly and not go on talking about extremely dangerous and stupid stunts like rock climbing without a rope while tripping or driving a car while tripping, go for it. But when that line gets crossed and people start talking about totally irresponsible, reckless or intentionally harmful misuse, such as dosing an unsuspecting person or anything that is blatantly harmful, such as selling potentially poisonous substances, then it's my hope that the community will step in and call people out on it, and if not, then we as moderators will have to do what we can to guide the conversation back on track.

hax0r · 2009-07-26T03:44:49+00:00

Although it wasn't entirely clear from the context, I would like to give that user the benefit of a doubt and assume it was said in jest.

Sorry, Jack made the right call. You have to err on the side of caution. The comment regarding selling the mouldy/bad shrooms was not obviously made in jest. It was too close to call, so therefore it had to be treated more seriously. In fact, such a thing is so serious that it evoked anger out of Jack, rightfully so. We can't take a nonchalant attitude towards someone suggesting to sell or even joke about selling bad shrooms, which can at best make someone sick, at worst be potentially deadly, or somewhere in the middle cause a severely bad trip requiring subsequent psychological treatment to deal with deep psychological trauma.

But I don't think that Jack was in the right by threatening to ban that particular user (he specifically mentioned banning the user not the comment, even though the comment is what got removed.)

That's debatable, when Jack threatened to ban him, he meant the comment, not the user. I realize there's a big difference, but I know Jack, and I'm 100% certain he was referring to the comment, not the user.

But I don't even think the comment should have been banned.

I disagree with you. You are entitled to your opinion, but we have to do what we believe is right.

I think we would have seen replies and mods bury that particular comment, as it should be. I don't think the purpose of mods should be to modify the free flow of the conversation. Insert all the usual arguments about free speech here.

Clearly Jack reacted emotionally, the comment was deeply upsetting. Why? Because people like me and Jack have seen the devastating results of people who've taken bad shrooms for one reason to another, and it's a very nasty thing. It's not something to joke or kid around about, that's serious. For something like this, the adults have to step in and slap some hands.

Jack_alexander and Thumperings are obviously pushing a particular point of view when it comes to the discussion of drugs, and I don't think that is appropriate in the /r/Drugs subreddit where the stated topic is "All things drug related."

Keep in mind that Thumperings is the one who wrote the "All things drug related.", as he's the original creator of this subreddit.

However, he's since made it be made publicly known that he's not particularly in favor of people blatantly promoting the use of illegal recreational drugs.

That's his prerogative, he started the subreddit, and as creator and moderator he gets to make the rules. Take it or leave it, like it or not, but that's reddit for you.

I don't agree with it, personally, I smoke weed and I enjoy it, I inhale to get high and that's the whole point. ;-)

That being said, I'm very much in favor of people using their drugs responsibly and in moderation. Which is to say, not overdoing it. I don't think it's OK under any circumstances for people to abuse drugs to the point that they are coming very near to overdosing. I'm also very careful when it comes to highly addictive drugs, such as cocaine and opiates. However, I've used cocaine and opiates and am a former addict of both of those, so I can speak from experience. I try to give my two cents to anybody who's willing to listen. I even used to be addicted to weed, yes, addicted. I'm no longer addicted to it, but I enjoy it from time to time, always taking care not to overdo it. Whereas in the past I would've stayed at home smoking on my huge bong all day long, doing nothing else while my entire life went to shit. That's not OK, so I'll try wherever possible to discourage people from falling into that same hole I once fell into.

I don't even think that changing the stated topic is adequate as they would still be hijacking /r/Drugs for a particular agenda, which is bad for the reddit community in general. I mean, someone subscribing to /r/Drugs has no reason to believe that discussing the use of recreational drugs in a positive light is verboten, nor should they.

What more can I say. I've said what I'm going to say about it. I'm not going to ask Thumperings to step down. In fact, he's publicly asked Jack to chill out a bit.

I'm not sure what Thumperings is thinking, as I can't speak for him.

All I can say is, I started /r/recreationaldrugs and /r/erowid, and there's a lot of pro-recreational use moderators over there, such as myself.

If that is their intention, they should start a new subreddit whose title reflects that. I don't care if Thumperings started this subreddit, he should embrace some freedom of speech or GTFO!

Why don't you PM Thumperings and see what he has to say about it? I assure you, he's not against freedom of speech!

I think a lot of people have this inaccurate idea of us moderators as fascist authoritarian dictator types, when nothing could be further from the truth.

hax0r · 2009-07-26T02:59:39+00:00

Very true.

hax0r · 2009-07-26T02:55:54+00:00

I have no idea what you're talking about, man... ;-) shhhhh....

hax0r · 2009-07-26T02:50:19+00:00

please elaborate, do you have something of value to add to the topic or are you just attacking me personally?

hax0r · 2009-07-26T02:49:11+00:00

that's ancient history man... it was just a bad dream, everything is OK now...

hax0r · 2009-07-26T02:47:39+00:00

You're kidding, right? Seriously, this is sarcasm, right? Weed is probably the best social lubricant... well, maybe MDMA might be slightly better.. or some combination of the two, but weed is amazing as a social lubricant. Surely you were joking.. ok, I'll go calm down now. [cough, cough] ;-)

hax0r · 2009-07-26T01:51:44+00:00

Beats the heck outta me!

hax0r · 2009-07-26T01:49:28+00:00

You are entirely correct! The short story is this:

Earlier today, Jack (the moderator) got upset because some guy made an unfunny joke about selling spoiled mushrooms which would make someone very sick. Jack threatened to ban the comment instead of just banning it, which is what he should've done in the first place. Because Jack threatened to ban the comment, a bunch of people gave Jack some attitude for threatening to ban a comment which apparently they thought was funny, but a bunch of other people (myself included) did not. In response to the attitude, Jack mentioned that he was a moderator and had a lot of karma points. As a side note, we just got this new feature called distinguish, which is something we moderators can do to put a little [M] next to our name. Before this happened automatically, but now we need to do it as a separate, optional, step. Jack didn't distinguish himself as a moderator, probably because he didn't know about the new feature, which I, myself, just found out about today. (It's a new thing.) Consequently, a bunch of other people got upset and/or confused and/or amused as to why he was identifying himself as a moderator but yet he didn't have the little [M] next to his name. Other people got disproportionately upset because of the fact that they they were envious of Jack's massively high karma score of over 25k, which is actually quite impressive, I might add. Unfortunately for Jack, so many people have very fragile ego's so they reacted the only way they know how in this case, which was to form a massive mob akin to a witch-hunt. This is very sad because Jack is actually a nice guy and he was just trying to do what he felt was right as a moderator. Unfortunately, now he has learned the hard lesson that you don't ever threaten to ban someone's comment, you just do it. And you never, ever, mention your karma, because there's just no way of doing that which doesn't cast you in a negative light.

That's about as short as I could do it without leaving out any important details.. :-)

hax0r · 2009-07-26T01:22:57+00:00

Or a float tank!

hax0r · 2009-07-26T01:16:38+00:00

You know what, man, seriously. That's just totally uncalled for. I'm a cool guy, but now I'm starting to get pissed off too.

hax0r · 2009-07-26T01:13:23+00:00

You're totally ignoring the fact that he gave a good answer the question. :-)

Jack_Alexander wrote:

In answer to your question I'd say they are still psycho-active and will remain so for some time to come so long as you keep them in the jar and out of direct light and at a constant temp.

So, you don't give him any credit for that now, do you?

Honestly, this witchhunt is far more disgusting to me than Jack's comments.

hax0r · 2009-07-26T01:08:35+00:00

What comment? I don't see any comment. Nothing to see here folks, move along... ;-)

hax0r · 2009-07-26T01:07:24+00:00

what you talkin' 'bout, Willis?!

hax0r · 2009-07-26T01:05:13+00:00

Sounds good to me, but I'm not the one you need to convince. [points finger at other two mods, takes one step back] ;-)

hax0r · 2009-07-26T00:53:23+00:00

Believe me, I agree with you 100%. Unfortunately, it's not up to me. Thumperings started this subreddit, perhaps you can try to sway his mind with your unerring logic and common sense. I wish you good luck in that endeavor! My solution was to start /r/recreationaldrugs and /r/erowid. There are definitely various groups here, some are very strongly anti-recreational drugs. In my opinion they are a minority, but they are very loud and very vocal, and they take their gripes up with the moderators. The pro-recreational drugs crowd voices their angst in the form of public comments and downvotes, but tend to be very quiet with regard to PMing the moderators. This is the reality as I've seen it, personally. As far as the moderators are concerned, (myself included and not just in this subreddit) a PM means something much more substantial, but a public comment (regardless of the votes) is practically meaningless.

I now smoke cannabis as it is the least damaging "medication" I have found to deal with the pain long term - but I also enjoy it - is it recreational or medicinal? Is it the legal status in a particular country that leads to it's designation here?

Shit, I'm sorry to hear you suffer from chronic pain. I smoke cannabis purely for the recreational and emotional aspects. It helps me better deal with stress and anxiety. I enjoy the high and the intellectual insights and wisdom that it brings. I enjoy the social aspects and the heightened musical appreciation.

Let there be no mistake, I personally, and I'm not speaking as a moderator of /r/drugs here when I say this: I love recreational drugs. I smoke and vape herbs, including all kinds of cannabis, I also enjoy salvia, shrooms, and in the past I used to enjoy MDMA/ecstasy, cocaine and also opiates. I've stayed away from the last three for a long time. Recently I've been experimenting with DXM, which I really enjoy and find to be very clean and actually beneficial.

That being said, I also see the dangerous side of drug abuse. I've seen friends badly addicted to cocaine and opiates to the point that it ruined their lives and they lost everything. I've had my own share of troubles too, but recently I got my life back on track. I was unemployed for a long time, but I recently got a great new job.

So when someone comes along joking about selling bad, moldy shrooms.. something that I've actually seen happen to friends of mine who didn't know any better, and they've gotten very sick and had super bad experiences because some dickhead sold them bad shit.. that hits a nerve with me, just like I figured it hit a nerve with Jack. So when I see the whole community coming down so hard on Jack because some idiot thought it would be funny to talk about selling bad, moldy, shrooms, that really pisses me off, not just as a moderator who has a lot of respect for Jack, but also just as a dude who's had to deal with friends who picked up bad drugs.

If the issue is possibly dangerous advice (moldy mushrooms) then respond as such

Unfortunately, by the time I saw what had happened, this whole thing had already blown sky high, with everybody trying to paint a very nasty, and unfair image of Jack. He deserves to be treated better than this and it's so sad to see all of these people being so nasty when Jack was actually rightfully pissed off. Granted, he should've been more specific as to the actual gripe (selling moldy mushrooms), but nobody's perfect. I don't think Jack was fairly treated at all, this turned into a witchhunt and Jack became the victim here when he was just trying to do what he believed was right for threatening to ban the comment, and he was right. In fact, he should've just banned the comment immediately. That was his only mistake, IMO. At this point, the ban on the comment sticks as we are all unanimous in our agreement with it. This nastiness from the community needs to go away, Jack isn't the bad guy here and what happened to him today was totally uncalled for and unjust. Unfortunately, the bulk of the damage has been done and it's not an easy thing to reverse a community backlash, this thing snowballed vastly out of proportion and it was totally unfair to Jack.

hax0r · 2009-07-25T23:51:12+00:00

You should've seen the trippy psychedelic alien I had put up before this one! That was even crazier! A lot of people loved it, but a lot of people hated it too, because it was so obviously in favor of hard core tripping. Sadly, I lost the image file...

hax0r · 2009-07-25T23:29:23+00:00

If you have something specific, please let me know.

This whole thing started because some idiot made a joke which didn't look like a joke, it looked serious, but others have told me he was just being sarcastic. In any case, the joke was along the lines of selling some bad shrooms with black mold on them, knowing full well that it would make a person very sick. Jack didn't think this was funny and threatened to ban the comment. The community jumped all over Jack for threatening to ban. The comment in question has since been banned, a unanimous decision with the support of all three of us moderators. In retrospect, I think this whole thing could've been handled better, but we are all just people, not politicians and nobody is perfect. With regard to joking about selling bad, moldy shrooms, that's not cool and Jack was in the right to call the user out on it.

Jack is a drug/substance abuse counselor, he's also a Vietnam veteran and has many years of experience on the subject. He's far more knowledgeable with regard to recreational drug use and long term effects than your average Erowid kiddie.

As far as the topic of recreational drugs, Thumperings and Jack are of the mindset that such usage shouldn't be actively condoned or encouraged here at /r/Drugs.

It is for this reason that I've created /r/recreationaldrugs and /r/erowid, where such activity is tolerated and has less conservative moderators such as myself.

As far as you telling Jack he is not welcome here, well.. that's your opinion. He has a very high karma and it's because he truly earned it. He deserves to be treated with more respect than this. Jack is a good man and can be very passionate at times.

While I don't necessarily agree with the anti-recreational drugs attitude of my fellow moderators, I respect it, it's their decision. Thumperings started this reddit, so if you have an issue with it, take it up with him.

As far as I'm concerned, feel free to talk about shrooms, tripping, even hard drug use, whatever you want over at /r/recreationaldrugs and/or /r/erowid. But even there, if someone tries to make an unfunny joke about selling bad shrooms, don't be surprised if that comment gets banned there as well, as it rightfully should be.

hax0r · 2009-07-25T22:52:23+00:00

...just like roads, public infrastructure, law enforcement, fire fighters and paramedics.

hax0r · 2009-07-25T22:48:45+00:00

check those last two again... ;-)

hax0r · 2009-07-25T22:44:14+00:00

It's too close to call. For something that serious, Jack was right to err on the side of caution. Now if Dildonic had made it blatantly obvious he was just kidding, this entire mess would've been avoided. He could've put a ;-) or a /sarcasm or something to indicate his sarcasm just to avoid any confusion, but he didn't.

hax0r · 2009-07-25T22:39:29+00:00

you're just jealous!

hax0r · 2009-07-25T22:27:32+00:00

heh, Jack is a good guy, he deserves a pass on this, I think people really went overboard when Jack was just trying to smack down an idiot. Jack earned his karma points, they are well deserved. He truly deserves to be respected. He's not arrogant, he's actually very cool. Everybody has their mood swings, including myself, so when it comes to putting up with other people, I'm pretty easy going about it.

hax0r

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