Same thing I play every week. Coral Island and RCT3.

Coral Island is in Steam Early Access and is as yet unfinished, but is making steady progress and the devs are doing great at keeping everyone up to date on progress. Coral Island is frequently compared to Stardew Valley. Frankly, I don’t enjoy SDV. I’ve tried and tried and it just doesn’t do it for me. Coral Island is everything I was hoping SDV would be. It’s game play is similar, but I find the whole thing much more enjoyable.

I’ve been playing RCT3 off and on since I first bought it on CD a million years ago.

This is such a common attitude, and it’s nonsense. Non-moderators think moderators are “power hungry” when they ban people. While there are some few exceptions, moderators don’t ban people because they like power. Moderators ban people because they’re disruptive and causing trouble.

What moderating is really like, part 1

What moderating is really like, part 2

99% of the people I’ve banned who were not obvious spammers or bots are one kind of troll or another. Usually they fall into three categories: Concern Trolls (“But I’m only saying this for your own good!”), Factoid Trolls (“I’m here to tell you the TRUTH!”), or Disruptive Trolls (dick picks, offensive memes, slurs and racism, etc.).

Roughly 1% of the people I ban apologize for their mistake, remove their rule-breaking content, and either follow the rules or quietly leave.

I regularly get called a power-hungry mod by the crybabies who get angry when they aren’t allowed to break the very clearly stated rules, and repeat their offenses after getting first, sometimes second warnings. They run to other places and go try to stir up other crybabies to come and cause the same kind of trouble.

Moderating is tireless and endless. Jerks don’t get banned for saying “Dur the mods suck! Free Speech!” Jerks get banned because they think the rules are for other people, or because they think that the rules are wrong so that means they don’t have to follow them.

Thank you for coming to my Moose Talk. (Ted is taking a nap right now.)

Voat became such a garbage site. It was (barely) tolerable in its early days but with the influx of the reddit refugees from the FPH and “Chimpire” subs, it started down the path to trash fire. My favorite (sarcasm) part was how the racists even attacked the Voat creator & original boss because he was Muslim. Yet the owner was such a tool that he shrugged it off with “Free Speech.”

By the time it failed – and yes, I know that there’s a version of Voat still around but it’s like 300 white supremacists all doing a giant circle jerk – there wasn’t a place on Voat that wasn’t a toxic cesspool.

I recently told this tale but I’ll tell it again: There was a short lived Reddit alternative that closed down for, as best as I can tell, mostly trying to run at just the wrong time. They sounded a lot like Beehaw: Open communication but no hate speech allowed.

They started growing around the time that Reddit was cracking down on the alt-reich subs that were doxxing people and making actual threats of violence, like the_dondon (You know what I mean) and its ilk, plus stomping out the incels. Both groups went crying to Voat. Voat, amusingly, called them all poseurs and downvoted them off the site. So they - especially the alt-reich kids - went to the new site.

The new site handled them with such grace it still boggles my mind. They told them all, basically, “Thanks for coming! It’s so nice you want to be here, but, sorry, you’re breaking our rules. Here’s your hat. So sorry you can’t stay with us! We wish you all the best. Bye bye, now!” and deleted all their accounts and the communities they created, and that was that.

It was a cute site and it could have been something nice, but it just didn’t fully get off the ground. I feel bad that I cannot remember the name of it.

Redditinc.com’s fact(oid)s about the API changes.

Includes such BS as

100,000+ active communities

Technically true. But it’s estimated that between 1/3 and 1/2 are NSFW. That is, the subs they don’t want shown at their (mythical) IPO.

Supporting these apps is not free for Reddit; they incur both infrastructure and significant opportunity costs.

Technically true. But so does the official app, and web browsers. API calls are not some sort of special magic that causes extra wear on the systems. If the users never had the third party apps they’d be using something else, causing the same traffic and usage - or using nothing at all.

Reddit needs to be a self-sustaining business and to do that, we can no longer subsidize commercial entities that require large-scale data use from our API.

Again, third party apps are no more of a drain on data use than anything else. It’s been proven, but Spez keeps pushing this lie.

Many other platforms have chosen to stop supporting apps like these altogether.

Objection! Facts not in evidence.

more than 98% of apps do not pay and will continue to access the Data API for free so long as apps are not monetized […].

Emphasis mine. This is the real story.

Our pricing is based on usage levels comparable to our own costs

Either this is an outright lie or Spez is admitting that the official Reddit app is an inefficient, data monching, piece of garbage.

We’re working to improve the mobile mod experience

Spez has been promising rainbows for years but all we ever get is poop. Or just the smell of poop. That the mobile apps were released without proper moderator tools tells you what he thinks of moderators.

We have a unique system of checks and balances, and we respect the communities right to protest.

Clearly a lie, given that Spez is going to change the rules to force out moderators who choose to follow their sub’s wishes to protest.

r/nottheonion is asking users to vote, including a fun option that encourages people to take Tuesdays off

The “fun option” is an official means of joining the protest. Can he stop lying for 10 seconds?

We conducted an accessibility audit with an external consultant and have been working on improving accessibility on the site and in our apps.

Yes, much smarter than actually TALKING TO YOUR OWN USERS AND SEEING WHAT THEY WANT. Oh, they want what you refuse to do? Gee, what a surprise!

Nothing says ableism more than telling people with disabilities that they have no agency in how or if they get accommodations. (Sadly, the ADA does not apply to Reddit as a website.)

In summary, Spez needs to be fired. Preferably out of a cannon, into the sun. (Edit to add, because I am newbie here: This is hyperbole. I do not actually advocate violence against anyone.)

Thank you.

I know what it’s like to try to build up something good only to have trolls try to take it over. It’s nice to think that kindness and guidance can make everything shiny and happy, but the reality is that sometimes you just have to shut the door to bad actors and lock it behind them.

Some people have a need to try to ruin things for others. There’s no reason to give them a platform. Actions have consequences.