- Source: /r/subredditdrama
- Posted: Nov 1 2012
- Author: zanotam
- Topic: [meta] A brief summary of Doxtober with links to more specific summaries and a recap of the final days
Well, to start with, I think you’ll find today’s SMBC comic relevant to the following discussion.
And, a warning, I am not the greatest at this summarizing thing and the drama has been so deep and pervasive that I’m really just taking the highlights of the highlights of the highlights, so if someone can provide more details and help me fill this out, it would be nice, but I didn’t see any doxtober meta summaries yet, so I thought I could at least try to get the ball rolling. But seriously, this is the largest batch of drama I’ve ever seen and my first recap so if you think I missed something important, please let me know and I’ll add it.
TL;DR VA [/u/violentacrez] got dox’d by Adrien Chen and prodigious amounts of popcorn are produced in the aftermath from people reactions, reactions to other reactions, and, well, you get the point.
Major events:
Start: VA gets dox’d by Adrien Chen of Gawker. The article contains enough identifying information that VA’s employer gets harassed and lets him go and Anderson Cooper invites VA on to his show for a short spot. Reddit overflows with name calling and flame wars which still come up in threads weeks after the first major shots were fired.
Recap II (Links to Reddit)
Middle:
Well, this drama episode has put a lot of pressure on the admins (and the fact that some of the new admins got off on a bad first foot with some of reddit didn't help!) and so a new rule about not posting certain admin talk is introduced in SRD and singlehandedly brings a bit of life back to /r/ThePopcornStand as it is the semi-official source for 'forbidden' drama now.
— MillenniumFalc0n [M]: Alright, so I guess some explanation is required. We have been removing links to the leaked #modtalk log. This isn’t because we’re ashamed of the content or anything, but because we believe its proliferation would be harmful to the greater reddit community. The admins have made it clear that if we can’ t prevent leaks, they can’t speak frankly with us. The mod team believes that keeping lines of communication open between the admins and the moderators in situations like this is important, and hence we have decided to not allow it to be spread in this subreddit. Leaks in general are not banned, just leaks involving the admins. Please comment with any questions or concerns. If you disagree, please let us know why.
In the aftermath of the initial doxing the SRS mods (who many blamed for firing the first few shots of Doxtober) hatred for reddit is looked upon even more poorly than usual and they are denied access to the /r/modtalk sub and, as explained in one of the summaries, they are generally under fire from a lot of power users because of the VA doxing.
VA still posts on reddit though and since he lost his job, he now goes looking to reddit to see if anyone wants to hire him, posting his resume to multiple subreddits.
Interestingly, the creator of /r/beatingwomen was also dox’d, supposedly in addition to other moderators of that subreddit.
AnElegantPenis: Why did he threaten you? Do you happen to have something to do with SRS releasing information of few redditors from creepsquad?
mcon87: Should that matter? I’m disgusted that SRS released that information; I think it was reprehensible. However, raping someone has no justification. Zero. None. Neither does stalking someone. I don’t care what she did.
END: There’s some minor drama about supposed doxing and shadowbanning in /r/internetama as the overall drama grows tepid
Finally, Lautrichienne, a member of the SRS Fempire (that’s what they call themselves now, right?) is dox’d. Drama, of course, ensues. All records of this are lost.
To cap everything off, the mods of SRD have to make an announcement to remind people that doxing is NOT a good thing.
RECAP 3
NEW STUFF
(28h later)
The Guardian writes about reddit and free speech and hits the front page.
(21h later)
Violentacrez, on his 5-year old “clean account”, reveals that he was fired Saturday morning.
(18h later)
Creepshots, according to reddit admins, did not break any rules
POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS’s accusation that creepshots and related subs were banned by the admins due to the jezebel article conflicts with Reddit GM Erik Martin, who claims that he told theverge.com:
the creators of r/creepshots requested for their subreddit to be closed, and that it was not banned for violating any of the site’s rules
edit: as this thread is dying any further updates will be left for whoever does part IV, which won’t be me.
ORIGINAL POST
Okay these are not going to be nearly as comprehensive as the work hippiemachine did, who did part I and part II. If she wants to do a better job than me on part III I’ll gladly take this down and she can use whatever of this she wants.
The Adrian Chen Gawker expose on Violentacrez is released
I’m not going to link to it, as it is banned here, but I assume you have some intelligence, so it is out there and contains tons of personal information. This story is then reported on a variety of websites, including slate, theatlanticwire, Daily Mail, politico, Fox News, the Guardian and the Dallas Observer, Forbes, etc. AloyshaV, well-known friend of SRD, created a dox-free version of the article and kindly posted it to imgur.
Violentacrez is possibly fired as his website is just his resume with -October 2012 as his most recent job experience, however this is just speculation.
SRS does its thing and potatoes
SRS has some drama over the dox vs journalism (-< this is just a snippet, find the thread for the whole thing, not linked since it now contains dox) after new reddit admin Dacvak messages the SRS mods that links to the gawker and jezebel articles are not allowed.
However, the reddit admins quickly backtrack on this as Erik Martin emails Buzzfeed:
Update: Erik Martin tells BuzzFeed FWD via email: "The sitewide ban of the recent Adrien Chen article was a mistake on our part and was fixed this morning. Mods are still free to do what they want in their subreddits.
SRS then proceeds to post the gawker article in the SRS site posted above, which is why it is not directly linked.
The accusation of SRS vote brigading in POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS’s drama filled AMA finally has proof leaked. August vote brigading, September vote brigading. These could be faked but it would take a great deal of time and autism to do so, so I believe them to be real.
POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS never gives out his gmail password to other reddit users to substantiate his claims that the reddit admins have lied but continues to post in subredditdrama as mods approve his comments one by one due to him being shadowbanned.
r/circlejerk goes into “Gawker-submission-only mode”; all submissions are Gawker posts and a decent amount contain the real name of Violentacrez.
Submit links that point to gawker.com, jezebel.com, jalopnik.com, kotaku.com, gizmodo.com, lifehacker.com, deadspin.com, and io9.com only.
[Meta] r/subredditdrama mods lock down the gauntlet
Candid IRC modtalk between the admins and SRDmods (and other powerusers) regarding Doxtober are leaked and repeatedly removed from SRD, with the submitters being banned (and some re-instated later).
Apparently all pastebin leaks and drama outside of subredditsare no longer allowed, despite sushisushisushi winning an Orville award for doing so. I think if we can get clarification from the mods regarding this that would be wonderful.[23:02:23] <kkthxbye> Hey, curious, what was the reason for removal of my post? It’s not in dramalog
[23:02:53] <ZeroShift> Which post?
[23:03:20] <kkthxbye> [22:27:05] <@ZeroShift> Nuked it
[23:03:22] <kkthxbye> That one
[23:04:21] <ZeroShift> Ah. modtalk does not want their logs leaked.
Revealed here (note to mods, that pastebin link is defunct, this link contains no dox or modmail links) and here and here.
SRD Mods respond with an explanation below, and clarify that only leaks that involve admins are not allowed, please do not downvote them, even if you disagree with what they do they are adding to the conversation.
RECAP 1
This story is not yet complete. I’ve done my best to organize this drama in chronological order, but if I’ve made a mistake, please let me know and I’ll try to fix it.
Brief Summary of Background Drama
For a few months now, /r/CreepShots, a subreddit dedicated to candid pictures of women in public, has been a source of great controversy on Reddit, and more recently in the mainstream media. A few weeks ago, a high school teacher who posted pictures of “hot” girls in his classes was caught by a user who recognized the posted girl. His subsequent arrest gave CreepShots/Reddit mass media publicity.
Here’s the SRS post that documents the teacher’s CreepShots post (/u/weagleweagleweagle) and in the comment section, /u/jackiepanda claims that she’s going to email the teacher’s creepshots to the schools and police departments, to which a now [deleted] account says that they’ve found information to narrow down who the teacher is.
After the teacher’s arrest, many blamed SRS’s anti-Reddit Project Panda campaign, several subs freaked about about r/CreepShots existence, and r/CreepShots submissions started getting inundated with downvotes and new members.
Cries for the sub to be shut down were met by the defense that the sub’s activities were perfectly legal, and such arguments were waged in comment sections across Reddit.
violentacrez’s account deletion and doxxing
Yesterday (10/10/2012), the infamous Reddit user /u/violentacrez deleted his account.
Since the link to his “goodbye” is a deletion wasteland, I went ahead and found this Google-cache of his post on coderedd.com. The formatting is in what I presume to be Python, but this Google cache has preserved the thread in all of its undeleted glory, including VA’s last post at 2:33 GMT:
‘Well, guys, my work here has come to an end.’ 3 hours ago by violentacrez from self.violentacrez
‘It’s been real, and it’s been fun, and it’s been real fun.’
For the curious: according to the CodeRedd code, the comments consisted mostly of users bidding VA goodbye with links to porn, wondering why he’d leave after posting an AMA, and whether all of the VA users (his account is allegedly shared) agreed on this deletion.
Here’s the SRD post about it and linking to the now deleted thread. It is here where /u/ThaddyG almost prophetically wonders whether something happened to VA, saying:
Seems obvious to say but something must have happened to him IRL. Legal trouble?
Just a few hours later, power-user /u/POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS writes this post in SRD, explaining that VA likely deleted his account because Adrian Chen, a Gawker writer infamous for being “anti-Reddit”, had doxxed VA after obtaining his personal information from an unknown source, though apparently even VA deleting his account wouldn’t prevent Gawker from running the story on him. PIMA posted pictures of conversations he’s had with VA in his post, including one of a conversation where Saydrah discusses Adrien Chen’s approaching her for a comment on a story about VA.
On a note that may or may not undermine to PIMA’s offered explanation, /u/smooshie and /u/Niqualz both point out that VA’s real name and identity were already known because he had attended/organized Reddit Dallas meetups.
PIMA Mourns VA in /r/NSFW
In a virtually identical post to the his SRD submission, POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS posts an explanation for VA’s deletion and cautions his subscribers to be wary of posting personal details, reposts a NSFW of a model, and acknowledging that r/CreepShots has been shut down along with a screenshot of a threatening PM that one of the r/CreepShots mods received (more on this later). He blames SRS for the blackmail, and muses that it’s “interesting the amount of stuff SRS is allowed to get away with on this site.” In the comment thread, users call for SRS to get banned, hope that VA sues Chen for blackmail, and call for bans on Gawker.
/u/I_hate_bigotry catches wind of PIMA’s post and makes this circlebroke post about it. In it, she tears apart PIMA for sympathizing with VA and posting so much about VA’s deletion.
SRS Celebrates VA’s Deletion
SRS Mod ArchangelleNoodelle makes a self-post bidding VA adieu, and SRSister /u/whynot_shesaid voices suspicion over VA’s deletion after Reddit apparently got new admins that he wasn’t “in good” with as he apparently was with the previous ones. /u/Grickit also notes that Reddit just hired a new programmer who claims to have been a long-time Redditor, but who made a new account anyways, but acknowledges that this is just unfounded speculation.
r/violentacrez Gets Modded by SRS
Mod of r/violentacrez and several large subreddits, /u/ytknows writes in an SRD post that he has added some SRS moderators to r/violentacrez for the inevitable “hilarious results” that would likely ensue, just as when he added them as mods to r/circlejerk.
The mods for r/violentacrez are now
-
ytknows
-
Castiella
-
RobotAnna
-
ArchangelleMichaelle
-
ArchangelleTenuelle
-
Lucifielle
-
Lautrichienne
-
RosieLalala
-
jackiepanda
A newly modded /u/Castiella made this post introducing the “change in direction” that she planned on taking the sub, namely that it would now serve as an antithesis to the pedophilia that violentacrez was known for. In the thread, /u/JamesBar asks
Honest question, is there any back story on how SRS made VA leave?
edit: in reality, SRS doxxed and blackmailede VA and the /r/creepshot mods. Are you proud of yourselves?
And gets promptly banned by /u/Castiella. Castiella also makes a Reddit request to unmod VA from r/violentacrez in case he un-deletes his account. Back in SRS, /u/ArchangelleStrudelle announces the Fempire’s newly acquired subreddit, and Castiella explains that
The old pervert deleted his account and ytknows handed it over to AAstrudelle
/u/Laurelai also posts about the SRS takeover in /r/MetaHub, and writes that VA deleted his account because
he got a new job and didn’t have time for reddit anymore.
-
ah man, all of the comments link to reddit… which I refuse to access.
Hmm. I’ll switch those out for mirrors.
Edit: Did this as much as possible. There appears to be either a bug or a soft cap on this instance which prevents especially long posts, so the recaps have remained where they are for the time being. Added a note that they link to reddit beside the links.
Hey thanks for the effort!
No prob!
