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Magnora7 started Saidit in 2017. It quickly gained success. But in the end Magnora7 lost motivation. He said in his post on Reddit that he had lost the site password to the main server about 2.5 years before the site finally errored out. There seems to be some an implied claim that D3rr had not only taken over responsibility for the site but also taken over access.
If Saidit was ultimately Magnora's property why didn't he fight for it? He could have confronted D3rr about it. He could have appealed to the community to pressure D3 to return his property back. Clearly he wasn't motivated enough to do that and said ok, it is what it is. There are other signs he had lost motivation. The question is why? What killed his motivation? What could other have done to help avoid that situation?
Product market fit. He hated most of the people that his site attracted. He hated racism. He hated lowbrow humor. He's from reddit's CST crowd. He was never interested in being a free speech warrior, but that's what the timing demanded.
So what you are saying is if an owner can't successfully shape a site's culture to match the site they want to run that they are going to stop putting time into developing it. It makes sense. Why would someone put time into something they don't want to run?
I support the right of people to walk away. I know there have been some people who have been angry at you. But no one owns your time. No one owns my time. No one owned Magnora's time. The only people who get upset that someone stops putting time into a project are people who don't respect that time, and or think they own it.
The fastest way these sites go down is the owner loses an incentive to make it work. It's not about ability. It's about incentives. If someone has incentives they will learn whatever they need to to get to the next step. Magnora would have fought the spam successfully if he had a reason to care about the site. He would have bothered to figure out how to recover his password if he was getting out of the project what he had hoped to when he started it.
Agreed but for two points.
False.
A forum can be the most beautiful palace - but is a ghost town without a community. The community also puts in time and effort and even donates. It's beyond ownership - it's a belief in a cause or a culture.
Further, everyone gets pissed at Trump, Biden, or other leaders when they don't deliver on what they promised. magnora7 was full of false promises.
If they are capable. Not everyone can code, compose like Beethoven, or write like Dostoevsky, no matter how much they may try or want to. If they aren't capable, the logical thing would be to put your ego aside and find someone who can.
What is most tragic about SaidIt is that magnora7 chose to let it rot rather than hand it off to someone or let the community find a solution, as they/we cared and could have done something with it. That's his owner right. It's my right to bitch.
At least Voat management changed, and perhaps it could have survived under someone/somefolks capable. (Full disclosure: I don't know much about Voat, the culture, or the management.)
He had 2.5 years to let folks know he was locked out, allegedly, but didn't until it died. Folks could have prepared other sites or migrated without panic. I was always shouting about decentralizing and diversifying eggs in different baskets (I gave up most of my good subs, but never my first /s/DecentralizeAllThings until he took it). I've even hosted several platforms (Larry's RabbitHole on Cassandra for a couple years - and my Projex.Wiki, LeverMind.net, and a couple of mostly-installed Lemmy instances with d3rr and weegs - neither finished). Few cared or bothered back then, but if folks had known SaidIt was going to expire perhaps they might have actually done something. IMO, we should still decentralize/distribute/diversify for many reasons.
magnora7 had the right to be a douche.
I have the right to dislike douches.
Agreed - motivation was the main problem, as he was consistently exhausted with Saidit, after putting that much investment in a free speech website that would also be an 'antiextremes' outlet, only to find it consistently overrun by extreme propaganda that's not welcome at Reddit, by people who were hostile toward anyone who disagreed with that propaganda. I have somewhere a list of names of many early Saiditors who were not specifically extreme, but left Saidit because (it seems) it was too dumb and intolerant. A major turning point was the anti-vax period, because anti-vaxxers are among the most intolerant of facts. Though before that, Redditors replied to m7's invitations by saying they didn't want to join a group of 'schizo dumbasses'. I think matrix appropriately welcomes anyone who would have wanted to join a free speech website, and getting the word out to Reddit and elsewhere would help grow the user base here.
The key is growing the right user base. Chasing numbers is a bad idea. Because once you get the wrong users, you can't recruit any more. In the long run, blindly chasing numbers will get you fewer numbers in the end. This is why I try to be as clear as I can that this site isn't for everyone. If someone is an offensive asshat for the sake of being an offensive asshat, then I'm trying to get them to understand that the site is being built for other people.
But here is the problem. Being a free speech site means I have fewer levers (not zero). I actually need folks to not be friendly toward or respond positively toward performative offensiveness. Or this place will be worse than Saidit and be completely unmarketable. If to make this place successful I have to paddle a canoe against a 20mph current, then I'm out. Or at the very least I need users who don't paddle with the current. At least help turn the 20mph into 19. Then I can do it.
I need nice people who want a nice place to learn how to downvote. If you are a nice person, then downvoting isn't optional. You need to do it. You can't be welcoming to everyone and have this place work. I know that sounds sucky. People just want to hang out in a welcoming place and not need to have their guard up. But there are, we'll say migretory people, where if you make a nice thing they will show up and shit it up. A lot of these people ironically call themselves pro-white. But they act more like migrants. They can't allow any nice culture to develop without ruining it. And they create an otherwise unnecissary association between pro-white sentiments and complete market inviability that creates a circumstance where platforms now have a strategic need to get them off. That's not anti-whiteism. That's platforms having their hand forced to anti-whitism by the very people who claim to be pursing white interests. That's the mistake of 80% of pro-whites choosing to associate themselves with shithead-ism.
I can't market a site full of shitheads. And if I can't market and grow something there is no point in putting more code into it. I'm sorry to be so commercial about it, but these are just realities that every other platform has faced. Ignoring that dimension just delays confronting it and the eventual shutdown that always happens.
So if you want to make a site that is freespeech and successful then you need to develop a social dynamic that doesn't give shitheads what they want, acceptance being a shithead. But any site has otherwise nice users who are so eager to create a sense of community that they will upvote anything.
Read this comment to see why freedom requires not being a shithead. In fact, being a shithead means you are anti-freedom.
Also, I wrote an extensive section on the culture of 'Matrix in the updated about page.
The problem is that socially rewarding performative assholary is a worse blunder than people think. It is death. I get that people want that to be cool and chill, just like it can be in real life. But when you understand all the social dynamics of the internet and what pitfalls sites have to avoid, and the shape of the slopes that can suck you in; It is a major blunder to reward someone who even pretends to be an asshole to fit in. Huge long-term blunder.
I know that seems less fun and more stuffy. But unfortunately, that's exactly what you have to do. I'm not naturally a stuffy person. But I've seen the strategic landscape, and I've realized it is the only option if you don't want to eventually become a shit show. That or become highly moderated like Lemmy. That's not what I want to do. So the only real option if you want a free speech site, which is actually nice, is to adopt social patterns that are informed by the situation. Maybe that isn't 100% fun. But it is 60% fun and keeps your environment nice. Cleaning up isn't 100% fun, but it keeps your environment nice. Having nice things requires learning how to have a few percentage points less fun to keep your environment in a nice condition.
Being stuffy towards someone who is a performative asshole doesn't sound fun. But it means long-term, you get to have conversations with someone who doesn't just yell nigger at you as his only way to communicate, and that being 80% of the site. That's not fun. Inviting the first person means you are eventually inviting the second person.
If you are reading this and you know that you are a performative asshole, please leave.
Exceptionally insightful.
Ignore and don't feed the trolls.
Further, you wouldn't tolerate asstrolls in real life - so what makes a screen-keyboard barrier any different? I consider this forum an online home (in an apartment building) and it's not too much to expect civility.
Please fix the comments' downvote.
"Social media migrant" and "social media migrant detritus" - good terms to define for http://Projex.Wiki/wiki/Terminology#S.
I love that you're taking proactive and preparatory steps to steer the ship. Others don't have that foresight. It's why I delayed on LeverMind.net - not having ducks in a row in place, for all to be in sync on the same page.
Autonomy, freedom, etc. demands accountability, defense of your community, self-defense, self-reliance, self-responsibility, etc.
I'd like to see that list - and proof they thought that.
You have that inverted.
No one cares what daft Redditors said. Invitations weren't for them - they were for those who wanted to escape the asylum.
Agreed. However, IMO, we should take it slow. First get all our ducks in a row via a real community effort. Get a facelift. Fix glitches. Draft press releases, goals, roadmaps, rules, etc. Tweak them to perfection. Community co-develop branding, a campaign, ads, interviews, etc. Maybe we can dedicate the month of March to doing all this, come up with a plan - and when ready, only after we agree to take the next steps, we pull the trigger to open the gates of hell and high discourse. It wouldn't surprise me if all this took several months to prepare.
You forgot: he hated the limpdick retards who constantly parrot MAGA lies. No sane person wants that shit.
No sane person wants lies from the Left or Right or anywhere else.
Nothing was politically 'left' at Saidit.
...Except everything that was.
I posted literally hundreds of videos and links by classic-left creators, as well as right and anarchist.
Fuck the corporatocracy Left and Right.
Also fuck the left-sellouts.
Chomsky lost his mind.
Richard Wolff uncritically bought the COVID bullshit.
Naomi Wolf only improved by fighting fascism and COVID.
The left list goes on and on... Due Dissidence, Glenn Greenwald, Jimmy Dore, Kim Iversen, Max Blumenthal, Sabby Sabs, thejuicemedia, Yanis Varoufakis, etc., etc., etc.
Saidit was pretty much the place people went because reddit became a censorfest hellhole. But some people think "muh free speech" is just being able to spam n*gg*r every day while being completely devoid of any real intelligent conversation. That probably chased most sane people away.
Yes.
A rebellious 12 year old might try to test the limits of free speech like that, but anyone older needs to challenge our intellects with their novel ideas, unique perspectives, and radical conformities or departures from the norm - and be able to defend their concepts and themselves with wit like Cyrano De Bergerac.
It seems most people aren't ready or capable of that. The world must have taken a good 30 point IQ dump in the last 10 years. People have the critical thinking skills and emotional intelligence of a cockroach. What happened?
Fantasy entertainment + managed decline in schools + odious poopaganda + vaccine injuries will do that to you.
I don't really care about the antivaxer conspiracy bullshit, but otherwise thanks for your hot take.
What is bullshit about vaccine skepticism?
get em santa!
How the fuck can he still be delusionally trusting the corrupt system?
Were the "canaries" poisoned, as well?
It's sometimes better to avoid answering questions. Such is life.
Meh. The only thing that ever really rocked the boat was when the IP2 community joined saddit. The web host said kick them or find a new host.
They were a headache
And the Terf war.
And Opie and Andy
I remember when that happened.
It was announced in advance that they would soon be banned, as was dictated by the ISP. They were given a small window of time to find somewhere else.
They were mischief makers, so I could relate. I made a post which diplomatically identifying the circumstances; which were exterior to the parties, and beyond anyone's control.
Saidit had hosted them, and didn't want to ban them. But it wasn't really up to you guys.
I suggest they move on. To rest and mend their wounds. Live to fight another day.
One or more mischief makers among them seemed to have appreciated my suggestion. Karma applied in the most literal sense.
We all remember.
Well, he did something right.. He created a dedicated following.
Saidit's warrant canary died a few years ago.
In case you're not familiar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrant_canary
Yes, and, I don't remember his 'antiextremes.net', but if you do and if we both recall his concerns about political extremism, I think it's safe to say he doesn't want Saidit to continue spreading the lies of Fox, the NYPost, right wing Xitter influencers, Breitbart, etc., all with the same daily press releases. His arguments against the abuses of Rothschilds, Big Banks, wealthy assholes &c (across the aisle) were perhaps his motivation for Saidit, where users wouldn't be banned for writing opinions the mods didn't like. Something the recent Epstein file dump confirms is the level of control Epstein's wealthy associates have had. Speaking truth to power, as Aaron Swartz and others wanted to do, was part of the potential for Saidit. But as you say, m7 could not commit to the time necessary to develop Saidit, and I'd argue that he lost faith in the site when it was taken over by right wing misinformation spreaders, while they did not tolerate the opinions of anyone left of totalitarianism.
socks, it's not about Left nor Right.
For years we tried and tried and tried to come up with actionable strategies, public relations, campaigns, etc. for awareness, growth, features, community, etc. etc. etc.
He did almost nothing to steer the ship, much less organize anything.
He wasted all the vast potential. I wish I had the time now for GM that I had back then for SI.
Being a dreamer is nice.
Taking action and making things happen is magnitudes better.
wrong user
Also, this - "for years we tried..." - and "he did almost nothing to steer" are in partial conflict. Still, none of what you've written disgrees with what I wrote. I recall him saying years ago that he didn't expect Saidit to become extreme right wing. When that happened, he apparently had difficulty motivating himself to continue working on the website. He also noted he could not be there as admin, because it was exhausting to deal with all of the responses and expectations. Saidit fell prey to the firehose of falsehoods. Users re-posted so much of the right wing misinformation (including anti-vax) and were assholes to everyone who disagreed. Hence it became for the majority of new users a toxic space. He "took action" for a couple years. He didn't have the ability, knowledge, or motivation to continue (he should have developed a larger trustworthy team early on, as happened at Reddit). We both agree that was problematic.
We = community.
He = magnora7.
He wouldn't act on what we came up with.
Not a conflict.
It was NOT just Right wing, nor extreme. What else could you expect when Reddit banned the 1) Right, 2) asstrolls, and 3) free-thinking truth-seekers and SaidIt absorbed many of them.
You keep saying that, socks, because you won't let the harsh light of truth in. Many good folks on SaidIt called out the psyops and bullshittery.
Unfortunately, the battlefield is not a comforting safe space in the 5th generation war for our minds.
Truer words, though I don't know what happened at Reddit. M7 and his ego became toxic to everyone, himself, and SaidIt.
If he wants to be like Aaron Swartz he has to let other views of politics exist without being banned or gang voted down.
Cute fanfic, you partisan douche canoe
💯 saidit response
stop - i'ma get nostalgic
Your rhetoric is old and tired Sockyboy.
Can you enlighten me on what the CST crowd is? I googled and got something back about ROTC cadets, but I assume that's not what you're talking about.
Critical Shower Thoughts - a wannabe philosophers' club. I may be wrong, but the idea is that while taking a shower your mind wanders and you have deep thoughts about critical issues - then write a pompous essay about it. It may even be great, but usually it's okay or meh.
I don't understand having deep thoughts while in the shower. I do my deep thinking while driving and then forget about what I was thinking as soon as I arrive at my destination. Wasn't there a famous author who was paid by his publisher to walk because that's when his creativity was at its peak?
The shower is not important. It's often just "Critical Thoughts", though often aren't too critical either.
I carry a marker to write notes on my hand to not forget. I transcribe those notes to my Notepad++ - but often when I return to finally flesh them out I've forgotten the novel insights and unique perspectives that had me thinking it was even worth noting. I have a lot of unfulfilled script concepts like that - especially on critical issues we all know about but are missing the new angles I would present, if I could remember.
One day, Neuralink will upload our thoughts and ideas to the collective for the good of all. Maybe we already are doing that and we are stuck in a simulated loop recreating the same scenario over and over.
I have deep thoughts while having sex, so that I don't organsm too quickly. Perhaps I should create a Critical Coitus Thoughts (CCT)sub.
Personally, I think that the proof that we exist is due to the fact that we think, therefore we exist. Like, everything can be an illusion, with the exception of thinking. I recall that someone tested this idea long ago, writing all of the criticisms of pure judgement that he could think of, while unable to claim the act of thinking is itself an illusion. I wonder if at the time he was in the shower or fucking, or fucking in the shower. He liked women, but never married. Neighbors said they could set their clocks according to the times of his afternoon walks, at 3:30pm each day. I suspect he was also thinking while walking, or a critical walking thinker (CWT).
My point is: CSTs, CCTs, and CWTs are merely thinking. If anyone thinks that's a type of person or a special group, I'd argue that's BS, or potentially a critical bullshit thinker (CBT), a candidate for cognitive behavioral therapy (also CBT).
Do you have to think about existing to truly exist? Is just thinking enough?
Nope.*
Yep.
*Though a life without self-reflection, questioning of beliefs, and critical thinking is not truly human (Socrates, in: Plato’s 'Apology'.)
Jason nailed it. https://old.reddit.com/r/C_S_T/
Remember Kuro5hin? Rusty Foster used Scoop for Howard Dean's campaign and also used it for Kuro5hin and paid off developers and claimed it as his own. He would anonymize accounts when the trolls took over, half the users moved to Husi, and the rest remained. Rusty Foster raised money to fix Scoop and Kuro5hin because it had bugs and security flaws. He raised a total of $50,000 and instead used it to fix up his house and yatch. After that Rusty Foster was an absentee landlord, and he let the domain name expire and the web hosting run out. Peter Whysall was a mod/editor who used Captain Tenile's account to ban Michael David Crawford as an admin and the users wanted him back, so Rusty brought MDC back and Peter left Kuro5hin for IWETHEY and his Photography website.
Not related to SaidIt, correct?
Not related to Saidit, but another broken website forum.
A few of Kuro5hin exiles were on early notabug.io, that's how I heard of that website. I remember one guy who was constantly talking about Michael David Crawford, forgot his nickname, he was kind of hobo/traveller like Edward, liked to sleep under the open sky.
Trane: https://subbot.org/
Yeah, that's him indeed, he used "trane" topic on notabug.
Wtf I've heard of Howard dean that's it
Rusty Foster is now running a website called Today in Tabs: https://www.todayintabs.com/ His Left-Wing humor is showing. His other website Kuro5hin he neglected until it expired. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuro5hin
Here is a screenshot: https://web.archive.org/web/20160309223206/http://www.kuro5hin.org/
What's it got to do with this
The "Origins" of SaidIt was started by magnora7 and d3rr, together.
M7 could have done a lot differently. So much. But he wouldn't listen to others.
People saw that the emperor wears no clothes, but he clung to the crown.
magnora7 is a liar many times over, and his ego demanded he never own his problems and errors, admit there was much beyond his perview, or be responsible for SaidIt under his stewardship.
We cannot prove a negative.
We cannot disprove a negative.
Without proof we only have their word.
magnora7 is not worth his word.
d3rr is worth his word, despite becoming a bitter, broken, disgruntled, poisoned, curmudgeon.
They are not the only ones who tried to make it work.
I'd like to think that I was always a disgruntled curmudgeon. :D
I'd like to think that too.
But IMO you were much less grumpy before.
I can think of at least dozen good reasons that may have turned you sour.
It saddens me to see you deflated.
I hope wind fills your sails again soon.
literally dude. the wind will fill my sails. fuck yes.
D3rr's de ole chappo!
My guess, some gentlemen showed up out of no where when he was alone and in an isolated, empty parking lot one night. They had a little chat with him...He lost his motivation.
Paranoia should also be mentioned. There were users on the margin of the community, let's say, who didn't get along with any of us but tried to gain m7's trust while calling people like Jason and me shills. We called them out on that. In the end m7 didn't know what was what anymore in that regard. He said it goes really far how malicious people will try to gain trust. Well, and there was DDoS'ing, spam, etc. He feared trusting the wrong person. He seemed like in the midst of that he ended up retreating.
He was friendly to new folks, and in so many cases would inexplicably suddenly turn on them. Quite unsettling. He was easily triggered by offenses, intended or not, fun or not, and his impatience, quick temper, and doubling down on occasional obvious lies lead to self-isolation. He would dwell on shit instead of moving past it, forgiving or not.
TL;DR: He wasn't capable to lead a community, much less a social media platform.
D3 disagreed with that version of events in comments here, on Goatmatrix.
Carswell wrote a weird sex story about him. Wish I was joking. Looks like they just really wanted to kill the site by being annoying.
magnora7 was sexually repressed - an easy joke that quickly grew tiresome.
Why haven't you unleashed homoerotic fantasies on anyone in this forum?
Surely, pumpkin would be interested in reading about your fanciful musing?
Entertain us with whispers of "sweet nothings" in pumpkin's ears?
Because then you'd expect me to gutter-dwell all the time - and topping myself with raunchier and crazier pervert shit is not something I want consuming my limited time.
It's quite clear that people can't separate creative writing from authentic thoughts, so all future discussions will be tainted by persistent memories of bawdy whimsy.
Like Musky, every one of us will die soon enough. While I'm alive I don't want folks to think of me as the gonzo guy. But you can do that when I'm dead and it won't matter.
On top of that, I'm building a studio to create content, and I'm sure the evil powers that be will do their best to dig up or fictionalize whatever they can on me if I'm lucky enough to be successful in my efforts to spread resistance to tyranny messaging. I won't sell them the rope to hang me with.
This explanation exceeds all expectations.
+3
Valiant and worthwhile efforts.
Saidit used to have good discussions, it seems like the only posts that get comments here are about saidit. What does that say.