I am really sorry for the way I left.
Yes there was a dox, but that's all I feel comfortable saying right now. I'm less transparent about my personal life, but there were some really bad unforeseen consequences. When things span out of control, I hit the delete button in a hurry. It was not what was best for the sub and I don't have much to say for that. It was a difficult circumstance for me and I hope you understand. To my own credit though, I
am
the guy who hired these mods of
/r/Mr_Trump
and you can see how good of a job they've done. They're amazing; they always were and they always will be.
Bernie Sanders' campaign has been a disaster but it tells us a lot about the value of a subreddit.
He ran basically just an internet campaign and proved that the internet can be worth over 40% of a party's voters plus God knows how many independents. When your total views are well passed one hundred million (as of when I left) and you have twice that many talking about you elsewhere, the sub stops being a small goofy niché and starts being a legitimate force that partially determines the largest power shift currently happening on Earth. The stupidest thing S4P ever did was sell out the kind of publicity a sub like ours provides, for $3M in donations. Reddit's set up so that only Trump's campaign can capitalize on the value we provided, but ask
/u/Viking83
who works in this stuff. People pay a lot more than $3M for a lot less. There's a damn good reason we don't phonebank here, you guys.
What's going on here is bigger than you might think.
When I was being doxxed, I was messaging the admins a whole lot. I even made a sticky once asking the subscribers to spam the admins and make sure they knew about it, because they were not getting back to me other than one or two threats from way before the fiasco. Even if they have no other part in this (though, I suspect they do), that is itself a deliberate attempt to do sinister things against us. The doxxing mob was blatant as hell, being one of the highest posts in SRD history and comprising of hundreds of PMs before NYPD-32 finally gave them what they needed. Lord knows I love attention, but I've never sent someone's information to a massive witch hunt in order to get it. Can some mod here ban this asshole? I hate seeing that he's allowed to post here.
Here is how The_Donald has been attacked.
First, accounts were made.
Memes are the best thing ever, but they also make it very easy to fake a post history. In my day, there were even bots that we had to ban or message to the admins. It's especially easy since so many people post from throwaway accounts and it's not like we'd just get rid of them. Considering that we already know Hillary hires Indians to follow her Twitter and shit, it's obvious how these shills are formed.
Second, shit storms got started on SRD.
The first one happened when Jcm267 left me in charge and they flipped a gasket asking why he gave the sub to me instead of Gumbledog or Lil-z. Very interesting how passionate SRD was about me giving the sub to them. They don't even need to pay SRD; SRD flips out for free.
Third, they awoke the shill accounts.
There are three types of shill accounts. There are those who argue against the mods and get suspicious over whatever controversy. There are those who defend the mods to lure them into a response and also to keep the discussion alive. And there are those who shout that they hate mod drama and just want to get back to shit posts. That's an attack on all angles and it's very easy to coordinate.
Fourth, the shills influence some Centipedes--especially newer ones.
It's a rigged game. People are heavily influenced by the opinions and sentiments of others, especially large groups or mobs. All you have to do is have enough of a mob to have some presence in the sub you're trying to destroy, and have some mob making factory like
/r/SubRedditDrama
ready. Cast your net on the giant subscriber base and some will fall in. When they do, there's a slight domino effect.
Fifth, a shit storm brews no matter what the mods do.
If you remove the shills then the censorship will cause an uproar. If you don't remove shills then you can't just expect everyone to ignore the outrage and you're gonna lose credibility quick. If you try to reason with the community, people shout that it's all about the mods now and we need to get off this mod drama, reminding you that this sub is not about you--as thousands of others demand that you respond. The accusations are small but there's SO MANY of them. Mobs hit you from each angle. If the admins are on your side, there won't even be shadowbans for brigading.
Sixth, the sub implodes.
In this case it basically happened when TrumpGal stepped down. I'd been trading PMs with her the whole morning and afternoon of her resignation and she really seemed sweet and genuine, but she knew the hits had been successful, she'd made some mistakes, and she wanted to stop. That doesn't seem to be the case with Gumbledog and Lil-z. I tried to talk to GumbleDog and he used to skype me all the time, but he stopped messaging me this time when I tried to connect.
Here's how to beat the attack and here's why I think The_Donald is finished.
In order to beat this attack, you need one thing:
You need a top mod so incorruptible, so trusted, and so immune to doxxing that shills can't touch them. This person needs to be SO
well liked that the decision to immediately ban and censor the opinion that this person is a paid shill would actually be POPULAR. I was going to try that and hope to God that I had the support to make it happen, but I knew what I'd be risking. You can't get that kind of credibility anonymously. In our case though, we should have gotten lucky because Milo volunteered. I'm sure nobody would have minded if the mods purged accusations that Milo is a shill.
The reason that The_Donald is finished is because the mods won't give Milo the sub.
I cannot for the life of me figure out why they wouldn't do this. They could win the war against Correct The Record. If they just handed over the sub, we could shit post in peace, ban Hillary, and win. There's zero cost, his ownership would be the best publicity the sub has ever gotten, and it would fix absolutely everything. No person is too stupid to give Milo the sub when he asked for it and the userbase begged for him to have it. Forget the censorship and bad policies for a second. Why the fuck would they not give Milo that sub? The only contender for sketchiest thing they've done is shrink the modlist. When you have a shit show like they do then believe me, the only thing less desirable than having fewer mods is having mods you don't know. Good mods help subs, not destroy them; that's lost knowledge on Reddit because all mods on all other subs suck, but it's true.
Btw, did you guys know they have automod censoring pretty much all variations of the word "CisWhiteMaelstrom"? wtf. I hear from other mods here that there were a lot of removed comments.
I skyped with Ditario a few days ago and we agree that it's probably not the same people behind Gumble and Lil-z as it used to be.
Let me tell you something from old days:
/u/PrinceCamelton's first account got hacked. I forgot how to spell his old account but it was Guth(something something) Guthazard? I tell you this because it wasn't a dox risk, just a thing about accessing his account. The big takeaway is that there is a precedent set for mods losing there accounts and if GumbleDog and Lil-z weren't paid off then they were hacked.
The first way is for Lil-z and GumbleDog to hand the sub over to Milo and STEP DOWN.
If they'd just handed the sub off to Milo when he asked for it then I'd think they were legit but just had no clue how to handle crisis, but there is no reason not to win by passing the sub off to Milo--unless whoever owns those accounts wants to lose. Giving Milo the subreddit right now but wanting to remain on the modlist would just be a way to try and gain credibility for a lie. We'd need to know Milo is removing shills and the easiest way for that would be that he removes them. If they're real, they need to step down.
The second way for this to end is with us winning.
Shill mods can do a lot of things with control of a sub that are
MUCH
more subtle than censoring "Milo". Much more subtle. The amount of control and influence that mod teams have over the discourse of a sub is so ridiculous that it seems designed to be that way. Believe me, there's a lot they can do. We're a true Centipede sub and I've skyped with Ditario so I know he's legit. We're honestly just gonna have a better product, not only because this sub is the true Centipede team--but because subtle subversion is not how you win, even if they do censor "
/r/Mr_Trump" over there.
I cannot stress this enough: Do NOT write this off as petty drama.
Reddit is not a goofy bubble of cat posts.
Reddit is the ninth most popular website in America. It's extremely famous. It's extremely active. It's important enough to regularly make the press. It's tens of million's of people's source for news and ideology and that's especially true for educated or wealthy people. The idea that Trump may not know about us or that we aren't important is laughably wrong. Get the idea out of your head that this does not matter. We are Literally
shitposting Trump into the White House.
Also, I have no plan to come back in any visible capacity.
I honestly hated being top mod and liked it better before I was. When you're top mod, your authority comes from the way Reddit designs mod tools, whereas before that the only real power I had came from getting ideas approved of by other people in a system of checks and balances. I liked the latter more. I'm gonna be in contact with my friends on the modlist here, but I don't currently plan to rejoin the modlist at this time. Not to mention, it's a bit of a cripple to do this when some number of people know who I am. Please do me a favor though, and shit post like you've never shit posted before. You're not shit posting for you anymore, you're shit posting for you country and the future of the western world. Make America Great Again!!!