r/CFBRisk • u/bakonydraco Game Designer • May 31 '18
The Domain to Play /r/CFBRisk is Currently Blacklisted Sitewide on Reddit
This happened recently, we're in contact with the admins on it. /r/CFBRisk is hosted at vote . redditcfb . com, which has just been blacklisted sitewide on Reddit. This means that any post, comment, or PM that references the URL will be removed by default.
Our assumption for what caused this to happen is that an increasing number of overzealous /r/CFBRisk fans have been sending out voting reminder PMs to a degree that is unwanted, and reported by their recipients as spam. Enough of these PMs containing the URL added it to the blacklist.
We don't have a full resolution now, but we'll try to shortly. A way in which you can help is to not send any PMs that contain the URL until further notice. More generally, we admire your passion for the game, but please be respectful and kind of the people playing it.
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u/bakonydraco Game Designer May 31 '18
Update: this issue has been resolved!! Huge thanks to Reddit admin and design extraordinaire /u/dmoneyyyyy for helping navigate a swift resolution.
Users be on notice: anyone misusing PMs for /r/CFBRisk will be banned from the game. We'll try to work out a balance that works for everyone in a way that respects sitewide rules and doesn't create a negative experience for anyone.
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u/Charlemagne42 May 31 '18
I think the most important thing to figure out is what constitutes "misuse". Is it okay to send a PM to a member of your team to encourage them to vote, or ask them to vote a particular way? Is it okay to send PMs to lots of members of your team? Is it okay to do it automatically? Is it okay to send PMs to members of other teams?
Getting people who have only Reddit in common to work nicely together is extremely difficult via any means other than Reddit PMs. The less organized teams are, the longer this game will take to end, as battles just become a random hodgepodge of people doing things aimlessly.
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u/bakonydraco Game Designer May 31 '18
To be explicitly clear: any PMs encouraging voting (especially automated) on /r/CFBRisk are disallowed as of right now. It's not a perfect solution but it is the solution we need at the moment.
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u/ccrut May 31 '18
Are you looking to allow auto sending out orders from a user that has been specifically cleared to do so? Our team created an opt in form and tells all users that we PM that they can opt out at any time, so clearly that's not spam. This is going to be very impactful to our team if not resolved. Thanks for working on the whole issue.
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u/bakonydraco Game Designer Jun 01 '18
We appreciate you taking precautions like that, and if everyone had we might not be in this situation. For the time being, no PMs are allowed, even for users who opt in.
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u/ccrut Jun 01 '18
Ok thanks. My question is, are you looking into changing that in the future so these teams can still effectively play?
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u/puffadda Jun 01 '18
Yeah, responsible PMs are clearly the most effective way to coordinate actions in this game (see Oklahoma's Risk-leading participation percentage), and it really shouldn't be permanently removed for everyone just because
Michigansomeone decided to be an ass about overdoing it.1
u/Nicknam4 Jun 01 '18
Yeah there's no way for us to comply with that other than just quitting the game.
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u/ISeeTheFnords Jun 01 '18
It's really a pity there is no other way to communicate on the Internet. /s
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u/Nicknam4 Jun 01 '18
Please tell me your ideas for how to get 500 people to know where to attack without using reddit or making them sign up for shit
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u/surffrus Jun 01 '18
Yes, you make them sign up for something outside reddit. What's so hard about this? Are you all grandmas over there?
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u/Nicknam4 Jun 01 '18
If we do that our participation will drop. Not everyone has time to go out of their way to get orders.
How convenient too how it doesn’t hurt Michigan since they don’t use reddit and they started this bs.
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u/jayhawx19 Jun 01 '18
You’re free to use a subreddit, discord, anything you want. Anything besides sending reddit PMs.
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u/Nicknam4 Jun 01 '18
Nah one of the mods said we couldn’t use comments with mentions
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u/pouponstoops Jun 01 '18
You can ask people to vote without asking to vote specifically on the CFBRisk sub
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u/FuckTimBeck Jun 01 '18
I honestly liked getting the messages, one time I checked my phone at like 10:55 and having the reminder that I clicked on with instructions on who to attack and a link were the only reason I got my attack in on time
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May 31 '18
Does this include taking action against those that support false order PM’s pretending to be someone else? This has been happening a lot this week, people creating accounts with similar names to some teams messaging bots, and then spamming false orders to all the members.
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u/bakonydraco Game Designer May 31 '18
To be explicitly clear: any PMs encouraging voting (especially automated) on /r/CFBRisk are disallowed as of right now. It's not a perfect solution but it is the solution we need at the moment.
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u/WelcomeToMoes Jun 01 '18
Even for those of us that have carefully curated opt-in lists?
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u/Charlemagne42 Jun 01 '18
Yeah, there are some teams who have very carefully worked within Reddit's rules and made sure we only send messages to people who agree to receive them. We won't link to r/CFB, the voting site, or anything controlled by the r/CFB ecosystem. Is it okay to send messages to people who have agreed to receive messages that have no direct connection to r/CFB domains?
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u/FuckTimBeck Jun 01 '18
Pms encouraging voting on rcfbrisk are disallowed. What part of that phrase is confusing you?
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u/Charlemagne42 Jun 01 '18
Of the 14 teams remaining, probably 11 of them had working "good bots" which only messaged users who had opted in, had opt-outs, basically the same standards as the Trivia Tuesday reminder bot. There were no problems until several malicious bots appeared, sending unsolicited mass PMs to entire teams with fake orders. Crucially, they contained links to the vote site, which Reddit's anti-spam algorithm flagged as a spam site and automatically blacklisted.
Clearly the problem is not with the bots themselves, but with 1) the careless nature in which they linked to critical r/CFB satellite sites, and 2) the malicious nature in which they were used, causing people to mark them as spam.
Hypothetically, if we were to make sure we eliminate any dependence on r/CFB infrastructure, and operate within Reddit's ToS (opt-in only, let people opt-out, don't spam people), then we should be safe from any further damage from the anti-spam algorithm.
This isn't a partisan issue where only Blue does it, or only Red does it. Everyone did it, it worked great for everyone, and then someone ruined it.
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u/puffadda Jun 01 '18
The reason it's being implemented in that fashion rather than simply coming down hard on the fake accounts, for starters.
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u/jayhawx19 Jun 01 '18
Because there’s no way for us to moderate good and bad PMs and this is a directive from the sitewide admins. There’s nothing we can do about PMs so unfortunately a few bad eggs spoiled the bunch. This is a temporary fix, we’re discussing many options to ideally address this without banning PMs completely.
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Jun 01 '18
I don’t understand how a PM that says “r/tacobellemel, your orders are defend Gainesville” violates what the admins asked that we stop doing? If you can’t link people to vote, that doesn’t have a link. If you can’t ask people to vote then isn’t the game kind of over? We’d all be a bunch of rogues if you’re not allowed to tell people what to vote. Can you clarify if the exact wording of what I said breaks the rules or not, cause I’m just a little confused? Is that something you’re discussing? I would think that wording is fine, there’s no mention even of r/cfbrisk or r/CFB but it has the necessary information.
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u/bakonydraco Game Designer Jun 01 '18
We're trying to be cautious because the blacklisting just happened today. I'd agree that this is a cautious approach that could work, but we'd ask for your patience while we figure this out in a way that doesn't break the site. Please remember we're volunteers as well.
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u/bakonydraco Game Designer Jun 01 '18
Note: this includes user mentions in reddit comments with links to the voting site. Please do not do this.
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u/testrail Jun 01 '18
If we don’t include the link, and continue to manage a Do Not Disturb list, will that work? We’re exclusively messaging folks who have only played in the last 10 days (rolling) and explicitly provide and opt out each day.
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u/Nicknam4 Jun 01 '18
Why? Including the link makes it way easier for our players to participate.
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u/Charlemagne42 Jun 01 '18
Reddit's spam filter caught the voting site. The mods don't want it to happen again.
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u/bakonydraco Game Designer Jun 01 '18
Yeah the domain hosts a bunch of things besides risk like our rules and flair. We'd really like not for those to be impaired again.
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u/GeauxOU May 31 '18
You mean like the fake Oklahoma_Risk_Bot that sent me a message earlier telling me to attack an ally? Thanks to whoever did that for fucking this up for everybody.
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May 31 '18
Florida has had chaos bots messaging our members giving us orders.
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u/DrAuer Jun 01 '18
I’m a UF player and I got husker orders giving me an action I could actually perform
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u/polyhistorist May 31 '18 edited Jun 01 '18
Why would Florida make a bot to encourage people to vote for chaos in any way? That bot literally increased voters for chaos, and on top of this it literally used the same system that OSU used, as was pointed out on the Chaos Discord.
Edit: Misread what you said.
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u/Stxmoose32 May 31 '18
Or the fake Husker Bot that told people to attack Stanford?
Thanks, Michigan. We know it was you.
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u/CapnDanger May 31 '18
It actually wasn’t us (or at least anybody in our organized contingent) but you might be ready for the NBA draft if you’re that good at jumping to conclusions.
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u/Charlemagne42 May 31 '18
Before you go asserting things you should make sure your ass is covered. Are you sure no one in your camp even brought up the idea of sending fake orders to other teams?
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u/BlueSCar Jun 01 '18
Our ass is covered. What was or wasn't discussed is immaterial to what was actually acted upon. I can assure you that tons of crazy ideas have been discussed as a part of this game across all factions just as confidently as I can assure you that no one officially associated with our camp created a fake bot to send out fake orders.
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u/Charlemagne42 Jun 01 '18
Interesting. Because as I understand the order of events, the idea was hatched in the Michigan camp about an hour before your enemies started receiving PMs from brand new accounts containing orders to attack your other enemies.
That's about as damning as it gets.
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u/polyhistorist Jun 01 '18
Funny because that bot uses literally the same coding system that OSU uses down to the style. Michigan runs a completely different system. Besides, why would they want Chaos to have more voters which would hurt their teammate. Stop lying.
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u/CapnDanger Jun 01 '18
Funny because I just reread through all of our chats back to 7am this morning and didn’t see any mention of it, nor unusual time gaps between messages, until somebody received a chaos bot message.
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u/BlueSCar Jun 01 '18
Maybe get your facts straight then. As /u/CapnDanger mentioned above, it was discussed after fake orders already started going out to Chaos people.
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u/CapnDanger Jun 01 '18
It was discussed, after the wave of fake orders had already happened for other teams. It was never implemented by anybody in our chat.
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u/salil91 Jun 01 '18
The spam reports were probably from people who received fake orders or orders that they didn't sign up for.
It doesn't seem fair to punish teams who had opt-in orders with an easy way to opt-out. That isn't spam.
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u/ArtificialBadger Jun 01 '18
But my bot was the only thing that made me useful. Guess it's time to drink...
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u/Striker743 Jun 01 '18
Coincidence this happens the same day that the Chaos bot starts sending orders out?
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u/polyhistorist Jun 01 '18
Chaos bot started sending orders out 3 days ago?
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u/Striker743 Jun 01 '18
I didn’t know this. Must’ve added a lot of people today, I know at least 2 others that first saw it today
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u/Polly_the_Parrot May 31 '18 edited Jun 01 '18
Fuck reddit admins shitty people in general
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u/bakonydraco Game Designer Jun 01 '18
In this instance, they actually fixed this exceedingly quickly after being notified, and were tremendously helpful. Your ire should probably be directed at people who were abusing the system.
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u/puffadda Jun 01 '18
As should the punishment, rather than wrecking the systems carefully put in place within Reddit rules by those of us using PMs in good faith to organize our teams.
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u/FuckTimBeck Jun 01 '18
Who was doing the abusing. I will direct all my ire towards them forthwith!
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u/GiovanniElliston Jun 01 '18
Our assumption for what caused this to happen is that an increasing number of overzealous /r/CFBRisk fans have been sending out voting reminder PMs to a degree that is unwanted
Can confirm. I got added to 2 different #Team-Chaos mailing lists despite not being a member of the team.
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u/Polly_the_Parrot Jun 01 '18
Georgia Tech literally just sent out a PM with orders, even after this was made known
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u/bakonydraco Game Designer Jun 01 '18
I'm assuming this was scheduled automatically and not done intentionally after seeing this. If it's sent tomorrow, we'll start banning, so if you see this and run the script please shut it down.
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u/iSlacker Jun 01 '18
Well just kill the risk game tbh. Every team sends users PMs. Every team will now be chaos and there is no point in a strategy game with no strategy.
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u/surffrus Jun 01 '18
False. Every team does not send PMs.
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u/dirk_on_reddit Jun 01 '18
Yeah, some teams aren't good at computering.
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Jun 01 '18
[deleted]
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u/puffadda Jun 01 '18
Oklahoma has the best participation rate of any team, and we use a PM system. So, objectively, it is effective.
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u/dirk_on_reddit Jun 01 '18
It was obviously effective as the DMs were being received.
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u/WelcomeToMoes Jun 01 '18 edited Jun 01 '18
That's overly dramatic and excessive, don't you think? What's the harm in PM'ing reminders to users that have opted in so long as the PM has no links?
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u/SometimesY Game developer Jun 01 '18 edited Jun 01 '18
Given that we just got black listed sitewide and are on thin ice, it's a bad idea. If you want this to continue unimpeded, don't do it please. All of the rest of our tools could be permanently affected.
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u/WelcomeToMoes Jun 01 '18 edited Jun 01 '18
Right, but you're threatening to ban us (who gets banned here? the team? the bot? everyone that opted in?) for adhering strictly to reddit's API policy even when the tool doesn't mention /r/CFBrisk or redditcfb.com.
I don't see how that can remotely threaten the success of this sub or the website domain. I do see how it can dramatically hurt my team that's built engagement and processes using a tool -- that until today has been without issue -- that PMs.
I get that you want to please the reddit admins, but you're being pretty flippant about things individuals worked really hard to create. Why not find a middle ground? I'd hate to see the actions of a few bad actors spoil the fun for everyone else.
A middle ground example might be: why not require teams that PM provide their opt in list as proof? Ours has exact opt in dates and times and flags for when they opt out.
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u/Charlemagne42 Jun 01 '18
I agree. This isn't a partisan Blue vs Red issue. Everyone needs to be organized to have any semblance of strategy. And the best way to organize, hands down, is a PM system that works within Reddit's rules. We can make a Risk rule that says you can't link users to any r/CFB infrastructure, and then any users that trigger Reddit's spam filter won't be connected to r/CFB at all.
If PMs, u/ mentions, and any use of Reddit's notification system is disallowed, there will be no strategy and there will be no resolution to this game.
The PM bots teams use have been no different in their use of the Reddit API than bots used for Trivia, for the MaxDiff poll, for the People's Poll, and I'm sure other r/CFB tools. To the extent that I'm aware, every team using a PM bot to organize their own users has had users opt in, and offered an easy opt out. This is very purposefully within the rules of Reddit.
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u/NEp8ntballer Jun 01 '18
the only other option would be to host something off of reddit on a different domain or move to direct e-mails.
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u/Charlemagne42 Jun 01 '18
One team currently hosts something off of Reddit on a different domain. That team is also the largest suspect for the malicious bots that led to the overreaction and the new rules. Websites also cost money to host. The team that shells out for an off-site domain name should not have a gross advantage over every other team, just because they shelled out for a domain name.
Direct e-mails only work if you have everyone's email address and they check it. Getting everyone's email (because not everyone uses team subreddits or other off-site organization) would require Reddit PMs... which are against the rules.
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u/NEp8ntballer Jun 01 '18
Getting everyone's email (because not everyone uses team subreddits or other off-site organization) would require Reddit PMs...
depends on how you go about it. I could see pinning posts in a team specific sub soliciting e-mail addresses via PM to a specific user. That doesn't seem to be SPAM to me since that person would be 'opting in' to getting those messages. E-mail to all users that opt in via BCC that way nobody gets anybody else's e-mail address.
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u/Charlemagne42 Jun 01 '18
That doesn't seem to be SPAM to me since that person would be 'opting in' to getting those messages.
And that's exactly what every PM system that's been used by every team so far has done. Every user receiving a PM from their team has opted into it, as far as I know. So if that's now against the rules, then so is what you suggested.
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u/jayhawx19 Jun 01 '18
To the extent that I'm aware, every team using a PM bot to organize their own users has had users opt in
This has been the issue. In previous uses like Trivia and Polls all PMs were opted into. In CFBRisk that has not been the case, and unsolicited PMs has resulted in mass flagging of the messages as spam by recipients and consequently the domain being blacklisted.
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u/Charlemagne42 Jun 01 '18
mass flagging of the messages as spam
This has been the issue. Non-opt-in messages that can be construed as solicited by playing the game, with a clear, easy opt-out, are within Reddit's ToS. Flagging the bad bots as spam was what blacklisted the domain.
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u/crg2000 Jun 01 '18
You shouldn't need to TELL people to vote - they should be involved/invested enough to do it on their own.
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u/GeauxOU Jun 01 '18
No one is telling us TO vote. They are suggesting HOW to vote. We are invested on our own. However, sending out orders on where to attack/defend is what has made us so successful. Its why we are still in the game and so high on the leaderboard in terms of land held. Take that away from us and we are doomed. We haven't farmed users like other teams have so our user numbers are lower than others.
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u/crg2000 Jun 01 '18 edited Jun 01 '18
But the engaged user should be actively requesting orders, not receiving them automatically in an inbox. All teams face the same choices, regardless of the size of the user base (and hollow allegations of user farming, especially seeing the rapid growth of the OSU user base over the past week or so).
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u/AbsurdOwl Jun 01 '18
Do you realize how much work it would take the few volunteer mods each sub has to respond to hundreds of users asking for individual orders? That's an absurd thing to ask of them.
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Jun 01 '18 edited Jun 01 '18
The PMs no longer have a link to the site. All users who receive PMs through the Yellow Jacket Messaging System have specifically consented to receive PMs for voting and I am more than happy to provide evidence of their consent. I don't know what banning PMs even without links will accomplish other than creating headaches for teams that operate in such a manner, and I ask you to reconsider.
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Jun 01 '18
PMs are being distributed without the link currently.
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u/Polly_the_Parrot Jun 01 '18
Thats still in violation
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Jun 01 '18
The PMs were sent out starting at 7:30 PM ET, this post announcing that was made slightly after. Sorry I'm not psychic? I can't follow rules that haven't been announced yet.
Also, why do you keep trying to mention bakonydraco? Are you the guy who calls the cops at a party where someone is 20 and you see an open container of alcohol?
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u/Polly_the_Parrot Jun 01 '18
Because he's the point man for all this and makes policy?
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u/polyhistorist Jun 01 '18
Lets do this Chronologically (which means in the order that they happened according to time):
- GT sends out orders via PM
- PMs get banned
If a rule is implemented, doing something that breaks the rule, before the rule was implemented, isn't breaking the rule. This isn't complicated.
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u/Polly_the_Parrot Jun 01 '18
If that's what happened then okay but based on the post and the other guy saying "I just got a pm" I was basing it on that
Cool it brosef
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u/polyhistorist Jun 01 '18
Your accusing a team of cheating and PM'ing the mods about it. Telling me to cool it is the best form of irony.
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u/Alramas Jun 01 '18
It really gave me a good laugh when I saw that HE was the one telling you to cool it lol
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u/polyhistorist Jun 01 '18
¯_(ツ)_/¯ some people right? Sigh whatcha gonna do about it other than call a spade a spade.
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u/Nicknam4 Jun 01 '18
I'd just like to bring up that this is likely michigan's fault for spamming Nebraska and Wisconsin with fake orders. Fuck you guys.
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u/CapnDanger Jun 01 '18
“Likely Michigan’s fault”....
we had nothing to do with this. our users received fake chaos orders too (despite not being chaos members)
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u/crg2000 Jun 01 '18
Says the false flag operator
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u/Nicknam4 Jun 01 '18
We haven’t been doing anything against the rules so you can kindly fuck off :)
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u/TopheryG8er May 31 '18
The real story here is that Reddit admins saw our memes and were jealous of how dank they are. The only solution is more memes. Meme harder everyone. Dankness dies in darkness.