Top Reddit porn moderators banned for alleged bribes

[wehateporn]

Full story http://www.dailydot.com/news/reddit-...s-nsfw-bribes/

"At least three of Reddit's most prolific moderators of porn-related communities have been banned from the site over alleged bribes.

The move effectively decapitates some of the social news site's biggest not-safe-for-work (NSFW) subreddits, which see hundreds of thousands of visitors a day. But it also highlights an inherent flaw at the heart of Reddit's management system, which relies almost entirely on volunteer workers.

The three accused moderators are DARTH_ANUS, youregonnaloveme, and Scopolamina. The latter, whom the Daily Dot profiled in October 2012, rose through the Reddit ranks quickly just last year, filling in the shoes of legendary Reddit provocateur Violentacrez as the site's top moderator of NSFW content (erotic communities like r/nsfw, r/nsfw_nospam, and r/passionsex) after he unceremoniously stepped away due to a condemning Gawker exposé.

Before his account was banned, Scopolamina had accrued more than 1.85 million karma points?Reddit's internal scoring system to measure popular submissions?making him, by that metric, the site's most popular user. The communities he moderated boasted roughly 2.2 million combined subscribers.

Scopolamina and his cohorts join SolInvictus, whose real name is Ian Miles Cheong, as influential redditors accused and banned from the site for allegedly selling their influence to spammers.

On Wednesday, Marta Gossage, the person in charge of Reddit's community operations, announced the decision via a self-post on r/redditrequest.

"A spammer sent a few dozen mods the same message asking for approved submitter/all submissions approved status in return for weekly payments," wrote Gossage, who goes by bitcrunch on the site. "Numerous moderators reported that message to us, and upon investigation we found that four NSFW mods had actually respond positively to them. Two of them exchanged paypal information, another exchanged email addresses, and another quibbled about exactly how it would work."

"And that only the start?we also found vote cheating and spamming by a few of the same mods."

I reached out to Scopolamina, who has always been adamant about not divulging any personal information for the sake of his "personal and professional safety," to get his side of the story. Over the course of various Google Chat sessions and one phone conversation, he insisted that he was unjustly targeted. And that's the flaw at the heart of Reddit's internal judicial system. As a user, you might devote countless hours to the site, but make one mistake?or something that Reddit administrators interpret to be a mistake?and you can be banned immediately. Reddit staffers are judge, jury, and executioner.

Scopolamina admits to having a secondary Reddit account to upvote his own submissions, a practice prohibited by Reddit because the first couple of votes directly affect how visible a given post may be. However, he vehemently denies ever agreeing to partake in the pay-to-play scandal. To prove that he?s innocent on this last charge, Scopolamina provided us with various screenshots of private conversations he?s had with the user wanting to pay him to scam, other moderators heading NSFW subreddits that were also contacted by said individual, and exchanges with the site's administrators concerning his ban.

At the crux of the controversy is pow3romania, a since-banned user who approached multiple NSFW moderators separately and offered them $100 a week if they placed his account in the "approved submitters list," an act that would make it easier for his spam to show up on the front pages of the subreddits."

Continued http://www.dailydot.com/news/reddit-...s-nsfw-bribes/

[seeric]

Reddit can do whatever they want, it's their site. Kudos that they banned the moderators. They should ban the user too and block his IPs.

[EvaCash]

Not sure why this is a surprise to anyone. People have been bribing and abusing shit for years. DMOZ total joke because of that shit.

Why would REDDIT be any different?

If you have something people want, people are no doubt going to offer you money for it.

[JosephFM]

This is old news. That happened about a year ago.

[kane]

Reminds me a little bit of the old DMOZ days. Having friends that were editors and would always add your sites was sweet.

[_Richard_]

Originally Posted by wehateporn

[center]

[Aidoru]

50 bucks a week lol

[bean-aid]

I believe travesty said he would do it for a tenner

[evy97]

Yes, it is old news and certainly not true.

DARTH_ANUS (her original/previous account: POTATO_IN_MY_ANUS) helped me a lot. She was a nice person. But Scop is a very retarded clown. Here is an example:



Scop made a new account after being banned. One of my last conversation with him.



I reported him and shortly after he was banned forever.

[martinsc]

anybody got some popcorn?

[AmeliaG]

Shoot. I wish someone would have sent me that rate sheet, if it is true.

I don't have the patience to figure out how to post on sites which make zillions, post adult, but don't want the actual owners of the work to posts because, uhm, commercial.

[seeandsee]

so big money on reddit

[wehateporn]

The smart mods arrange the deals outside of Reddit

[dehash]

Anybody has big amount of subscribers? I only gained 450 so far on my biggest subreddit and less on few other.

[PR_Glen]

Originally Posted by kane

Reminds me a little bit of the old DMOZ days. Having friends that were editors and would always add your sites was sweet.

funny how different all our paths have turned out over the years but how oddly similar a lot of our origins in this industry seem to be.

[The Porn Nerd]

Reddit can suck my balls. They banned me years ago, pre-porn, when I upvoted one of my own blog posts.

Fuck them.

[KillerK]

Just in case a reddit mod posts here, I will pay and not turn your ass in for specialized posting status.