Reddit's r/Paintball is effectively dead

[JonM]

If anyone here frequents Reddit's paintball group, you'll find that the page has been listed as NSFW and posts have been restricted. Apparently the whole site is imploding and the mods there are in revolt. Better to stay here anyway where where the mods are not revolting (or less so, anyway).

[Jonnydread]

Reddit was the first of my social medias that I put to sleep and I have zero regrets. r/Paintball was the worst kind of disinformation echo chamber with some of the most toxic edgelords I've ever encountered. Good riddance.

[Myrkul]

Full agreement. R/paintball was mostly trash that had zero clue what it was talking about half the time.

[Chappy]

I find myself and most of the other mods quite revolting thank you very much

[Axel]

I resemble that remark

[JonM]

[Twisted G]

Reddit became Tumblr. Only thing both are good for now is amature porn. .

[Jonnydread]

That... is very accurate.

[Riot]

I just got a lot of love on the XYZ mag yesterday, now we want to start hating on Reddit? Jeez.

Also, he’s right about the porn. ^

[The Inflicted]

Reddit was the first of my social medias that I put to sleep and I have zero regrets. r/Paintball was the worst kind of disinformation echo chamber with some of the most toxic edgelords I've ever encountered. Good riddance.

I was actually quite pleased with the way the community had been going for the last year or so. Today's shutdown has bummed me out. When was the last time you browsed there?

[Jonnydread]

More than a year ago. I did a socials purge at the end of 2022, but I hadn't been active in r/Paintball for a while before then.

[JonM]

I was actually quite pleased with the way the community had been going for the last year or so. Today's shutdown has bummed me out. When was the last time you browsed there?

I will say that I've noticed a pretty significant uptick in interest around pumps and classic mechs there lately. They locked it all down right when things were getting interesting.

[zinger565]

Yeah, pretty decent interest there, but in general not my favorite community (aside from other MCBers I see over there)

[The Inflicted]

Is this still about Reddit mods being mad that they can't use Apollo anymore?

[JonM]

Pretty much, yeah

[Tugboater203]

Or most of the other third party apps

[The Inflicted]

Well the former head moderator of the subreddit is now accusing the CEO of Reddit of being a child pornographer, so I'm assuming any bridges are pretty well burned.

[MrBarraclough]

I think that's a pretty common canard, as I have seen it several times on other subs lately. From what I can gather, Spez was listed as a mod of some jailbait subreddit back when those were rampant. I have seen several users point out that back then, the mods of a subreddit could invite any user to become a moderator and apparently the invitation would automatically be accepted by default. So of course the mods of some unsavory subs might find it amusing to add the founder as a mod.

It's worth pointing out, however, that adding the founder as a mod would be a great way of bringing (what should have been) unwanted attention to activity that those users should not have wanted scrutinized. So the fact that they'd be willing to pull such a prank might be taken as an indication of the level of impunity with which they operated back then.

In other words, there may be reason to doubt that Spez was actively moderating a subreddit notorious for CSAM. But the fact that the mods of that sub were not afraid to add him as a mod, even as a joke, implies he was at least indifferent to, possibly even knowingly tolerant of, their activities.

[Axel]

Apparently the whole site is imploding and the mods there are in revolt.

[uv_halo]

The biggest problem I have with r/paintball is that there seems to be a constant influx of seemingly new people that always ask the same basic questions: i.e. what gun is this? Is this tank usable? In the grand scheme of things, this isn't necessarily a bad problem- If no new players were showing up in reddit, I think that bodes poorly for our hobby.

I think it would be helpful if there was more intentional interaction between r/paintball and other online resources. For example, In the FAQ there should be at least a link to ZDSPB, if not daughter pages. I feel for Bones Jackson trying to get people to take anything away from a paragraph describing how a poppet valve works in relation to a paintball gun.

I suspect that r/paintball gets far more visibility than even PBN or MCB, possibly combined. If it were me, I would think of r/paintball as really a jumping off point for other resources i,e, PBN's Field and Store Finder, ZDSPB, vintagerex, etc. while still allowing for conversations about paintball.

The other problems I have are more to do with the platform.

[JonM]

That’s been my take on it too. Reddit’s user base is huge - bigger than every paintball forum combined. The r/Paintball sub was an obvious jumping off point for many new or potential players. Yes, there was toxicity. Yes, there were a lot of redundant posts. Then again, there is still real interest out there for a sport that has frankly seen stronger years. While it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, it was visible and accessible. I know I’ve used the platform to direct similarly minded people to this site.

[MrBarraclough]

That's why I hate seeing it go NSFW, even in protest. It was probably the most easily found point of contact for new players getting into the sport. It has value as a gateway, even if nothing else. That's why I (try to) patiently answer those repetitive questions week after week.

[ford]

After the millionth attempt to drive a competent, 'toob is toob' discussion I gave up on r/Paintball a while ago.

It's really interesting to me how AI gimmickry has put the nail in the coffin for services like Reddit and Twitter (soon enough).

The idea the internet would be a place to freely share ideas and technology? Feeling pretty segmented these days.

[martix_agent]

I do browse reddit much more than I should. Them getting rid of 3rd party software is destroying my use of it.

However, now that you mention /rpaintball and how horrible it is (and you're right!) it makes me wonder if anything else I consider myself an "expert" in is truly trash as well.

[zinger565]

The Homebrewing (beer/wine/mead/cider/etc) sub is really good. Lots of knowledgeable and helpful folks there.

[Brokeass_baller]

I honestly think the whole thing is hilarious. Reddit's app sucks. I've been using Infinity and love it. But if I can't use Infinity, I just won't use Reddit. The saddest part is Reddit is a huge resource for all kinds of information, not just paintball. If you can't find the answer to a question on Google, just add "Reddit" to the end of your search. You'll find it then.

But, this whole protest has been going on for weeks. It started with a blackout three or four weeks ago. Reddit is trying to go public, and in doing so wanted to start charging to use their API so that way the official app would get more downloads and Reddit the company would get more ad revenue.

The Reddit app is soooo bad that people would rather trash their subreddits and refuse to use Reddit altogether. Lol

Lemmy has been picking up steam because of this, and I think that's pretty cool.

[glaman5266]

Do you use this Lemmy thingamajig? I’ve done a little reading on it, so I have a basic idea of how it works. But I have no idea how well it performs.