Limits at Gawker? Rules at Reddit? Wild West Web Turns A Page

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It looks like all the commotion on the internet lately seems to be freaking people out.

More to the point, both were products of the Internet’s freewheeling ethos. And both have amply shown what happens when this ethos is taken to its logical extreme, whether it is Redditors’ posting of revenge porn on the site’s message boards or Gawker’s humiliating a relatively unknown media executive. It is one thing to engage in this sort of behavior when you are focused mainly on enlarging your audience or user base. But the calculus changes when you start worrying about alienating advertisers, too.
 
that's all fine and dandy, but when you ask for free work from the community that expects an open forum, don't be surprised when your move to become profitable alienates them with additional rules. You may not get the free work that you expect out of them.
 
Same thing happened here, I don't know... five years ago? Used to be anything goes, now it's all touchy feely.
 
Happens with all companies when they first start up, even if they're physical stores or locations instead of websites. When you're young and unknown you have a lot less willingness to reign in anyone. You want the traffic and attention that goes along with the traffic. But, once you grow to a certain size then all of a sudden you need advertisers to keep the place running because you need the income. Then all of sudden you have to keep the people who pay you happy and that means you'll have to lose some of the traffic as an offset. Nature of the beast.

This is one of the reasons why many of the "anything goes" websites have vanished over the years, or at least seen a big drop in traffic. People showed up for the "anything goes" atmosphere, warts and all, and then when the rules started coming into play then the atmosphere changed. People won't say it is because the semi-legal stuff went missing, but once you go from "anything goes" to "here are the rules" then the shift occurs. It is inevitable. Some of them have managed to hang on despite the rules but only because they managed to make the transition sensibly and, usually, quietly. Like a frog in a pot of water, if you make the changes slowly then people won't notice and their attitudes will shift along with you. If you make a big deal out of it then people will notice and make a choice when you least want them to.
 
Gawker pretty much deserved it, although the only reason people really started to get upset was when a Jezebel reporter tried to justify it because it's true. There was no way to spin why they outed him and having someone from a feminist site trying to justify it when they went after people who did the same thing to women made it worse.
 
Looking at the people in charge and their history - a lot of people have turned pages in a very short time and hard. If I didn't know any better I'd say they'd all been indoctrinated by a cult.
 
Same thing happened here, I don't know... five years ago? Used to be anything goes, now it's all touchy feely.

The Original General Mayhem closed over 10yrs ago. Been a long time.
 
Same thing happened here, I don't know... five years ago? Used to be anything goes, now it's all touchy feely.

More like 12 or so. And I believe it was more Kyle was tired of the potential liability.
 
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