The new layout which shows just two videos per row seems to be designed for the two pence cranial capacity of the folks who are typically addicted to short videos. Is there a way to revert back to the earlier layout?

...and within a few weeks I was banned from r/iphone for "ban evasion", which I most definitely did not do.

I've had the same reddit account for over 16 years and other than a surprisingly HUGE number of deleted comments and posts (according to sites that track that) that seem perfectly benign to me (mostly deleted for stupidly trivial technicalities), I've never had any problems on the site. Sure, a few unpopular opinions here and there that get downvoted a little but, but nothing offensive, no trolling, etc.

So, I tried to respond, and here's how the conversation went:

Hello. I’m very confused by this ban notification. The only recent activity that I’ve had on this subreddit is to answer somebody’s question, and I cannot imagine how that answer in any way violated the rules. Can you please help me to at least understand what led to this?

...to which the mod replied:

Ban evasion not that hard to get

...and I responded:

I honestly do not know what you're talking about. It appears that you think that I have been posting with multiple accounts, but I have not. I've been using this same account for over 16 years without ever being accused of such a thing. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look and reconsider.

...to which I got:

No the system detects ban evader like you automatically

...

I'm sorry that you think that I have done such a thing, but I have not. I even co-moderate another subreddit that is a very serious one with its fair share of trolls to deal with, so I get it, but I honestly did not try to evade any prior bans.

... and the only response I get back is:

Stop

I'm so sick and tired of that site, I don't know why I went back after doing so well avoiding it after the somewhat recent events that caused me to uninstall all of the apps and stop using the site. The mods there are abusive and power-hungry and it's a toxic place to be. It's a shame because my account is over 16 years old and I remember the old days when it was nothing like it is now. :(

So, hopefully this time I'll stop using the site for good, this was the reminder that I needed. I've avoided Facebook and other social media due to the toxicity, I don't know why I expected reddit to be any better; please stay above the fray, Tildes!

I'm talking about those who host their blogs statically on Github Pages and elsewhere, the small peasants of the Interwebs who collectively make up the biggest portion of it and make its wheels churn with their content and toil.

All that negativity I'm seeing towards Disqus is baseless. They criticize it for showing ads and being less privacy friendly but then which technology today isn't? Name me one company from Big Tech or Silicon Valley which actually respects their user's privacy in practice, not just words. You'll be left scratching your heads for a long time but no name will come out.

And I also keep hearing about these "self hosted" alternatives like Commento but none of them have gained any traction. Building and implementing a commenting system isn't easy even though CMS like Wordpress try their best. Unless you implement social OAuth logins like Github or Google, not many folks will like to interact on your site by singing up for a whole new site account, especially true if you're a small blogger who has just started. And managing all the data communication between the frontend and backend isn't easy.

With Disqus, we get this whole setup and workflow readymade with nice looking dashboard and all, and that too for gratis, not a dime to pay! Then why shouldn't a blogger use it, I'm yet to hear any justifiable answer to this question.

Following the recent upsets with both Twitter and Reddit, how have people here been exporting/archiving their bookmarked/favorited/liked/etc threads, posts, and the content within (images, links, etc) for later reference?

It hit me not too long ago that there’s a lot of good stuff I’ve bookmarked over the years on both and it’d be unfortunate for viewing it to be locked behind keeping accounts active. Additionally, more and more of it’s disappearing over time not just due to link rot (which seems to have been accelerating dramatically in the past decade), but also as a result of users deleting their posts on the way out.

I’m particularly interested in solutions that saves content locally, because exporting these things to e.g. a cloud read it later service or bookmark manager really just shifts the problem around instead of solving it, but beggars can’t be choosers and all that.

For some reason, I had always hoped against hope that at least the old domain name will always be retained by Elon's X team, at least as a reminder of their revolutionary beginnings in the form of "setting the bird free" or "liberating the free speech" as it was often called. But today, even that last vestige called twitter, that domain name on the back of which some of us used to mentally stay in the nostalgia, has also been broken - twitter.com is no more :-(

As of now, the domain redirects to x.com, the new one.

However, in our hearts and minds, it will always be "twitter" and we shall call it "twitter"! And there is one more place where the name twitter shall always find a place - the twitter bootstrap open source project which will keep telling the story of where it all began!

The nature of social networks is very dynamic in nature. About two decades ago, who would have thought that the leading "text rich" social network sites like Tildes, Mastodon, etc. would be so popular today? Especially when Reddit had just taken some some baby steps and was mostly considered the hipster's town square sometime in late 2000s. What do you think will happen by the next decade?

By "text rich" I mean networks where textual content is of the primary focus, other media formats like images and videos are usually secondary. Even with Reddit's flashy new interface and all, their main focus is still on text content which is good. I think one great thing about this kind of content is that it is refreshingly creative and original, and gives you an opportunity to have intellectually fulfilling discussions - which is quite rare on other kinds of networks.

Summarily, below is a brief list of such networks which are doing a fabulous job in letting us exchange ideas and share useful information:

• Tildes.net
• Old Reddit
• lobste.rs
• news.ycombinator.com
• slashdot.org
• mastodon.social
• Discuit
• hubski.com
• metafilter.com

Feel free to suggest more, we need more of them!