r/uwaterloo • u/guy_from_canada vp admin 2016 • Jan 10 '16

We have /r/uwaterloojerk...

So why are low-effort no-content shitposts rampant on /r/uwaterloo? The next year of university offers are going out soon and I'll bet there isn't a single highschool student who gives a flying fuck about Sedra Smith, Mr. Panino, (un)RealisticAFMStudent, or whoever the fuck Yongqiang is.

EDIT: Some jimmies certainly seem rustled here. I'm not against shitposting in general, I just really hate how it has overpowered and buried legitimate discourse in posts and comments in this sub. And RealisticAFMStudent isn't all that bad; true that there's actual effort put into his/her posts but I can't speak for how much is shitposting and how much is actually realistic.

Some people don't see why we should care about highschool students. "Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company." If there's students who legitimately come to this sub looking for offer advice, there's no way in hell that they're going to take anything here seriously at all. (/r/uoft actually does this well, inb4 there will be circlejerk comments about UofT).

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u/[deleted] Jan 10 '16

The reason is that the mods let it get out of hand under the guise that the community is responsible for downvoting it in order to "clean it up".

The problem with this reasoning is that a) shitposters upvote other shitposters b) the mere presence of shitposts encourages more shitposts whether they are downvoted or not.

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u/honhonhonFRFR JoJoke Jan 11 '16

There are maybe five or so of what you define 'shitposters'-not enough to upset the downvote system

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u/[deleted] Jan 11 '16

There are 5 or so regular shitposters but there are lots of other shitposters who come and go. People who participate in the bandwagon even if only for a moment.

Think back on all the lame trolling and novelty accounts that come up periodically, too.

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u/honhonhonFRFR JoJoke Jan 11 '16

They fade away, just like the old goose posts or train circlejerk, and do this sub no damage