I’ve expressed this opinion a few times in comments, but I feel that it’s important enough for its own post. I recognize that there were plenty of issues with the old Chapo sub – each of us could come up with a different set of problems, and we’d probably all disagree on quite a few of them; however, I think that for the sake of the long-term survival of this community it’s important to keep this place as much like the old sub as possible.

r/chapotraphouse was a unique space online, and despite the many criticisms we could levy against it, we would probably all agree that it was a unique and important site for organizing, socializing, and commiserating with like-minded individuals, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. One way in which it stood out was that it was uniquely non-sectarian in its moderating and administration, and even liberals wouldn’t be banned for expressing unpopular opinions. I was pretty much a “radlib” when I joined (although I absolutely hate that word), and it was through arguing with so-called “tankies” on r/chapo, and reading others’ arguments and explanations, that I slowly but surely became a Marxist. It was also one of the few major leftist subreddits that didn’t alienate new users by issuing blanket bans over the use of words like “stupid” and “crazy,” and generally let people express themselves how they wished as long as they weren’t being chuds or calling for violence. Dogshit opinions and cringey edgelordism were generally community-moderated through downvotes and scathing comments, with truly toxic users being banned when they revealed themselves as such.

Some changes from the sub’s old formula are inevitable. As was made clear from the very beginning, ChapoChat is intended not as an alternative to r/chapotraphouse, but rather as an alternative to Reddit. I think the addition of sub-communities within our broader community is a change with a lot of great potential, and I’m excited to see how these communities grow and change as the ChapoChat userbase expands. Other inevitable changes from the old sub come from being an independent site detached from a big company like Reddit. While we don’t have to worry about being banned by trigger-happy admins anxious to purge us from their site, we do have to worry about getting overwhelmed by raiders or being pulled down by the site host over reports from concern-trolling reactionaries.

For this last reason, I fully understand and support the relative strictness with which the admins and mods have been enforcing the rules in these sensitive first few days, and I don’t want this post to be misunderstood as a rant against the mods or against the way this community is currently being run. In this sensitive time, being too careful is always better than not being careful enough. I’ve looked through the modlogs and seen erroneously-banned users reinstated, and the mods have followed up with me personally after my own comments were pulled down, to make sure I understood why the rules are being enforced the way they are. This has all been very encouraging.

Here’s the main point that I want to stress: As this community grows and evolves, it will have struggle sessions and drama. New rules and policies will be put in place in response to these events, and big decisions will have to be made about the future direction of this site as its userbase expands. Again, this post has nothing to do with the current state of the site and has everything to do with its future. For the sake of cohesion and minimizing infighting/factionalism, I feel that when these big decisions are made, they should be made in the way that best preserves the spirit of the subreddit. Despite its many flaws, we all saw value in the unique culture of the Chapo sub, otherwise this community would not have been created.

I will leave this with a screenshot I recently took from Reddit that I feel sums up the things I valued about the old Chapo sub. For context, a different user made a comment saying that this site is “probably filled with tankies,” to which I responded saying that no one will get banned here for their leftist tendency. This was a third user’s response. Like many of you I’m encouraged by the great start we’ve had, and excited to see what will become of this community.