this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
13 points (88.2% liked)

Malicious Compliance

19474 readers
2 users here now

People conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request. For now, this includes text posts, images, videos and links. Please ensure that the “malicious compliance” aspect is apparent - if you’re making a text post, be sure to explain this part; if it’s an image/video/link, use the “Body” field to elaborate.

======

======

Also check out the following communities:

!fakehistoryporn@lemmy.world !unethicallifeprotips@lemmy.world

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

I honestly don't know if this is allowed here but I thought this is malicious compliance at its finest.

If you don't want to drive traffic there I'll repost what the mods posted below:

POLL: Decide on the future of /r/Pics!

Hello, /r/Pics subscribers!

Boy, what a whacky time we've all had lately, huh? Reddit decided to kill off third-party applications, a protest got planned (and possibly exploited by bad actors), the site showed up in the news, various communities started opening back up, others decided to stay inaccessible, and then the CEO of Reddit implied that a bunch of moderators would be removed from their positions!

Crazy, right?

Anyway, we – the so-called "landed gentry" – definitely want to comply with the wishes of the "royal court," and they've told us that we need to run the subreddit in the way that its members want. To that end, we figured that the only reasonable thing to do was directly ask how you'd like things to progress from here.

Which of the following should we do?

  1. Return to normal operations

  2. Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy To be clear, if people choose the second option, screen-grabs from videos will be allowed (provided that there aren't any visible logos, inserted graphics, or other digital elements present). You could – if you wanted to – look through episodes of Last Week Tonight on YouTube, find moments featuring John Oliver at his sexiest, then post images of those moments here.

It's entirely up to you! Whatever the /r/Pics community decides is best, we'll respect!

Vote, friends! Vote now!

(You can vote by upvoting either of the comments in the thread below.)

Voting has now closed.

Our final tally is as follows:

Return to normal operations: -2,329 votes

Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy: 37,331 votes

It would seem that the community has spoken!

Henceforth, /r/Pics will only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy.

(Said images must adhere to all of the community's other rules, including those mandated by Reddit.)

Happy posting!

top 38 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] dystop@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Definitely allowed. For now, anything that fits in the spirit of malicious compliance is fair game, it doesn't have to be text only too.

[–] Plenty@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] minimar@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is this real?! What episode is it from!

[–] yoichi@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] LambdaDuck@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

no, it's actually not edited. that exact frame appears at 23:03 in the episode on coal from june 2017: https://youtu.be/aw6RsUhw1Q8?t=1443

[–] delfinom@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

"Bob" was replaced with "Spez"

Yes it was edited. But the base image is real. It also resulted in a lawsuit.

[–] xc2215x@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Love this from the mods.

[–] MargotRobbie@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Only having pictures of John Oliver is definitely an improvement over normal r/pic.

[–] seeCseas@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

oh my god i love this. it would be a shame if all other subs followed suit...

[–] Alue42@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Quite a few subs had polls today for how to run, one of them was r/showerthoughts voting on which days to be open and had a comment for each day for the next week for open and each day for the next week for closed and it was unanimous of (exactly equal numbers) all upvoted days closed and all downvoted days open.

[–] harbo@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I can’t see what they did, my browser says it can’t establish connection to the server. Sounds like reddit admins took whatever it was down?

[–] raltoid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Update on the vote results, for people who don't want to go there:

  • Pro John Oliver: 61.7k

  • Return to normal: -13.7k.

[–] NotYourSocialWorker@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like the malicious compliance but I find that to be a bad way to do a poll. Better would have been one comment with the text "Upvote if you want John Oliver pics, downvote if you want it to go back to normal".

The way they did it if one group only upvote their alternative and the other also downvotes the opponent then the result isn't representative. Or at least could be claimed not to be.

[–] lich_hegemon@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Let's assume that everyone who upvoted their option also downvoted the alternative.

The group A, has |A| number of individuals. Group B has |B| number.

Option A: |A| - |B|
Option B: |B| - |A|

Option A = |A| - |B| 
         = -(-(|A| - |B|))
         = -(|B| - |A|)
         = -Option B

The results would be opposites of each other and would highlight the opinion of the majority anyway.

[–] cloudwalk@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

r/theydidthema-- oh.

Right.

[–] AnonStoleMyPants@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

God dammit I guess I'll make an exception for /r/pics.

[–] Steak@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

hahaha that's brilliant

[–] Moskie@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think this is a good idea. The point of the blackout is to hit Reddit where it hurts, by driving traffic down. This prank (partially) reverses the work of the blackout, by getting people back to the pics subreddit to post and see (John Oliver) pics. It turns the blackout into a joke. And I think is a step towards the community just moving on from the blackout without it actually having the long term effects that were intended.

I'm all for malicious compliance, but I think this is the wrong flavor of it.

[–] andobando@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Nah I disagree. Turning things less serious is not necessarily a bad thing. People will visit to check it out but long term it will get stale and die off.

[–] DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

archive.ph link for those who don't want to give reddit traffic.

[–] demvoter@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

30,052,708 John Oliver Enthusiasts - Lolol

[–] RomeCallen@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] kadu@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

/r/apple could've only allowed discussions about fruit.

But instead they decided to return to normal operations - they're in the group of mods unreasonably afraid of losing their position as mods, which is honestly quite bizarre.

I understand building a community and wanting to keep at it (I moderated 3 large Brazilian subreddits) but at this point, you just want the title - because you've already lost control, trust, and quality.

[–] JshKlsn@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Mods of anything to do with Apple should be in most support. Spez specifically came after the developer of the most popular iOS app.

I guess they don't care as long as they can still put that they moderate a popular Apple subreddit on their resume lol

[–] geoffervescent@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

/r/gifs currently is following suit! If you still have a reddit account go vote ASAP! (Also unsubscribe from all your "business as usual" subs as possible, immediately, if you can't delete your account immediately for whatever reason)

[–] theusualuser@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Took a peek and it doesn't look like there's any recent posts on /r/gifs ? Like, sort by new and everything other that 5 reddit is killing itself posts is at least 19 days old. What's up with that?

[–] Bero@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

you probably were on /r/gif instead of /r/gifs

[–] 7ime1ock@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It might be a problem on your end. I'm looking at sub and I see posts of John Oliver.

[–] qat@startrek.website 1 points 1 year ago

I see it too! This is the best form of protest ever.

[–] TheRealJefe@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Spez really should have read r/maliciouscompliance a bit before he bit off more than he could chew

[–] BonesOfTheMoon@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Spez has the brain of a goldfish.

[–] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

He will probably get wind of this and cover it on his show 🤣

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And then people will go check it out.

Ironic engagement is still engagement.

[–] dystop@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I personally think the best "maliciouscompliance" act mods can do in the long term is to switch up all the subs.

So technology will be used for gardening, gardening will be used for android, android will be used for coffee, coffee used for pcgaming, etc. It'll make everything really confusing for new users and help slow their growth.

[–] kiwifoxtrot@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ahh, the old /r/trees and /r/marijuanaenthusiasts switcheroo.

[–] rammer@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 year ago

Ahh, the old /r/worldnews and /r/anime_titties switcheroo.