And yet the Wrentham outlets are an upscale place for foreign tourists.

Wrentham Outlets never made any sense to me. Why make people walk outside when the weather is bad so often? Although with climate change (who would have believed we'd have a winter with no snow?) that might actually become a little more practical.

At least until the heat gets so bad that people start dropping dead of heatstroke when they're walking outside!

It wasn't deleted. He took it private. My guess is that he didn't delete his account, and is just keeping his head down and dreaming of a comeback.

Given that he was such as well-known karma whore, it never made sense to me that he'd give up 161k+ karma by deleting his account.

As for the recent unpleasantness, that sort of thing happens all the time - at least on privately-owned forums, which is pretty much ALL of them these days. You couldn't see something like that happen on a truly free forum like Usenet. A takeover wasn't possible, because there was no central authority to corrupt or usurp. But when a forum has an owner, speech can never be truly free.

We got lucky this time. Usually forums die when someone like Linus-Is-Best takes over. But he made the mistake of assuming that ky1e wouldn't come back. Normally that would have been a safe bet.

I've seen a lot of subs which were taken over or even literally bought out. Not to be too specific, but in the run-up to the big primaries and elections, lots of political groups on Facebook and elsewhere were taken over and destroyed. Apparently the buying price for a decent-sized group was $10,000.00. Of course that was quite a few years ago, before inflation. It got to the point where there were literally no groups of more than a few people that covered certain political points of view!

Which was the intent all along, of course. You don't spend tens of thousands (realistically, hundreds of thousands) of dollars to silence dissent if you're not going to make a profit out of it.

Can I stop sounding paranoid now?

That's been taken private. Interesting. Although Linus-Is-Best supposedly deleted his account, I'm guessing he's just keeping his head down and plotting a comeback.

Some of us were unbanned, and there's a thread here for people who were banned to request reinstatement. They can do that even if Linus-Is-Best muted them, which he seems to have done almost automatically.

I know it's only Reddit. But damn it, egotistical little dictators like him piss me off. I'm glad he's gone, and I'm glad he apparently lost 160k+ of the karma he was such a whore for. But part of me wishes he'd been hung from a lamppost like Mussolini.

I was banned for suggesting that a Massachusetts sub should have the Massachusetts state flag as its symbol.

But of course I was really banned because I didn't kiss the boot.

There's a certain irony, though, that many here in r/Massachusetts so willingly bowed to their dictatorial new ruler. And then attacked anyone who questioned the leader, his arbitrary rules, and his capricious punishments. It would be nice to think that some of them might have a moment of honest reflection, and feel some shame.

...but I very much doubt that they will.

It was. Even though it was kind of upsetting, I'm proud that I was banned. I'd have been ashamed if I had just meekly kept my head down and gone along to stay out of trouble with that loony.

I'm glad you came back, ky1e. I'll admit to being a little appalled at the number of people here who so quickly acquiesced to the junta, though. Some of them even seemed eager to support the usurper!

I think it's a good lesson in the need for democracy on Reddit. And online in general, actually.

Then this sub is doomed.

I think he's back in control - him, or people just like him. The "Mods" just deleted this post.

Given recent events on this sub, clamping down and deleting posts is the WORST thing you unknown mods could be doing right now. And who the hell are you, anyway?

He went into the classic paranoid mod mode, banning everyone who commented on certain threads - and in many cases muting them as well. It happens fairly often around here. The process seems to be:

1. Newish mod decides they are God, here to punish those who are heretical in Their eyes. They shall hereby be referred to as The Mod.
2. Innocent users have their posts taken down.
3. Those users complain. Brief conversation takes place in the sub about what's happening.
4. The Mod attempts to defend their actions to the sub. But since their actions are indefensible, the vast majority (in this case, EVERYONE) disagrees with The Mod.
5. The Mod's Wrath is incurred. Bans and deletions come more quickly.
6. Protest from the users increases The Mod's divine wrath. The rate of bans and deletions escalates. Preemptive muting is employed, as is banning on the basis of posts and comments outside of the sub in question.
7. Around this time one or more alternative subs are created by some of the newly-banned. Some members move there to talk about what's going on. This offends The Mod's sense of propriety, since to question Their Holy Will in a place They cannot control is sheer blasphemy.
8. People complain to Reddit, and The Mod starts worrying about getting negative attention from the admins. Like a cat covering up their scat, They start hiding or deleting any conversations that They feel might make Them look bad. In this case, that includes all the batshit-crazy stuff in their personal ranting sub.
9. Here we fork. Either Reddit and/or the owner of the sub does nothing, in which case the more aware segment of the sub users leave for the new alternative sub. We now have two separate communities where once there was one, to the detriment of both. The original sub either eventually dies off, or just dwindles and becomes irrelevant to most people.
   OR,
   Either Reddit or the sub owner comes in and finds the sub in flames. They take hasty action to eliminate The Mod, and hope that the sub will recover with minimal damage. The Mod crawls off to lick Their wounds and plot a comeback, some day.
10. Or - maybe - The Mod comes to their senses. Can't say I've ever seen that happen before, but I suppose there could always be a first time!

u/Linux-Is-Best is still listed as a mod for this sub. Do we have confirmation that he is suspended? Is that a permanent suspension, or could it expire?

Oh my god. If he screened them to suit his tastes, this sub is definitely doomed. And I agree absolutely, mods should be from Mass as a basic requirement!

At this point I want to see open and honest statements of intent from all new mods.

So who are the mods now? Apart from the usual suspects, who all seem to be...well...inactive?

Mine was hiked $375 over the last three years. Yeah, the landlords are pushing a lot of people onto the street. Mao's making a lot more sense to me these days.

There's an arcade in Worcester? The only one I know is Pixels and Pints, and they're closed permanently.

Nothing but rain here in southeastern Mass.

Landlords deprived the people of Boston and Cambridge of rent control by making it a state-wide referendum when it only applied in those two cities. We said that rents would go sky-high, and they did.

I miss the French Revolution.

Superman's hair is that color in the comics.

I'm not surprised. The state is too goddamned expensive, and inflation isn't making it any easier to survive here!

I've been wondering how long it will be before we start getting our first cases of malaria and dengue fever in New England!

I was panicking 40 years ago, when I started researching this stuff in college. Tried to warn people, and they laughed at me. It really sucked.

Considering that it was 66° in the middle of February, I believe it! In a long life as a New Englander, I have never seen a winter as warm as this one. Can I start panicking now?