Comment · Mon, January 26, 2015 · Ceretropic
Is this a dangerous subreddit filled with pseudoscience?
Original post in this thread
[deleted] · 169 points
I can find no way of objectively quantifying the contents of this subreddit that doesn't result in a straight-forward determination that it's filled with pseudoscience, which is inherently dangerous.
Has anyone considered that there should be far more disclaimers present in the sidebar and/or alongside all of the discussions happening here?
It seems that "a friend tried this relatively-unstudied herb and they noticed they were able to remember certain things better" is a valid post, when I think that most sane people would dismiss comments like this out-of-hand in any other context. Why do mods allow such threads? How is it not dangerous to perpetuate health-related "information" that is so anecdotal?
I hope we're willing to have an open, honest critique of ourselves. You should be genuinely concerned if this post gets massive downvotes or deleted by mods.
EDIT: The level of defensiveness is unbelievably over the top. We should always be erring on the side of caution, yet 100% of the replies are suggesting that everything is perfect, nothing can be improved, and that a couple sentences buried in the FAQ are all that could possibly be done. Others are telling me to unsubscribe…
What they were answering
Direct reply to the original post — see the thread post above.
u/MisterYouAreSoDumb · Ceretropic
You are getting pushback because of the tone you are using to convey your message. I don't think anyone is actually against the main premise: that children and uniformed people should not be experimenting with some of the substances discussed here. Nobody wants that. The only issues is how far people want to take it. Do we delete posts we determine to be risky, or just tag them as we are doing now? Do we plaster the subreddit with big red warnings that desensitize people, or do we use a few tags and comments to bring up risky things? It sounds like you are on the end of the spectrum that deletes posts, unless they meet a certain risk/scientific criteria. But then where do those uninformed people go to talk about things, or participate in discussions on the effects, however unscientific they are?
I tell you what, I can see you are passionate about your stance. What would you like to see done on the subreddit? Also, as a vendor, what would you like to see me do, to provide more protection/disclaimers to people?