Megathrust: Subreddit, you're not a journalist. Stop acting like one.

Subreddit, our collective behavior is killing us. I've been a redditor for almost 12 years and have never seen behavior like this before. We seem to be going from one outrage to the next. Between January 6th, the whole disciplinary action (fuck you, N-word guy), and now this goddamn vote, we seem to be spiraling out of control. <br><br>A couple weeks ago, I saw a post in r/relationship_advice that I just happened to be reading. The post was a reddit classic that stayed on the front page for a bit. The tl;dr is that a woman is mad because her boyfriend isn't doing anything about her period cramps, so she should come and see us, the fine people of reddit, and we'll give her all sorts of advice. She comes to us, and it's a post of a bunch of redditors who don't know her or her boyfriend or her life or any of that other shit, and all these people are just GIVING ADVICE. It's fucking stupid. Look, I'm a lawyer, and I give free advice to the layman all the time, because I think it's a good civic duty and all that. But most of my advice is "Don't come to reddit for advice". <br><br>Redditors, we are not the answer. We are not any sort of professional group. A journalist would research a story; they would talk to everyone involved, fact-check the shit out of their evidence, and then write a story. They wouldn't fact-check with other journalists, like some people seem to be doing in the comment section of the vote post. <br><br>Here is how to prove a vote was fake for yourselves:<br><br>1) Look for the post history or comment history. I'm happy to do that for anyone who is trying to use one of these fake votes as "evidence" that...I don't even know what. Are you going to put the burden of proof on other people to do your research for you?<br>2) Talk to the person who posted the vote. They either a) posted a fake vote with no reason, or b) posted a vote with a reason. If a, fuck them, but you didn't have to waste your time talking to them. If b, then you fucking did your research and can go on with your life.<br>3) Do some research on the person who posted the vote. If they're a sockpuppet, there's probably other evidence on their profile vs their "other account".<br><br>The point is, redditors, we're not fucking journalists. We're not a fact-checking service. We're just a community. If you're complaining about votes, stop acting like a fucking journalist. Are you seriously going to waste your time checking votes? If you're going to waste your time, why not just go outside for a fucking walk? Why waste your time complaining about votes? If you're so worried about someone else's votes, why not go vote yourself? If someone faked a vote, who cares? If they're going to resort to sockpuppetry, they're probably going to do it no matter what, so why not just fucking vote and go about your life? You don't have to waste your time on this subreddit. It's just votes. If you're going to act like a journalist, then go be a fucking journalist. Go outside, go do something with your life. Stop wasting your time.<br><br>And reddit, please put the vote posts behind an NSFW filter. If I had a dollar for every vote I've seen without asking for more votes, I'd have more than a dollar.<br><br>EDIT: This post was not intended to be on the front page. It's a throwaway post I wrote while high, and I didn't even realize it was posted in /r/politics. Oh well. I guess I'll just have to own it.