The most relevant MetaSRD topic right now is the perception or accusation that SRD is 'becoming' or has 'become' SRS. Thoughts?

A year ago there seemed to be a much more "middle of the road" atmosphere in SRD than there is now.

This is a commonly argued and fairly contentious point. There are a lot of people who would say that SRD was never more neutral or middle of the road, it's just that SRD has started leaning a different direction and people are upset. They'll link to older threads with SRS drama or Laurelai drama to demonstrate their point. They aren't entirely wrong either. If you go back you'll see a much more TiA-like vibe from the comments. Hell, you used to even see some really ugly stuff like intentional misgendering of trans people that would never fly in current SRD.

It's undeniable that reddit has changed over the years and it would be silly to think that SRD would stay static. It's interesting though, because people are very divided in how they believe reddit has changed. It seems a very common sentiment on SRD that reddit has become more bigoted and vile. Some even go as far as to describe reddit as a far right-wing site. I honestly can't see that at all and I believe it takes a very black-or-white mentality to see it that way. I mean many in SRSs and similar subs would argue the exact opposite. They would say that reddit has increasingly come under the sway of "SJW"s and is a bastion of "cultural marxism". Heck, mod /u/stopscopiesme said that they believe reddit has become slightly more socially liberal over the years.

I think that more than becoming a "right-wing cesspit" or an "SJW hugbox" that the reddit community, and especially the meta-reddit community, has become more polarized. Confirmation bias is a huge factor when it comes to how people view reddit. If you spend so much time on subs like /r/SubredditDrama, /r/ShitRConservativeSays, /r/circlebroke, and /r/badhistory you are going to have a massively skewed view of reddit.

I don't think it's outlandish to assert that there is gross racism, sexism, and general shitty sentiment in a large percentage of reddit comments. However, I do think it's absolutely ludicrous to assert that reddit is a far right website. It's like this bizarre one-drop rule where if a racist or conservative viewpoint is upvoted ever on a default then all of reddit must be conservative. People will say "Well, reddit may not be one person, but it's not wrong to notice trends in reddit comments and voting patterns and draw conclusions based on those observations". Ideally I would agree with this statement, but I feel this gets into how the progressive meta-community tends to treat social science the same way /r/atheism treats "hard" science.

Noticing a "trend" on reddit is a tricky thing to do. We take note of several highly upvoted conservative viewpoints in the defaults and conclude that reddit is now conservative. However we rarely also compare it with how many liberal viewpoints are upvoted or how many conservative viewpoints are downvoted because that doesn't matter to our argument. It's how reddit can have such a dualistic existence depending on who is viewing it and how that person wants to see it.

I feel like I've completely rambled too much off topic at this point.

TL;DR
SRD wasn't ever a super happy neutral place, but personally I believe that polarization and tribalism are more to blame for the current state of things than frustration that the "jerk" is going the other way now. Who you claim too often seems to matter more than what you say.

/r/MetaSubredditDrama Thread