In general the entire series kind of took a nose dive when the focus switched from cooking to how many superpower level absurdist cooking skills can we cram into the story to cook something.

Which is unfortunate, but I think the shifts in the manga over the years really foretold the changing priorities of the creative team (editor included).

As another example, the Path of Exile community moved off onto their own community-run wiki domain, but the Fandom variant (which is woefully out of date) continues to be one of the top results when searching for a PoE wiki page.

In some regards that's inevitable, but it clearly shows what Fandom's priorities are.

Fandom purchasing Gamepedia and moving everything onto Fandom Wikia was so awful. I'm so upset the Dota2 Gamepedia wiki is now on Fandom, and I'm sure many other communities feel that way for their own community run and community led wiki pages.

Not that I was particularly warm about Gamepedia either, but at the bare minimum I didn't feel like the page was all ads and no information. Fandom wikis are explicitly set-up to drive as many eyeballs as possible onto advertising and engagement, and are holding actually relevant information for the visitor as a hostage to get those eyeballs. It's information masquerading as a social media site.

The Runescape community convincing Jagex to cover the hosting costs and moving all their wiki pages to their own set-up has been such a huge boon for their community. It is super unfortunate that for many communities, the community-led wiki pages are a huge trove of information but the companies/games/groups these communities coalesce around have shown little to no interest in merely just financially supporting the endeavor.

Some examples:

2012 winner

As he told her that he loved her she gazed into his eyes, wondering, as she noted the infestation of eyelash mites, the tiny deodicids burrowing into his follicles to eat the greasy sebum therein, each female laying up to 25 eggs in a single follicle, causing inflammation, whether the eyes are truly the windows of the soul; and, if so, his soul needed regrouting.

2003 winner

They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white … Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn’t taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently.

2016 Adventure Dishonorable Mention

The sea roiled like water in a pasta pot about to boil, an apt simile thought Captain Samuel Turner, because if they didn't fix their engine soon he and his crew would be floating face down like overcooked manicotti—bloated, white, limp and about to be consumed by something that wished it were eating ahi tuna instead.

If some of the challenge here is getting words on the page, a lot of the strategies many people employ for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month -- a self-imposed challenge to write a 50k+ word novel in November) usually works out somewhat well:

1. It is ok to take a break, or have an unproductive day. For NaNoWriMo, the idea is to average about 1667~ words a day, but you don't actually have to do that much everyday. Sometimes you have productive days, sometimes you have less. That's ok.
2. You are always "writing" even if you're not actually putting words on the page. The creative process that comes with thinking about characters, planning, imagining settings, world building, plot considerations, conflict resolutions, and so on are all "writing" even if at the end of the day you wrote one sentence into your actual novel then took it out 5 hours later because you weren't happy with it. If you do a lot of planning and note-taking, you might be surprised at how many words are actually in that big bulk of stuff.
3. Less "should" mentality. It's not a bad idea to frame away from thinking of it as "I should be writing", or "my writing should be good/better".
4. Less use of the backspace button. Dump words on page, fix later (this 100% takes getting used to).
5. Oftentimes, a novel can be broken down into scenes, stitched together with entry and exit transitions, chained together to flow from one scene to the next. A "scene" isn't strictly a chapter per se (but a chapter can be a whole scene in and of itself), but rather a set of interactions between characters, setting, plot, and conflict (among other things). In the immediate term, you could consider changing your perspective from "writing a novel" to "writing a scene in the novel", and as you build up scenes over time you start getting something that feels like a longer piece of work even if all you've done is write a few 500-1500 "in the moment" short stories chained together.

Additionally, the traditional novel isn't really the only kind of writing you can do. Novellas, short stories, poems, vignettes, scripts, even the Japanese Light Novel structure are all ways to write without necessarily feeling like one is forced into putting together this massive (or semi-massive) epic.

Right there is inherent inertial momentum with upvotes.

I'm still on the fence, because understandably the potential (and actual) for abuse makes downvotes very unproductive as a feature, but there are also situations where they are very powerful.

It takes significantly more effort to refute a wrong position than it takes to make it. Downvotes serve as an explicit balancing point against that in ways that a well written response does not. Additionally, nested comments usually get less upvotes than their parent comments.

It is what it is I guess.

Reddit doesn't (at least as far as I know) store a history of edits, so what is saved on the database is what your comment literally is. The reason people suggest overwriting comments is because the comment itself has value (for a variety of reasons), so overwriting the comment with something valueless (in the sense that it has no value for Reddit) is better, so the database itself is updated with that valueless comment.

After that whatever you do with the account is up to you.

I think there are two different kinds of blackouts here. Most subreddits have opted to fully blackout by going private, but some have instead decided to not take the subreddit private but instead prevent new submissions and instead have a stickied submission explaining why no new comments/submissions can be made.

Larger subreddits might prefer the latter because it allows them to have one submission rise up through Reddit's /r/all or /r/popular, increasing visibility. Going fully dark by going private doesn't easily elucidate the reason as well as having a single submission doing so, and does a decent job when a number of the exact same submission flood the front page and nothing else from those communities.

This isn't to condone what a particular subreddit is doing or not doing but mostly opining about some of the ways different communities are participating

By and large, anything you post publicly available online is copyrighted to you even if you did not necessarily file out all the paperwork needed to be so. Having a good track record and sourcing of your original work will do good, but ultimately there's not much that can be done about it being "stolen" in so far as someone taking a copy of it, posting it elsewhere, and claiming credit.

If you want to vigorously hold onto your ideas then you just don't want to talk about them to anyone but people you trust. You can't copyright an idea and there's nothing stopping someone from being successful with an idea you posited. The Inheritance series of novels by Paolini is consistently criticized as a fantasy rewrite of Star Wars but there's not much LucasFilms et al. can do with that.

If you're interested in building a portfolio of work, then sharing your writing is a way to advance that goal and therefore sharing is in your interests. If you just want to share some writing because you want others to read it, and have no particular considerations about monetization, I would avoid obsessing about the plagiarism/theft thing. Not that it isn't important, but it's not an immediate consideration.

Do not make publicly available anything you hope to monetize.

> But the situation linked in OP is exactly of a user who was so upset by unexpected behavior secretly thrust upon him that he had to go online to ask others for help

You will need to convince the IRB that such an outcome is more than just minimal risk. The very definition of minimal risk refers to the probability and magnitude of harm. Being unable to use a website unexpectedly or being prompted to sign up for an account before being able to view something is very much not a kind of "harm" that is greater than those ordinary encountered in daily life, no more different than accidentally spilling some creamer on a granite tabletop or realizing one forgot their keys and got locked out of their room.

We can torture the words as much as we want to lead to a particular interpretation, but by and large these are not the kind of word meanderings that IRBs tolerate.

I've read the rest of your comment and my primary issue is your take on it and the subsequent interpretation(s) are not how these policies and practices are implemented, interpreted, and actioned at IRBs nationally.

For example, this is how Indiana University guides researchers for making exempt determinations when reaching out to their IRB. University of South Carolina's IRB provides explicit examples.

Firefox's approach to its in-browser experiments is very much in line with desired and ethical research practices, in so far as we view Mozilla as a privacy-first organization. The availability and "opt-in" to a nightly build is not considered research.

Your contention with not being provided information after the experiment is qualified with "whenever appropriate" and "additional pertinent information". Debriefing after a deception study is very much appropriate and considered required. However, these are considerations in context of waiving informed consent. I would also point out that "legally authorized representative" in this phrasing refers to people who are legally designated as a representative of the subject, and not the admin of the site in question. For example (broadly), minors cannot legally satisfy "informed consent", therefore their legally authorized representative, like their parent or legal guardian, are those who sign the forms on behalf of their children. Adolescents may qualify for informed assent. There's a whole set of additional considerations that experiments much consider for when working with adolescents who reach the age of majority during the research process in context of this.

The waiving of the requirement to document informed consent requires any of the listed qualifications apply, not all. No one is saying that emotional harm is not real, but rather the contention is whether the kind of emotional harm that comes from being forced to log-in to view a website is so significant of a magnitude that it rises above the kind of everyday "harm" experienced in ordinary life. Can you demonstrate that this is the case?

The rest of the discussion about shadowbanning from Facebook and/or other related things are interesting comments but not the point I am making.

Rather, my point is if you replicated the exact same experiment Reddit runs on a University academic setting, it is highly unlikely you will be run out of the university by the IRB from doing so. This was your original claim, arguing that Reddit's experiment here violates some kind of IRB policy if it were to be run in an academic setting. My point is that, NO, you will NOT be run out of an academic research institute by their IRB for doing something like this, and the way the IRB determines minimum risk and exemptions is part of the reason why, because this specific experiment largely meets many of the metrics for it.

To iterate again, being unable to view the content of a webpage without logging may lead to some discomfort, but this discomfort is not going to rise up to any meaningful level to lead to most IRBs to call it as greater than minimal risk. We can of course twist the situation to make it so, but torturing the very situation to achieve a particular interpretation does not fly with IRB review.

I don't like the kind of A/B testing that large corporations do, but I'm not so certain that this particular user experiment Reddit is running would qualify for rigorous IRB review in most academic settings.

Firstly, let's talk about consent. An IRB can make a determination to waive the requirement to obtain informed consent for research. The IRB must find and document:

(i) The research involves no more than minimal risk to the subjects;
(ii) The research could not practicably be carried out without the requested waiver or alteration;
(iii) If the research involves using identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens, the research could not practicably be carried out without using such information or biospecimens in an identifiable format;
(iv) The waiver or alteration will not adversely affect the rights and welfare of the subjects; and
(v) Whenever appropriate, the subjects or legally authorized representatives will be provided with additional pertinent information after participation.

Secondly, some kinds of research can be waived from documenting informed consent:

(i) That the only record linking the subject and the research would be the informed consent form and the principal risk would be potential harm resulting from a breach of confidentiality. Each subject (or legally authorized representative) will be asked whether the subject wants documentation linking the subject with the research, and the subject’s wishes will govern;
(ii) That the research presents no more than minimal risk of harm to subjects and involves no procedures for which written consent is normally required outside of the research context; or
(iii) If the subjects or legally authorized representatives are members of a distinct cultural group or community in which signing forms is not the norm, that the research presents no more than minimal risk of harm to subjects and provided there is an appropriate alternative mechanism for documenting that informed consent was obtained.

Insofar as the kind of UI/UX A/B testing which is employed poses minimal risk to the participant and the waiving of the need to obtain informed consent has no adverse effect on the participant, an IRB is likely to make a determination that consent can be waived. It would not surprise me that Universities themselves utilize UI/UX A/B testing for their own websites, both external and internal facing, for improvement. I doubt many would explicitly file a with their IRB to conduct such an experiment, but some may reach out to inquire if there are explicit concerns.

However, at a level even above informed consent, is a question of whether the research is actually subjected to IRB review to begin with. There is a classification of research that is exempt from human subjects review, and some kinds of research do qualify for human subjects review exemptions.

For UI/UX A/B testing, this particular section will have some application, considering a lot of UI/UX A/B testing only cares for aggregate responses to human behavior:

(2) Research that only includes interactions involving educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures, or observation of public behavior (including visual or auditory recording) if at least one of the following criteria is met:

(i) The information obtained is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that the identity of the human subjects cannot readily be ascertained, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects;
(ii) Any disclosure of the human subjects’ responses outside the research would not reasonably place the subjects at risk of criminal or civil liability or be damaging to the subjects’ financial standing, employability, educational advancement, or reputation; or
(iii) The information obtained is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that the identity of the human subjects can readily be ascertained, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects, and an IRB conducts a limited IRB review to make the determination required by §46.111(a)(7).

Now, one can make the argument that the kind of profile information websites like Reddit have on you is identifying. In practice, "personally identifying information" has specific definitions and the information that Reddit has on you is unlikely to satisfy that criteria.

Finally, this particular set of charts is a helpful reference for whether research even qualifies for IRB/human subjects review to begin with, and walks through the decision points. Notice that one specifically starts with a question of whether the research contributes to generalizable knowledge...

In short, if you ran the exact same experiment Reddit is running in an University setting for an university website (for example, testing whether making visitors create an university website account [????] to view an article published by the University press versus not having to do so makes a difference in engagement metrics), I doubt you would be run out of the University by the IRB. Perhaps the IRB might have a stern word if you failed to check-in with them prior, but even so I'm not confident that will be the case (I'm more inclined to believe the IRB member who you first reach out to will kindly tell you to sod off).

Now with ALL of that said, I still dislike the fact businesses run these experiments. It's definitely not ethical in the sense that businesses should not be aggressively using its everyday users as guinea pigs for their experiments, but just merely being a shitty thing to do is not sufficient by itself to merit the full IRB process.

The unfortunate underlying issue is the API pricing is by and large not sustainable. Even if a third-party application has not announced they cannot continue operations, the lack of announcement does not mean they plan to or continue. I can see the want of biding time and waiting in this circumstance, but ultimately I don't see any third-party application staying active in an above-board manner if the API pricing is launched as is.

Apollo, RIF, and Sync announcing they are shuttering adds additional pressure to the matter.