Don't take it personally if you get banned from FDS. We ban a lot of people, it's actually very common.

I don't understand people who act like getting banned from FDS is a big deal. It's really not. We ban people all the time.

They either act like getting banned is some huge accomplishment, like the hundreds of posts on cringetopia or entitled bitch bragging "I just got banned from FDS!" So lame.

Or, sometimes they act like they've just been subjected to some kind of massive human rights violation.

It's even more amusing when people freak out over autoban. We use autoban to reduce our workload as moderators, by pre-emptively banning people who comment in subreddits that routinely brigade and troll us.

Unfortunately, good faith users get caught up in autoban all the time. In that case you're better off sending a DM to a mod because we seldom check the "ban appeals" section of modmail because it's just 99% misogynistic abuse.

"YOU CUNTS ARE ALL ENTITLED BITCHES"

"FAT UGLY FEMCEL I HOPE YOU GET RAPED AND DIE"

"OH YOU'RE BANNING ME JUST BECAUSE I'M A MAN? THAT'S SEXIST DISCRIMINATION! FUCKING BITCH"

"I DIDN'T DO ANYTHING EXCEPT RESPECTFULLY DISAGREE, YOU BITCHES CAN'T HANDLE ANY OPINION DIFFERENT THAN YOU! BIGOT! BLAH BLAH BLAH ECHO CHAMBER!

It's not just men who go crazy at FDS mods, some women have a very negative reaction to getting banned too:

"YOU'RE ALL MEAN GIRL REGINA GEORGE AUTOCRATIC DICTATORS ON A POWER TRIP"

"HOW DARE YOU BAN ME, A WOMAN? LET WOMEN SPEAK FREELY! WHERE'S THE SISTERHOOD? STOP CENSORING WOMEN!" (Apparently, if we don't let someone say whatever the fuck they want, and that person happens to be a woman, then we're "censoring women". Sis this ain't Ovarit or Spinster, and even they have terms of service)

"I USED TO LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT FDS ...UNTIL YOU BANNED ME... NOW I SEE THAT YOU'RE TOXIC!"

"UNBAN ME OR ELSE I WILL TELL EVERY WOMAN I KNOW THAT FDS IS TOXIC"

"OH SO YOU'RE BANNING ME BECAUSE I'M [insert identity] HUH? REEEE DISCRIMINATION"

Like, chill. You probably got banned by a bot. We have no idea what your background is.

Even in cases where a moderator manually bans someone, it's not a personal attack on you.

It's become a trendy thing to complain that FDS mods are power-tripping fascists because we ban anyone who "respectfully disagrees" with us. Haha, no. In virtually every case where someone is manually banned it's because they broke the rules in some way, or were being disrespectful to us and our community.

These rules apply to everyone, it's not like we just hate you personally. It only takes 2 seconds to ban someone, we honestly don't put enough thought into it to actually hate any of these users, or really have any opinion of you at all.

FDS is not a debate sub. If you disagree with us, you are welcome to join our critics on the two-dozen or so subreddits dedicated to complaining about FDS. There is no shortage of people who disagree with FDS. We are not for everyone, and not everyone is a good fit for FDS. We are under no obligation to be inclusive to our critics.

Think of it this way: imagine you have a friend who constantly disagrees with you. You want to go to a restaurant and she says "no I don't like that restaurant" but doesn't offer any helpful alternatives. You make a different suggestion and she shoots that one down too. You ask what she wants to do instead and she says "I dunno, I just don't want to go to a restaurant".

Worse, she constantly picks apart everything about you: criticizing your looks, the men you date, your beliefs and goals. She demands you be sympathetic to her struggles and provide emotional labor for her at all times, but she refuses to support you emotionally. Instead, she trash talks you behind your back and threatens "if you don't give me what I want I'm going to tell everyone I know that you're a horrible evil person"

Would you want to be friends with someone like that? Probably not.

That's exactly how I feel about a lot of the women that FDS has banned over the past few days. These are women who say they like FDS but their post/comment history suggests otherwise, nearly every comment is just pointless disagreement and tearing down other women.

One woman in particular was demanding I flair her but most of her comments were just calling us toxic. After I ban her she sends me a DM accusing me of all sorts of nasty things. I click on her profile and already she's bashing FDS in all our critic subs. It was so weird because she accused me of censoring women, not letting women speak freely, not having a sense of sisterhood, etc. and altogether it just felt very emotionally manipulative. I don't trust women who say "but what about sisterhood??" when all they do is criticize other women.

You need more than just a vagina to participate in FDS. You have to actually follow the subreddit rules and have respect for our community if you want to participate.

Part of being a mature adult is knowing that not everything is for you. It's possible to enjoy something even if you don't agree 100%. Just because something doesn't apply to you personally doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad or wrong. Part of having good people skills is knowing you don't always have to voice your dissent in every situation, and when you do disagree, it's important to know how and when to communicate that in an appropriate manner.

FDS welcomes good faith constructive criticism. I'd like to give a shoutout to u/eveloe, she is a good example of someone who consistently gives specific, useful feedback. Respectful constructive criticism is often taken into account when discussing amongst the mod team on how to improve our subreddit.

TL;DR Don't take it personally if you get banned from FDS. We ban a lot of people, it's actually very common. In the greater scheme of things, getting banned from a subreddit isn't really that big of a deal. If you do get banned, don't embarrass yourself by threatening mods or going on these unhinged smear campaigns. Stay and lurk, or unsubscribe from FDS, it's your choice, we don't really care either way.