Brigading is not against reddit's rules[0], despite semi-popular belief. Some bi...

DanBC · on July 3, 2015

Brigading, on the scale FPH did it, falls under vote manipulation and don't break the site.

EDIT: Subs encourage use of non-participation links because for ages Reddit has banned subs that brigade.

Tomte · on July 3, 2015

Excuse me, but what is "brigading", actually?

Until now I assumed it was gathering lots of users to harass people IRL or on other web sites, but I guess I'm mistaken?

DanBC · on July 3, 2015

In Reddit context:

/r/ThisSubReddit exists. There's a post in /r/ThisSubReddit that someone doesn't like. They post a link to that post to /r/OtherSubReddit, sometimes with commentary (eg, "look at this idiot!")

That causes a bunch of people from /r/OtherSubReddit to visit /r/ThisSubReddit. That's okay, unless they start voting; or insulting; or harassing users.

The voting is not okay because often the brigading sub is much larger than the sub being brigaded. (FPH had 150,000 subscribed users) People generally agree that the heavily modded subs are better. Brigading makes it really hard for mods to do any modding. (If just 1% of FPH subs decide to vote that's 1,500 people. If your sub is only 800 subscribers you're going to get crushed by FPH.)

The harassment is not okay because, well, fuck those people who think it's okay to visit a self-harm support sub and tell people to kill themselves.

That kind of brigading has been risky for subs for a while now; plenty of subs got warned, temp banned, or permanently banned for this.

fatpeoplehate was warned multiple times about brigading. But the problem with FPH was not just on-Reddit brigading. They took it to facebook, youtube, a bunch of other websites. They also, if the admins are to be believed, took it AFK to people's IRL work / school / homes.