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Storming Reddit's Moat

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Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#41

Post by fjabre »

abcdjdjd wrote: post #29
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Many popular subreddits are quietly operated by moderators with industry connections. Some of this occurs naturally. People who were deep enough into a niche to become moderators of a subreddit in the late 2000s and early 2010s are also likely to end up working in that industry or starting business in that industry. However, many companies have realized that being in the good graces of subreddit moderators can be ver…

>Moderators have a lot of power to influence conversations on Reddit in non-obvious ways. You had the above quote when I was commenting on your post, but may have edited it out. But I think this line right here is also why reddit is becoming unusable and going downhill fast. Basically, moderators are given way too much power and users have no recourse against mod abuse really. Users can't vote a moderator out for exa…

I couldn't agree with this more.

As someone who has gotten to the top of Reddit front page twice with my free (no ads) web app I now cannot. It's all but impossible.

Mods are so over protective they will ban you for practically nothing.

If you attempt to evade the ban even innocently they will sniff you out.

I think Reddit's mod tools are disgusting and foster censorship and make Reddit a more negative and critical place.

A new post type as the OP suggests like IMGUR? This point is laughable OP. Good luck getting passed mods. They don't let you do shit like that anymore.

Mods rule with an iron fist on Reddit even to the chagrin of their communities. Shame on reddit and its handlers for taking Reddit in this direction.

I have since left reddit and only very casually browse it from time to time. Lots of group think. You will get banned simply for disagreeing with mods in some extreme cases.

Reddit didn't used to be this way. I had been a user there for over a decade. They so casually banned me it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Reddit has gone to the dogs or in this case the mods. It's embarrassing how far Reddit has fallen.

I met Steve and Alexis at MIT startup bootcamp. They were awesome. The reddit they created is no more.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#42

Post by brodouevencode »

jefurii wrote: post #30
brodouevencode wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gave up on reddit a long time ago because of the moderation problems.

How is this different from other media? It's already common practice with magazines that contain product reviews. There's nothing stopping companies from doing this with bulletin boards and blogs.

Yes, this is true. The problem lies in that they've historically waved the free speech flag in one hand while throwing the banhammer with the other.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#43

Post by ah27182 »

>Reddit is great for lurkers

I disagree with this, at least for non-account users. Slowly the mobile website has gotten more and more closed for newcomers. It is not always possible to just read a quick reddit thread that comes up on google because of the "Sign-in to read more" that bombards your screen.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#44

Post by antihero »

abcdjdjd wrote: post #29
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Many popular subreddits are quietly operated by moderators with industry connections. Some of this occurs naturally. People who were deep enough into a niche to become moderators of a subreddit in the late 2000s and early 2010s are also likely to end up working in that industry or starting business in that industry. However, many companies have realized that being in the good graces of subreddit moderators can be ver…

>Moderators have a lot of power to influence conversations on Reddit in non-obvious ways. You had the above quote when I was commenting on your post, but may have edited it out. But I think this line right here is also why reddit is becoming unusable and going downhill fast. Basically, moderators are given way too much power and users have no recourse against mod abuse really. Users can't vote a moderator out for exa…

I disagree, for small subreddits, mods should have all the power they want to curate and garden and develop their community in the way they see fit. The great thing about Reddit is that if a mod is abusive and most users agree, there's absolutely nothing preventing you starting a new subreddit.

Perhaps larger less niche subreddits should have a greater amount of accountability, though, because something like /r/canada can't easily be replaced.

With greater power should come greater accountability. Think a sort of public/private model for subreddits.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#45

Post by fjabre »

antihero wrote: post #44
abcdjdjd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Moderators have a lot of power to influence conversations on Reddit in non-obvious ways. You had the above quote when I was commenting on your post, but may have edited it out. But I think this line right here is also why reddit is becoming unusable and going downhill fast. Basically, moderators are given way too much power and users have no recourse against mod abuse really. Users can't vote a moderator out for exa…

I disagree, for small subreddits, mods should have all the power they want to curate and garden and develop their community in the way they see fit. The great thing about Reddit is that if a mod is abusive and most users agree, there's absolutely nothing preventing you starting a new subreddit. Perhaps larger less niche subreddits should have a greater amount of accountability, though, because something like /r/canad…

I disagree. Giving them too much power puts them into power trip mode. And defeats the purpose of reddit: curated content from the userbase.

If I wanted to be told what articles to read by a bunch of mods I'd go to CNN or Fox news.

Reddit mods should let their communities decide and have most of the power. This is the spirit of reddit. Not auto-bans and IP sniffers. They should only be responsible for removing illegal or threatening content such as doxxing.

Mods are very clearly abusing their power. Reddit is alienating some of its core most loyal userbase.

And RPAN also sucks while i'm on my soapbox.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#46

Post by INTPenis »

This author goes on a for a long time but I'm a member of cmv and I can tell you exactly what went wrong in one sentence.

Nobody saw the content.

I vaguely knew about the website when it happened but ignored it. I'm on cmv for one reason, it shows up in my reddit feed. It's not interesting enough to spend time on a separate website/app.

What's good about reddit is the diversity of content you can get.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#47

Post by cblconfederate »

jedberg wrote: post #9

> Reddit content ranks really well on Google The most public contribution I made to reddit's codebase when I was there was the SEO features. I did all the usual stuff like cleaning up title and meta tags, and adding a sitemap. But the change that had the largest effect, by far, was adding the title of the story into the URL. As soon as we launched that, our Google traffic shot up. The way you know you have truly mast…

I never understood why google gives juice to this kind of URLs. It makes URLs longer and is barely useful anymroe but google keeps demanding it.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#48

Post by BitwiseFool »

maxk42 wrote: post #28

I've lead two successful community "unbundling" efforts from reddit. Here are a few tips if you're thinking of doing the same: (1) You HAVE to kill the original community. Otherwise momentum will keep your users using the old community. Our first launch saw a successful small website take off initially after it was launched only to have traffic slowly die down over the next several months. What finally got it off the…

(1a) Wait for the target subreddit to get big enough so that the quality drops like a rock and gets filled with barely related content from astroturfers and karma farmers.

Jokes aside, it's such a shame to see subreddits explode in popularity and then get filled with low quality content that moderators don't even care to curate.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#49

Post by chongli »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Many popular subreddits are quietly operated by moderators with industry connections. Some of this occurs naturally. People who were deep enough into a niche to become moderators of a subreddit in the late 2000s and early 2010s are also likely to end up working in that industry or starting business in that industry. However, many companies have realized that being in the good graces of subreddit moderators can be ver…

It’s interesting how Reddit‘s failure to effectively monetize and cut their most important users in on the action, the way YouTube and Twitch have done, seems to have led to a grey market. This hurts Reddit (obviously, since they’re cut out of the market) but it also hurts users due to a lack of transparency. This exposes users to all kinds of astroturfing, shilling, and other misinformation.

In a way, it’s quite similar to the issue of Amazon product reviews. Amazon tried to push off a core cost centre from their business onto the backs of volunteers. Now the system is totally corrupted by manufacturers and their paid shills.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#50

Post by markdown »

abcdjdjd wrote: post #29
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Many popular subreddits are quietly operated by moderators with industry connections. Some of this occurs naturally. People who were deep enough into a niche to become moderators of a subreddit in the late 2000s and early 2010s are also likely to end up working in that industry or starting business in that industry. However, many companies have realized that being in the good graces of subreddit moderators can be ver…

>Moderators have a lot of power to influence conversations on Reddit in non-obvious ways. You had the above quote when I was commenting on your post, but may have edited it out. But I think this line right here is also why reddit is becoming unusable and going downhill fast. Basically, moderators are given way too much power and users have no recourse against mod abuse really. Users can't vote a moderator out for exa…

> Moderators should really only have the power to remove illegal stuff or have clear rules linked for each removal or ban.

Imagine HN without moderation other than the removal of illegal stuff. You have no idea how hard mods work to keep subreddits on topic and non-toxic.

> Its almost like people forgot their was a an upvote and downvote button. The mods really have no reason removing posts, outside of clear violating posts that may break laws, since the users can choose what they want to see with the upvote and downvote button.

70M US citizens voted for Donald Trump. You cannot trust anonymous users to keep a subreddit a decent place.

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