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Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

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Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 48 hours will not even ding reddit. I don't think the direct losses of the 48 outage will be what matters here. Rumors are that Reddit wants to IPO later this year. This blackout will put the spotlight on two issues: - Reddit is extremely dependent on the goodwill of the community, especially the moderators who provide an essential service for free. - Reddit is out of touch with its own community, and keeps pissing…

> Reddit is extremely dependent on the goodwill of the community Are they? Assuming they all go dark for 48 hours, then come back online, and business continues as usual... wouldn't that somewhat prove that Reddit doesn't have to worry too much? What if certain subreddits go dark for extended amounts of times, multiple weeks, maybe even a month. And then new copycat subreddits pop up, what do you think will happen? R…

I wonder how all the various subreddits will work without their moderators. If moderators stop doing their jobs I have a feeling many subreddits will devolve into chaos - spam, off topic posts, crazy people posting the most vile and repulsive shit, … etc.

Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very true, but digg never had the kind of stickyness that reddit had from early on. I think reddit has a stronger sense of community and I think that users may well be more attached to their communities than they are to their mods.

Digg users went to Reddit, a viable alternative. There's nowhere for Reddit users to exodus to.

That's true, and puts reddit in an even more powerful position.

If those mods were anywhere near serious about this they should just roll their own reddit and attempt to migrate their communities. I'm pretty sure that would elicit an immediate response from reddit but that would be a much harder fire to put out than this one.

Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

#193

48 hours will not even ding reddit. Do it for a month and it will count, assuming reddit doesn't simply re-enable the subreddits. But obviously the mods here are walking a fine line between pissing off their users and getting reddit to bend over. With camarades.com we had a week long outage because of a fire in EV1's DC which then caused the fire marshal to shut everything down for a week (I don't blame them, but tha…

I agree, this won't by itself ding Reddit enough to properly move the needle, however it will raise awareness massively, and suddenly every user who has noticed a subreddit they follow has gone dark will have a "take" on how they feel about the whole situation.

I think what Reddit would prefer is a "rip off the bandaid" situation where they just get all this over and done with as quickly as possible, with the least amount of noise possible.

I think this is one major reason that until the AMA that's happening today, all official communication has been happening in backchannels despite effecting a large number of Reddit users, whether they are effected directly by a 3rd party app going away, or indirectly, by a subreddit they are a member of being moderated with worse tools.

Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

#194

48 hours will not even ding reddit. Do it for a month and it will count, assuming reddit doesn't simply re-enable the subreddits. But obviously the mods here are walking a fine line between pissing off their users and getting reddit to bend over. With camarades.com we had a week long outage because of a fire in EV1's DC which then caused the fire marshal to shut everything down for a week (I don't blame them, but tha…

This argument, regardless of its factual correctness regarding the impact on Reddit, is an argument of helplessness - it argues there is no point in acting, because nothing will be achieved. Sometimes you have to act, even if it will have no effect, because it is the right thing to do, where our sense of moral indignation is so great we are motivated to act regardless of the overall outcome or what we may or may not…

It simply points out what the ground rules are, if you want to make a point then you can do that but it won't amount to much if it doesn't lead to results.

There are actions that would be much more likely to result in a response, the mods are clearly engaging in a balancing act rather than a principled stance and I predict that if they stay this course they will simply be supplanted by more pliable individuals. A credible threat requires some actual work and preparation, not just the clicking of a link that another party controls anyway.

Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

#195
post #36

Imagine there was a free or quasi-free API for Facebook. Facebook would lose large amounts of money on content because they can no longer monetize it with ads.

Facebook pays their moderators though. If reddit would pay subreddit moderators, top commenters, users that submit very interesting stuff, and in the case of Apollo, people creating the Apps that enable you to use Reddit in a pleasant way, then the story would be different.

This sounds like there could be an open source version of Reddit, if the company itself doesn't add a lot of value via software features. Similar too Wikipedia. Of course the network effect favors the platform that is already big.

Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very true, but digg never had the kind of stickyness that reddit had from early on. I think reddit has a stronger sense of community and I think that users may well be more attached to their communities than they are to their mods.

Digg users went to Reddit, a viable alternative. There's nowhere for Reddit users to exodus to.

Until someone starts one … heck you are looking at one right now; specialised but it works in more or less the same way (with more restrictions on downvoting).

Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

#197

48 hours will not even ding reddit. Do it for a month and it will count, assuming reddit doesn't simply re-enable the subreddits. But obviously the mods here are walking a fine line between pissing off their users and getting reddit to bend over. With camarades.com we had a week long outage because of a fire in EV1's DC which then caused the fire marshal to shut everything down for a week (I don't blame them, but tha…

[flagged]

Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

#198
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing is that many moderators are paid but by other companies and PR firms. Reddit doesn't see any of it. A lot of the content on Reddit is promotion and semi-hidden forms of advertising. Again Reddit doesn't see any of this spend. In both cases Reddit is paying other companies for using their platform for making money. Why would a corporation pay hundreds of thousands for ads when they could spend tens of th…

Many mods are paid? I think the situation is the opposite of what people believe is going on. Reddit just wants its biggest profiteers to start paying for what they’re taking. The changes actually won’t hurt normal users at all. Users somehow don’t understand that this is not about them. The proposed changes are about limiting exploitstion from a handful of commercializing individuals. Free access to the API is getti…

> he doesn’t have the time to rewrite his code to be more efficient.

Reddit demands so much to make it impossible

Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 48 hours will not even ding reddit. I don't think the direct losses of the 48 outage will be what matters here. Rumors are that Reddit wants to IPO later this year. This blackout will put the spotlight on two issues: - Reddit is extremely dependent on the goodwill of the community, especially the moderators who provide an essential service for free. - Reddit is out of touch with its own community, and keeps pissing…

> Reddit is extremely dependent on the goodwill of the community Are they? Assuming they all go dark for 48 hours, then come back online, and business continues as usual... wouldn't that somewhat prove that Reddit doesn't have to worry too much? What if certain subreddits go dark for extended amounts of times, multiple weeks, maybe even a month. And then new copycat subreddits pop up, what do you think will happen? R…

> What if certain subreddits go dark for extended amounts of times, multiple weeks, maybe even a month. And then new copycat subreddits pop up, what do you think will happen?

For the most part, nothing. The new subreddits will likely be ghost towns.

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