This reminds me of the Digg 4.0 launch disaster
Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
331–340 of 380 posts
Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
#332I post on a handful of niche reddits (science/tech, not porn, like the average redditor), and the user experience is abysmal. Besides the upvoting/downvoting nonsense and imperious mods, half the time my posts get caught in the spam filter (despite my account being 5+ years old), and I have to check incognito mode to see if they showed up, and message the mods.
At the very least, it's nice to know that rather than a lukewarm welcome, any would-be Eternal Septemberists will be met with "kys leddit spacing, phoneposting, ******" should they try 4chan as an alternative.
Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
#333Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've been on Reddit since 2009, and never cared about any of that stuff or claimed I was going to leave Reddit over it. I absolutely am leaving Reddit over this. I am keeping my account, because I might need it to promote my business (it still has utility in that area and I am pragmatic, I am not going to not do something that could help my business for ideological reasons), but I will no longer be using it on a dail…
> I absolutely am leaving Reddit over this. ok > I am keeping my account, because I might need it to promote my business (it still has utility in that area and I am pragmatic ok, so you're not leaving. Everybody else will be just as pragmatic and the rest won't care. Realize that you just pretty much proved the point of everybody here that believes that this likely will have very little impact. If you were principled…
There are plenty of people, especially in entertainment who don't use social media but have accounts to announce things like a new project they are working on.
I think it's disingenuous to say that someone who only posts to Twitter twice a year, to announce that they are on tour but does not browse Twitter regularly or use it aside from that is an active Twitter user.
>Everybody else will be just as pragmatic
My intention is to only utilize my account to promote my business on subreddits I think are relevant, whereas before I commented regularly several times a week. If everybody makes a similar change, Reddit would lose a lot of commentors.
>If you were principled you would leave.
The multiple threads you and I are going at it in all boil down to the same basic thing: what each of us thinks will be the result of Reddit's changes to allowing API access. What subreddit moderators will do, what Reddit as a company will do in response, how users as a whole will respond, etc...
At this point, I think we have both fleshed out what we think is going to happen in multiple ways and it's clear we disagree so further discussion on that front is pointless.
I will say that I don't feel I have been making an argument that people will (or should) leave on principle. Or that I myself am leaving on principle. I am choosing to leave Reddit because I don't want to use their terrible web application or mobile application.
If that changes, and I'm able to use Apollo again then my stance will change. Because I am pragmatic. I don't think there's going to be some Mastidon alternative that pops up. I think convincing Reddit to change course is the best path forward than trying to get an alternative going.
Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
#334Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
#335Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s incredibly frustrating when you take the time to write something out- something that benefits others and does nothing for you, like sharing your experience or knowledge- only to have the comment removed for one bullshit reason or another. I have never written hate speech or anything racist or in that vein on Reddit, yet I’ve been censored and banned so many times by what I can only assume are children (or childr…
> when you take the time to write something out - something that benefits others and does nothing for you, like sharing your experience or knowledge Sharing your experience or knowledge is not a completely selfless act. Some enjoy the feeling of being an expert, others use this as an opportunity to push their point of view, some just like to help but even that is a benefit for them. https://xkcd.com/386/
I love me some xkcd
Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
#336Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's wrong with Wikipedia?
Unrestrained bullying, increasingly smaller numbers of article editors and a cruel clique of editors. It’s basically in maintenance mode, it’s not increasing in quality or knowledge.
Kind of like OpenStreetMap's community. I would guess the same can be said for anything like there where it's a free, open, global, community-led effort. There will always be a hard-core niche of people who live and breathe the thing and are naturally protective of it e.g. picky with other people's contributions.
Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
#337Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
There are already reports of some large subreddits shutting down permanently, such as programming humor. The idea that this action can’t possibly hurt Reddit I keep seeing is amazing to me. It absolutely will hurt Reddit. Even if it’s not an existential blow. Reddit took a long time to get to where it is. Simply saying it can absorb all this like it’s nothing is myopic. And FWIW, I’m glad most people aren’t as cynica…
> There are already reports of some large subreddits shutting down permanently, such as programming humor.
Great example, that one already has a possible replacement at programminghumour.
Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
#338Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
#339Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sure you will. I'm saying the population as a whole won't.
You're saying a large percentage of the current userbase won't (probably >90%) However, all users aren't the same. While I did not moderate any subreddits, I contributed substantially to several small ones in the way of posts, upvotes and thoughtful content. That's the stuff that really brings value to Reddit - it's the long tail. And even if the percentages are right, if the 5-10% that leave are some of the most val…
> If they are trying to pivot to just become a site where you can infinite scroll memes and focus on the big subreddits
...
Re: Reddark: Website to watch subreddits going dark
#340Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reddit already lets you take over someone’s subreddit if they haven’t posted in N months which happened to me when my subreddit was humming along nicely with no need for me to log into my mod account. Just giving a subreddit away fits right into that ethos of temporary ownership.
We had a supermod (someone who mods hundreds of subreddits) try this on a small subreddit I was active in years ago. They must have had a watchlist of subreddits to claim because literally the day the only mod's N months was up they posted to try to take it over. It was a small sub and we were all well behaved so there wasn't really any need for moderation, and we didn't want some random outsider coming in and taking…
I was so bitter about the experience that I wrote a script that crawled the top 10000 subreddits looking for possible takeovers, and my friend and I took over a few dozen lucrative subreddits*. Think generic words like r/skateboarding (not one of them). Just add a spammy automoderator account to your modlist so it can't get taken back over.
It goes by the "last activity" timestamp of your creator/modlist, so even if you are actively moderating your subreddit (like attending to the mod queue), your subreddit can still get taken over if you aren't posting.
The system is so, so stupid.
* If you search the takeover requests subreddit you could even see that we weren't even stealing the subreddit from the original owners who did all the work to grow the subreddit, but rather from other takeover bots.