Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#101

Post by mlyle » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:04 AM UTC

hn_thrwn wrote: post #69

mlyle wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The richest part here is where spez refers to moderators as a "landed gentry": https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/reddit-protest-blacko... “And I think, on Reddit, the analogy is closer to the landed gentry: The people who get there first get to stay there and pass it down to their descendants, and that is not democratic.” What does that make spez relative to the constituents in his community?

[flagged]

Adding thousands of employees and pissing away profitability to force these kinds of no-win choices ain't exactly "payin' da bills."

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#102

Post by BeefWellington » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:04 AM UTC

janalsncm wrote: post #31

Reddit could have avoided all of this years ago by building out the tools that moderators claim to need. Instead, they relied on third parties to create them. Doing this would have nullified mods’ strongest justification for protesting. While removing 3rd party apps is certainly annoying for users, mods are what keep the site functioning. The fact that Reddit chose to take this course of action tells me that they don…

The kicker here is, if this is all for an IPO, as an investor, would these moves give you more confidence in the leadership or less?

I can kinda see arguments for both directions, but I can think of more that would cause me to have less confidence.

The biggest IMO is that what's happening here is a gamble by leadership that people are so drawn to Reddit that they'll give up their far superior mobile apps or desktop experiences for it.

The second biggest is the speed with which they pushed this decision. By forcing it to happen so quickly and not offering an actually sufficient grace period, it's pretty clear this is just about trying to fatten up for the IPO and doesn't represent solid medium to long-term thinking and direction.

Maybe investors won't care. Maybe users are truly too hooked to Reddit specifically to leave, as we've seen mostly play out with Twitter.

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#103

Post by piyh » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:05 AM UTC

bloqs wrote: post #83

hn_thrwn wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Rent a storefront Get people to run and supply it for free Sell the supplies and profit

Build a platform

Recruit free labor

Replace them when they stop working

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#104

Post by x86x87 » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:05 AM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #48

x86x87 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol. who do you think does the hard work of keeping the subs clean? agree that some mods could be scumbags but to generalize to all mods is a stretch. reddit without good mods is a guaranteed shit show

Designated moderation is a pretty poor system. Everyone knows who the dickheads are; you just have to leverage that communal knowledge---but in a way that avoids oppressive majorities. Have a system whereby any user can indicate zero or more other users to be their personal moderators. This is kept secret by the site; nobody has any idea of how many other people have selected them as one of their personal moderators,…

this is too complicated and requires a lot of effort.

i could dig a system where you have a pool of moderators and they somewhat randomly get assigned to moderate subs on fixed time periods assignments.

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#105

Post by Accujack » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:05 AM UTC

janalsncm wrote: post #31

Reddit could have avoided all of this years ago by building out the tools that moderators claim to need. Instead, they relied on third parties to create them. Doing this would have nullified mods’ strongest justification for protesting. While removing 3rd party apps is certainly annoying for users, mods are what keep the site functioning. The fact that Reddit chose to take this course of action tells me that they don…

>The fact that Reddit chose to take this course of action tells me that they don’t actually know that much about their own website. That might also explain why they never built out the tooling to begin with.

It's seemed like that for years. They've had strong reasons to develop the site for years. The two main things they've done are build an app for phones and spend a relatively long time creating a "new" UI that changes the look of the site and provides more advertising space but has no major changes to the way the site works.

It's like they don't have any idea how to actually develop the site, and they're limited to doing window dressing.

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#106

Post by wellthisisgreat » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:07 AM UTC

Spez is the guy who wipes the street on the block where ppl happen to gather and play music, tell stories.

One day he decides to take fees from the ice-cream vendor. The ice-cream is gone.

Is there another relatively clean street where nobody would try to setup a shake down the crowd?

Reddit execs and such are rent-seekers except in place of land we have human content.

The website thingy they have running has become a commodity years ago.

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#107

Post by 101011 » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:07 AM UTC

CSMastermind wrote: post #85

e2le wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's often struck me as odd how some moderators can be modding 50+ sometimes even high as 100+ subreddits. Why so many? I doubt they can be reasonably expected to moderate all of them. Shouldn't there be a limit?

I moderated a few decently popular subreddits for a while (a couple hundred posts a day, nothing crazy). I will say that most moderation work on Reddit can be done independently of a particular sub and scales okay across subreddits. Like the additional effort of moderating 100 subreddits vs 1 would be nowhere near 100x. It would probably be closer to like 5x the amount of work. And there are benefits to moderating ma…

Very interesting perspective, thanks for sharing. What are your thoughts on a mechanism to oust existing mods? Is there any path you'd be willing to see? Or a lesser of two evils? E.g. mods being able to kick each other out with some plurality vs community members holding that power at some high voting threshold

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#108

Post by unclekev » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:07 AM UTC

aeorgnoieang wrote: post #78

kristopolous wrote: post #8

I wouldn't be surprised if they've put themselves on the radar of Harvard Business Review for having the ball in their court and somehow phenomenally fumbling it at every opportunity

I'm kinda curious why none of the third party app developers considered selling Reddit requests as in-app purchases – just charge the rate Reddit charges.

Some of them are trying to figure something out.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RelayForReddit/comments/147152b/upd...

> There's no possibility to continue the free version of Relay; a monthly subscription price of $3 (or less) might be achievable.

And of that $3 the Developer says in that thread:

> Yes there should be a good amount in there for myself.

If 3rd party apps are so beloved, then $3/month to support a developer doing good work should not be a issue.

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#109

Post by spazx » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:08 AM UTC

Smelled this one coming miles away.

Next, they'll hand over fan-built communities to the entities that own the IPs they're dedicated to. Eg. r/starwars to Disney, r/startrek to Viacom/Paramount, etc.

Then, old.reddit.com will stop working spontaneously, just like how they toyed with killing mobile browser access to force users to download the app, which they probably will eventually. That's going to be the final push for a lot more users. The academics, for certain.

Give it a few months, it'll be like FaceBook, Twitter, Tumblr. Ad and bot ridden ghost town, devoid of all creativity - nay, devoid of actual information at all. Just a sinking ship with people still getting off.

Aaron Swartz is rolling in his grave.

Re: Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

#110

Post by wvenable » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 5:08 AM UTC

jfasi wrote: post #49

flangola7 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incorrect, it is a legitimate protest. Many have pointed out that Reddit could just wait out 48 hours, so indefinite blackout is a more logical move.

An indefinite blackout is not a protest, it's extortion. It's saying "if I can't enjoy this subreddit the way I want to, no one can."

Aren't all protests essentially extortion? We will sit here until you give into demands. We won't work until you give into our demands. We will crowd the streets until you give into our demands.

All that matters is who the community supports.