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Reddit is removing moderators that protest by taking their communities private

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

#391

Post by Panoramix »

cryptoegorophy wrote: post #152
spazx wrote: post #109

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…

Any good alternative? I like hacker news for now that it still got some comments worth reading and interesting articles

I liked kbin.social a lot. It's a little rough around the edges, and doesn't have a ton of users, but I found that that's actually very ok. It reminds me of Reddit 10 years ago. Nowadays every thread in Reddit is either stupid memes and the same predictable jokes over and over, or some fanatical social wars stuff. Kbin looks like a place where you can actually have a conversation again, without being banned or destroyed for disagreeing even if done rationally and politely. I hope it survives its technical challenges.

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

#393

Post by metanonsense »

bsimpson wrote: post #248
spazx wrote: post #109

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…

It's weird to see Aaron Swartz evoked as some sort of martyr vis a vis Reddit. (You're not the first person to do it.) As I understand, he basically lucked out when his thing crashed and YC asked Reddit to make him part of the founding team. Was he ever a significant part of Reddit?

I had the same impression as you until I listened to a podcast with Steve Huffmann about the early days of Reddit. For some time, he and Aaron worked quite intensively on the site. From the podcast, it rather appeared that they had different visions about the site. Aaron wanted to build a very different kind of community and experience. When Reddit started to become successful, there was less and less time to work on these „visions“ until he lost interest and basically left the team.

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

#394

Post by apgwoz »

posguy wrote: post #387
bsimpson wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird to see Aaron Swartz evoked as some sort of martyr vis a vis Reddit. (You're not the first person to do it.) As I understand, he basically lucked out when his thing crashed and YC asked Reddit to make him part of the founding team. Was he ever a significant part of Reddit?

Considering he was a major force driving the rewrite of Reddit from Lisp (the version that HN is based on currently) to Python, adding features like Markdown support (a language he helped create in 2002), Aaron defined major parts of the site that have persisted across multiple rewrites of Reddit's codebase.

Hacker News is written in arc. The first reddit was written in Common Lisp. clisp, specifically, I believe.

Aaron convinced them to do it in his web.py and it was rewritten in a weekend (or so the story went). Later, it was written in Pylons and open sourced. No idea these days.

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

#395

Post by adhvaryu »

stevenwliao wrote: post #286
unclekev wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's $3 today. What happens when Reddit triples the price with 30 day notice?

Don't forget that you alienate all those in poorer parts of the world unless you have regional prices.

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

#396

Post by pndy »

rdevsrex wrote: post #373
safety1st wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are done, 100%, this is the turning point and it's all downhill from here. They depend fundamentally on volunteer labor and every decision they've made since announcing the API change has alienated that labor. The morale of every mod I know is in the tank. The solution for this was incredibly simple. Reddit you want to charge for the API? Go right ahead, we all want you to make money. But when the volunteer labo…

Exactly. I canceled my monthly subscription and logged out. I mostly loved Reddit for long for pieces anyway, so I'm going to pay more attention to Substack and see how that emerges.

I'm curious, why you even get subscription in the first place?

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

#397

Post by raincole »

jon_adler wrote: post #189

Why did reddit choose to charge app developers (causing financial uncertainty) for API requests instead of charging the end-users? By purchasing my own usage and loading an API key into Apollo, I could continue to pay Apollo for the app alone like today, and pay Reddit separately for the API access. At least this way, I could decide if I’m happy with the price for API access. I can only assume Reddit deliberately wan…

You overestimate how tech-savvy an average user is (by a huge margin).

No one knows what an API is in real world. And no one is willing to pay just because they sees more than 100 images on r/funny in a short period.

By "no one" I meant that kind of userbase is so small that if you design your site around them you can say goodbye to IPO.

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

#398

Post by TeMPOraL »

andrewinardeer wrote: post #371
safety1st wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are done, 100%, this is the turning point and it's all downhill from here. They depend fundamentally on volunteer labor and every decision they've made since announcing the API change has alienated that labor. The morale of every mod I know is in the tank. The solution for this was incredibly simple. Reddit you want to charge for the API? Go right ahead, we all want you to make money. But when the volunteer labo…

I disagree with your doomsday scenario. There are Reddit users waiting in the wings, wringing their hands ready to jump at the 'oppurtunity' to moderate established subreddits and will happily devote their time to custodial duties. No doubt some have already contacted Reddit management saying that if they de-mod x subreddit they will jump in and guarantee the subreddit's operation. I don't understand the argument abo…

> There are Reddit users waiting in the wings, wringing their hands ready to jump at the 'oppurtunity' to moderate established subreddits and will happily devote their time to custodial duties. (...) There are people who thrive on having power over others even though in this case, subreddit moderation, it is perceived power.

Yes. Those are the very people who should be never ever allowed to become mods, or to be anywhere near any position of power. This is how people seeking status and power self-identify, and if they're given mod power, you can count on their subreddits going to shit rather quickly, and/or them eventually getting bored and quitting, once they realize that being a mod is a hard and thankless job, with people who need you the most hating you the most.

Now sure, the current set of moderators isn't made of saints and purely selfless people either. But it's stable. The worst moderators long ago dropped out, or rode their subreddits down to ground. Reddit ecosystem reached an equilibrium. Now the corporate is shaking everything up, and the platform will have to re-equilibrize again. I expect to watch good subreddits go to shit, some getting forked off, and maybe those forks thriving if there's still enough selfless enough volunteers left after this debacle.

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

#399

Post by dredmorbius »

Simulacra wrote: post #227
Scalene2 wrote: post #34

If reddit needed to generate income from api access they should have made a subscription a requirement for individual users to access the api.

Actually that makes a LOT more sense. If a person wants to use an app that connects via an API, let the user pay for it, not the app developer.

It's not about who pays, it's about who controls.

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

#400

Post by gliiics »

They know they need these communities un-privated asap, because as soon as search engines start reindexing their ranking will take a huge hit (therefore guest users, therefore ad revenue). At the same time they have shown no interest in listening to what the community wants. They are Digg-ing their grave.
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