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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

#401

Post by dredmorbius »

KerrAvon wrote: post #271
dehrmann wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's the CEO because he was the best person to take over after Ellen Pao resigned. He's the CEO today less because he's the right person, and more because the metrics were moving in the right direction and inertia. He might still be the best person for the job, but it isn't something the board actively reconsiders unless they have a reason to.

If I were on the board, I’d be engaged in discussion with my fellow board members right now about whether spez is demonstrating the temperament befitting a good CEO. Even if you think the shit coming out of his mouth to be the right attitude, you have to ask why he’s saying it out loud, abrasively, in public, where it’s only going to make the product less attractive.

Odds are exceedingly high that spez is doing the Board's bidding.

The Board is not your savior here.

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

#402

Post by dyno12345 »

Sparkyte wrote: post #214
Loveaway wrote: post #128

This is so sad honestly. Like wtf is going on, no apology, no good will, doubling down on the complete moral suicide of Reddit. To push an app no-one ever liked, you know that, but whatever. No-one likes “new” Reddit either, you know that, but whatever. Who’s even gonna use the site after this? Social media zombie sheeple is all that's going to be left. Congrats on your dumb little site, from the front-page of the In…

Reddit is trying to flip loss to profit. They have a wealth of data for AI models and AI is going to be big. They are trying to cash in on it. What they should have done was make a free model for general API use like most companies to develop against. And after that tier the model accordingly. Data is expensive, even though it is getting cheaper per byte we are producing more of it per volume.

reddit has been around for nearly 20 years, the AI thing just seems like a hype train they're trying to jump on to.

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

#403

Post by goykasi »

intothemild wrote: post #382
goykasi wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im not a fan of how reddit is handling the situation, but: > To push an app no-one ever liked, you know that, but whatever. No-one likes “new” Reddit either, you know that, but whatever. Who’s even gonna use the site after this? Is just not true at all unless you have actual stats to back that up. A ton of people disagree with that take. The site has grown a massive amount since the new design was released in 2018. S…

I don't disagree with your line of thinking here. But the big difference you're missing is that the kind of users that use old.reddit or third party apps are the power users. Sure the Reddit app sits in its position in the app stores, but you ask most frequent users on reddit, and they all say they transitioned to a third party app. So my point is i see things like the app as entry points for new users, and then thos…

> use old.reddit or third party apps are the power users

Are they?

> they all say they transitioned to a third party app

Have they? Who asked?

Im inclined to believe a lot of these things. I used to work for a large network of forums in the late 00s. We had a lot of traffic but didnt require 2000 employees (literally only 5 dev to manage 250mil monthly pageviews). In all reality we might been reddit if we got lucky, but we didnt. Oh well. So, I tend to side with the users, but I do understand the behaviors in play. Im not trying to be argumentative just to blindly support reddit, but so many people are just throwing out stats as if they are correct with zero proof. Its almost impossible to have an honest conversation when the facts are being made up on the spot. This whole situation has become so emotional.

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

#404

Post by dotcoma »

Facebook trashed $30 B in a ‘metaverse’ nobody gives a shit about and forgot to add legs to avatars.

Twitter was sold off to Heil Musk.

Reddit after almost 20 years without turning a profit all of a sudden decided to monetise everything and is at war with their community.

Am I wrong if I say that the era of social media is at long last coming to a close ?

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

#406

Post by icoder »

redmerchant2 wrote: post #162
Loveaway wrote: post #128

This is so sad honestly. Like wtf is going on, no apology, no good will, doubling down on the complete moral suicide of Reddit. To push an app no-one ever liked, you know that, but whatever. No-one likes “new” Reddit either, you know that, but whatever. Who’s even gonna use the site after this? Social media zombie sheeple is all that's going to be left. Congrats on your dumb little site, from the front-page of the In…

They don’t care about the old guard of mostly geeks and techies. With Covid and moments of Twitter/tumblr exodus, Reddit has picked up a ton of users that just want generic social media. It’s basically just a global slightly more news text-centric TikTok feed. Serving up slop that’s just tasty enough to keep you hooked.

My home page turned into this at some point in the past, after which I unsubscribed from a bunch of dopamine based subs and subscribed to more substantial subs of my interest. That really helped, but over time the rot set in again as a few subs grew in size and turned into a meaningless dopamine fest (probably fuelled by karma hungry bots / farms).

Based on this experience I won't be surprised at all if your prediction became true. It is as if that's the natural end state and it requires constant effort (org, mods, community) to steer away from it.

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

#407

Post by pmoriarty »

safety1st wrote: post #212
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…

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…

"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 labor you need in order to function started complaining because this is going to kill the modding tools they need - you should have immediately, like next day, apologized for the oversight and promised free API credits to them until you sort this out."

From the AMA by Reddit's CEO 6 days ago[1]:

Mod Tools

We know many communities rely on tools like RES, ContextMod, Toolbox, etc., and these tools will continue to have free access to the Data API.

[1] - https://old.reddit.com/r/reddit/comments/145bram/addressing_...

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

#408

Post by censor_me »

photonerd wrote: post #244
olalonde wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook and Twitter are not bot ridden ghost towns... but anyways, I'll make the opposite prediction: Reddit is going to turn out just fine and this episode will quickly become a memory from the past.

Twitter absolutely is. If it’s not bots, article spam, or ads, it’s the crazy MAGA-crowd jerking themselves off over their fake-outrage of the moment. It’s an absolute ghost town in terms of engaging, original, content. Their user numbers are obviously buoyed by absolute junk accounts and it’s been obviously so since Musk fired most of the company. FB is a boomer & genX meme-pocalypse that’s absolutely slathered with…

[dead]

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

#409

Post by dredmorbius »

mlyle wrote: post #60
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 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?

Reddit (spez) created that "landed gentry"[1], and was more than happy with its existence until roughly two weeks ago. It is Reddit's policies, procedures, and practices which created a first-come, first serve, seniority-based moderator role. Not the volunteers who stepped up and assumed that role, uncompensated by Reddit.

________________________________

Notes:

1. Actual landed gentry labeling volunteer labour they'd cultivated and created as "landed gentry" has to go down as one of the most audacious rhetorical distractions of all time. Or at least the past week.

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

#410

Post by kristopolous »

Peanuts99 wrote: post #328
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

Because they were only given 30 days before the API changes kicked in.

No. For mismanaging their relationships.

There's the aphorism that when you're using/buying a thing, it's always a relationship between you and other humans somewhere in the chain.

That has to be given hygiene and deference. Hygiene in keeping things healthy and in balance and deference in not trying to calcify some lording hierarchy.

If you bust either, your customers/users/whatever will be shopping around. There's other ways to fail but if you look at the most liked companies, you can basically rename that a list of companies that fuck up hygiene and deference the least.

See for yourself https://www.axios.com/2023/05/23/corporate-brands-reputation...

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