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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

#521

Post by Remmy »

variant wrote: post #96

No issue with this. Subreddits exists for the users, not the moderators - all of which can be replaced.

The subreddit exists because a user created it. I created two subreddits 12 years ago that have a few hundred thousand subscribers today. So do I not have the right to set my subreddit to private? I never told people to join them. I never advertised them. Reddit has given me the built in functions to set it to private and to ban anyone I choose.

As a matter of fact, one of them has been private since this started and the other has remained open. They're both gaming related. I let my moderators decide because ultimately, they're the ones who have put the most work into keeping the curated. One group didn't really feel it was necessary while the other felt like it was a slap in the face from spez to essentially say, "I don't care what you think, 12 years of hard work to grow a community or not, you'll do what I say."

And I agree with them. They didn't moderate it for power. They did it because they love the specific console they were created for and are really proud to see their hard work pay off after years of investing their time into it. I've become jaded by this whole thing. Reddit no longer cares about its voluntary workforce in the slightest and I'll be handing ownership off to them, deleting my account and that will be the end of it.

So yes. In a way, it does belong to the users. But 48 hours of discomfort leading to threats of repossession after 12 years of work? They want it? They can have it.

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

#522

Post by ExoticPearTree »

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…

Unless we'll find a way to have neutral sites that can run a discussion forum such as Reddit and others, this problem will be recurring.

Say Reddit goes under, there will be another company looking to fill the vacuum. It will play nice for a year or two until they have the majority of the market and then become an asshole company looking to censor whatever they don't like and become hated just like the company they displaced.

Somehow I think people lose their minds when they feel like they have any sorts of power over others...

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

#523

Post by Karellen »

uejfiweun wrote: post #148
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…

If they remove old reddit, I'm done. The "new" reddit UI is literally one of my least favorite things in the world. Filled with clutter and ads, requires too many clicks to see what you want to see, low information density... I could go on.

The worst part for me is all the flashes and redraws as it gradually loads more and more separate resources.

"Hey look, here's a paragraph to read... nope, I just realised there's an image near the top that I think is going to be huge so I pushed that paragraph below the fold... no, wait, that image is actually tiny so here's that paragraph again... ooooh, but now there's a sidebar, so I've just resized and reflowed the paragraph that you had kind of started to read - good luck finding your place again!"

As for how broken the "back" button is, fuuuuu.....

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

#524

Post by seydor »

onimishra wrote: post #352

It’s fun to consider this from his perspective. He has essentially pushed all-in on this and now he has no way of backing out. If this is all about getting ready for IPO, then he can’t back out, because that would show potential future investors that he is not in control of policy changes, and that means that when shareholders want to crank up the money making machine, they can’t. At the same time, he needs to show t…

If the customers can shut down the company arbitrarily, then what's the point of investing in it? Of course they should make it a rule that mods are not allowed to shut down their main channels.

Otherwise, Reddit should IPO and then demand that all users buy a share. Users who don't are deleted. Then let the shareholders-users figure out how to make good on their investment

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

#526

Post by RWSen »

golergka wrote: post #431
TeMPOraL wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 anyw…

> Yes. Those are the very people who should be never ever allowed to become mods, or to be anywhere near any position of power. Who do you think the existing mods are?

> Who do you think the existing mods are?

I am. I moderate my local city subreddit. All I do is remove surveys and point people seeking housing to the megathread.

(We're a university town, so lots of students seek people willing to fill in badly designed questionaires.)

Yes, the biggest subreddits will always have a number of power tripping mods. But the vast majority of subreddits have a stable mod team putting in a little daily effort to keep their online community organised. These are the people who will walk away if the removal of their preferred tools makes moderating harder. At least I know I will.

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

#527

Post by rcxdude »

atraac wrote: post #485
goykasi wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% agreement with you here. You have one of the first logical arguments for any push back. > figure out a solution that doesn't involve a single dev spending 20m USD a year just to maintain an app that people like Absolutely, I was hoping that would happen when I saw the first Apollo thread(s) a few weeks ago. But Christian took this very personally, and he decided to take his toys and go home. reddit is not at all…

> But Christian took this very personally, and he decided to take his toys and go home. I mean wouldn't you? He's built an app that brings him a decent income, he can work on it full time, he based his career on that application. What reaction would you expect out of f.e. youtubers when youtube made it suddenly unable for them to sustain themselves? I mean basing your life/income/business on another business is never…

Not to mention he has another business which can support him. So why would he take on a massive liability risk to try to keep it going when he can afford to just walk away?

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

#528

Post by goykasi »

lamontcg wrote: post #362
goykasi wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do we know that the current mods aren't paid shills also? This blackout would make a lot more sense if that were the case. They have to protect their bottom line, and the changes that reddit is enacting threatens their ability to operate.

Half of them are, that's what I'm saying. (And I really doubt that the professional mods won't find solutions to stay in business -- and they'll probably be happy with a certain amount of "regulatory capture" making it more difficult to be a mod if you're not able to pay a hundred bucks a month or so for tooling to make it easier -- they can just pass those costs of doing business on)

Thats my bad. I misread that first part. Interestingly, reddit just released some numbers about bots using the API.[1]

> fewer than 100 bots total (including both moderation and non-moderation bots) currently exceed our updated free API Rate ..... out of the thousands of moderation bots that exist, less than 20 exceed the updated rate limits

Thats really interesting and shows that automated/bot moderation tools are almost completely unaffected by the API changes. I have a little bit less sympathy for the "free volunteers" of reddit.

[1] https://mods.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/16693988535309

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

#530

Post by seydor »

p-e-w wrote: post #50

The stickied comment stating that "this contradicts standing policies" is amusing. As if Reddit was somehow contractually bound to abide by random rules that they themselves made up, on their own site. It's astonishing how many people don't seem to understand what it means to be a user today. Especially if you're not paying, but even if you are.

Reddit has trained users and mods to think that way. They branded the site as a free-for-all, then went along with major social crusades etc etc, multiple times over the years. Ultimately, it's reddit leadership that led moderators to think that way, and now they are paying the price for it. They need to create some red lines to make the website functional and also tolerant, even to all political views
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