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Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

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Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#101

Post by aluminussoma »

OrvalWintermute wrote: post #63

I'm torn. There is a well-known cabal of reddit mods that control many of the most popular subreddits [1] and many of them act like the subs they mod are their personal fiefdoms. Some of them have been alleged to exploit their subs for financial gain, or personal karma gain [2] at the expense of regular users Some of these mods have operated in cahoots with Reddit Administration to squelch stories they didn't like [3…

Here is why I find it hard to believe there is a cabal of mods: what is their motivation for shutting down Reddit? If this is true, these fiefdom mods are hurting themselves financially and personally by keeping their subreddits shut down.

The simplest explanation to me is that they protest because they care. It is not just Apollo. They don't like the overall direction Reddit is heading in.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#102

Post by dathinab »

lagniappe wrote: post #17

Part of me knows that there are scores of users waiting for their 'turn' to be moderators if the current ones are voted out. I don't think the current moderators see/acknowledge this.

also most of them would at least one of

1. not stay moderators a long time, while a lot of people want to be mods most severely underestimate how time intensive it can be

2. want to be mods to abuse the power

3. would be quite bad at the job

4. would continue the protests sooner or later, because they do agree with the current mods on this point (but not other points so they take advantage of it)

All of which would drive users and high quality content away long term.

Not saying that there hasn't always been a lot of drama and power struggles around mods in reddit and that there aren't already bad mods and that this would be true for all new mods.

Still in my experience while there are always scores of users who want to be mods you really don't want to give mod powers to the huge majority of them and doing so is a grate way to destroy your community.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#103

Post by 65 »

Steve just wants this all to be over with so he can IPO, get his payday, and ride off into the sunset with millions of dollars. He doesn't care about Reddit or users or anything other than making huge money.

Is it any surprise we see yet another socially awkward tech CEO value the only thing that makes sense to their brains: money?

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#104

Post by monero-xmr »

rootusrootus wrote: post #70
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #8

Ha. There were some weird posts from new users in subreddits I frequent. 'we need to rise up against the mods the blackout is an outrage!' It was met with unanimous wtf is wrong with you, go outside. I get the feeling spez is creating new accounts and posting as them again.

Not everyone that disagrees with you is doing so in bad faith. Not everything is brigading, etc. Some of us think that the blackouts are starting to look a lot like a tantrum that doesn't represent the best interests of the community. It is a very one-sided argument, as if the moderators are the reason the community exists. No. Moderators are unnecessary without users. It's a symbiosis.

Yeah I don’t give a shit about the blackouts and have been commenting on Reddit how dumb it is. I have been seeing the polls in the subreddits I frequent and it’s like 65/35 to keep them open. Pretty solid majority.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#105

Post by cirgue »

sarasasa28 wrote: post #36
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #8

Ha. There were some weird posts from new users in subreddits I frequent. 'we need to rise up against the mods the blackout is an outrage!' It was met with unanimous wtf is wrong with you, go outside. I get the feeling spez is creating new accounts and posting as them again.

Well, I, for one, don't fucking care about third party apps (which make money mind you) Reddit is/was my first source of real human information for a lot of stuff (since google is unusable now). And this blackout was really a pain in the ass

It is effectively not possible to be a mod of a subreddit without third party apps. I don’t think people fully understand just how awful the native mod suite is for Reddit, and this is what the blackout is really about: the fact that Reddit seems to want to absolutely refuse to support the unpaid labor that makes the site a source of real human knowledge as opposed to a wasteland of bots and trolls.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#106

Post by carry_bit »

jmclnx wrote: post #16
diogenescynic wrote: post #4

Good riddance. The moderators are the worst part of Reddit. Just pay someone to do their job.

>The moderators are the worst part of Reddit. probably why you were down voted, I think the mods provide a decent service preventing it from degenerating into an echo chamber like truth-social >Just pay someone to do their job This I agree with, if the mods were paid well, maybe things would be better. Maybe a rule change like "If your group gets xxx many unique users posting content per day, you get paid X". But tha…

Communities are echo chambers with a range of allowable discourse. Moderators serve the important function of keeping that range anchored so the community stays cohesive over time.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#107

Post by bogantech »

agentgumshoe wrote: post #39

Mods do whatever they like: "things are fine" Mods hurt potential profits: "mods too powerful, need to act" If the community doesn't like the mods, they can... create a new subreddit with new mods.

> If the community doesn't like the mods, they can... create a new subreddit with new mods.

If mods are going to permanently set subs private then they should be seized and given to someone who will use it

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#109

Post by P_I_Staker »

rootusrootus wrote: post #70
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #8

Ha. There were some weird posts from new users in subreddits I frequent. 'we need to rise up against the mods the blackout is an outrage!' It was met with unanimous wtf is wrong with you, go outside. I get the feeling spez is creating new accounts and posting as them again.

Not everyone that disagrees with you is doing so in bad faith. Not everything is brigading, etc. Some of us think that the blackouts are starting to look a lot like a tantrum that doesn't represent the best interests of the community. It is a very one-sided argument, as if the moderators are the reason the community exists. No. Moderators are unnecessary without users. It's a symbiosis.

They will probably have no problem replacing them either. You might have to take a quality dip, at least in theory; In reality it's hard to imagine the mods getting worse. They have a really terrible attitude. It's not just about community relations either, they really, really suck at enforcing rules, so it's not like we're gonna lose quality there.

The only reason reddit continues to play nice is to prevent a mass exudus from disgruntled users. They don't WANT the mods to leave, and I do think it's a problem to embitter, and anger community, even just the mods.

That said, they're quite replaceable, it seems.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#110

Post by 0xDEF »

The powermods who are now leaving reddit are also the powermods who worked tirelessly to remove racist, anti-LGBT, and other bad content that would have pushed advertisers and potential investors away. These few hundred powermods volunteered as janitors for a filthy public toilet used by over 430 million users.

Reddit is in deep trouble.

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