Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by fullshark » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

bhaak wrote: post #43

Every day that passes I’m getting more convinced that the best move to improve the likelihood of a successful IPO (which IMHO this whole API clusterfuck is all about) is to fire spez and install a sane CEO. How can it be that he is still in charge and hasn’t been fired years ago?

Do you disagree with him here? Mods are too powerful, many have decided to try and murder the site because of something most users don't even care about. The idea that because I volunteered to moderate r/subcultureX for a few years I can make sure www.reddit.com/r/subcultureX can never direct to any content forever is ridiculous.

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

#152

Post by PurpleRamen » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

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.

It's not that weird if you reflect a moment about the whole situation. Mods are important for reddit, but so are the users who create the content. But what power have they in this whole power? Did anyone ask them what they want and support? Probably not really, because with the subs closed, how can the mods still reach the majority of their users? Some may have found their way to other places, but the majority will remain on Reddit, knowing barely anything about the whole battlefields. So it's natural that they now will also voice their opinions, using new accounts to not suffer under the hate of those how might still have power in the future.

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

#153

Post by ilyt » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

bheadmaster wrote: post #81

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.

[flagged]

Mods are shit. admins are shit. Both can be true at the same time

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

#154

Post by cocojumbo123 » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:13 PM UTC

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #91

guardiangod wrote: post #64

The difference between Musk/Twitter and spez/Reddit is that the value of Reddit lies in its army of unpaid moderators, and Twitter's value lies in its brand recognition. When Musk took over and pissed off everyone, the only protest the users can do is to leave the platform. Some did but not enough to hurt Twitter. That's because the management (ie modding) is done by Twitter staff already. With a strong brand, Twitte…

>If those moderators leave, Then they will find new ones. As long as Reddit has usecases, as long as the powertrip is worth the lack of ownership and poor tooling, there will be mods willing to moderate subs and feeling powerful and getting drunk off of it. 'Historically', this has happened in every social medium with moderation so far. There's no anarchy here. Most Redditors don't care for the mods in particular. If…

> Then they will find new ones.

Looks easier than it actually is. Here's how a mod routine looks like:

check modqueue (that's the place where all reports come). Some are fake because one user has some beef with another, some trolls, some spam, some user insulting each-other.

you work through the queue, by the time you are done users who were banned are already complaining on modmail, you take your time to read all complaints and try to shrug the threats and the attempted doxing. you get a thank you for each 100 threats.

rinse and repeat. whereas it might look glamorous from the outside in practice is boring, repetitive and tedious. in large subs you also have to coordinate with other mods to make sure there is some consistency in modding actions.

finding new mods is easy, having them stick around, I'd say not so much.

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

#155

Post by joshstrange » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

htag wrote: post #137

devit wrote: post #69

Well, that's accurate and indeed a major problem. Subreddit moderators, like unfortunately usually moderators everywhere, can act arbitrarily and there is no way for users to remove or punish moderators. So this means that /r/$FOO is not actually a subreddit about $FOO, moderated so that exactly any non-spam discussion about $FOO is allowed, but rather a dictatorship ran by whoever happened to grab the name first. So…

A subreddit is not a dictatorship. Everyone that participates in the subreddit it doing so voluntarily. Your argument that Reddit has a higher authority that can deal with bad moderators just kicks the can. What if the Reddit universal mods abuse their power in the same ways your described?

Yeah, I mean what if a Reddit admin abused their power by like, I don't know, editing a user's comment. How would you address that? I guess you could punish them by letting them continue to be CEO or something.

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

#156

Post by deeviant » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

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.

> 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.

I've yet to seen a single coherent argument that supports this statement. Please enlighten me.

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

#157

Post by guardiangod » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #134

guardiangod wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most Redditors don't care for the mods in particular. Because the current batch of moderation work well enough. Now imagine the current batch leave, and the new ones take over are worse (and they will be worse since Reddit has shown that Reddit has direct control over the Moderators' position safety, if the actions are not aligned with Reddit's CEO. Some reasonable people will not like that.) Eventually the remainin…

Your assumption relies entirely on the difference between new and old being a noticeable, significant bad. Nothing in this story implies noticeable, let alone significant. Old Reddit to New Reddit was noticeable and growth continued. The push from browser to app was a noticeable bad, an intended one, and Reddit still grew. You seriously underestimate the passivity of most users. Reddit has, by all regards, truly mess…

>Your assumption relies entirely on the difference between new and old being a noticeable, significant bad.

Because we are in generation 1. What about X generations later?

As for the UI change. That's a completely different topic and I am not sure why you are bringing this up. The UI change doesn't change the content/moderation of the communities.

>It'll become a problem when mod quality is obviously, significantly worse, and no sooner than that.

And I am predicting the mod (thus content) quality will eventually be significantly worse because of this action by the CEO.

Edit: The parent post edited his post so the arguments are now don't quite directly counter his points. Now it seems like I am strawman-ing. Why would you do that?

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

#158

Post by alephxyz » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

pizzalife wrote: post #37

khalilravanna wrote: post #24

Quote from him in the NBC interview: “…a business owner can be fired by its shareholders…” You know, I think he may be on to something there. Maybe someone should look into that for oh, say, the CEO of Reddit.

He doesn't seem to have a great way with words. If you are the owner (implying >50% ownership), you can't be fired by the shareholders. If you hold less than 50%, you are not the business owner.

Non-voting and dual class shares let you control a company with fewer than 50% ownership (e.g. Zuckerberg and facebook)

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

#159

Post by BlargMcLarg » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:14 PM UTC

Zetobal wrote: post #133

BlargMcLarg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If those moderators leave, Then they will find new ones. As long as Reddit has usecases, as long as the powertrip is worth the lack of ownership and poor tooling, there will be mods willing to moderate subs and feeling powerful and getting drunk off of it. 'Historically', this has happened in every social medium with moderation so far. There's no anarchy here. Most Redditors don't care for the mods in particular. If…

The thing with mods is even if you don't recognize their value shape how a community works. If dang wasn't working on HN it would be a different place would it be better or worse? We don't know. If it's ok for reddit to reshape their communities it's fine to replace them but random mods are not a drop in replacement.

You're making my point for me. People are already assuming the new moderation will be noticeably worse to a significant degree, and using that assumption to assert their position as absolute. You know, in a place full of software devs who routinely mess up estimating something far more similar to their past experiences.

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

#160

Post by ilyt » Fri, Jun 16, 2023, 3:15 PM UTC

arbitrage wrote: post #140

Twirrim wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, I, for one, don't fucking care about third party apps (which make money mind you) Those third party apps are central to how the entire content works, they're absolutely critical for the moderators that try valiantly to diver the tide of pure excrement of content that floods in to the various subreddits. That content you want to be able to see would be buried and gone, or never put there in the first place if…

> Those third party apps are central to how the entire content works, they're absolutely critical for the moderators This is simply not true. I moderate several subs. 3rd party mod tools are not critical. Mods who claim this is so are really misrepresenting the issue. Power tools for mods are nice to have for some. I make use of automod extensively. The tools reddit provides are adequate to perform moderation tasks.…

> This is simply not true. I moderate several subs.

How big subs ? Number of subs you moderate is entirely irrelevant to the topic