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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

#371

Post by ilyt »

colpabar wrote: post #306
OnlyLys wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a silent majority - "lurkers" - that the mods have completely ignored What is there for the mods to ignore, when the lurkers are - as you said - silent?

This is just an anecdote, but I just went on my city's sub this morning to see how they were handling this. Apparently the (singular) mod did the initial blackout, then put up a poll on whether it should continue, the sub voted not to, and he is now holding another poll this weekend on the same topic and everyone seems to think it's because he didn't get the outcome he wanted the first time. I think all the people po…

That's just honestly sub with a shitty mod, but there is certainly an argument to be made for better tools, sub blackout should not be something so easily implemented by single mod out of whole group.

But I've seen both subs that asked mods, mods that unilaterally decided to blackout, and subs where users pleaded for blackout while power-hungry mods decided not to (presumable coz they were afraid reddit takes their playground from them)

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

#372

Post by bhaak »

LightHugger wrote: post #363
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…

My favorite solution requires a bit of tech work but is very viable. Users can subscribe to a subreddit, but also to specific moderators. If you don't like how someone moderates, unsubscribe to their moderation, and their changes and actions get removed from your feed. Simple. This ties back into how "freedom to listen" is way more important than "freedom of speech" Though freedom of speech is a prerequisite for free…

> My favorite solution requires a bit of tech work but is very viable. Users can subscribe to a subreddit, but also to specific moderators. If you don't like how someone moderates, unsubscribe to their moderation, and their changes and actions get removed from your feed. Simple.

And then you will find out that most users don't configure their apps. They will complain loudly though. Users also don't know how mods moderate. They would have to see what gets moderated otherwise they can't make informed decisions.

> Or if you see something you don't want to see, click a button to block it, then you get a popup with a list of moderators who have already moderated it, and the user gets an option to subscribe to them after looking at their mod history.

Opt-in is too cumbersome for most users. Most users don't configure their apps (again). That's why good defaults are important.

You can't solve social issues with technology. Technology might help but only so much.

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

#373

Post by LightHugger »

bhaak wrote: post #372
LightHugger wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite solution requires a bit of tech work but is very viable. Users can subscribe to a subreddit, but also to specific moderators. If you don't like how someone moderates, unsubscribe to their moderation, and their changes and actions get removed from your feed. Simple. This ties back into how "freedom to listen" is way more important than "freedom of speech" Though freedom of speech is a prerequisite for free…

> My favorite solution requires a bit of tech work but is very viable. Users can subscribe to a subreddit, but also to specific moderators. If you don't like how someone moderates, unsubscribe to their moderation, and their changes and actions get removed from your feed. Simple. And then you will find out that most users don't configure their apps. They will complain loudly though. Users also don't know how mods mode…

your suggestion isn't a problem, you can have defaults based on popularity and then the defaults get controlled by what most of the users who do configure their stuff choose.

Don't make the mistake of thinking a mod is above people and needs to tell users what they are allowed to see.

I included in my suggestion that you can see what gets moderated, obviously. Any website with non-public moderation logs tends towards horrible abuse of moderation powers.

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

#374

Post by wesapien »

sarasasa28 wrote: post #271
wesapien wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give me an example of what you search so I can see what unusable you're talking about?

Next time you have a problem with any device you have, or any doubt in general, google and try to get real human feedback instead of having to navigate through dozens of web pages with shitty answers that don't work

Electronics and gadgets are the easiest to search. As I said on another post, the forums I used to visit back in 2000s-2010s are still around. Reddit is just SEO optimized but not the be all and all for answers for that.

Google is still pretty good when I try to use it especially because I have learned some of their search functions and operators. I haven't done vanilla search since I learned them.

Bard is nice but not for everything. It always gave me the wrong answer about dates and events for the next NBA game.

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

#375

Post by bhaak »

colpabar wrote: post #306
OnlyLys wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a silent majority - "lurkers" - that the mods have completely ignored What is there for the mods to ignore, when the lurkers are - as you said - silent?

This is just an anecdote, but I just went on my city's sub this morning to see how they were handling this. Apparently the (singular) mod did the initial blackout, then put up a poll on whether it should continue, the sub voted not to, and he is now holding another poll this weekend on the same topic and everyone seems to think it's because he didn't get the outcome he wanted the first time. I think all the people po…

If that really is how it went the mod made a stupid mistake.

If I were a power tripping mod, I would either just inform the sub about the subreddit taking part in the blackout. From the up and downvotes you can then already gauge the sentiment of the subreddit towards this issue and if the downvotes go south, you can always delete the post and do it anyway.

But then you can't go and ask the sub about continuing the blackout. But as a power tripping mod I can't keep the subreddit private as then I would miss out on my power trip.

So eventually I would open it up again, make a poll about continuing and as the sub will deny that I could keep it open and keep on power tripping while at the same time claiming that I only follow the sub's democratic decision.

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

#376

Post by P_I_Staker »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #170
P_I_Staker wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 e…

You're painting mods with a really broad brush, here. There are as many different moderator styles as there are subreddits. > 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. I'm not convinced. I think they want the _current_ crop of mods of big subreddits to leave, to be replaced by users who would never dream of protesting Reddit's decisions. > T…

Are they actually going to get replaced by shill mods? It seems more like they will suffer some form of loss for some time, and that they're trying to prevent this.

I agree that poor moderation is a problem. However, it seems that moderation on reddit is quite poor to begin with.

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

#377

Post by MagicMoonlight »

lamontcg wrote: post #316
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 dictatorship ran by whoever happened to grab the name first. voting certainly ain't the answer. that just means that the mod teams backed by the best AI bots will win. (which probably means spez and reddit itself will just control the mod teams of all the highest traffic subs)

They’ll just set the votes obviously.

And the powermods will run ban scripts on anyone who won’t vote for them… because banned users won’t be able to vote in the subreddit.

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

#378

Post by llm_nerd »

runamok wrote: post #322
llm_nerd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty common sentiment that opinions that differ from our own must be corrupt, bought, sock-puppets, etc. People on virtually every side of any issue feel this way because it's comforting to imagine that our own opinion is the only authentic one. Loads of reddit users are annoyed by the blackout thing and find the arguments for it unconvincing. I mean personally I think all of the blackout people should just…

That's the same defeatest advice people always give when you don't like the direction of your country/state/municipality/etc. you should leave/move/etc. I say absolutely not and if you have invested time and energy into something (I've had my reddit account a bit longer than my HN one) then you can and should fight for it. I don't have a vision disability and so am not very impacted by the killing of 3rd party acts b…

You argue the critical importance of Reddit -- equivocating it with legislative bodies (which I find fantastically ridiculous, as an aside) -- but then you also dismiss people annoyed by the blackout as missing out on only cat pictures. It's an extreme example of someone arguing both sides.

Though of course what you probably intend to convey is that people who find the blackout annoying can be dismissed because they're just those weird cat picture people -- they just don't understand the importance like you do, and thus don't count -- and is a perfect example of my point.

I don't care about the API issue, despite being a professional dev. I find sharecropping on someone else's product a perilous path that eventually comes up snake-eyes. Like, the moment someone makes a third party app for Reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, or anything else, they are on an expiry meter. Have people not learned this yet?

The blackout thing didn't work because most people don't care, so some people have stomped their feet and effectively started trying to vandalize the site and I think it's achieving absolutely nothing.

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

#379

Post by lelanthran »

ilyt wrote: post #366
lelanthran wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any good reason that a single moderator should be allowed to moderate multiple subs? I'd take that as an I dictator of a power hungry mod, not a mod passionate about the topic at hand.

I can imagine few small subs where that would be fine but being mod on few of the bigger traffic ones would definitely be weird and suspicious

A few related subs, certainly. Someone moderating /r/projectcar is is probably a good mod for /r/mechanics.

But you can't algorithmically determine this. It's also my impression that a few of the biggest subs have all the same mods.

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

#380

Post by isaacremuant »

George83728 wrote: post #272
isaacremuant wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Loads of reddit users are annoyed by the blackout thing and find the arguments for it unconvincing. I mean personally I think all of the blackout people should just leave Reddit. Delete your accounts, delete your comments, resign as mods. Let the rest of reddit just move on. You're not entitled to the communities or their content. The communities themselves are what make the sub. The same happens when users migrate…

> The communities themselves are what make the sub. The same happens when users migrate from one sub to another or complain. Yes, the sum of all users are the community, not the mods themselves. Therefore if the community is truly aligned in a consensus to not reopen a sub, it won't matter if the sub is forcibly reopened by a newly installed moderator because the community, the users, won't come back anyway. So there…

> the community is now dead or moved off reddit and it doesn't matter what reddit does with the subreddit that formerly hosted that community.

It's an ongoing situation but I love how you're trying to force everyone's hand to get to "how things were" for you. Funnily enough. That's what the protest is about, in a way.

> And this is why people are mad about reddit threatening to reopen subreddits;

I love how the self proclaimed casuals like you who "don't care" have this specific takes about the motives and reasons for things.

The motives are what they are and have been clearly laid out. The one throwing a conspiratantrum is you.

Go create the sub you want. The community will follow you, right?

And yes, that has happened plenty of times that mods go against a community.

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