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Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

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Re: Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

#71

Post by soneil »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #52
haunter wrote: post #43

I haven't noticed anything. I follow some video game and hobby subs through RSS. Everything is pretty much the same.

Definitely a shift towards our base instincts. Several subs started showing up in r/popular that never did before or as suggested subs. All along the lines of r/truerateme, r/facerating, r/rateme, r/amiugly, r/OUTFITS, etc. Never recall seeing these before the mod protests but suddenly see them all the time. All very similar in concept: attractive women posting pictures "asking for feedback". Similar to when you firs…

I’ve also noticed a huge shift in which topics it tries to suggest, but I suspect it’s natural selection rather than intent. It feels like the ‘strike’ allowed subs which didn’t participate to rank higher, and it seems those gains are self-reinforcing (more members/participation lead to greater prominence, which leads to higher placement, which becomes circular).

I don’t like the results, but I’m not convinced it was intentional- more just self-selection between which communities did and didn’t participate.

Re: Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

#72

Post by robin_reala »

sentientslug wrote: post #60
Devasta wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reddit started charging huge money for API access. Thing is, reddits leadership are wildly incompetent and those APIs were relied upon by the mods to actually handle the vast oceans of posts that go on each day. Its left the mods with greatly increased workload as they now need to use the crappy tools Reddit gives them, and for some communities like the folks on /r/blind the site is totally unusable. Most subreddits…

API access is still free for moderation and accessibility tools. It’s just third party clients with high API usage that were effectively killed with the pricing change.

For non-commercial accessibility tools. Because Reddit doesn’t know how to fix accessibility in their own app. A shitshow, either way you look at it.

Re: Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

#73

Post by nunez »

hellweaver666 wrote: post #46
brisdak wrote: post #11

Not sure if bias but I feel like the quality of content on reddit has gone downhill since the mod purge and the killing of 3rd party apps

You just have to sign-out and look at the homepage to see this. It's all attention grabbing subs like AITAH or "amiugly" or "ratemyface" etc etc etc. All the interesting subs have withered away and died. Take /r/3dprinting for example, there used to be cool new models shared there every single day, now it's just people sharing pictures of benchies, globs of spaghetti and the odd question from someone that hasn't done…

It's been that way for a while before the Great Purge; at least a few years. This was a driver behind me unsubscribing from all of my subs and grouping them into multireddits instead and enjoying a blank front page.

Re: Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

#74

Post by CharlieDigital »

soneil wrote: post #71
CharlieDigital wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely a shift towards our base instincts. Several subs started showing up in r/popular that never did before or as suggested subs. All along the lines of r/truerateme, r/facerating, r/rateme, r/amiugly, r/OUTFITS, etc. Never recall seeing these before the mod protests but suddenly see them all the time. All very similar in concept: attractive women posting pictures "asking for feedback". Similar to when you firs…

I’ve also noticed a huge shift in which topics it tries to suggest, but I suspect it’s natural selection rather than intent. It feels like the ‘strike’ allowed subs which didn’t participate to rank higher, and it seems those gains are self-reinforcing (more members/participation lead to greater prominence, which leads to higher placement, which becomes circular). I don’t like the results, but I’m not convinced it was…

Could be; but it's interesting that several of the subs like r/amiugly and r/truerateme and such have relatively low sub numbers and I do not recall seeing them at all until just a few weeks back.

Re: Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

#75

Post by bloopernova »

SubGenius wrote: post #65
nickpeterson wrote: post #9

Sort of a side question, but what is the state of the art in open source community hosting? I know a bit about tools like Zulip, but was thinking something more like forums. They feel very dated, which surprises me since Reddit seems a straightforward thing to compete against.

I'm building Shpong[0] with a fellow HNer. It's a publicly accessible Matrix server with reddit-like features. Not quite ready yet, but almost there... [0] - https://shpong.com/shpong

Why build on Matrix as opposed to Lemmy?

I'm curious about any comparisons you did, or if there were technical concerns with Lemmy or Matrix.

(I hope this question comes across as genuinely curious, I don't mean to snark at your project! I just like reading about decisions to choose one thing vs another)

Re: Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

#76

Post by Devasta »

robin_reala wrote: post #72
sentientslug wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

API access is still free for moderation and accessibility tools. It’s just third party clients with high API usage that were effectively killed with the pricing change.

For non-commercial accessibility tools. Because Reddit doesn’t know how to fix accessibility in their own app. A shitshow, either way you look at it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/14n9426/accessibil...

The last time the mods on /r/blind asked for a demo with screen curtain on, they were met with silence.

Re: Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

#78

Post by SubGenius »

bloopernova wrote: post #75
SubGenius wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm building Shpong[0] with a fellow HNer. It's a publicly accessible Matrix server with reddit-like features. Not quite ready yet, but almost there... [0] - https://shpong.com/shpong

Why build on Matrix as opposed to Lemmy? I'm curious about any comparisons you did, or if there were technical concerns with Lemmy or Matrix. (I hope this question comes across as genuinely curious, I don't mean to snark at your project! I just like reading about decisions to choose one thing vs another)

The primary motivation behind Shpong is to have a FOSS alternative to Discord that's indexed by search engines, not closed off behind auth etc. All the channels can be toggled between chat and discussion view. Things like encrypted DMs or private rooms are also trivial to build on top of Matrix.

I'm just more familiar with the Matrix protocol, having built several projects on it. Activitypub is pretty cool though and I'm working on AP support, so Shpong should be able to interface with Lemmy in the near future!

Re: Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

#79

Post by gingerrr »

nunez wrote: post #73
hellweaver666 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just have to sign-out and look at the homepage to see this. It's all attention grabbing subs like AITAH or "amiugly" or "ratemyface" etc etc etc. All the interesting subs have withered away and died. Take /r/3dprinting for example, there used to be cool new models shared there every single day, now it's just people sharing pictures of benchies, globs of spaghetti and the odd question from someone that hasn't done…

It's been that way for a while before the Great Purge; at least a few years. This was a driver behind me unsubscribing from all of my subs and grouping them into multireddits instead and enjoying a blank front page.

It's both. I'd also done the same with multis but kept a "casuals" multi for the defaults + populars, and it had been declining in quality for a while - but it genuinely fell off a sharp cliff with the Great Purge, even my multireddits now feel like the frontpage. Cacophonous shallow dreck.

Re: Reddit faces content quality concerns after its Great Mod Purge

#80

Post by bloopernova »

SubGenius wrote: post #78
bloopernova wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why build on Matrix as opposed to Lemmy? I'm curious about any comparisons you did, or if there were technical concerns with Lemmy or Matrix. (I hope this question comes across as genuinely curious, I don't mean to snark at your project! I just like reading about decisions to choose one thing vs another)

The primary motivation behind Shpong is to have a FOSS alternative to Discord that's indexed by search engines, not closed off behind auth etc. All the channels can be toggled between chat and discussion view. Things like encrypted DMs or private rooms are also trivial to build on top of Matrix. I'm just more familiar with the Matrix protocol, having built several projects on it. Activitypub is pretty cool though and…

Very cool, I look forward to using it! Thank you for the reply :)
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