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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

#81

Post by yanderekko »

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

Honestly I find this claim laughable and in my view represents a weak grasp at confirmation bias from the API doomsayers. Still remember seeing discussions here a few months ago where people predicted that the API changes would lead to Reddit being flooded by obvious spam and even child pornography. Well, obviously that didn't happen and the front page of the internet is just filled with low-quality trash like it's always been.

If someone wants to prove this point, support it with data. Otherwise it feels like simple mood affiliation. The UX of the median Redditor has not changed at all.

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

#82

Post by yanderekko »

>Yet Reddit removed both moderators from their positions this summer because the mods refused to end r/canning's protest against Reddit and its new API fees; the protest had made the entire subreddit "read only." Now, the ousted mods fear that r/canning could become subject to unsafe advice that goes unnoticed by new moderators. "My biggest fear with all this is that someone will follow an unsafe recipe posted on the sub and get badly sick or killed by it," Dromio05 told me.

bikespokememe.jpg

I totally buy the argument that the protest probably lead to their being some sort of marginal shift from hobbyist moderators to admin-friendly powermods. But to this point:

- This happened to the extent that hobbyist mods rendered their own forums unusable on an indeterminate basis. They chose the hill they died on, and cannot claim they were acting in the interests of their community in doing so.

- Powermods dominated wide swaths of the site prior to the protests and this sort of concern was never raised (there were concerns about powermods, but not powermods vs. hobbyist mods.) So the entire article likely represents an act of concern trolling. The underlying point may still be valid, but its bad-faith motivations deserve to be called out.

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

#83

Post by johnnyanmac »

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.

On one hand you're correct. On the other hand: holy crap I thought all the "roast me" trends were dying down. I check back for one day and there's like 3 new variation of "AmITheAsshole" and "Roastme" each on the front page. Why?

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

#84

Post by johnnyanmac »

yanderekko wrote: post #81
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

Honestly I find this claim laughable and in my view represents a weak grasp at confirmation bias from the API doomsayers. Still remember seeing discussions here a few months ago where people predicted that the API changes would lead to Reddit being flooded by obvious spam and even child pornography. Well, obviously that didn't happen and the front page of the internet is just filled with low-quality trash like it's a…

>If someone wants to prove this point, support it with data.

if you want to provide a criteria sheet for "quality", then sure. But I think we'll spend more time arguing over a definition than me collecting the data.

I'm sure not going to even touch the notion of "flooded by CP". I don't want to know if that has gotten better or worse and there are much higher authorities who won't get arrested trying to audit such claims.

>The UX of the median Redditor has not changed at all.

the median redditor isn't a moderator, and a moderator affects many more people than the median moderator. I feel that's a point constantly missed in this dismissal.

Note that this article isn't surveying users, it's about conversations with moderators, old and new. I do indeed question if the UX for the median moderator has gotten worse.

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

#85

Post by johnnyanmac »

yanderekko wrote: post #82

>Yet Reddit removed both moderators from their positions this summer because the mods refused to end r/canning's protest against Reddit and its new API fees; the protest had made the entire subreddit "read only." Now, the ousted mods fear that r/canning could become subject to unsafe advice that goes unnoticed by new moderators. "My biggest fear with all this is that someone will follow an unsafe recipe posted on the…

>Powermods dominated wide swaths of the site prior to the protests and this sort of concern was never raised

I don't think most powermods really revolted. Many probably have financial motivations to keep running, so they can see inconvvinence as the cost of doing business.

I am very worried about the "hobbyist mods". And yea, they weren't talked about for the same reason you don't talk about stuff you expect is "the ideal". If a mod is kind, has clear rules, and is even a domain expert in some cases, what is there to talk about?

Reddit isn't like HackerNews where they will praise the Dangs of their site everynow and then. Mods are also pseudoanonymous and as such praise is minimized, or reduced to zero. You don't know what you have until it's gone.

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

#86

Post by johnnyanmac »

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.

most of the game subs are the same and I don't think any really revolted. r/gaming had its jokes but jokes are short-lived. r/games infamously did not, despite the wishes of the user, and despite the fact that they have closed the sub as an April fool's joke.

Anything smaller probably didn't have much effect. Either they gave up when nothing happened, or they were stealth replaced with no news story to report on.

It also doesn't help that wrt games as a medium, you rarely had actual industry veterans as mods. simply "gamers". There wouldn't be as much domain knowledge to lose in such a process since many places are there for news (i.e. reposted regurgitation of game studio PR, reported by sites that were never held as the bastion of quality to begin with).

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

#88

Post by johnnyanmac »

drukenemo wrote: post #53
everdrive wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment, but I do wonder what could replace reddit. It's true that the larger subreddits have been pretty terrible for years. However, reddit has often been the _only_ good source for useful and true user-sourced information. What vacuum should I buy? How can I get some old PS2 game to run on my steam deck? Can I disable the telematics system on a Toyota Tacoma? etc. It's easy to see this sort of…

I completely agree and it often baffles me the lack of nuance I see here on HN. “Reddit became crap”. No it didn’t. Maybe it’s less appealing and valuable than in the past, but it certainly still is a goldmine in more niche subreddits. Or simply to have a laugh at r/funny.

There's goldmine of information on 4chan's niche boards as well. But people referring to "4chan" the website tend to talk about the wide strokes of communities.

It's the same with reddit. Sure, I do appreciate some small gaming communities that I can't find anywhere else, but it's not what the site cares about, nor what many people see when they go to reddit.com. You need to search for those communities,and they aren't guaranteed to be good. Or active for that matter.

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

#89

Post by johnnyanmac »

Kye wrote: post #69
everdrive wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your sentiment, but I do wonder what could replace reddit. It's true that the larger subreddits have been pretty terrible for years. However, reddit has often been the _only_ good source for useful and true user-sourced information. What vacuum should I buy? How can I get some old PS2 game to run on my steam deck? Can I disable the telematics system on a Toyota Tacoma? etc. It's easy to see this sort of…

What we're seeing is the downsides of centralizing. Replacing Reddit would require putting everything in one place again, and would likely lead to the same result down the road. There are still active forums for most topics, and site search works just as well. What changes is a return to the old world where you can't put in one site to get it all anymore.

>What changes is a return to the old world where you can't put in one site to get it all anymore.

I personally desire that. You'd think all these fallouts of various social media would be a grim reminder of that cost of convenience, but alas.

So inevitably, people who like reddit want another reddit, and they will fall back into the same pitfalls if/when a better replacement comes.

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

#90

Post by causality0 »

PrimeMcFly wrote: post #67
causality0 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same impression. Frankly some of mine have gotten better after the replacement mods have less of a stick up their ass. A couple have even changed posting rules to be less restrictive, like allowing people to talk about ROM sites.

> Frankly some of mine have gotten better after the replacement mods have less of a stick up their ass Very much this. A few tiny little despots got toppled, and the world goes on.

I fully supported the protests by major subreddits. My problem was that a lot of the smaller subs couldn't see the forest for the trees and, ostensibly for the sake of the survival of Reddit, destroyed themselves. The subreddit that gets five hundred posts per day bounces right back after two days offline. The niche sub that gets about ten posts per day, however, doesn't survive being shut down for two weeks. A lot of the mods seemed to be fine with the destruction of their communities as long as it was them who got to pull the trigger and not the admins.
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