Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

Most people are used to vBulletin/phpBB/etc. forums that are strictly moderated. Besides, while the admins might have previously held a hands-off attitude, the subreddit moderators don't. Most subreddits have strict requirements for what can and can't be posted to them; go look at the sidebar of a big default like /r/pics or /r/askreddit. In this sense, reddit is far more restrictive than Digg, which just had a handful of site-wide admins (again, Digg had nothing like subreddits) enforcing a small amount of rules.

I can tell you right here that most of the people posting cat pictures to /r/aww, memes to /r/adviceanimals, discussions on /r/askreddit, etc. couldn't care less about their freeze peaches. They're not posting their cat pictures to /r/aww because of some mythical commitment to free speech; they're posting their cat pictures to /r/aww because that's where people post cat pictures. And the same goes for people who post to smaller, community-oriented subreddits: they're posting to these subreddits instead of various forums because they can reuse their existing reddit account and the subs are easily discoverable (Are you a fan of something? Then put an /r/ before it and you'll probably find a subreddit dedicated to it!). Probably the single biggest barrier to posting on forums is having to register a new account for each forum, and you don't have to worry about that on reddit.

In fact, "free speech" can be a detriment. Lots of people were turned off to reddit when Anderson Cooper brought /r/jailbait to the public eye. People who could've been posting cat pictures to /r/aww instead hesitated and said "nah, I'm not gonna post this to the same site where people post sexualized pictures of children". I'm active in some IRC channels, and whenever reddit comes up, I always have one or two regulars saying things like "reddit is a shithole because they allow /r/coontown and /r/picsofdeadkids" (VERY VERY NSFW do not browse at work).

For every freeze peaches zealot lost when /r/jailbait was banned, they gained a dozen more users who didn't want to be associated with borderline child porn. If most people cared about freedom of speech above all else, 8chan would be the most popular site on the Internet. But instead, 8chan has a reputation for being a cesspool, and admitting to being an 8channer is a good way to become a pariah.

I'm not sure exactly what that graph is showing. Is it just referrals to the author's own site? If so, that's likely biased.

It doesn't seem to line up with the numbers in your second link.

> Digg was already in decline [1] while reddit was growing [2], and the Digg v4 exodus just made it happen faster.

Digg had started to dip, but I think that was mostly from removing the DiggBar and Google's ranking changes. It had definitely plateaued before v4, but I think v4 was the tipping point where the critical mass of users abandoned Digg and (for better or worse) arrived at Reddit.

> On the other hand, reddit's signature feature is its user-created subreddits.

Yes, this is the smartest thing Reddit has done. I remember at the time people saying subreddits were totally broken because you had to submit a link to multiple subreddits separately. They argued that you should submit a link once and "tag" it to be in multiple subreddits.

I knew that they were deliberately decentralizing their communities so that each could develop its own personality and culture. It was an incredibly smart move.

At the same time, there is a lot of interaction between subreddits, and reddit still has a front page that is viewed heavily by lurkers. This means "global" things can still affect reddit as a whole.

> That's a fundamental incentive for people to stay on reddit: even if the front page goes to shit, you're not going to see something like the trans community or any of the numerous fandoms that have a presence on reddit pack up and leave.

That's only true for users that actually have accounts and tune their front page. I think a surprisingly large number don't do that.

Also, the social reputation of the site as a whole affects how people use it. 4chan also has a few nice subcommunities, but you don't want to tell your friends how much you like 4chan because they associate that name with its most toxic elements.

Shouting louder and using caps doesn't make me believe you or add to the discussion.

I just don't think this was a planned and orchestrated protest as a result of mis-management. There might have been 1 or 2 mods that felt this way, but the rest did it in "solidarity"..more likely a pure emotional decision to feel like they were part of the group (reminds me of the occupy wallstreet mentality..which accomplished nothing and just made the protesters look foolish).

If they really wanted to make a change, they should have all gotten together and contacted management..like mature adults. But this takes intelligence, discipline, maturity and doesn't give them the desired effect of rebellion. It feels good to rebel because it gives a person a sense of power that they probably don't normally have in their life.

It's the difference between a government discussing change and a mob of people burning down the city because they aren't getting what they want. A step back in terms of social change.

I also didn't see any of the explanations that you claim when it was happening. It's just back-pedaling to try to justify the actions of the mods.

Most inexperienced people don't don't how to play politics...and may get what they want in the short-term (the company just wants to put out the fire until they can figure out a good strategy) but will be pushed aside in the long-term.

The mods have no leverage except the power to make a sub-reddit private...and that can easily be taken away. If they let all of the mods go today, there would be people lining up to replace them tomorrow. But, this would be a bad PR move for Reddit...so it won't happen this quickly.