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Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

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Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#101

Post by jedberg »

biesnecker wrote: post #58
jedberg wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posted elsewhere, but yeah that's my theory too (having actually helped built it in the first place). My guess is the caches got blown out because the entire system is built on the idea that most people are looking at the most popular content. When you close down all the most popular content, you have to dig deep into the long tail for fresh content. Also, my guess is that the code for building homepages is not optim…

Makes sense to me. I remember several lunch conversations at FB about whether or not we even could restart the site with totally cold caches. I’m sure it was possible but it wouldn’t have been clean or pretty.

We did restart reddit with cold caches a few times when I was there. It took hours to recover but eventually caught up if it happened near peak. If we did it during low traffic it wasn't too bad.

But that was 13 years ago, no idea how it would do today. :)

Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#102

Post by Tao3300 »

pkju62dqmx wrote: post #89
falcolas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would certainly change usage patterns. And there are enough popular subreddits who didn't go in on the outage, so there's content to be had. The adage "there's no such thing as bad press" could definitely apply, given how broadly covered this is (I mean, hell, I saw it show up on NPR).

Currently over 90% of subs are private or restricted. https://reddark.untone.uk Re-hosts of that site have the figure even higher.

Like reading a list of war dead. Always remember where you were and what you were doing on that fateful day when r/amateurcumsluts went dark, and the heroic sacrifices made on that hill.

Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#103

Post by mustacheemperor »

PUSH_AX wrote: post #66
anoonmoose wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll get replaced faster than they otherwise would have

This would be chaos. Most of the big subreddits have a combination of bespoke bots and complex automod configs that even the current mods struggle groking. Reddit would lose a ton of quality through poor moderation quickly if you put everything up for grabs. I think this would be a poor move.

Looking at /r/all today, it seems like there's still enough big front-page subs with mods to at least temporarily reallocate responsibilities. Most of the big subs are controlled by "power mods" already who administrate many subs. I think there would absolutely be a significant longer term loss of quality, but my guess is that in the shorter term Reddit could just give the keys to those subs to the 'power mods' who have remained.

Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#104

Post by graeme »

superkuh wrote: post #92
graeme wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finding new moderators would be a incredible challenge. If someone wants to be a moderators badly, that is usually disqualifying. You get an immense amount of power with very little accountability except to the community. Put that in the wrong hands and you can destroy a community incredibly quickly. Or, put power in the hands of a dilettante, and you get overrun with spam and insults very fast.

Nah, there's plenty of people just waiting to take over even the smallest of niche subs. I saw it firsthand back during the 2nd wave of gentrification in spring 2018 when a bunch of commercially uncomfortable subreddits like r/gundeals and their users (like my 2008 reddit account) were banned. The subreddits I moderated like r/radioastronomy were given to other users to moderate within a month or two. Reddit eventual…

I checked into the history:

1. A reddit request was made in 2018 when you were banned. This was manually approved by the admins: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditrequest/comments/8m8cdm/reque...

2. The new mod heavily restricted posts, seemingly for three years. They declined to reply to messages for nine months, until a new Reddit request happened on Jan 3 2021. A comment in that thread said "there hasn't been a new post in ages!", confirming your replacement had locked the place down: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditrequest/comments/kpf083/reque...

3. Sometime between Jan 3 and Jan 19th, the request was approved. Likely closer to the 19th, the day the new mod posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/radioastronomy/comments/l0j6qj/new_...

Sub seems alright now, but after a three year long false start with an inactive mod who locked the place down.

Further, it took up to 16 days to handle the request. For a very small sub. And I've seen reddit requests take much longer.

Now reddit would have to, at a stroke, replace at least 8,000 of their most active subs, all at once, and make sure they don't appoint people who are insane, or draconian, or power hungry, or in it for their own profit, etc.

I don't see this working. You may have some knowledge of /r/radioastronomy in those periods which contradicts what I wrote, but the public record suggests the transition wouldn't bode well for mass replacing every single moderator at once.

92% of reddit is down right now.

Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#105

Post by chx »

cryptonector wrote: post #77
TheAdamist wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cfaa charges.

What's the theory?

18 U.S.C. §§ 1030(a)(5)(B)

> intentionally accesses a protected computer without authorization, and as a result of such conduct, recklessly causes damage;

I would think it's reasonably easy to establish mens rea when someone switches their sub from public to private and back every few hours, even if manually done because what else would they want to do but take down Reddit? Not to mention the punishes much harshly "conspiring" to commit such a crime. Careful there.

IANAL, of course.

Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#106

Post by stale2002 »

joecot wrote: post #67
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would a better protest be rapidly switching subreddits from public/private?

A better protest would have been for the moderators to all stop moderating. Turn off their automod filters, allow all posts. Show reddit what happens when their volunteer moderators just stop.

The problem with this strategy is that it gives reddit a valid excuse to remove subreddit mods.

Having your sub be unmoderated is against reddit TOS, whereas taking a sub private is not yet against the official TOS.

Process and technicalities like this matter a lot and can effect a platforms actions.

Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#107

Post by Salgat »

speedgoose wrote: post #95
throwaway4837 wrote: post #43

My unpopular theory is that the Reddit blackout increased Reddit usage, having the opposite of the intended effect.

That's also my first bet. The strike was well covered in many medias. Looking at the google trends, it was a big spike today compared to the classic daily workload: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&q=%2...

This is more indicative of people just searching about reddit, possibly to figure out why the site they normally use is having issues.

Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#108

Post by biesnecker »

jedberg wrote: post #101
biesnecker wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Makes sense to me. I remember several lunch conversations at FB about whether or not we even could restart the site with totally cold caches. I’m sure it was possible but it wouldn’t have been clean or pretty.

We did restart reddit with cold caches a few times when I was there. It took hours to recover but eventually caught up if it happened near peak. If we did it during low traffic it wasn't too bad. But that was 13 years ago, no idea how it would do today. :)

I’m sure Facebook could too (their disaster recovery planning and drills were always top notch) but I’m glad I won’t be oncall if it ever happens :-D

Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#109

Post by TillE »

sofixa wrote: post #65
schaefer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world has finite resources... such as man-hours.

Such a critical moment for the future of the company (mass boycott after controversial changes, presumably on the path to IPO; they really don't need any more bad publicity) should be an all hands on deck situation. Again, they've had advanced notice, and knew the full list of subreddits. They should have prepared better.

You're not going to significantly rewrite a caching system in a matter of days, not if you want to fix more problems than you cause.

Re: Reddit crashed because of the growing subreddit blackout

#110

Post by [deleted] »

pkju62dqmx wrote: post #89
falcolas wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would certainly change usage patterns. And there are enough popular subreddits who didn't go in on the outage, so there's content to be had. The adage "there's no such thing as bad press" could definitely apply, given how broadly covered this is (I mean, hell, I saw it show up on NPR).

Currently over 90% of subs are private or restricted. https://reddark.untone.uk Re-hosts of that site have the figure even higher.

[deleted]
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