Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#131

Post by fknorangesite » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

lambdas wrote: post #70

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck finding hundreds of new mods.

I don’t doubt they’ll have people lining up out the door to be mods… whether someone you picked with zero vetting because you’re in dire straits is going to be a good mod though is very doubtful. I can see things going very sour if they choose to replace long standing mods.

> someone you picked with zero vetting

As opposed to the current state of affairs, where it is someone you didn't pick, also with zero vetting.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#132

Post by zamalek » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

wellthisisgreat wrote: post #66

samwillis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, if they remain closed, Reddit will just take ownership of them, suspend the mods and reopen the reddits. They will however need to do it carefully, probably after most others have folded and reopened, so as not to cause another blackout. But ultimately it's their platform, they can do what they want. Maybe they will just have to start actually employing the mods, which may actually end up a net positiv…

the unmotivated mods will tank the subreddits and Reddit doesn't seem to be in a position to pay the mods

Even worse if the mods just walked away. Reddit is completely beholden to them, but the mods aren't beholden to Reddit at all (except for imaginary internet points). The likes of Voat are a good example of what happens with lax moderation.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#133

Post by a2tech » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

fdsalkwjvalkj wrote: post #61

We saw the same thing play out with Twitter. You had a large quantity but minority percentage of users upset with changes XYZ, they left the platform for mastadon/bluesky/whatever, and Twitter lived on. What does moving on look like? My guess is reassigning moderators of popular subs to big-corp sympathizers. Or maybe making the private feature a paid one (my personal favorite because it's a little petty). But it cou…

I don't know, Twitter looks like its dying, and not slowly. They're hemorrhaging money (income is WAY down by all reports and it wasn't making money even before) and it seems like most reasonable people have left. Musk seems to be overseeing a pond that is getting smaller and more toxic by the day.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#134

Post by jtode » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

samwillis wrote: post #39

TheFreim wrote: post #9

If the blackout is only for two days then they're right, but if they continue indefinitely it could force a change (reddit is currently unusable since all but one sub I enjoy is gone, if it was gone indefinitely then reddit would be indefinitely out of the picture for me).

At some point, if they remain closed, Reddit will just take ownership of them, suspend the mods and reopen the reddits. They will however need to do it carefully, probably after most others have folded and reopened, so as not to cause another blackout. But ultimately it's their platform, they can do what they want. Maybe they will just have to start actually employing the mods, which may actually end up a net positiv…

Who will they give the job to, and what will they pay them?

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#135

Post by ugjka » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:23 PM UTC

xeromal wrote: post #123

ugjka wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now if you had a perfect reddit clone and it didn't lag and didn't throw 500 or some stuff you'd be golden (provided you could scale)

But you don't have content or the network. That's the problem

Right now a large portion of Reddit is willing to jump the ship at all cost. You can't design for such events, i agree, but if you had a perfect reddit clone right now - people would flock even if there was no content. This is a digg moment. The problem is scaling up when there's demand, because people don't like lag and a half loaded tab. No one is stepping up as a Reddit successor because everyone know they have no pockets to scale to Reddit scale

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#136

Post by seanosaur » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:24 PM UTC

EA-3167 wrote: post #81

seanosaur wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> he can't realistically get rid of the mods and replace them, then expect that to not blow up in his face I'm not so sure about that. I would be very surprised if there was a high % of redditors that know / care about the mods or mod system. This could be the cynic in me but I bet he could eject all the mods tomorrow, replace them with more faceless accounts, and the vast majority of reddit's userbase would not see…

I don't think the problem with ditching the existing mods for new ones has much to do with how users would perceive the shift. You have to ask how the hell Reddit would vet that number of replacements in any way, how they'd find the required number of able replacements, and not just people who would (through incompetence or malice) run things into the ground. That's doubly true for the mega-subs which genuinely requi…

You're correct if you hold the assumption that they actually care about the quality of the content.

I definitely don't think it's a good idea for Reddit to do that as it will eventually create a substandard product. However, I do think if the goal is "profits at all costs" and an IPO in the near future (which is what it clearly appears to be), replacing a large number of mods with literally anybody is a possible path forward.

Again, it's a horrible idea and I think it would cause irreparable harm to the platform down the line.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#137

Post by machdiamonds » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:24 PM UTC

There was an idea floating around here about users downvoting en masse as a form of protest. While this could certainly disrupt the algorithm and content quality, it wouldn't require a massive participation. However, identifying and banning accounts engaged in systematic downvoting would be quite straightforward. A more subversive approach could be to invert the system - upvote low quality posts and downvote high quality ones.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#138

Post by controlname » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:24 PM UTC

For me, the recent goings-on at Reddit have made me fully acknowledge that this is a fundamentally different Reddit from the one I first started visiting over a decade. Change is inevitable. It therefore made it a surprisingly easy decision to uninstall the Reddit third-party apps (the devs who I am thankful to for making Reddit usable again) and I haven't missed it at all.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#139

Post by InitialLastName » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:24 PM UTC

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #91

throitallaway wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should they foot the bill for the API calls? So they have to crack down on some 3rd party apps we all took for granted and kill a few apps off. Sucks but at the end of the day, will it really matter in 6 months? This would be all fine and well if their official app weren't garbage. They do everything in their power to push you to the mobile app, but they seemingly haven't improved it since its inception.

> This would be all fine and well if their official app weren't garbage It's not garbage. I've used it for years. It's fine. Try not being dramatic online / feeding into the narrative that so and so app is garbage or not / parroting other things people say / being picky.

In the Android app, audio in GIFs (that have audio in the target link) have only infrequently worked for years.

Re: Reddit CEO tells employees that subreddit blackout ‘will pass’

#140

Post by adamc » Tue, Jun 13, 2023, 6:24 PM UTC

justrealist wrote: post #76

mr_sturd wrote: post #11

I do hope a good chunk of mods extend the blackouts indefinitely.

Reddit will simply replace the mods if this becomes more than an annoyance.

They don't have a mechanism to easily find competent, committed mods. Incompetent mods will create evaporation of users.