The mods have virtually no control over the situation. Reddit can change their passwords and just have employee moderators from now on.
If I was running Reddit, this is what I would be planning right now.
Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
271–280 of 485 posts
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#272[flagged]
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#273Good. This works out for everybody except the brain dead C-level executives that tried to bully indie app developers. - regular people get a break from their echo chambers - VOLUNTEER mods get a break - journalists get their news article The only loser here is the corporation side. Significant loss of value from decreased user activity. Subsequent loss of revenue. Inability to extract as much value from the users dat…
You are clearly feeling very righteous, but I think you should temper your righteousness. You might want to consider that while spez may not be the best human, he has had a commendable commitment to free speech. The Reddit platform has been protecting speaking truth to power, and in this case that power is himself. He has the power to shut down anti-spez content on reddit and for the most part has let his platform be…
> he has had a commendable commitment to free speech
and a love of r/jailbait
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've often wondered why people use Reddit for stuff like this since the information and conversation management and organizational tools seem vastly inferior to most any pre-Reddit forum software. My current working theory is largely that internet search is just broken. It's easier to search for subreddit once you're on Reddit than to wade out into the sea of SEO crap and try to find a live, reliable format on the br…
Unfortunately, it's practically impossible to find real individuals discussing things via Google. It's all promoted content and blogspam. A long time ago, Google used to have a filter you could select for "forums". Once that disappeared, we had the "+reddit" hack. Now what? I have no idea.
My recollection is that during the Google+ period, Google changed their indexing and basically destroyed every other forum. Things that were first page results dropped out completely and lost virtually all of their ad revenue.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#275Probably a very _very_ controversial and unpopular opinion - though I welcome any insight or opinions from others. Reddit is fully within their rights to seize the subreddits from their unpaid moderators and I would expect them to if they're gearing up for an IPO. They're fully within their rights to change how people access their website, how people interact with it, and limit who has access to the data on the websi…
> Reddit is fully within their rights to seize the subreddits from their unpaid moderators
Sure. Technically they are within their rights to do that.
Would it be good for them to do so? Probably not. It'll piss off their user base. As others have mentioned, it'll open themselves to lawsuits due to content moderation. It'll cost them a lot to pay people to moderate these communities, which they currently get for free.
> I would expect them to [seize the subreddits] if they're gearing up for an IPO
See above. This would make them less profitable and most likely negatively affect said IPO.
> ... I was frustrated - not at Reddit, but the unpaid moderators who believe they have some sort of self-ordained right to manipulate a company.
It's not self-ordained. They're doing what they are allowed to do with these subreddits, at least until Reddit takes away their moderator access.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you underestimate the value of that free labor. Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrut…
I support the blackouts but > Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. They don't need to. Aww (36m), music(32m), videos(26m), futurology(18m), me_irl, and abrupt chaos are some of the biggest ones, if they seize just those 6 then they've reclaimed most of the r/popular anyway.
The selling point of Reddit, though, is not that r/popular is the greatest list of links ever created. The selling point is that you can tailor your links perfectly to your tastes, right? Good luck to them.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#277Reddit would be infinitely better without any subreddits bigger than about 100k subscribers.
Subscribe to the subreddits you enjoy (regardless of size) and ignore the rest. You are not forced to view content from the big subs.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your view is a little simplistic. There is plenty of useful information on Reddit. I'm a big fan of home-related subs for example, where a lot of trade-knowledgeable people seem to hang out. There is a wealth of information on subs like r/DIY, r/HomeImprovement, r/paint, r/woodworking, etc.
I've often wondered why people use Reddit for stuff like this since the information and conversation management and organizational tools seem vastly inferior to most any pre-Reddit forum software. My current working theory is largely that internet search is just broken. It's easier to search for subreddit once you're on Reddit than to wade out into the sea of SEO crap and try to find a live, reliable format on the br…
> I've often wondered why people use Reddit for stuff like this since the information and conversation management and organizational tools seem vastly inferior to most any pre-Reddit forum software.
Phpbb-style forums are a mess. Simultaneously too ordered and not ordered enough - you don't get threaded replies, but you do have to put everything in the right topic and the right forum. No notifications that do the right thing.
For years I remember forum makers refusing to offer a "just notify me when someone's replied to my question, otherwise don't bother me" feature on the grounds that it would destroy participation. IMO the main reason Reddit won is that it offered just that.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#279I’m all for this but what’s to keep Reddit from manning the subreddits themselves??
The same thing that was stopping them before, that's a lot of work. Plus, it was free before, so they'd need to spend some money doing it themselves.
how were those moderators chosen the first time around? what's to prevent them from repeating that selection process? it might take a bit of work but the circumstances seem to merit at least that much.
Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reddit can't afford to pay the employees they already have out of the revenue they make. That's ostensibly the reason why they raised prices on the API in the first place. Losing all that free labour is absolutely the last thing they want at this juncture. But even ignoring that, suppose all >15M subreddit suddenly get salaried mods. Don't you think the mods of e.g. a 13M subreddit would want a piece of the cake too,…
> Reddit can't afford to pay the employees they already have out of the revenue they make, that's ostensibly the reason why they raised prices on the API in the first place. I'm sure there'd be plenty of volunteers who already manage several of the big 20M+ subs that didn't go dark. We're only talking about 6 subs, and they aren't that complex. > Don't you think the mods of e.g. a 13M subreddit would want a piece of…
You're assuming that if Reddit decides to "fire" all mods of the top subreddits, there would be dozens of (suitable) people happily waiting to take their place. I don't think that's remotely the case.
> The top few are what make up the home page with a few others just sprinkled in. And again I highly doubt reddit would need to pay mods.
Reddit wouldn't exactly be Reddit if you reduce it to only /r/aww and five of the other most mainstream subreddits. If that's what you think will happen... Well I don't exactly disagree with you, but Reddit would be a very different product at that point.