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The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

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Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#271

Post by munificent »

a2tech wrote: post #104
sharkweek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still use Reddit and I get that beloved people get fired for any number of reasons, but AMAs have been noticeably worse since Victoria’s time running them. I actually can’t think of more than a handful of examples of great AMAs the last few years. At one point it was a press stop for almost anyone famous doing a tour, and that doesn’t seem to be true anymore.

Actually this is a great example of wht they're going to get. AMA's used to be a GREAT use of Reddit when Victoria ran them. The questions were fresh and it was a very broad pool of people they interviewed. Since then they've either been 1) terrible 2) obviously pimping something or 3) a combination of both. They're not even worth reading and I stopped looking at them years ago.

> I stopped looking at them years ago.

Same. I loved AMA back when it was new and was a mixture of famous people, interesting jobs, or just people with unusual stories. Victoria did a good job of balancing those and making the ones with famous people still feel fairly authentic.

After she was fired, AMA became almost entirely famous people shilling stuff like a generic forgettable late night interview show. I unsubscribed.

Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#272

Post by hackinthebochs »

Havoc wrote: post #16

They’re gonna be left with bottom of the barrel mods. It’s a thankless task to begin with - a marginal proposition at best. Add some threats as a thank you for the unpaid work and it becomes downright abusive Who the hell is going to want to mod in that context?

>Who the hell is going to want to mod in that context?

Who would want to instantly have status over millions of people? Hmm, that's a hard one...

Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#273

Post by AlexandrB »

nerdix wrote: post #224
vorpalhex wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A subreddit is made up of users, not an entry on reddit. Reddit can do whatever they want with their site but they can't force users to do anything.

Thats why I argue that the boycott should be user driven and not mod driven. Let each user individually decide if they want to boycott rather than trying to force everyone into a boycott but shutting down entire subs.

Reddit doesn't seem to be ok with that either as there are reports they're undeleting content users delete in protest. The basic message is: "we control every aspect of content you put on here".

Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#274

Post by jdminhbg »

munificent wrote: post #264
marcusverus wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on a quick google search, only .004% of Reddit users are mods. I find it difficult to believe that reddit will have a hard time finding competent mods within the remaining 99.996% of its userbase.

Counter-argument: 99.996% of Reddit users apparently don't want to be moderators or they already would be, so finding more will be very hard.

I really don't think that's the case. If you want to mod r/politics, you don't just raise your hand and then get mod powers. Moderators are a closed group.

Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#275

Post by younggeorge »

I think this will be a net positive even if they are replaced with worse moderators. Users are more than capable of self-regulating their communities and upvoting quality content.

Moderators are too concerned with weeding out people and bad content as soon as possible and as much as possible. But it's OK to have a bunch of low quality comments and posts, and just let the users decide what gets seen by most of the people.

I'm much more concerned with moderators thinking they can decide to protest on behalf of millions of people, than I am with millions of people seeing content that breaks a subreddits rules.

Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#276

Post by nanidin »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #211
nanidin wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My local subreddit has become a proxy for /r/fuckcars and is also pushing a strong pro-new-airport narrative, among other things. There is a subreddit rule against “creating drama in the community” and any comment against the hive mind on these topics is interpreted by the mods as creating drama and removed, sometimes including a temporary ban. They more or less enforce the echo chamber. Disagreement is futile. Meanw…

That's unfortunate, and you've managed to present one of the few good counterexamples there. Unfortunately, " " isn't really a great topic for a singular community, since cities, by nature, host multitudes, and are inherently political entities. The best alternative is probably to create your own sub, or try to talk to one of the mods about it in private so as not to create drama.

Unfortunately messaging the mods about moderation activity is also against the rules of that particular subreddit and will also result in a ban.

Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#277

Post by bnralt »

1024core wrote: post #253
bnralt wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the result that Reddit lost a popular, interesting feature and a lot of cultural relevance. Looking through /r/IAMA, and I can't say that I'm seeing that. If you look through the top voted AMA's of all time there, the vast majority are some years after Victoria's departure. Comparing those to the few on there from prior to her departure doesn't seem to show much of a difference, at least from what I can tell.…

> If you look through the top voted AMA's of all time there That doesn't account for user growth though. You should normalize the figures by dividing by the total number of Reddit users, or at least IAmA subscribers.

If the sub is experiencing substantial user growth isn't that an indication that the sub is doing well?

Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#278

Post by post-it »

EA-3167 wrote: post #174
anigbrowl wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More seriously, the other day someone spent significant time and effort trying to convince me that the new version of The Wonder Years featuring a black family was anti-white propaganda by The Jews. If he's a reddit user I'm sure he'd love to mod a sub with such a large community.

I feel like the crazies ranting about "white erasure" are making it harder to criticize these race-reboots on the grounds they should be criticized for: laziness. Mediocre products where the selling point is, "we swapped races, give us points," remain mediocre and are unbelievably lazy compared to what we should see... which is new and interesting things with diversity baked in. Unfortunately the hysterical racists a…

It's like calling a song lazy because it uses the same chords as another song. Gender/race-bent remakes are still entirely original works with new scripts and new shots. Even if they were to keep the script the same and make a shot-for-shot remake with new actors and a new crew, that's still 99% new work that's being done. I'd watch a shot-for-shot remake of something like Star Wars with a gender-swapped cast, that sounds like a lot of fun.

Ideas are worth very little, it's the execution that matters.

Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#279

Post by AdamJacobMuller »

Just the threat of this on bigger subs, combined with the two subreddits that reddit did actually shuffle around mods in, seems to have totally broken the blackout. The benevolent dictators who moderate were threatened with losing their power and seem to have completely caved (.

The mods realized that they are replaceable and that they don't have infinite rights to the moderator spots on these subreddits. Did they not consider that they do not own anything here and are all just operating on reddit's platform and reddit could just remove them and install new mods?

It seems highly plausible to me that reddit has now effectively won this one, though, I strenuously think they could have achieved their goals with far far less negative press but it wouldn't really be reddit if they didn't do something in the maximally inefficient way.

I do think this could lead to a situation where reddit moderation is more democratized, with moderators being elected (in a more formal way than how some subs do it now) and I think that would be an overall net positive for the communities and for reddit as a whole. Moderators at this point operate as mostly benevolent dictators and benevolent dictatorships have their plusses but I think that the limitations are starting to show now.

Re: The note Reddit sent to moderators threatening them if they don’t reopen

#280

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

ahepp wrote: post #196
none_to_remain wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's been no "make the cut". There's been first-come-first-served, followed by obtaining the favor of the first-come.

This is what I don’t understand about the claims that any next generation of mods would be incapable of doing the job. I think it will be exactly like the current status quo. You see subreddit and mod drama happening all the time. So many people want to moderate a local subreddit for Seattle that we have at least three different ones. The mod teams for each all have strong (and different) political views. But the thr…

> The mod teams for each all have strong (and different) political views.

Do you mean three segments between pretty left and extreme left? Because I am kind of skeptical there is a conservative mod on the Seattle sub. I saw how much of CHOP and the murders there were covered up.

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