Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely • Hacker News Board

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#291

Post by andrewstuart2 » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 4:56 PM UTC

gman83 wrote: post #117

jurassicfoxy wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I just saw the r/StarTrek migration, and visited Lemmy for the 3rd time or so this week, and quite frankly, I could drop reddit entirely now, if I knew how to find communities. I feel some real hacker/dev excitement for the future of Lemmy.

On the communities page of your instance, select "All" instead of "Local" to search for communities on all servers, for example: https://lemmy.world/communities/listing_type/All/page/1

Also, you can go to https://browse.feddit.de/ and find communities. If they're not available on your lemmy instance, you can copy+paste the URL into your lemmy instance's search field and as long as it's not blocked by the instance it will be federated from then on.

It's not the best experience and it's not obvious or intuitive. A browser extension could simplify it substantially, at least. As could new features in lemmy itself, but you want to be careful about every lemmy instance consuming the content from every other one, as that won't scale easily for the average lemmy admin.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#292

Post by gtsteve » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

TechBro8615 wrote: post #169

chongli wrote: post #37

I was really skeptical of lemmy [1] when I first heard about it during the blackout. I joined yesterday and it completely changed my mind. Yes, it is going to face some growing pains (see the total user growth in the past few days) [2] in the coming weeks and months but it really has the potential to replace Reddit with a federated system of communities. One that won't be damaged by investors or executives attempting…

Lemmy has the same discoverability and usability problems as Mastodon. Especially for non-technical users, there's too much friction required to find their communities and aggregate them into a single usable feed with a nice client. And that's assuming they can even conceptualize what the fediverse is. I'm a technical user, and I closed join-lemmy.org after ten seconds because it was too many clicks to get to an inte…

Lemmy has already massively improved since I first encountered it a few years ago. There are so many more users and so much more activity. I expect the usability issues will be worked on and resolved in time. Without a corporation behind it or some way to meaningfully monetise it, process will be slow of course, and I'm not sure it could ever become mainstream in the same way that Reddit has.

In terms of discovery, there is a centralised community browser of sorts... but you'll see it's got quite a way to go: https://browse.feddit.de

However, as someone willing to put the time in to learn something new I've found my efforts rewarded. It does take longer than 10 seconds to get used to Lemmy and the fediverse, but I'd say no longer than 15-20 minutes really. I enjoy being part of something new and I hope it lasts. Perhaps it won't hang on to many of the new users it has gained, but I expect this won't be the last time Reddit does something its users don't like and next time around more will stick, hopefully presenting a very good alternative.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#293

Post by paulmd » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #119

Maxburn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I don't get, reddit is getting a heck of a free ride with all these mods. You'd think they would do everything within their power to enable them so why kick them in the nuts? Also the "power" users would probably be happy to pay reasonable prices to interact with it via app/api, so go ahead and charge something REASONABLE. There's something nefarious going on behind the scenes and it's all very susp…

Indeed. I'd happily pay Reddit directly for an API key if that let me run RIF in a "bring your own key" mode. They could split the profits between themselves and app dev. I'm surprised no one is proposing this. But I guess this comes down to people willing and able to pay to avoid adtech cancer being actually the most profitable cohort for the advertisers...

> I'm surprised no one is proposing this.

this is explicitly blocked by TOS. You can notionally do it by taking a "RedditIsFun" APK and injecting your own API key and then sideloading, but they'll do app store takedowns for any third-party app that supports it natively (because it's a TOS violation).

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#294

Post by rufus_foreman » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #37

I was really skeptical of lemmy [1] when I first heard about it during the blackout. I joined yesterday and it completely changed my mind. Yes, it is going to face some growing pains (see the total user growth in the past few days) [2] in the coming weeks and months but it really has the potential to replace Reddit with a federated system of communities. One that won't be damaged by investors or executives attempting…

Is there a way to get RSS feeds the way you can with Reddit?

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#295

Post by andrewstuart2 » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 4:57 PM UTC

moffkalast wrote: post #209

dawnerd wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If anyone is wondering it’s still not quite perfect as some instances have inadvertently blocked federation while they deal with growth. It should work itself out once the dust settles

> have inadvertently blocked federation I assume the Enterprise is on its way to resolve the issue diplomatically

Important clarifying question: Kirk or Picard?

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#296

Post by the_snooze » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

seydor wrote: post #230

Maxburn wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing I don't get, reddit is getting a heck of a free ride with all these mods. You'd think they would do everything within their power to enable them so why kick them in the nuts? Also the "power" users would probably be happy to pay reasonable prices to interact with it via app/api, so go ahead and charge something REASONABLE. There's something nefarious going on behind the scenes and it's all very susp…

Moderators are more than guilty of abusing their powers. Reddit should remove powers from them instead of enabling. They can easily find replacements

That's such an uncharitable view of Reddit moderation. Look at examples like /r/cfb and /r/collegebasketball for good hard-to-replace moderation. Game threads (and post-game discussions) are consistently formatted and on-topic. And the mods are able to invite coaches for AMAs with no drama.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#297

Post by pgwhalen » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

p_j_w wrote: post #255

pgwhalen wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why be a moderator for a for-profit company if you aren't being paid? The same reason you'd be a moderator for a non-profit, which is power.

Maybe they give a shit about the community?

Yeah I’d agree with that too. People who care about something often like to be in a position where they can impact the thing they care about. “Power” isn’t a totally cynical way of describing it.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#298

Post by throw16180339 » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

danudey wrote: post #98

rblatz wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also most people don’t really care about the API/3rd party app thing. It doesn’t impact them and it looks from the outside like a bunch of dorks with no lives getting worked up over nothing. I’ve been on Reddit since the digg migration and I’ve never felt the need for an app, old.reddit.com and Adblock works perfectly fine on the phone. Better than Reddit’s mobile site.

It doesn't affect them directly , but the moderation tools a lot of subreddits need are built into third-party apps because Reddit refuses to build mod tools itself, and when those stop working then the job of moderating large and active subreddits will become vastly more cumbersome and frustrating, and far less efficient. Maybe this issue only affects 0.1% of users, but those 0.1% of users do a lot for the site that…

> It doesn't affect them directly, but the moderation tools a lot of subreddits need are built into third-party apps because Reddit refuses to build mod tools itself, and when those stop working then the job of moderating large and active subreddits will become vastly more cumbersome and frustrating, and far less efficient.

I checked yesterday and some widely used mod bots are already down. https://www.reddit.com/user/Blank-Cheque took all their bots down 10 days ago until the third-party apps change is reverted.

• AssistantBOT, AssistantBOT1 - This was broken by the Pushshift API cutoff. It's widely used for tracking sub usage statistics. The author is working on fixing it, but the last update was three weeks ago.

• Flair_Helper (Blank-Cheque) - This makes removing posts easier, especially on mobile. I haven't used it in anger.

• FloodgatesBot (Blank-Cheque) - This applies posting limits for users. There are a couple competitors, but I'm not sure how many are still running.

• Quality_Vote (Blank-Cheque) - This is used to allow users to remove unpopular posts. It can save a lot of moderation work in the right kind of sub.

• SafestBot (Blank-Cheque) - This is widely used by subs to ban spam and troll accounts. SaferBot, it's only alternative, was closed to additional subs some time ago.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#299

Post by coryfklein » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

chongli wrote: post #37

I was really skeptical of lemmy [1] when I first heard about it during the blackout. I joined yesterday and it completely changed my mind. Yes, it is going to face some growing pains (see the total user growth in the past few days) [2] in the coming weeks and months but it really has the potential to replace Reddit with a federated system of communities. One that won't be damaged by investors or executives attempting…

Having heard the Lemmy recommendation multiple times, I went ahead and tried the Lemmy.world instance but it appears completely broken. As far as I can tell, clicking "Login"[0] doesn't even trigger a network request?

[0] https://lemmy.world/login

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#300

Post by bamfly » Thu, Jun 15, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

goostavos wrote: post #262

indymike wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also most people don’t really care about the API/3rd party app thing. It doesn’t impact them and it looks from the outside like a bunch of dorks with no lives getting worked up over nothing. This may be a case where certain people are more important than most people. > looks from the outside like a bunch of dorks It appears the "dorks" are the certain people who have been making Reddit work for most people.

Are they? Despite everyone saying this, Reddit seems to be humming along. I log onto the front page and have something of the "normal" reddit experience. For instance, "heh. Look at that fish, that's crazy". I mindlessly scroll past all the "REDDIT IS BEING BAD" posts the same way I scroll past Youtube drama posts, or "How Elon is ruining Twitter" drama posts. I'm here to look at funny pictures. Maybe I'm in a revers…

> Maybe I'm in a reverse sub-bubble, but outside of the tech circles complaining, the protest still seems to be "what protest?"

My wife noticed day-1 of the protests (I know because she asked me for the TL;DR of WTF is happening) and she doesn't move in tech circles, and the subs she likes (liked?) are all pop-culture stuff. Pretty sure she's just not been using reddit since then, as all of what she cared about is gone. Other non-tech friends of mine also noticed within 24 hours of the protests starting, with similar "well, damn, guess I'll find somewhere else to waste time" reactions.

But, all of the people I know who use reddit use it only for a few subs, and hardly ever visit the site's front page except by accident. I don't know anyone who's like "I'll just go to the Reddit homepage and look for something interesting that it's decided to promote", though I'm sure such users exist (and may even be the majority, for all I know).