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Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

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Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#311

Post by mr_gibbins »

thefourthchime wrote: post #231
depereo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I added reddit.com to my ublock filters - it was kind of an automatic click a few times a day and it's been a nice way to break the habit so strongly. I've got friends doing the same, and our microcommunity has formed around another platform already, after collectively losing reddit. It was so clearly a half-assed, badly thought out policy. No mention of mod tools. No mention of accessibility tools. No mention of res…

I deleted my 8yo account. It was right after someone downvoted me because pointed out something that broke with their opinion. That kind of summed up my view Reddit. Groupthink circle jerks. Why was I part of any of that??

I've always felt the downvote option was a colossal mistake and just allowed controversial or unpopular points of view to disappear, strengthening the filter effect for everything else.

I mean even 4chan doesn't have downvote functionality, if people disagree with you they'll just call you a f* or n* which, while nasty, doesn't actually change visibility of your post, plus only the admins can ban you or delete a post, not jumped-up mods, and frankly you'd have to be pretty extreme on there to earn that.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#312

Post by simlevesque »

jd24 wrote: post #105
erellsworth wrote: post #43

Earlier 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…

there was a stat "92 of the most 500 popular subreddits are moderated by the same 5 people"; unpaid people at that i think they can afford to replace the mods. it'll likely be their last resort though

Let me know if my math is wrong: it means that 5 people are on the moderation team of 18.4 subs. The 500 top subs often have mod teams from 20 to 50 people.

Bringing up that stat doesn't seem really relevant.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#313

Post by pyeri »

__loam wrote: post #223
xyst wrote: post #50

Good. 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…

If they forcibly replace mods, Reddit is dead.

That's a very dicey prediction to make. It might be dead in the long run but for now, the pent up traffic will all start flowing back to those subs. And who knows, who is to say if the newly installed mods are better or worse than the present ones? Maybe they will just be the same.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#314

Post by post-it »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #204
ranger207 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really not sure the big subs would suffer all that much. Many of them are already modded by a clique of mods and are large enough that there's not really any community to be had there anyway. It would be pretty terrible for the small communities that were reddit's most valuable part

Replacing a few mods that moderate many large communities with paid mods is ripping the door wide open to lawsuits

What damages would who experience?

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#315

Post by tguedes »

redmerchant2 wrote: post #82
paulddraper wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the mods are debatably not power hungry Everything made sense except this part. Power goes to everyone's head.

I have no doubt, my point is the mods of r/music don’t have a specific leaning that they’d try to manipulate. Most of the mods of bigger subs have been doing it for years and it’s just a quirky hobby/obligation. Obviously the super mods are in the pocket of the admins, and political subs are very controlling. But appointing a new round of mods for a sub with millions of subscribers will attract the most bottom barrel…

Agreed. To me the most interesting part is what is going to happen to the large community specific subreddits, i.e the sports subreddits like r/soccer, r/music, r/movies, r/anime, etc. Those mod teams are generally very good and dedicate a lot of time to make the subreddit feel like a home for people who are interested in that community. Those will be the hardest mod teams to replace as opposed to large front page subreddits like r/pics or the smaller subreddits. Those subreddits are the middle ground of large enough to have constant abuse/spam but require domain specific knowledge so not anyone can be a good mod.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#316

Post by gremlinsinc »

wvenable wrote: post #133
thewataccount wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

r/aww is literally just cute animals. Most of the others are just memes/reposts of their respective topic. There's plenty of mods from subreddits that didn't go dark and have 20m+, reddit can just put them in charge. I highly doubt the specific mods matter that much on these "fluff" subreddits. Subreddits like r/apple I could see it mattering a lot more, but most of the top ones aren't exactly complex topics.

> r/aww is literally just cute animals. There is a social contract and moderator effort to make that happen. When that contract is broken and moderators are stretched thin, how long is that subreddit still going to be just cute animals?

I'm betting all subreddits soon turn into /r/eyeblech (gore/death/dismemberment gifs). Not necessarily illegal, but definitely not what you're looking for when you go to /r/awww

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#317

Post by basq »

mr_gibbins wrote: post #311
thefourthchime wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I deleted my 8yo account. It was right after someone downvoted me because pointed out something that broke with their opinion. That kind of summed up my view Reddit. Groupthink circle jerks. Why was I part of any of that??

I've always felt the downvote option was a colossal mistake and just allowed controversial or unpopular points of view to disappear, strengthening the filter effect for everything else. I mean even 4chan doesn't have downvote functionality, if people disagree with you they'll just call you a f* or n* which, while nasty, doesn't actually change visibility of your post, plus only the admins can ban you or delete a post…

But 4chan is also a complete cesspit. Like any place that adopts "free speech absolutist" attitudes. Reddit's heyday is long passed, but at least it is still very useful for grassroots information amalgamation. If you've ever had to google some issue, typing reddit into the query will land you some posts with discussion in them. Good luck finding that on 4chan.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#318

Post by meepmorp »

mike741 wrote: post #279
meepmorp wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The person who makes the subreddit is the head mod; they can add others. Some subs do voting, or solicit nominations for new mods.

Re: Reddit subs with millions of followers plan to extend the blackout indefinitely

#319

Post by colonwqbang »

andrewflnr wrote: post #218
milkytron wrote: post #11

This is what is needed to put pressure on Reddit. A two day protest then returning to normal is a blip in the grand scheme of things. But if they do not change their API pricing, stance on third party apps, etc, then a prolonged blackout could lead to an eventual exodus. I hope the communities I used to engage in partake in this prolonged blackout.

> A two day protest then returning to normal is a blip in the grand scheme of things. People keep saying this. It's true of the vast majority of protests. And yet, they keep happening, and I don't think it's because they're completely ineffective. I'll grant I don't entirely get it either, but here's my theory of how they work: by being a show of unity, protests are an honest signal of power. In any case where the pa…

The threat isn't so much the initial strike, as the promise that more will follow unless the opponent agrees to negotiate. Without such a promise, the strike would indeed be ineffective.

Negotiations are typically held during a ceasefire, not while the parties are actively trying to hurt each other.

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