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

theverge.com

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

#321

Post by jtode »

Alupis wrote: post #86
dybber wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t been in a situation like this. I think they should call it off, and announce that they will go back to the drawing board. Then restart talks with the API users and third party app developers. What if they reduced the price of Reddit premium to $3/month and made API and third party apps only available for Reddit premium subscribers? - Reddit would get many more premium subscribers - App developers would be a…

I've gotta tell you - in 6-12 months nobody will even care anymore - and Reddit will still be used en masse like before. Talking with regular non-techy people who use reddit regularly - nobody outside our bubble even knows about or cares about the whole API fiasco. Most people I've talked with shrug and say they'll just use the official app if that's what it all means. The others asked if they can just pay and use th…

Yes, the people who read the news stories are definitely going to feel a lot of sympathy for the Reddit shareholders who have been denied their rightful ad revenue. They are definitely (mmph) the victims (snort) in all of this. Won't somebody think of the dividends???

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

#322

Post by crote »

Alupis wrote: post #64
dyingkneepad wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having people do the (absolutely necessary) moderation for free.

If they asked random sub users who wants to be a mod - they'll get more free moderators within a heartbeat. At some point, Reddit will just force all subs to be open again, and any mods that try to delete the sub or do no moderation will just get banned or whatever. It's pretty hard to fight against the corp using the corp's own platform.

Finding a warm body isn't hard, but finding a competent moderator is.

The current moderators spend an insane amount of time on their communities, and they are very proud of the environment they have built up over the time. They are barely able to keep up with all the automation tools they currently have available.

The new moderators would not have this dedication, would not have the tools, and would have to immediately deal with an absolute deluge of some of the worst content imaginable just because the community will view them as scabs.

When all the dedicated people leave, only garbage remains. Who would want to be in charge of a pile of garbage?

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

#323

Post by mike741 »

meepmorp wrote: post #318
mike741 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

thanks. is the nomination and voting a built in reddit feature? if so, this sounds like a good time to use it.

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

#324

Post by jtode »

dotnet00 wrote: post #121
BoxOfRain wrote: post #13

To the people who've been in this situation, what would you do in Huffman's shoes? From my fairly naïve perspective it looks like he's doing a pretty poor job managing this crisis but am I overestimating the trouble he's in? At some point he'll either be forced to back down or replace the mods of the big subs with people willing to cross the picket line, I don't see why he doesn't just pull the plaster off now either…

I'd take a step back, apologize for the Apollo stunt, delay the API pricing by a few months to improve the first party app and, since reddit ultimately does want to kill 3rd parties, offer to buy out the tools and popular apps at some reasonable price (or maybe offer to contract them for whatever changes may be needed to make the tools official). I think being honest about their goal would've reduced a lot of the bac…

I have had a thought like this as well - the Apollo guy obviously does not make a rich man's salary off his app.

The way he's described things, it seems like he could've done this or that hail mary thing, a quick gofundme round maybe, to see if the Apollo users wanted to get behind the app in order to keep it by providing the six-month cushion that Reddit will not, and see if they can work out a new, still-equitable pricing scheme. My guess is that as an app with a huge userbase and reputation, he probably could have pivoted this into better income, even. But it also looks to me like he's just taken a sober look at things and realized that the nature of the game has changed and he doesn't want to play.

People on here keep saying the mods are deluded, but I think the mods are something much more powerful: disillusioned.

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

#325

Post by eep_social »

dijit wrote: post #225

I bit the bullet yesterday and just called it quits. I was there for a very long time (before it was even “launched” officially). So I do it with a heavy heart, but I don't think there’s any way of going back for them now. Its been a downward trend for literally years at this point. https://imgur.com/gallery/JhsPQnI

I quit in October and don’t miss it much. A few niche subs but nothing that would ever be on the home page. All this drama has me visiting more than I had over the intervening time which is sort of funny, they’re probably seeing a traffic bump right now from all the publicity but I believe the PR dumpster fire will be the end of their IPO ambitions.

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

#326

Post by Yardsale420 »

hayst4ck wrote: post #263
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…

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…

A bunch of what you said is probably bang on, but I can’t let that “for the most part” slide without mentioning he has literally been caught editing comments that were directed towards him in the past. https://www.theverge.com/2016/11/23/13739026/reddit-ceo-stev...

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

#327

Post by WheatMillington »

__loam wrote: post #243
WheatMillington wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are really only going to care about the top tier subs, the rest will be replaced by the community. So really we're only taking 20-100 subreddits, depending on definitions.

8000 subs went dark.

[flagged]

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

#328

Post by paulmd »

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?

In six months the average front page-sub user won’t be aware there was ever a social contract broken. Look, cute puppies.

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

#329

Post by Prickle »

redmerchant2 wrote: post #55
lisasays wrote: post #37

So is Reddit content being (usefully) archived anywhere, and if so, where? By "useful" I mean in an easily searchable / navigable / quickly rendering form (not via the Wayback Machine).

Pushshift but even that is constantly down. It was offline since last month with API changes. Spez claimed they’ll fix it for approved mods only so the casual user is likely out of luck.

If I remember correctly, Pushshift was actually banned by Reddit. Last I read, they were renegotiating API usage terms. I remember seeing one of the devs asking when it would be reapproved.

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

#330

Post by jtode »

borner791 wrote: post #268

I really wonder if it would be better to go the other way. Mods take a break, and just let the bots shit allover the content. It takes like 20mn of un-moderated internet before it's all ads and spam... Reddit is basically reddit because of the carefully curated posts.

I once, after four years of acting as sole line of defense against a destructively stupid but politically influential "colleague," I gave warnings then gave notice.

I ended up jumping to another department where I watched him bring in an expensive vendor to implement a replacement for a system I had been using, and then watched corrupt files start appearing in the production files. I was there just long enough to hear about his quiet exit from the company.

Someone else needs to quietly exit from the company if they hope to get this out of the grease fire. At this point, we'll all see what happens pretty quickly I think, but this looks to me like a ship with a thousand leaks and a drunk captain who won't come out of his cabin because people yell at him about problems that are not his when he does.

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