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Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

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Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#41

Post by operatingthetan »

tptacek wrote: post #36
operatingthetan wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC has a vested interest in keeping the HN moderation a certain way, it bring a certain quality to the discourse but it's different than the structure of any sub. Dang has a direct relationship with the owners of the site and responsibility to them, that relationship doesn't exist in any way on reddit. The mods run amok. Suggesting HN is effectively just another subreddit dismisses several important differences.

No, I don't think that's how HN works at all. Dan can in fact run amok on HN. I don't believe there are significant pressures from YC on how Dan structures moderation here. People unfamiliar with the setup here tend to think about YC first when they think about its management, but they should think about Dan first. My understanding is that things are pretty hands-off; even the perks that YC companies get here are, I…

>Dan can in fact run amok on HN. I don't believe there are significant pressures from YC on how Dan structures moderation here.

I'm sorry but this is absurd. If dang had a mental break and decided only cat picture posts were allowed going forward, there would definitely be a conversation. It being hands-off so far means that YC and dang have current consensus and trust exists.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#42

Post by nemothekid »

knolan wrote: post #20

Interestingly enough there’s been some mod drama over on /r/AskScienceFiction today. This is a sub where people ask questions and get in universe responses. It’s very nerdy and can be fun. It also can attract a certain type of poster who can be lacking in say, self awareness and take it too seriously. The new Harry Potter game is generating a lot of posts and a particular mod who has personal reasons to dislike JK Ro…

>a particular mod who has personal reasons to dislike JK Rowling

I think it's disingenuous to paint what are likely political reasons as just personal quibbles.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#43

Post by jseliger »

jedberg wrote: post #8

I think the author doesn't understand that reddit mods don't work for reddit. In their discussion with the mods they mention "site-wide rules" which makes me think they don't understand that the mods of each reddit make their own rules. On that sub, their rules don't allow people who mostly post links to their own site. It's up to you if agree with their rule, but those are the rules they have chosen. The common resp…

I noticed the moderator problems on Reddit many years ago: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/16/the-moderator-problem-how..., but I also observe that, since then, Reddit appears to have become much more popular. So maybe the structure is good enough.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#44

Post by dageshi »

keneda7 wrote: post #4
airstrike wrote: post #2

Reddit mods are arguably the worst part of reddit. It's so refreshing to come to HN and see (community- and mod-powered) moderation done right

I would totally agree. So many of them just seem to be on a power trip and moderate based on their mood. Its sad because its really killed reddit for a lot of people.

My guess is, being a mod means you see patterns and you know when something is going to descend into a shitstorm because you've seen similar comments descent into a shitstorm before.

So eventually mods kill comments not because they particularly dislike them but because they can't be bothered with dealing with the inevitable shit to come.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#45

Post by knolan »

mike_d wrote: post #33
knolan wrote: post #20

Interestingly enough there’s been some mod drama over on /r/AskScienceFiction today. This is a sub where people ask questions and get in universe responses. It’s very nerdy and can be fun. It also can attract a certain type of poster who can be lacking in say, self awareness and take it too seriously. The new Harry Potter game is generating a lot of posts and a particular mod who has personal reasons to dislike JK Ro…

[flagged]

Except they didn’t just stop there. They used their platform to actively hurt those capable of separating the art from the artist. I’ve no interest in the Harry Potter series. I’ve never read or watched any of it and I’ve a negative opinion of JKR’s hateful opinions. I don’t feel the need to punch down.

As a moderator who has agreed to apply the rules of a community for the betterment of that community to decide that those rules don’t apply to them is simply not good enough.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#46

Post by cmh89 »

seydor wrote: post #21

It's not a scaling problem , it s a "reddit likes free labor" problem. They aren't going to give up on the small group of self-important idiots who named themselves mods 15 years ago and still havent quit, because they can't find new ones. No sane person will do such work for free in 2023 Trying to reason on the behavior of the mods is like arguing with the weather

It's a little bit of A and a little bit of B. I first started using reddit slightly before the great Digg exodus. Back then all the subreddits were relatively small and a lot of them were great. It's reasonable to me that someone who was passionate about a hobby like hiking or bicycling, or even video games would want to volunteer their time to nurture a community they enjoy.

Now, there are very few 'mainstream' subreddits that are a reasonable size. You have to be in to a niche of a niche to find a good community. No reasonable person would volunteer their time or get enjoyment enough to wade through anonymous accounts yelling at each other on /r/politics or /r/pics. So you end up with a bunch of people who are willing to trade their time to feel like they have control over other people, and naturally they abuse it.

reddit is a shell of its former self and having professional moderators with clear and accountable rules would be a major step forward. reddit has always shirked accountability though in the pursuit of profit, so I don't really see it happening outside of a change in the law.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#47

Post by cmh89 »

sebstefan wrote: post #37
eggbrain wrote: post #27

Would it be potentially viable to make moderators more like filterers (e.g. like filter lists in Ublock Origin)? You could "subscribe" to a moderator if you like the way they filter content, and if you "unsubscribed" from all moderators you'd get as much of an "unfiltered" view as possible. Bad moderators, over time, would get less and less subscriptions to their filtering of content, and would have to adapt, or be f…

I don't think it would work - Most people never touch which ublock filter they use, so moderators probably wouldn't care too much about maintaining a decent behavior - People would have no idea what mod to pick and just pick the first few top ones, resulting in even more centralization, these people would have insane monetization options - You also have the problem that if a top mod "retires", the combination of extr…

Not allowing moderators to hide behind a share mod account would be helpful so you can actually see what mod is handing out bans.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#49

Post by Sunspark »

jedberg wrote: post #8

I think the author doesn't understand that reddit mods don't work for reddit. In their discussion with the mods they mention "site-wide rules" which makes me think they don't understand that the mods of each reddit make their own rules. On that sub, their rules don't allow people who mostly post links to their own site. It's up to you if agree with their rule, but those are the rules they have chosen. The common resp…

Don't be so sure that some of the mods don't work for Reddit. Some of them are powermods modding multiple large subs in the millions of subscribers, and they seem to be able to get their way instantly with anything they want. Pretty lucky of Reddit to have people who can mod multiple huge subs for years for "free". Not only that, but Reddit wants to do a public IPO to raise more money. So let's see how that's going to go with the investors.. "we have vAlUe FoR tHe ShArEhOlDeR by not paying staff, but these are capricious little creatures who we have no idea who they are and they have control over user engagement and the user experience but don't worry about it". How well is that going to go? Not very well. At the very least, it'll be required to be published in the financial statements how much of the Reddit budget goes to PAY mods, and this will finally put an end the oft-repeated claim that all the mods are volunteers.

I hope the supreme court takes away section 230 from these people. They have abused their power so much by permanently banning people who simply have an opinion that is not the same as theirs, that they deserve to lose it.

Re: Reddit mods and scaling problems in social control

#50

Post by college_physics »

What is the alternative? Operating a discourse forum is high maintenance and low visibility. Facebook/Linkedin? Horrible platforms in practically all possible ways. The fediverse has some ideas about a Reddit alternative (Lemmy) but much less mature than mastodon at this point and ofcourse yet to be seen how moderation will fare if user numbers start rising.

Like so many aspects of the current tech landscape, its largely a case of TINA, there is no alternative, even though the deficiencies are glaring.

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