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> A significant number of subreddits shifting to private caused some expected stability issues, and we’ve been working on resolving the anticipated issue,” Calling bullshit on that one. If they had expected stability issues, and knew exactly which subreddits will go private and when, how is it possible they had so much "anticipated issues"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That makes sense to me. It would be one variant of a larger theory of "a subreddit going private is an expensive process that is poorly optimized because it's normally so rare". Another variant would be that clicking the "go private" button might do something like start a huge cascade of queries/calls to mutate the status of individual posts and comments (and possibly hence also trigger the massive cache invalidation…
Would a better protest be rapidly switching subreddits from public/private?
I have not read a reddit devblog or anything like that. My guess is they are doing some kind of caching of posts via elasticsearch/redis or something similar. It must depend on the privacy settings of a sub. So when 1000 subs go private, they potentially had to update hundreds of millions of comments. Anyone else have a theory?
When you close down all the most popular content, you have to dig deep into the long tail for fresh content.
Also, my guess is that the code for building homepages is not optimized for having a lot of skips due to private Reddits, since most people have probably never been subscribed to a private reddit, or if they have it wasn't for very long, or even if for very long, never more than one or two at at time.
My unpopular theory is that the Reddit blackout increased Reddit usage, having the opposite of the intended effect.
The adage "there's no such thing as bad press" could definitely apply, given how broadly covered this is (I mean, hell, I saw it show up on NPR).
How long before they admins swoop in and change ownership of the blacked out subreddits?
You get an immense amount of power with very little accountability except to the community. Put that in the wrong hands and you can destroy a community incredibly quickly.
Or, put power in the hands of a dilettante, and you get overrun with spam and insults very fast.
I have not read a reddit devblog or anything like that. My guess is they are doing some kind of caching of posts via elasticsearch/redis or something similar. It must depend on the privacy settings of a sub. So when 1000 subs go private, they potentially had to update hundreds of millions of comments. Anyone else have a theory?
Cache invalidation makes sense. Could also be some kind of fanout query that assumes the top subreddits are open and wastes CPU cycles.
Another possible explanation is that operations on private subreddits are not as optimized as it is expected that they have a small number of subscribers and take up a small amount of total resources. These assumptions would be flipped.
How long before they admins swoop in and change ownership of the blacked out subreddits?
The main reason why reddit works as a platform is because its mods and subreddit regulars do a lot of unpaid work. Where is reddit going to find enough people to work for free on such short notice?
How long before they admins swoop in and change ownership of the blacked out subreddits?
The only thing that I'll be able to guarantee is that you'll really not like me as a mod.