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Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

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Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#401

Post by bhaak »

LightHugger wrote: post #373
bhaak wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My favorite solution requires a bit of tech work but is very viable. Users can subscribe to a subreddit, but also to specific moderators. If you don't like how someone moderates, unsubscribe to their moderation, and their changes and actions get removed from your feed. Simple. And then you will find out that most users don't configure their apps. They will complain loudly though. Users also don't know how mods mode…

your suggestion isn't a problem, you can have defaults based on popularity and then the defaults get controlled by what most of the users who do configure their stuff choose. Don't make the mistake of thinking a mod is above people and needs to tell users what they are allowed to see. I included in my suggestion that you can see what gets moderated, obviously. Any website with non-public moderation logs tends towards…

> Don't make the mistake of thinking a mod is above people and needs to tell users what they are allowed to see.

They are not above people but they are the ones curating the content in the subreddit. If people don't like that, they can vote with their feet and leave. I've seen this play out several times. Communities leaving and building new subreddits, sometimes overtaking the previous one, sometimes not.

> I included in my suggestion that you can see what gets moderated, obviously. Any website with non-public moderation logs tends towards horrible abuse of moderation powers.

Why should that make a difference? Most mod stuff is boring mundane stuff. Finding the juicy stuff is not that easy. And even if you have unfair mods, you can't remove them even if you can prove that they are abusing their power.

Reddit mods with seniority have power over those with lesser seniority. Changing that to say democratic votes from all mods to oust another mod only leads to more politics and drama.

You can't prevent drama.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#402

Post by Zetice »

flutas wrote: post #399
Zetice wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing is textbook paranoia. People exist, real people, who hold opinions that differ from yours, including me.

Ah yes, "textbook paranoia". Not a pattern of hallucinated poetry posted to new accounts, that just so happen to also dislike the blackout[0-6], while also occasionally apologizing for not being able to generate inappropriate or offensive content[7]. [0]: https://i.imgur.com/Aw8JUga.png [1]: https://i.imgur.com/0seHYei.png [2]: https://i.imgur.com/Q8Pl2Ms.png [3]: https://i.imgur.com/IRAug6a.png [4]: https://i.imgur.…

[flagged]

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#403

Post by flutas »

Zetice wrote: post #402
flutas wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, "textbook paranoia". Not a pattern of hallucinated poetry posted to new accounts, that just so happen to also dislike the blackout[0-6], while also occasionally apologizing for not being able to generate inappropriate or offensive content[7]. [0]: https://i.imgur.com/Aw8JUga.png [1]: https://i.imgur.com/0seHYei.png [2]: https://i.imgur.com/Q8Pl2Ms.png [3]: https://i.imgur.com/IRAug6a.png [4]: https://i.imgur.…

[flagged]

So according to you it’s paranoia to assume it’s impacting anything?

I never claimed you were a bot or LLM or anything of the nature, I also never claimed it was everyone but that clearly SOMEONE is doing it and it’s blatantly obvious. Stop making strawmen to attack. I pointed out patterns that people were seeing and your response is “but it doesn’t impact anything.”

Maybe you should check your biases first before throwing stones. Evidence was presented of someone clearly astroturfing against the blackout but it’s just my bias of course. Not evidence.

Honestly I’m getting strong “my opinion is the only valid opinion” vibes from your reply simply because you dismiss actual evidence to go into a straw man that I was attacking you.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#404

Post by deeviant »

George83728 wrote: post #397
deeviant wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have read through this thread and I have not found a single coherent reason, hence my question. All of the arguments I see here on the other side are assumptions backed by nothing, i.e. "the majority users of subs didn't agree with the mods decision," which is patently false. Just go to the subs that locked down, look at their sticky thread explaining whats going on and why, and find a mountain of support. Even if…

I don't think you quite understand what the word coherent means. Just because somebody has a different perspective on what reality is, doesn't mean they're being incoherent. In this thread and related discussions on HN there have been many posts by people explaining that they don't believe blackouts have the user consensus in many subreddits which have been locked. It is claimed that many of those subreddits never ha…

One of us doesn't, that's for sure.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#405

Post by Zetice »

flutas wrote: post #403
Zetice wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

So according to you it’s paranoia to assume it’s impacting anything? I never claimed you were a bot or LLM or anything of the nature, I also never claimed it was everyone but that clearly SOMEONE is doing it and it’s blatantly obvious. Stop making strawmen to attack. I pointed out patterns that people were seeing and your response is “but it doesn’t impact anything.” Maybe you should check your biases first before th…

> So according to you it’s paranoia to assume it’s impacting anything?

Why are you only selectively recalling what I wrote, despite the fact that what I wrote is literally inches above this quote?

And my opinion is irrelevant here, what you're claiming is not meaningful. It's like the "voter fraud" debates. Could anyone credibly say there's literally zero voter fraud ever? No. But one can say with certainty that voter fraud does not change the outcome of elections in the US.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#406

Post by Eisenstein »

llm_nerd wrote: post #378
runamok wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the same defeatest advice people always give when you don't like the direction of your country/state/municipality/etc. you should leave/move/etc. I say absolutely not and if you have invested time and energy into something (I've had my reddit account a bit longer than my HN one) then you can and should fight for it. I don't have a vision disability and so am not very impacted by the killing of 3rd party acts b…

You argue the critical importance of Reddit -- equivocating it with legislative bodies (which I find fantastically ridiculous, as an aside) -- but then you also dismiss people annoyed by the blackout as missing out on only cat pictures. It's an extreme example of someone arguing both sides. Though of course what you probably intend to convey is that people who find the blackout annoying can be dismissed because they'…

> don't care about the API issue, despite being a professional dev. I find sharecropping on someone else's product a perilous path that eventually comes up snake-eyes. Like, the moment someone makes a third party app for Reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, or anything else, they are on an expiry meter. Have people not learned this yet?

You are missing the forest for the trees here. The issue is not that they are charging for API access. The issue is that assurances were given that the transition would be reasonable but pricing withheld until the last minute.

Negotiations then proceeded in bad faith, with reddit never intending to allow them to pay the price asked (no methods existed to even make this transaction possible with a 30 day deadline, and other app creators were ignored completely when approaching reddit sales).

When the dev made the situation public (with a 'go ahead' from reddit) then Huffman appears to have taken it personally, and instead of engaging with the community concerns about lack of options for mobile moderators, went on a tantrum. He then discounts any concerns over his handling of the situation and doubles down on libelous claims that were proven false.

This is on top of using reasoning that is not only dubious, but contradictory. If they really care about making a profit, why not offer something of value and charge for it, like the 3rd party apps do? You don't win customers by making something shitty and then removing all of their options and then not even have a plan in place to make money with the shitty alternative.

Huffman has been unable to monetize reddit and he isn't presenting any way to. All he is doing is acting unhinged and destructive -- with both community trust/relations and the corporation itself being used in ways that can not be turned around.

Usually corporations burn their trust as a short-sighted scheme to make a bunch of money quickly (reputable brand cuts so many costs the reputation is lost, etc) and this is tragic, but at least they got something out of it.

This guy seems like he is just burning things down because he is frustrated that they exist successfully on their own using the same resources he has, while he cannot.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#407

Post by bastard_op »

I remember this company called reddit, people for some reason flocked around it, then they pissed everyone off and became irrelevant.

Now if only Twitter would do the same in a prompt fashion. Musk tries hard, damn hard, but not has hard as Reddit to scuttle themselves.

If nothing else so fools here stop posting twit links to twit news. Twitter gets no scripting access here, it doesn't really work anymore otherwise, so for me already dead, just wish others would catch up.

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#408

Post by [deleted] »

bhaak wrote: post #375
colpabar wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just an anecdote, but I just went on my city's sub this morning to see how they were handling this. Apparently the (singular) mod did the initial blackout, then put up a poll on whether it should continue, the sub voted not to, and he is now holding another poll this weekend on the same topic and everyone seems to think it's because he didn't get the outcome he wanted the first time. I think all the people po…

If that really is how it went the mod made a stupid mistake. If I were a power tripping mod, I would either just inform the sub about the subreddit taking part in the blackout. From the up and downvotes you can then already gauge the sentiment of the subreddit towards this issue and if the downvotes go south, you can always delete the post and do it anyway. But then you can't go and ask the sub about continuing the b…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#409

Post by [deleted] »

lazystar wrote: post #391
jayd16 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would lurker opinions greatly differ from poster opinions?

When the mods said their blackout would be for 2 days, the silent majority rolled their eyes, but did not voice their opinions. Over the years we've all learned that folks who disagree with a mod's opinion will most likely get banned from the subreddit, so since the mods promised the subreddits would be back after 2 days, it wasn't worth arguing about. When the mods refused to bring the subreddits back after that tim…

[deleted]

Re: Reddit CEO Says Mods Too Powerful, Plans to Weaken After Blackout

#410

Post by runamok »

llm_nerd wrote: post #378
runamok wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the same defeatest advice people always give when you don't like the direction of your country/state/municipality/etc. you should leave/move/etc. I say absolutely not and if you have invested time and energy into something (I've had my reddit account a bit longer than my HN one) then you can and should fight for it. I don't have a vision disability and so am not very impacted by the killing of 3rd party acts b…

You argue the critical importance of Reddit -- equivocating it with legislative bodies (which I find fantastically ridiculous, as an aside) -- but then you also dismiss people annoyed by the blackout as missing out on only cat pictures. It's an extreme example of someone arguing both sides. Though of course what you probably intend to convey is that people who find the blackout annoying can be dismissed because they'…

It's a metaphor and doesn't need to be perfect. My point was merely "don't like it, then leave" is useless advice IMO. I didn't say reddit is critical exactly (though maybe it is for many who frequent https://www.reddit.com/r/Blind/), only that it has value to many. Strikes and demonstrations and such are ALWAYS inconvenient by design. That doesn't mean they are pointless. BART strikes and BLM protests impacted me a lot more than reddit blackouts but I still supported them.

Ultimately we are ALL sharecropping where the majority of the web is "owned/gatekeeped" by a handful of big companies like google, meta, microsoft, amazon, twitter (?), visa, mastercard, paypal, yelp, cloudflare, comcast, cox, etc. You may agree or disagree with my list but hopefully you get my point.

It remains to be seen if it worked or not depending on what the fallout is. Will users, moderators and most importantly advertisers leave? Will reddit IPO? Will they be able to hire? Will spez survive this as CEO?

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