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Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

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Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#491
post #76

We (the internet community) made such a terrible mistake with social media. We formed connections and communities and friendships on sites like Facebook and Twitter and Reddit, but those companies need to make money, so those connections are only allowed to exist as long as they are part of a profitable system. How awful it is to reduce human connection to that. To think that I am only allowed to maintain certain soc…

Unfortunately sites the size of reddit can't exist without money. People gravitate to sites like github etc because they provide features, which cost money,that people want.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of folks here will commiserate with reddit's position - Microsoft and Google and ChatGPT are making billions from programs that were built using data gleamed from reddit's API's, and they didnt have to provide reddit with a single penny in return. Reddit has to do something to prevent the gold rush of data mining that is bound to occur from other companies building their own copycat LLM's.

Reddit wants to make money off user-generated content. To my mind this is like a paper manufacturer claiming it has a copyright interest in any printed matter than ends up attached to its product.

that analogy only works if reddit were charging you for each comment you post on their site. A more accurate analogy would be times square selling advertisement billboards because lots of folks congregate in times square.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#494

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most subreddits doing polls have people voting to remain open, so it really isn't in the interests of the communities to keep the subs closed. The ones who don't like the changes are leaving anyway.

I'm sorry but if everyone who wants them closed is avoiding reddit the polls will skew in favour of those that want them open.

Obviously. But most of them have migrated to Lemmy, so they are irrelevant.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Many of the proposed changes directly impact moderators and aren't something that average users will experience immediately/directly, so of course they care more than the average, non-mod user.

ah, so the mods plan in a nutshell, is to cut off the nose to spite the face?

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#496
post #383
post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been on the struggle bus quitting reddit for 5+ years. Even with this new level of energy to quit, I'm still on it for ~20 min per day.

Have you tried replacing it with something else? I dramatically reduced my social media time a couple years ago by getting some casual games on my phone. Current favorites are NYT crosswords and solitaire. Some innocuous mental stimulation to pass time that doesn’t come with the toxicity that social media can.

Unfortunately now I spend a lot of time on Fb and fb reels.

I catch myself thinking wayyy to much about whatever news article Fb shows me.

I also listen to fiction audiobooks, but none of the healthy things are also low brain energy like Reddit is.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#497
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For reddit specifically, I have to disagree. It's a sad state the Internet has become, where you used to get coherent results from decentralized blogs when you google a sufficiently niche hobbyist topic. These days you just get content marketing spam. Append reddit to your search and you get subject-matter experts. The valuable conversation and folk knowledge is all siloed on social media.

Reddit successfully centralised forums and made it convenient because you didn't need 20+ logins. The other half is link sharing/doom scrolling (the addictive stuff), which replaced Digg, Stumbleupon, etc. In the not-so-distant past if you wanted expert help and non-astroturfed suggestions (or even just memes), that's where you went. Those places still exist for a lot of fields and the experts still hang out (and oft…

Therein lies the problem... We spent so many years crowdsourcing these curated knowledge bases on a variety of subjects for free to the point that it's empowered the controlling companies to firewall them now and then make our input a commodity that they can turn around and sell to us.

Walled garden sites and apps are the enemy. The only way social media works for certain people is if they are off the main exploited niches on platforms. They take our words and ideas and give nothing back in return. They lie to us about what they can do for us in terms of creating a brand, or company, and they exploit our input and hinder growth.

We have to remember that each of us has a different perspective and purpose for using the web and for using social media.... It's not just people pushing motivational content and drop shipping, it's promoting music, or promoting a restaurant, or even turning their pet into a personality for movie roles. This is why too many people have just the narrow view of the matter that suits them most of the time... We need to understand that one mega platform with only one script and template for success dimply doesn't work, and it actually opens the field for exploitation and gaslighting about how to succeed on social media... That's also exactly what makes social media toxic, along with scams, fake users, cheating for followers, and the manipulation of visibility to encourage users to pay to promote their posts.

It's long overdue for everyone to wake up and take back their individual power in creating personal web sites and not looking back at social media. The ideal that large for profit companies care about individuals is bogus, and by the time people realized they've spent years building communities of profit for others, it's far too late. Time is money. Work is money. Social media does not pay for what you invest into it.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of people willing to be moderators, out of their 1 billion monthly active users. The current mods were also once regular users.

If Reddit wants to return to "business as usual" the moderators of the considerable numbers of blacked-out subreddits need to be replaced with a fresh crop of moderators as good or better than the current crop, but who also swear fealty to the administration and are willing to overlook the dire state of the moderation suite. I don't know about you, but I think the odds of that happening without significant bumps in t…

> as good or better than the current crop

The mods merely have to meet a minimum threshold of quality, they don't have to be as good or better than the current ones. The original mods were also regular users, with all of the averageness that comes with that.

Re: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators from Subreddits Continuing Blackouts

#500
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At scale that’s relatively expensive though, $2.5x1billion is still 2.5 billion dollars. That money needs to come from somewhere…

Pedantically, that's not how cost per user works. Whether you have a billion users or 3, $2.50 / user is $2.50 per user. And that infrastructure costs the same whether you riddle the platform with advertising and influence, or leave it pristine. In fact, leaving it pristine costs far far less to society, all things considered. Anyway, 'at scale', $2.5 bn is a drop in the ocean. There are thousands of people who could…

I'm not sure there are a thousand people on the planet who would be willing to pay $2.5B a year!
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