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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

#51

Post by paulddraper »

redmerchant2 wrote: post #40
ThomW wrote: post #18

... until they just take over the moderation of their largest communities and this whole thing ends. I mean what's so magical about the moderation of something like r/videos other than the mods being free labor for Reddit?

The big subs have figured out an extensive set up of bots and moderation guidelines, while investing their own time, all for free. Reddit’s mod tooling is extremely abysmal, that’s part of the protest. (Only 3P devs have bothered building more advanced tools.) A new mod will not have the expertise or careful set up from the previous mods. Most of the mods are debatably not power hungry, particularly on a sub like Mus…

> Most of the mods are debatably not power hungry

Everything made sense except this part.

Power goes to everyone's head.

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

#52

Post by RivieraKid »

To make this work, the protest needs one additional ingredient: create a Reddit clone and move the subreddits there while the blackout lasts. This will increase the pressure 10x. By a Reddit clone I mean something pixel-perfect (except the branding) because users hate changes.

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

#54

Post by distrill »

themagician wrote: post #32

Great opportunity for people to create derivative subreddits without oppressive mods.

i feel like mod oppression isn't much an issue outside of the free speech absolutism rhetoric that plagues places like twitter. and tbh most of the people screeching about this aren't spending much time on reddit to begin with.

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

#55

Post by redmerchant2 »

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.

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

#57

Post by linuxftw »

erellsworth wrote: post #43
ThomW wrote: post #18

... until they just take over the moderation of their largest communities and this whole thing ends. I mean what's so magical about the moderation of something like r/videos other than the mods being free labor for Reddit?

I think you underestimate the value of that free labor. Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrut…

I think you underestimate the ability of AI to literally solve this problem for almost nothing. The large subs can absolutely be automated moderation, if they're not already. Enough flags on a post? Just take it down, there will be 15 million new posts in an hour.

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

#59

Post by thewataccount »

erellsworth wrote: post #43
ThomW wrote: post #18

... until they just take over the moderation of their largest communities and this whole thing ends. I mean what's so magical about the moderation of something like r/videos other than the mods being free labor for Reddit?

I think you underestimate the value of that free labor. Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers. Beyond that, the minute the mods are official employees of Reddit, Reddit is fully responsible for all the content on all those subs. Social media companies are already under a lot of scrut…

I support the blackouts but

> Reddit isn't even profitable. Hiring mods for thousands of subreddits would cost them a ton of money, not only in wages but in the cost of finding and training those workers.

They don't need to. Aww (36m), music(32m), videos(26m), futurology(18m), me_irl, and abrupt chaos are some of the biggest ones, if they seize just those 6 then they've reclaimed most of the r/popular anyway.

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