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The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

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Re: The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

#51

Post by bovermyer »

I mod three niche communities on Reddit. Two are for sites I own and run, and the third is for TTRPG generators. I made the first two private with no intention of making them public again. The third I'm not comfortable making unilateral decisions on, so I'm just un-modding myself for it.

Now I'm considering starting up old-school forums to replace the first two subreddits. It would be a lot of work to manage them over time and I'm not sure that's the best use of my time. However... they would be communities fully under my control.

Decisions, decisions.

Re: The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

#52

Post by vile_wretch »

bhouston wrote: post #19

Countdown to when Reddit leadership does some drastic moves like (1) forcibly making some of the most popular private subs public again, (2) removing the mods who want to keep things private. This would effective take these communities under company control. This will create even more uproar as well though, but I think it is inevitable. Given the mess they have put themselves in, and their unwillingness to budge on t…

While I don't have a ton of faith in Reddit power-mods, my HOPE is that there would be enough solidarity amongst the mods to make finding replacements difficult and I can't imagine investors would be happy to see leadership excising a potentially significant percentage of their current volunteer labour force.

Re: The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

#53

Post by jwestbury »

brucethemoose2 wrote: post #27

There is 3rd option: mass adoption of teddit instances: teddit.net It uses the free "unofficial" API like Nitter or Invidious. So users can use Reddit without it being awful, and deprive Reddit of their over zealous ad revenue without actually leaving Reddit.

I think this depends on how reddit handles anonymous access. Even if someone took the approach of sharding calls but combining the results into a single interface, I suspect it would quickly catch reddit's attention and cause further changes.

Re: The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

#54

Post by iamdbtoo »

avgDev wrote: post #28

I'm done with reddit. My account is 12 years old with nearly 70k karma. I moderate a niche subreddit and have helped build a wealth of knowledge. I will most likely deploy and pay for hosting a forum for the users and then nuke the subreddit. This particular subreddit cannot just be replicated by anyone. Moderators are physicians, chemists and devs. We all worked for "free" for the greater good but I'm not going to c…

> I will most likely deploy and pay for hosting a forum for the users and then nuke the subreddit.

This is a direction I would like to see things going. It could just be that I mostly frequent tech-oriented communities, but with "self-hosting" as a hobby growing the way it has and servers being much cheaper than they used to be, I think (hope?) a lot of communities will retreat from these places to ones where they have more control.

Re: The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

#55

Post by pineconewarrior »

avgDev wrote: post #28

I'm done with reddit. My account is 12 years old with nearly 70k karma. I moderate a niche subreddit and have helped build a wealth of knowledge. I will most likely deploy and pay for hosting a forum for the users and then nuke the subreddit. This particular subreddit cannot just be replicated by anyone. Moderators are physicians, chemists and devs. We all worked for "free" for the greater good but I'm not going to c…

Likewise. I made all of my comment history into gibberish as well!

Re: The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

#56

Post by kitd »

I hope it isn't the end. Yes there's some garbage on there, but there's also a lot of good content in many thousands of subs. And a sub for virtually any human interest or foible you can think of. The barrier to entry is very low and the international reach very high.

Re: The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

#58

Post by quadsteel »

code51 wrote: post #39
brucethemoose2 wrote: post #3

> What happens next. Its going to slightly accelerate the migration of some communities to Discord... Which is awful, with how siloed and noisy Discord is. I hope I am wrong, and that a good alternative gains traction.

Where would they advertise their Discord servers though? You still need to use the Reddit platform to carry over large user bases - which means at one point mods should briefly end blackout. But how to coordinate that without giving in?

There's a message greeting you when you visit a subreddit that's gone dark[1]. They could have an invite there, if that's their plan.

1. https://old.reddit.com/r/Music

Re: The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

#59

Post by taylodl »

bhouston wrote: post #45
wmeredith wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discord will not replace Reddit. It's a chat client. I don't understand why people keep saying it's a replacement. It's not. I have tried!

It doesn't replace reddit, but Discord is serving community building needs. A lot of large successful projects do support via Discords. I know it is incredibly inefficient with the same questions being asked and answered constantly, but it appears to be what we do now. But even with that downside, it creates more intimacy/connection instead between members. So it likely leads to more engagement, even if it is ineffic…

But does that scale? It's one thing building an online community serving 100-5,000 users. It's quite a different thing to build an online community serving 100,000-10,000,000 users.

Re: The end of Reddit? Why the blackout is still going – and what happens next

#60

Post by pseudo0 »

bhouston wrote: post #19

Countdown to when Reddit leadership does some drastic moves like (1) forcibly making some of the most popular private subs public again, (2) removing the mods who want to keep things private. This would effective take these communities under company control. This will create even more uproar as well though, but I think it is inevitable. Given the mess they have put themselves in, and their unwillingness to budge on t…

They are allegedly already starting. For example, r/AdviceAnimals is now back and they have deleted the blackout post. Plus the old lead moderator is gone. My understanding is that removing a lead moderator requires reddit admin action.
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