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Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

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Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#571

Post by BaseballPhysics »

Barrin92 wrote: post #561
anigbrowl wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't take an aeronautics course when you buy a plane ticket, because 99% of people don't want to do that. I've been a nerd for ~40 years, I used to live on Usenet, I understand federation inside out, and I don't want to learn another protocol just to try a new website. Blindly clicking through a ToS while chuckling that 'nobody reads that shit lol' is in fact a better user experience for almost everyone. If your…

>there would be physical cities whose population consisted entirely of architects and engineers. the analog to a digital federation in the physical world, is literally just that, an actual federation. People making choices about what community they participate in isn't technical, it's social. Everyone who lives in a democratic society does in fact participate in how their city is run and governed or understands how t…

> You do not need to understand the technical details of federated systems, but it is absolutely infantilizing to pretend that people are unable to choose or build the communities they want, and take some responsibility in maintaining them.

Not only is it infantilizing, it's wrong.

People create communities online all the time. Whether it's Facebook groups or subreddits or Discourse forums or Discord groups and on and on and on. That's literally how the internet has always worked.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#572

Post by ansible »

LordKeren wrote: post #325
cmiles74 wrote: post #15

IMHO, Reddit's charging such a high price for API access that it's as good as unattainable is more of a last straw then anything else. Reddit has been clear that they view the data as their sole property, when you think it through, why be a moderator for a for-profit company if you aren't being paid? I don't know why it took this long for moderators to quit.

I’ll add my personal experience as a long-term lead mod of a subreddit for a specific video game. Broadly, I view subreddits are two camps: 1. Popcorn subreddits — r/pics, r/funny , r/twitterScreenshots 2. hobby & employment related During my time modding, I viewed the subreddit I ran as being very thoroughly in the second group. All the users shared an interest in a particular game. Myself and all the other mods wer…

Thank you for sharing your experience.

I was a mod for a while with /r/AskEngineers. It was never really that big of a subreddit, slowing crossing over 50K subscribers during my time there. And while small, we got to deal with all the usual issues any subreddit sees. In our case, it was conspiracy theorists "just asking questions" about the WTC tower collapse, school students asking people to do their school assignments for them, and stuff like that.

In my time moderating /r/aiclass, I also got the experience of interacting with someone with a genuine mental illness. :-/

I didn't become a mod to win Internet points or for some kind of social status. I was just there to facilitate good conversation between engineers, so that we can help each other. I didn't mind the labor involved, and I just wanted to promote engineering as a discipline.

There was just one active mod when I joined, and he started building up a good (if small) team. That continued through the years as people came and left, and we had a good crew when I resigned. I won't do it again anytime soon (maybe after I retire, who knows), but it was definitely worthwhile, and I hope I was able to make a difference for people.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#573

Post by rufus_foreman »

camel-cdr wrote: post #509
rufus_foreman wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a way to get RSS feeds the way you can with Reddit?

Yes, just click on the little RSS icon next to communities, it's just right off the sorting selection icon next to the (?).

Got it, thanks!

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#574

Post by b5n »

Solvency wrote: post #214
soundsgoodtome wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let us know if/when you figure out how to find communities. Discoverability seems to be a real problem with Lemmy.

I literally can't even sign up for Lemmy.world. The button after entering a new username/pw just spins indefinitely, forever.

It's a bit confusing because it doesn't notify you that a verification email has been sent when you sign up. If you've already checked your email maybe try the spam folder.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#575

Post by entropie »

The last 3 days I starred way to many times at the "this subreddit is private" page on reddit.

Not because I actively were using reddit but because all my search queries (not all of them with "reddit") went to one or another reddit post with the information not available anymore.

Even if reddit decides to comply, we have to change this for a better internet in the future.

Go lemmy guys.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#576

Post by yanderekko »

x86x87 wrote: post #417
yanderekko wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not going to be a populist revolt against Reddit stopping angry mods from destroying their communities and/or actively siphoning them to other sites. The people who are already angry may get angrier, but they're already leaving so who cares? Once you've chosen Exit as your protest strategy, you lose Voice.

I don't think that's true. The numbers of lost mods/members will matter. Also, this isn't about having a voice.

My point is that the marginal impact will be negligible. The people who would get angry over forced reopenings are the people that are already angry over the API changes. Why would Reddit care about upsetting the people that are already allegedly leaving the site?

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#577

Post by yadingus »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #169
chongli wrote: post #37

I was really skeptical of lemmy [1] when I first heard about it during the blackout. I joined yesterday and it completely changed my mind. Yes, it is going to face some growing pains (see the total user growth in the past few days) [2] in the coming weeks and months but it really has the potential to replace Reddit with a federated system of communities. One that won't be damaged by investors or executives attempting…

Lemmy has the same discoverability and usability problems as Mastodon. Especially for non-technical users, there's too much friction required to find their communities and aggregate them into a single usable feed with a nice client. And that's assuming they can even conceptualize what the fediverse is. I'm a technical user, and I closed join-lemmy.org after ten seconds because it was too many clicks to get to an inte…

> Especially for non-technical users,

Is this actually an issue?

If you're looking for a straight up reddit alternative in all its scope, I can see it being an issue, but if we simply want a better iteration, then isn't one more catered to technical users, perhaps be a good thing?

To me this feels similar to windows vs linux. The pains you describe in learning to use lemmy reminds me of windows users who complain about linux not being exactly like windows, UI wise.

But for users like me, after having un-learned windows and customized my linux experience, the result is just downright better from any angle. Yes, it was a time investment learning the ropes, but it was worth it.

Perhaps the modern approach is to stop trying to be like the most populist standard, and embrace platforms that are midway between the social giants and obscure niches.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#579

Post by silverbax88 »

chongli wrote: post #37

I was really skeptical of lemmy [1] when I first heard about it during the blackout. I joined yesterday and it completely changed my mind. Yes, it is going to face some growing pains (see the total user growth in the past few days) [2] in the coming weeks and months but it really has the potential to replace Reddit with a federated system of communities. One that won't be damaged by investors or executives attempting…

Thanks for this. I can see Lemmy as a definite alternative now. I joined a couple of Lemmy servers and I definitely like it so far, and I'm looking to move away from Reddit anyway.

Re: Reddit’s blackout protest is set to continue indefinitely

#580

Post by rakoo »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #445
Animats wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The front page of lemmy: Lemmy - A link aggregator for the fediverse. Join a Server - Run a Server - Follow communities anywhere in the world Lemmy is a selfhosted social link aggregation and discussion platform. No, no. You lead with the benefits to the user. This isn't Github. It suffers from the same problem as Mastodon - "Join a server". But which one? These federated things need to be set up so that there's "no…

> No, no. You lead with the benefits to the user. This isn't Github Seriously. Have a default server (or set of defaults) newbies dump into after completing a simple sign-up flow. Then let them move it as they benefit from the product and gain an incentive to learn about it. Reddit is up in arms about API pricing and mods. Do you think the average Reddit user would have signed up if they had to first jump through hoo…

> benefit from the product and gain an incentive

> An infintessimal fraction of users care about philosophy or architecture [...] Users came for their cat pics. Give them their cat pics. Pitch them on the back end afterwards.

I'm afraid you don't understand the concept of the fediverse. The philosophy is the point. Making reddit2 is completely useless. This is not a product, it's a vision of how we manage communications as a society. It implies involvement, because in a democracy you are part of the decision process, and you act as a community. Your egocentric, utilitarian, self-obsessed mindset is the complete opposite.

I can't be really surprised to see this on hn, but oh well.

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