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Storming Reddit's Moat

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Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#61

Post by newacct583 »

abcdjdjd wrote: post #29
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Many popular subreddits are quietly operated by moderators with industry connections. Some of this occurs naturally. People who were deep enough into a niche to become moderators of a subreddit in the late 2000s and early 2010s are also likely to end up working in that industry or starting business in that industry. However, many companies have realized that being in the good graces of subreddit moderators can be ver…

>Moderators have a lot of power to influence conversations on Reddit in non-obvious ways. You had the above quote when I was commenting on your post, but may have edited it out. But I think this line right here is also why reddit is becoming unusable and going downhill fast. Basically, moderators are given way too much power and users have no recourse against mod abuse really. Users can't vote a moderator out for exa…

> Basically, moderators are given way too much power and users have no recourse against mod abuse really.

A statement made on HN, a site with significantly more extensive moderation than all but the most restrictive subreddits. I mean, obviously moderator abuse exists. In fact, reddit has whole subreddits devoted to pointing it out and discussing it!

Virtually everyone wants moderation. And, sure, we tolerate some level of abuse as part of that bargain; in the expectation that we always have a large choice of forums.

Note that there really isn't much discussion space in the intermedia area between "moderated like reddit" and "open like 4chan". And that's for a reason: any attempt to loosen the moderation valve leads rapidly to a descent into loud-and-viral-but-unsavory content. That's what just happened with Parler, for example.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#62

Post by markdown »

jedberg wrote: post #10
RankingMember wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucky for them, the reddit implementation is as-of-now still pretty awful.

Yeah but that's the sad part. People still use reddit's built in system because it's there, despite the inferiority.

On the contrary, the sad part is that people still use imgur. Going off-site to be bombarded with off-topic pics (all imgur pics are surrounded by random other (sometimes NSFW) pics isn't a great experience.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#64

Post by random5634 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #15

Many popular subreddits are quietly operated by moderators with industry connections. Some of this occurs naturally. People who were deep enough into a niche to become moderators of a subreddit in the late 2000s and early 2010s are also likely to end up working in that industry or starting business in that industry. However, many companies have realized that being in the good graces of subreddit moderators can be ver…

The Nikola subreddit is funny. Instant ban for the slightest questioning of any of Nikola Motors statements.

There are a bunch of other reddits where stuff just silently disappears.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#65

Post by dageshi »

antihero wrote: post #44
abcdjdjd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Moderators have a lot of power to influence conversations on Reddit in non-obvious ways. You had the above quote when I was commenting on your post, but may have edited it out. But I think this line right here is also why reddit is becoming unusable and going downhill fast. Basically, moderators are given way too much power and users have no recourse against mod abuse really. Users can't vote a moderator out for exa…

I disagree, for small subreddits, mods should have all the power they want to curate and garden and develop their community in the way they see fit. The great thing about Reddit is that if a mod is abusive and most users agree, there's absolutely nothing preventing you starting a new subreddit. Perhaps larger less niche subreddits should have a greater amount of accountability, though, because something like /r/canad…

Large subs like your r/canada example can and do split. r/unitedkingdom has basically been replaced by r/casualuk in size because a substantial part of its userbase was tired of its constant misery and moaning.

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#66

Post by detaro »

x86ARMsRace wrote: post #37
brodouevencode wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gave up on reddit a long time ago because of the moderation problems.

Me as well for the same reasons. I get curious about what's happening there sometimes, and at this point it's just a wasteland. It's difficult to find a thread that isn't politicized in some way, or does not have at least some toxic elements to it. I've been told sometimes that it's 'just the mainstream communities', however the most toxic encounters I have had were always in the more niche threads. It devolves into…

The answer to flame wars because of too much politicization is fairly certainly not "we need less moderator powers!".

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#67

Post by paxys »

tlianza wrote: post #7

> and “for sale” became Facebook Marketplace. Ummmm... 1. Does the data suggest that is true? 2. If it were true, would it support the "unbundling" narrative given that it would be a case of something being part of another bundle?

Craigslist's unchecked spam, moderation and safety problems have slowly made it unusable. And yes the data does show exactly this. FB Marketplace had 800 million users in 2018 (https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-marketplace-is-used-in-70...) while Craigslist's revenue has been falling year over year (https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/craigslist-revenue-fe...).

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#68

Post by abcdjdjd »

detaro wrote: post #58
abcdjdjd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Moderators have a lot of power to influence conversations on Reddit in non-obvious ways. You had the above quote when I was commenting on your post, but may have edited it out. But I think this line right here is also why reddit is becoming unusable and going downhill fast. Basically, moderators are given way too much power and users have no recourse against mod abuse really. Users can't vote a moderator out for exa…

Plenty of high-quality subreddits are high-quality because they do moderate and don't succumb to the lowest common denominator of more mainstream subs. You'd be killing the IMHO most valuable parts of reddit with that rule.

Sorry, but this argument is the same reason that dictatorships fails endlessly throughout history.

Sure, you can make an argument that maybe the leaders (in this case mods) will be benevolent and lead fairly and for the betterment of all efficiently. After all, dictatorships are more "efficient" at getting stuff done than democracy (note, not saying GOOD is done, just more efficient when you don't have to consider others concerns but your own).

However, reality is that is never seems to play out that way. Even if it plays out that way for a little while, someone always inevitably joins the higher ranks and abuses that power for their own interests and selfishness.

The same reason this fails in countries is the same reason it fails in online communities where the content is community created. Eventually, someone joins the moderator ranks (if they aren't already their) and starts pushing their own agenda when it comes to removing posts or locking posts.

I think reddit has crossed over into this stage of things on most subreddits at this point. It is clearly a cultural issue with the admins who seem to encourage this behavior, as well as no way for the user base to have any recourse against this abuse of mod power.

Thus, you get endless censorship now on most subreddits now, and no more open discussion on topics where USERS actually get to decide what they get to read or comment on. After all, what is the point of an upvote/downvote button if mods can just override it endlessly and often do?

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#69

Post by dageshi »

jedberg wrote: post #10
RankingMember wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lucky for them, the reddit implementation is as-of-now still pretty awful.

Yeah but that's the sad part. People still use reddit's built in system because it's there, despite the inferiority.

I dunno, what really do you need to do other than have your pictures uploaded and displayed on the post?

I kinda figure that's all 90% of the userbase actually wants from the feature?

Re: Storming Reddit's Moat

#70

Post by cblconfederate »

konschubert wrote: post #60
cblconfederate wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never understood why google gives juice to this kind of URLs. It makes URLs longer and is barely useful anymroe but google keeps demanding it.

Because these urls are effectively "locked" to the content and the website can't play a switcheroo on site visitors (and google), maybe?

actually the content often changes (usually news articles being updated with different content / title). Google's idea was that it's easier to tell what a URL is about by looking at it, but in the mobile era i don't think it matters anymore.
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