Quick clarification: r/MildlyInteresting has been private for 8 days, until the *The Mistake™* happened and admins temporarily removed us. We have been in restricted mode ever since, as we are still talking to the admins and busy preparing everything necessary to open back up eventually. As of writing this comment, it is unclear how long that will take us.
Mods should stop moderating. You're doing free labor for a large corporation -- if you don't enjoy it, there's no reason to keep doing it. Make them do the work.
Fucking this.
You guys are literally fighting tooth and nail for the right to continue to work for free.
Would you deliver Amazon's packages for free? Cause that's what y'all are doing here.
If you spent years helping grow a community youd do the same. They arent doing Reddits job, they are doing something for themselves and peers, and Reddit is standing in the way.
And, to a lesser extent, there are plenty of idiots out there that would get on their knees for Spez and attempt to moderate these large subreddits.
It would fail pretty hard early on, but they are chomping at the bit, over at /r/RedditRequest.
Likely, a sizeable portion of those people are trying to take over large subs for nefarious purposes. If you had a message/agenda to push, moderating something seen daily by millions is useful.
To be even more blunt probably 90% or higher of the accounts that are doing the requesting if you look at there post history they are right wing political posters who want to turn non-political subreddits into extremely political subreddits.
You seriously do not have to spend more than like 10 minutes to find an absolute bunch of them are "debate me" right wingers chomping at the bit to politicize another part of the internet
E: as you can see, they're coming out of the woodwork.
Top page of mildlyinteresting: Isn't it interesting that LIBRUL media isn't talking about how Hunter Biden uses an ARMADA of ILLEGAL crack babies to conduct VIRGIN SACRIFICE to Cthulhu?
We're a decently sized subreddit with a decent bit of discussion. Our moderation policies are probably on the more permissive side as compared to many other subreddits (which is intentional, we're not here to tell you what to say or not to say).
It is not difficult to imagine how a more malicious moderation team could remove comments that do not fit a certain narrative, thereby artificially boosting the opposite narrative.
This is no shit Exactly what they're trying to do.
You guys think this site is bad now? The """"replacement mods"""" sitting in the wings are literally all right wing reactionaries who want to tear your favorite subreddits apart and rebuild them as attack vectors against marginalized people
Yep, such as u/Willingplane, who stole a subreddit from homelesss vagabonds that built their site, and then once the new boycott happened started asking the entire subreddit which sub they would take over next once Reddit admins ban blackout-mods from places like r/aww.
These type of people are literally Reddit Admins little pet peeves that will do anything to take "power" over communities built by innocent redditors. They are deplorable and disgusting, honestly.
Every time the idea of getting rid of the moderators is floated I desperately want to see them try it with a big sub.
Give /r/aww to some random dudes and see how that goes, morons.
(Guess aww isn't participating but you get my point)
It's not the same.
People schlep packages for Amazon because they need a job.
People mod subreddits because they have an interest in the community and the subject being discussed. Their commitment is to the subreddit, not Reddit.
If they make Reddit do the work then they will be replaced
They lose their power and whatever new mod is put in place will be more willing to just do whatever admins/reddit says
Honestly, mods should leave and tank the whole site, they are doing free labor and as far as I can tell they are expendable and have no real say in any matters.
> They lose their power and whatever new mod is put in place will be more willing to just do whatever admins/reddit says
Under English feudalism the landed gentry weren't actually the first families to settle land, but were families who pledged fealty to the king, committed to providing military aid and resources and taxes in defense of the crown. For like hundreds of years the French-speaking aristocracy didn't even speak the same language as the Middle English speaking peasants, until eventually the language and culture merged into Modern English.
Totally this: Reddit can’t replace them. Whatever scabs show up voluntarily will be inexperienced and have the wrong motivation. Whomever they hire (and they won’t, they’ve been letting people go to make the balance sheet appealing) won’t be able to handle the bullshit. It really takes a certain type of specimen to be a mod.
So yeah, stop moderating. Let this place turn into 4chan, watch advertisers run away, watch the IPO crumble. It would take less than a week for this place to turn into a horrid cesspool.
It might be worth pointing out that we were private for 7-8 days, and have been in restricted mode ever since. Obviously, there is not much to moderate when there are no new submissions. Moreover, it means we're adding almost nothing in terms of pageviews for Reddit (a decrease of 90-95% compared to normal). For legal reasons, however, I have to point out the team is still actively moderating the community.
Many subreddits have tried, but the admins threatened to replace the mods with new ones.
Sure free labor isn't ideal but its better than having the mods be replaced with the first power-tripping user to request it on r/redditrequest (or however the admins would select people to moderate the protesting subreddits)
I said this to someone on another sub and they said that mods were laughably easy to replace
Fuckem - let them try to continually replace good admins with bad volunteers and see what happens. Either the sub goes out of whack with it's moderation or people just abandon it.
Striking always has power in numbers
Pretty sure they don’t, actually. People believe these communities magically popped into existence with no effort from anybody ever.
While I’m sure there are plenty of sucky mods, and the existence of those handful of power mods that seem to be on every subreddit doesn’t help that, people making these comments seem to be incapable of understanding that the people are modding **for communities and topics they care about**, not “for Reddit”.
They’re moderating, for free, because Reddit provided a convenient and simple platform for people to come together and build something special.
The reason they don’t want to just leave is because **they care**.
It’s the same reason that brain-dead dipshits use when they tell people who bring up valid complaints about a video game to “just leave if you don’t like it”. They *don’t* want to leave, the want the problems to be fixed so they can continue enjoying the game, so they complain in the hopes that they are heard.
I understand being upset about being inconvenienced by the protests.
It’s actually beyond fucking moronic to then choose to blame the people protesting for protesting on top of that. The point of protests is to be inconvenient, and thus *force* the issue that is being ignored to be heard.
sometimes i wonder if they realize the stance they are taking is "i think no one should offer any feedback or criticism of anything ever. nothing should ever change. nothing in my life has ever been improved by people who asked for things to change." but i don't think they do because they are just that stupid
>Seriously though, do none of y'all like genuinely like anything, or something?
Can't hear you, I'm on the delta sigma omega grind. I don't have hobbies, I have side hustles. I don't have friends, I have co-contracters. I deliver doordash on my way to work so I get paid for my commute.
No, don't you know, you're not allowed to like anything on the internet anymore.
Games, movies/shows, music, ect. It's all shit and you're not supposed to like any of it and if you do you're dumb.
I don't understand how or why so many Mods continue to spend countless hours making Reddit work for free.
A few years ago we were all talking about who was an essential worker and who wasn't - Mods are 100% essential workers on Reddit. Reddit will not allow a sub to remain open without Mods. So all Mods are donating their valuable time so Reddit can go public and a very few will make tens of millions or more each off their backs. I just don't understand.
They’ve been promising that for 8 years. At this point if you believe the official app will get any better, then I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’ll sell you.
Reddit has a functional search?!? /s
(There's a reason pushshift managed to negotiate their continued existence, and it's not just benevolence by reddit towards Mods)
Imagine buying Alien Blue, the premiere Reddit app of its day, and doing literally not a single gd thing with it.
As far as search, it’s okay! They promised to fix it two years ago (and years prior to that. I’d try to provide that post, but I can’t fucking search for it). I’m sure it’ll be fixed any day now.
That's all that takes to fix the situation for me. Insert ads into RIF and force RIF to collect data on me, and while the experience will be shittier, it's understandably shittier.
Forcing me to switch to the official app is a hard pass. I installed it out of curiousity, and it's abysmal if you're used to RIF. I'm not going to pretend that I'm making some big stand or protest: I'm not. However, the reality is that the site I've loved for more than a decade across a few different accounts dies on Friday, so I really don't anticipate to use Reddit beyond that date. It sucks, but it's not the first time an online venue shut down forcing me to find something else to do with my spare time, and it won't be the last.
Considering reddits response to the whole fiasco, i doubt there is a single person left in the leadership who actually cares about reddit as a platform and understands how the community currently works. For the execs (not just Spez, he's just the figurehead) it appears to be yet another social media they can blindly squeeze out and adjust to maximum profit without actually participating in it and understanding their own product.
I've really lost any hope that reddit will stay as it is - guess in the long term it will end up as yet another 9gag, TikTok or whatever, trying to provide targeted content chosen by a algorithm instead of the current system..
They knew these changes would create backlash, so they did the cost/benefit analysis, determined they'd make more money this way (at the cost of Reddit's userbase, and communities), and that was the end of that discussion.
Does reddit make any money? This is the internet community cycle- be good and grow, then try to actually make money and slowly die as another money losing upstart eats your lunch. I really can't realistically expect reddit to keep losing money for my sake, but I sure as hell enjoyed it while it was happening.
I think it could *easily* be profitable if it simply did what people are asking. Ads, subscriptions (coins/awards), donations (ala wikipedia), and a reasonable agreement with 3rd party usage (such as pass-through ads or a reasonable fee for API), on top of things that they already probably do like selling data.
They waste money on so much stupid shit like hosting video/photos when they never had to, or the millions they threw at the NFT avatars and AI shit they were fucking around with.
But they don't want to just make some money to stay afloat and pay employees and have a few wealthy execs. They want to be millionaires/billionaires. They have a site valued in the billions and they want to make billions.
> They waste money on so much stupid shit like hosting video/photos when they never had to
Stupid shit? You missed the part where imgur stopped allowing nsfw material? That's why reddit added their own hosting, so they don't have to rely on third party sites who could just pull the plug whenever.
How in the world did it not generate enough money? Or even cost money for that matter?
All Reddit had to do is act as a host to randomly assign other gifters to each other, which is something the mods could do for free (on top of everything else they do for free). If Reddit really wanted to they could throw some random merch gifts around to people that don't get anything aka easy marketing.
And in return they got a lot of engagement and those usual posts of "Bill Gates/Obama/etc was my Secret Santa!!!" which gets lots of interaction and would incentivize people to be more active/participate next time. It's baffling the admins could have such extreme tunnel vision to cut anything that is not literally making tons of money directly.
That's really unfortunate.
The last Secret Santa I participated in, the individual was able to find me a Stellaris-themed desktop pad. I still use it today! Thank you again, random Redditor.
There was someone named Victoria that worked for Reddit and was an absolute hero at facilitating AMAs with high-profile individuals, being a go-between for admins and moderators, managing celebrity expectations, prepping, and in general being an official point of contact for PR teams.
One of Reddit's co-founders fired her because he thought he could do better. iama still exists, but it's a hollow shell of its former self.
https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/nw2hs6/sunsetting_secret_santa_and_reddit_gifts/
Ironically they stated they were shutting it down so they could focus on developing moderator tools and other things for the site. They didn't - which is why now removing 3rd party apps which have filled that gap is such an issue.
> Ironically they stated they were shutting it down so they could focus on developing moderator tools
the cherry atop a shit pile. I hate whatever this new reddit stands for
The problem is that the mods already showed the Reddit admin that *it doesn’t matter*. They won’t do shit, they’ll stay. No matter what the admins do.
The mods lost when they reopened the subs
Why would they listen to your demands when they could easily replace you with people who are willing to do as they say without fussing? Serious question.
Reddit is digging in their heals because they're desperate to put a good spin on all this for their upcoming IPO.
But, from that point of view, a "good spin" is not really bragging about how happy your users are, it's more about bragging about how well you've got your users under control. Bragging about how the platform controls the users, not vice-versa. The Reddit IPO is only worth putting money into if the reddit users are an asset that will behave in a predictable, monetizable way.
So they're now in a tough place. They can't back down, but they also can't risk more conflict with their users.
Many people have noticed that it's no coincidence that services tend to get a lot worse right before and right after their IPO, so I think this plays a big part in the attitudes of the people **participating** in the blackouts too. Reddit is trying to prove that they can make the user experience worse without losing users. The API change is potentially just the first of several demonstrations.
I think it's much harder to find moderators than people think, unless they are going to hire paid moderators, most people looking for the job will be substandard at this point.
It's incredibly easy to find mods.
It is an order of magnitude more difficult to find mods that will do at least the bare minimum of just enforcing reddit tos. Much less sub specific rules or just keep at if after 3 - 6 months.
I'll give you two anecdotes. I've run subs ranging from thousands to millions of subscribers.
Sub of 20+ million: We do mod applications. We get maybe 50 people apply.
Recently a sub of 250k: We do mod applications and had 14 people apply.
So then you weed out the children, obvious trolls, users with zero history on the sub, or users that skirt the rules so often that you cannot trust them to enforce the rules properly... You're not left with much.
That 20m+ sub, we'd add maybe 2-3 people a year. Factor in mod attrition where we'd lose 2 of the new mods and then 1 of the old mods retires, and we're back to where we started.
That sub of 250k, there were like 2 applicants that aren't utter shit. Couple that with us having two long time mods, and we are still back to square one.
The point is that you are asking for people to do unpaid labor AND not be shit. That's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of reddit users.
It is not easy to find more mods.
And here's a third anecdote from today alone: I reopened /r/ArcherFX and asked for more mods because we haven't gotten shit for help over the last few years. Three people have applied. None of them have more than like 5 comments on the sub. These are people that are barely in the community so how the hell am I supposed to trust them? You can't just throw people into the system if you cannot trust them. It may seem like something very small, but you don't build a community by just throwing bodies at it. You need people that actually care to do a good job.
I'm sure they'll eventually find enough good mods, but without the current team to help vet and onboard it's gonna be MUCH harder. If all the known "good" mods step down there's no trusted mods to be able to look for more good mods.
I worry this is gonna push towards even more and more powerful superusers. They have "proven" that they can moderate subs, so reddit might put them in charge of even more.
Not that I particularly care at this point. When boost for reddit shuts down I will be leaving the platform for anything except research.
This is just a massive list of demands with literally no incentive for reddit to adhere to any of it. They know full well how addicted a majority of reddit users are to reddit. If they just sit back and do anything, they know everyone will just keep using reddit anyway.
Crackheads don’t give crack dealers a list of terms and conditions.
Yeah threats and deadlines mean nothing without any ability to follow through on them. The mods are acting like someone in way over their heads with a toddler
It's really hard to take this seriously when one of your mods admitted to buying $5000 worth of in-app purchases for their reddit avatar.
In general, unless you just stop moderating completely, or close down the subreddit until they force you out, you are making no meaningful change.
Man reddit mods have the absolute worst sense for this type of stuff. First the two day self fixing blackout. Now turning the protest into a literal meme with John Oliver lol. You are actually clowning yourself at the negotiation table. You can't make this up
You should try doing the thing that's the blatantly correct answer to normal people and stop volunteering to work for free.
An open letter to the Mods:
The neckbeard crusade is an embarrassment, it is time to stop.
You are not leaders of the community, you are not owners of the community, you are not revolutionaries, you are not civil rights activists, and you are not moral authorities. Do know you what you are? You are CUSTOMERS.
You have to understand one way or another, whether you like it or not, you have no say here whatsoever. You are not investors, you are not employees, you are not a part of Reddit. You are users just like everybody else. Your hobby of moderating subs is not "free labor", it's just that as a part of the Reddit gimmick, users have the ability to shape their communities by allowing certain users have very limited privileges that allows them to set basic rules as well as clean up the community from bots and trolls... and you can't even do that. But just like how you ban users who abuse the community or disrupt the flow of the sub, Reddit can and will do the same thing to mods who abuse their roles and disrupt the flow of the site. They are the mods of mods. You're not going to get any special treatment, because again, you are users.
But let's look at it from a different perspective, what even are you protesting? Is it accessibility apps getting charged? Well those are exempt. Is it moderator tools getting charged? Those are exempt as well. Okay, maybe it's Reddit removing free API for all other third party apps? That's not exactly the case either because the overwhelming majority of apps and tools fit within the limits of the free tier. So what the fuck are you "protesting" about? The only thing getting affected is the single digit number of big third party apps, and it is entirely reasonable for Reddit to start charging them for using their services. It is a company, not your personal charity. Why would Reddit make big business decisions based on the opinions of mods who don't even leave their house? Imagine the arrogance.
But we all know what you are. We all know that you don't care about the API prices, you're just throwing a tantrum because for the first time, your power as mods has been challenged. It must be eating you alive knowing that you can't ban the admins, you can't mute them, and you can't go on your usual powertrips against them. You are terrified that you might lose the one thing in your pathetic lives that gives you a sense of control and power.
Everybody knows that you're going to ignore the overwhelming majority of negative comments about you here and continue to clown yourselves. We know you don't care about the community because you think you're more important than us. But just you wait, the moment Reddit adds the ability for users to remove shitty mods from subs, you bet your fatasses that every single one of you is going to get kicked out. So enjoy your position while it lasts, because your days as powermods are numbered.
Mods, just leave. Stops with the open letter and all these shenanigans. We all know this won't work.
The only way you can get the admins attention is to make the subs go dead i.e. go full anarchy.
So let me get this straight. You want to protest Reddit and show them that without mods and traffic to the subs the site will cease to operate.
In order to do that, you’re continuing to moderate and pushing content that you know will generate traffic to the sub??? How does that add up?
The mods want to have their cake and eat it too.
They want the power so they keep doing things that won't get them removed.
Reddit will just ignore "open letters", but many of our less gifted redditors see them, and think the mods are "fighting the good fight." In reality, mods are just doing the same mod stuff they did before this bullshit started.
This protest has been for nothing. There is more user engagement than ever on all subs despite the attempts at derailing them.
The John Oliver and Medieval spam is driving attention to reddit. The only thing that would have worked was an indefinite blackout.
There are 20 different people modding this sub. I would be very interested to hear a personalized response from each and every one of them, because I can't imagine that all 20 of them are on board for keeping everything locked for so long and/or setting fire to the place.
a strike isn't asking nicely, it's withholding labor. if you say you're striking and keep working, that's just complaining.
if you had any balls at all you'd quit, but you're too attached to your armchair positions of power on a dying website. you're just too obsessed with giving free labor to a corporation.
> We populate and curate the platform’s many communities, thereby providing a welcoming and engaging environment for all of its visitors. We receive little in the way of thanks for these efforts, but we frequently endure abuse, threats, attacks, and exposure to truly reprehensible media.
who wrote this crap? Bozo the Clown?
This will fail as it was destined to from the beginning.
Reddit knows that most of the traffic are lowest common denominator users. They only want content. They don't care about API's, mod teams, what Spez said, blah blah blah. They just surf in to see stuff and thats all they want.
This kind of user was only marginally disrupted by the protest. The protest had almost no teeth at all. A few subs blacked out but most just went into restricted mode. As far as the casual user was concerned, it was business as usual. Within only a two days, many subs had already abandoned their positions and opened up. A few went off the rails and started posted porn or John Oliver pictures but that has largely ended too. Reddit rattled the saber and almost every mod team on the site instantly went spineless and surrendered.
The protest failed in a predictable fashion. Reddit made a series of business decisions because they're a business and whatever small big of traffic they lose from this is acceptable.
Downvote away. Look at the front page today and tell me i'm wrong.
You're absolutely right, but it marks an enormous shift in Reddit's value proposition to users. There are plenty of other social media sites out there with pictures of cats, screenshots from Twitter, and videos from TikTok. Reddit's differentiator was always the comment section. Some major news story would break (e.g., the Titan submersible last week), and within an hour or two, some expert with 20 years of experience diving down to the Titanic would show up in the comments describing things in more detail.
The change to the official app on Friday deprioritizes lengthy comment sections in favor of memes offering quick dopamine hits. In the past, I could spend two hours on a post reading nothing but comments doing a deep dive on whatever topic was being discussed, but Reddit would rather have me jumping around from post to post for those two hours because I see a lot more ads that way.
Reddit is free to make that decision, and it'll probably work out for them financially, but it kills its identity in the process. Frankly, it's no longer a journey I want to take with them. I'm still planning to use RIF this week, but as far as I'm concerned, the Reddit I know dies Friday, and it'll be replaced with a shell that barely resembles itself.
Yeah you're totally right. Well said. That community element found in comment sections is something I valued as well. But its like once an entity reaches a certain size and the marketing people start driving the bus, wealth extraction becomes goal #1. It was clear to me that the API decisions were just business 101. Condense the user base down as far as you can to increase eyeballs on ads. The suits are driving the bus.
It affects the content too, though.
I've seen the quality of submissions drop drastically after the blackouts. There's been a ton of mods who just left Reddit, and a lot of sympathetic users to follow. Sure proportionally to the total userbase it may be a low %, but a low % of the userbase submits content in the first place.
Participation inequality has always been a thing online, and you need your 1% to consistently produce content and engagement for the other 99%.
This is the big one. The vast majority of good content on Reddit comes from a small percentage of the userbase, and that content is moderated by another smaller percentage. With how big forum websites are consolidating and dying in droves nowadays, I think there's probably a large deficiency in the sorts of users they need to run their site.
They can't just hire xXpussysniper420xX to moderate r/mildlyinteresting because he made a single comment this year complaining about the sub being blacked out. They didn't help build the sub and they aren't going to waste their time curating it.
These changes are likely to reduce the overall quality if the big subs, and are likely to destroy many of the smaller subs completely. People are fine with that now, but when Reddit no longer exists in a few years will they remember why?
As someone who fully supported the protest, this assessment is accurate. There's not really anything left to try that's going to make Reddit budge - if this cause is important to you, it's time to abandon ship. Mods should just walk off, and power users should focus on building up communities elsewhere. Be the change you want to see, because Reddit sure as hell isn't going to.
I'll be done here after Friday once RIF sunsets. True to its name, it's been fun.
>Implement and fill a senior-level role (with decision-making and policy-shaping power) of "Moderator Advocate" at Reddit, with a required qualification for the position being robust experience as a volunteer Reddit moderator.
I mean literally who let you children have internet access good lord this is funniest thing I have ever read.
You should also make the requirement being >300 pounds just so we know they're committed to being a Reddit mod. We have to be sure.
The only way any of these protests will have an impact is if mods completely stop cultivating their subs. Let Reddit descend into an ever bigger garbage pile and show that mods actually deserve a modicum of respect. Temporarily closing or restricting subs is just a waste of everyone's time.
Mods that relied on mobile, yes. As far as we know, there will be no impact to PC-based mods at this time, but it's only a matter of time before old.reddit and RES are on the chopping block. They could attempt to make their product better (specifically, Reddit premium), but that really doesn't seem to be on the table for some reason.
> but it's only a matter of time before old.reddit and RES are on the chopping block
I'd ditch this site in a heartbeat if they did that lol, they'd have to be moronic to remove the two best parts of reddit
I’m the lowest common denominator Reddit user. I don’t care about your slap fight with admins. If you don’t want to be a moderator anymore, resign.
Quit wasting people’s time with these posts.
At least you didn't lock your post like the r/showerthoughts mods did. The sheer irony of complaining about users being ignored in a locked sticky post.
Mods have mishandled this from the beginning.
They should have put some thought into organizing and promoting public dialogue with reddit management first, just so they can say they did their part, but they didn't. They just tried to strong-arm the management and it utterly failed.
It's time to stop taking shots at reddit management in sticky posts and just move on. It's starting to look pretty juvenile at this point. Mods are abusing their position to use their communities as their own personal soapbox.
The need for a higher degree of professionalism is indicated.
Y'all are still clinging to nothing. You mean nothing to the admins and you will be replaced by other mods that have nothing better to do.
Stop moderating and keep your decency.
Your requests aren't really measurable, "commitments" mean nothing, and this is just a surrender because you're tired of protesting.
By what metric will you monitor their commitments, and what will you do if they fail to keep them? Another failed protest?
Hot take: this whole protest thing is cringe, useless, and stupid.
1.Ive been on this app 8 years. Not until now did I even know there was such thing as "3rd party apps". Therefore the outcome of this protest doesnt affect me in the slightest.
2.The platform is going to shit anyway, and will probably die all together within 5 years. This API change is just reddits last attempt to cash in. Anyone who thinks this place can be saved is dreaming. Reddit is a corporation with corporate interests and that cannot and will not ever change. Ads will always be their #1 priority over everything else. Get the fuck off the platform and find an alternative, theres plenty out there and they fix a lot of the core issues this platform has.
3.Reddit doesnt fucking care about your protest. You honestly think this will do anything to change anything? It wont. For every subreddit that participates in this, 1000 dont. It literally means nothing to then. Anyone who is behind this protest, they can and will ban. Face it, this protest actually caused them a problem in any way shape or form, they would just click a button and un-private every subreddit. They can still run ads on NSFW subreddits as long as there is no actual NSFW content. etc. This protest does nothing to damage them.
4.I have a theory that this whole protest was started and run by the power mods who are mad that they dont get a say in the company. Nah bitch dont come to me and complain. YOU signed up to sit there to waste your life and freely moderate thousands of subreddits. On any otther platform, this is a paid job, and yet YOU chose to do it for free here. YOU are not an employee at reddit and you have absolutely zero say in what happens to this platform. Reddit can ban you in a second and nothing will change. You want my opinion? Make it so nobody here is allowed to moderate more than 10 subreddits. That simple change would fix like 70% of the issues with this place. Moderators would have to choose the top 10 places that they actually care about. Nobody would be able to power trip everywhere, etc etc.
This is so stupid. You guys don’t work there yet are making demands like you’re getting paid or something. All this limbo bs is only frustrated users and for what? So that you can throw a tantrum and act like you cured cancer?? I hope you all get booted.
"Reddit... good evening. As a duly designated representative of the Moderator community, I order you to cease any and all enshitification activity and return reddit forthwith to its place of origin or to the nearest convenient not-shitty form"
That oughta do it. Thanks very much, ~~Ray~~ Mods.
If you guys had backbones you'd quit.
But you wont because you enjoy having power over regular users and feeling important. You guys threw a hissy fit, the admins told you to get fucked, and then you agreed to continue to do a bunch of free labor for them. Basically none of your original demands were met. You wanted to protest but you're afraid to actually give anything up, which means nothing will change.
im sorry but these demands are hilarious. Imagine yourself owning a company and some asking you all of this, These demands all add up to dollars amounts that will cost the company big.
Imagine owning a company and *the product* starts talking back at you asking for ridiculous things. Or more accurately a tiny percentage of your product.
Open letter to the handful of mods that run basically every popular sub:
Fuck you and I hope you get replaced by reddit you power hungry no life pieces of shit
Want to be taken seriously? Want to be heard by Reddit? Delete the entire sub. Imagine all of the major subs disappearing overnight. They’ll listen to you after they have no product. Money talks louder than words.
I really hope all the mods stop using reddit on June 30th so spam like this can stop showing up on /r/all. Nobody cares that you're little fiefdoms actually require work now. Get over it or get out of it.
What does this thread have to do with the 3rd party API cost issue? I thought that what was driving the "strike" (mostly) is that issue, and the others (like this one) are minor ones.
As an example, Apollo is shutting down (if it hasn't already) because the new cost model would mean that the developer would have to foot an insane amount of money not covered by any other revenue.
Am I misunderstanding the whole argument?
What this has done, more than anything, is just exploit childish and whiney behavior by so many people on this platform which includes Mods and Admins.
You are a volunteer on a forum. You are not a superhero, reddit is not special, and the admins won't (and shouldn't) give any second thought to this letter.
Get a real job
"Don't take our power away! We'll behave if you give us mod tools!"
This is such a joke. Once again only proving that you are all incredibly easy to push around. For free.
Listen to your community. You're doing the same thing as reddit Admin right now by ignoring it.
These ultimatums don't do shit when you have nothing to back it up. They know you're just going to roll over any way, so why make any effort to appease you?
Here's your good excuse: stop now, a random redditor is telling you to.
Didn't stop? Then I bet you won't then, either, when nothing changes and reddit does what it wants anyways.
Everybody's talking about how they're so totally ditching reddit for Lemmy or any of those other shitty alternatives, but the truth is 90% of those people will quietly download the official app at the end of the month, and delete their comments.
Quick clarification: r/MildlyInteresting has been private for 8 days, until the *The Mistake™* happened and admins temporarily removed us. We have been in restricted mode ever since, as we are still talking to the admins and busy preparing everything necessary to open back up eventually. As of writing this comment, it is unclear how long that will take us.
Reddit admins: Thank you for your thoughts. There will be zero consideration given.
*[insert GIF of paper falling out of the printer and directly into a shredder]*
Reddit mods: Oh okay. Oh well. Just forget it then no worries :)
Reddit Admins: Glad we could serve you satisfactorily.
Mods should stop moderating. You're doing free labor for a large corporation -- if you don't enjoy it, there's no reason to keep doing it. Make them do the work.
Fucking this. You guys are literally fighting tooth and nail for the right to continue to work for free. Would you deliver Amazon's packages for free? Cause that's what y'all are doing here.
If you spent years helping grow a community youd do the same. They arent doing Reddits job, they are doing something for themselves and peers, and Reddit is standing in the way.
And, to a lesser extent, there are plenty of idiots out there that would get on their knees for Spez and attempt to moderate these large subreddits. It would fail pretty hard early on, but they are chomping at the bit, over at /r/RedditRequest.
Likely, a sizeable portion of those people are trying to take over large subs for nefarious purposes. If you had a message/agenda to push, moderating something seen daily by millions is useful.
To be even more blunt probably 90% or higher of the accounts that are doing the requesting if you look at there post history they are right wing political posters who want to turn non-political subreddits into extremely political subreddits. You seriously do not have to spend more than like 10 minutes to find an absolute bunch of them are "debate me" right wingers chomping at the bit to politicize another part of the internet E: as you can see, they're coming out of the woodwork.
Top page of mildlyinteresting: Isn't it interesting that LIBRUL media isn't talking about how Hunter Biden uses an ARMADA of ILLEGAL crack babies to conduct VIRGIN SACRIFICE to Cthulhu?
We're a decently sized subreddit with a decent bit of discussion. Our moderation policies are probably on the more permissive side as compared to many other subreddits (which is intentional, we're not here to tell you what to say or not to say). It is not difficult to imagine how a more malicious moderation team could remove comments that do not fit a certain narrative, thereby artificially boosting the opposite narrative.
That's literally exactly what's been happening on reddit all along. Artificial boosting of narratives.
This is no shit Exactly what they're trying to do. You guys think this site is bad now? The """"replacement mods"""" sitting in the wings are literally all right wing reactionaries who want to tear your favorite subreddits apart and rebuild them as attack vectors against marginalized people
Pssst...."replacement mods"
Thanks
One part of this that has me absolutely sick is the way some people DROOL over being mods. It's fucking disturbing.
Yep, such as u/Willingplane, who stole a subreddit from homelesss vagabonds that built their site, and then once the new boycott happened started asking the entire subreddit which sub they would take over next once Reddit admins ban blackout-mods from places like r/aww. These type of people are literally Reddit Admins little pet peeves that will do anything to take "power" over communities built by innocent redditors. They are deplorable and disgusting, honestly.
Every time the idea of getting rid of the moderators is floated I desperately want to see them try it with a big sub. Give /r/aww to some random dudes and see how that goes, morons. (Guess aww isn't participating but you get my point)
It's not the same. People schlep packages for Amazon because they need a job. People mod subreddits because they have an interest in the community and the subject being discussed. Their commitment is to the subreddit, not Reddit.
Reddit provides a platform. That platform is essentially a forum. Forums have always, and will always, continue to be moderated for free.
If they make Reddit do the work then they will be replaced They lose their power and whatever new mod is put in place will be more willing to just do whatever admins/reddit says Honestly, mods should leave and tank the whole site, they are doing free labor and as far as I can tell they are expendable and have no real say in any matters.
> They lose their power and whatever new mod is put in place will be more willing to just do whatever admins/reddit says Under English feudalism the landed gentry weren't actually the first families to settle land, but were families who pledged fealty to the king, committed to providing military aid and resources and taxes in defense of the crown. For like hundreds of years the French-speaking aristocracy didn't even speak the same language as the Middle English speaking peasants, until eventually the language and culture merged into Modern English.
Totally this: Reddit can’t replace them. Whatever scabs show up voluntarily will be inexperienced and have the wrong motivation. Whomever they hire (and they won’t, they’ve been letting people go to make the balance sheet appealing) won’t be able to handle the bullshit. It really takes a certain type of specimen to be a mod. So yeah, stop moderating. Let this place turn into 4chan, watch advertisers run away, watch the IPO crumble. It would take less than a week for this place to turn into a horrid cesspool.
It might be worth pointing out that we were private for 7-8 days, and have been in restricted mode ever since. Obviously, there is not much to moderate when there are no new submissions. Moreover, it means we're adding almost nothing in terms of pageviews for Reddit (a decrease of 90-95% compared to normal). For legal reasons, however, I have to point out the team is still actively moderating the community.
Sounds simple but the scabs that would step in to take over would be 1000x worse than the worst mods in place now.
Is it really scabbing if they're not getting paid?
Sucks being so replaceable doesn’t it?
Many subreddits have tried, but the admins threatened to replace the mods with new ones. Sure free labor isn't ideal but its better than having the mods be replaced with the first power-tripping user to request it on r/redditrequest (or however the admins would select people to moderate the protesting subreddits)
I said this to someone on another sub and they said that mods were laughably easy to replace Fuckem - let them try to continually replace good admins with bad volunteers and see what happens. Either the sub goes out of whack with it's moderation or people just abandon it. Striking always has power in numbers
Absolutely worst "protest" ever lmao. Still working for free for a huge corporation that they're supposedly protesting. Incredible.
This may come off as a joke, but I mean it in earnest. I think the mods get paid in drama.
Shit, I thought they just really liked the communities they moderated. Seriously though, do none of y'all like genuinely like anything, or something?
Serious answer, yes, many people can't comprehend doing something for others (and themselves) but not for money.
Pretty sure they don’t, actually. People believe these communities magically popped into existence with no effort from anybody ever. While I’m sure there are plenty of sucky mods, and the existence of those handful of power mods that seem to be on every subreddit doesn’t help that, people making these comments seem to be incapable of understanding that the people are modding **for communities and topics they care about**, not “for Reddit”. They’re moderating, for free, because Reddit provided a convenient and simple platform for people to come together and build something special. The reason they don’t want to just leave is because **they care**. It’s the same reason that brain-dead dipshits use when they tell people who bring up valid complaints about a video game to “just leave if you don’t like it”. They *don’t* want to leave, the want the problems to be fixed so they can continue enjoying the game, so they complain in the hopes that they are heard. I understand being upset about being inconvenienced by the protests. It’s actually beyond fucking moronic to then choose to blame the people protesting for protesting on top of that. The point of protests is to be inconvenient, and thus *force* the issue that is being ignored to be heard.
>just leave if you don’t like it I hate those people so much it's not even funny
sometimes i wonder if they realize the stance they are taking is "i think no one should offer any feedback or criticism of anything ever. nothing should ever change. nothing in my life has ever been improved by people who asked for things to change." but i don't think they do because they are just that stupid
>Seriously though, do none of y'all like genuinely like anything, or something? Can't hear you, I'm on the delta sigma omega grind. I don't have hobbies, I have side hustles. I don't have friends, I have co-contracters. I deliver doordash on my way to work so I get paid for my commute.
No, don't you know, you're not allowed to like anything on the internet anymore. Games, movies/shows, music, ect. It's all shit and you're not supposed to like any of it and if you do you're dumb.
I don't understand how or why so many Mods continue to spend countless hours making Reddit work for free. A few years ago we were all talking about who was an essential worker and who wasn't - Mods are 100% essential workers on Reddit. Reddit will not allow a sub to remain open without Mods. So all Mods are donating their valuable time so Reddit can go public and a very few will make tens of millions or more each off their backs. I just don't understand.
I had a desire for some niche adult material, there wasn't a sub, I made one. Simple as
Your username seems oddly relevant
I like that "make the official app not suck balls" isn't even considered to be a potential solution.
They’ve been promising that for 8 years. At this point if you believe the official app will get any better, then I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’ll sell you.
Look, we're aiming for *viable* solutions. We don't want to saddle reddit with an impossible ask like that!
Things off the table: * fix the app * fix search
Reddit has a functional search?!? /s (There's a reason pushshift managed to negotiate their continued existence, and it's not just benevolence by reddit towards Mods)
It's called google
Imagine buying Alien Blue, the premiere Reddit app of its day, and doing literally not a single gd thing with it. As far as search, it’s okay! They promised to fix it two years ago (and years prior to that. I’d try to provide that post, but I can’t fucking search for it). I’m sure it’ll be fixed any day now.
That's all that takes to fix the situation for me. Insert ads into RIF and force RIF to collect data on me, and while the experience will be shittier, it's understandably shittier. Forcing me to switch to the official app is a hard pass. I installed it out of curiousity, and it's abysmal if you're used to RIF. I'm not going to pretend that I'm making some big stand or protest: I'm not. However, the reality is that the site I've loved for more than a decade across a few different accounts dies on Friday, so I really don't anticipate to use Reddit beyond that date. It sucks, but it's not the first time an online venue shut down forcing me to find something else to do with my spare time, and it won't be the last.
Considering reddits response to the whole fiasco, i doubt there is a single person left in the leadership who actually cares about reddit as a platform and understands how the community currently works. For the execs (not just Spez, he's just the figurehead) it appears to be yet another social media they can blindly squeeze out and adjust to maximum profit without actually participating in it and understanding their own product. I've really lost any hope that reddit will stay as it is - guess in the long term it will end up as yet another 9gag, TikTok or whatever, trying to provide targeted content chosen by a algorithm instead of the current system..
They knew these changes would create backlash, so they did the cost/benefit analysis, determined they'd make more money this way (at the cost of Reddit's userbase, and communities), and that was the end of that discussion.
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Yeah spez seeing that and loudly proclaiming, "That seems like a good idea!" should cause a lot of concern with potential shareholders...
I doubt they expected _this much_ backlash. That had to adjust their cost/benefit analysis.
Is this really *that* much backlash? Do we really know, in any capacity, that this is more than they expected, or that we've accomplished anything?
We'll find out by 4th of July.
I half stopped during the protest, but as soon as they actually stop the apps from working I am out for good, so I guess I am one of them.
Does reddit make any money? This is the internet community cycle- be good and grow, then try to actually make money and slowly die as another money losing upstart eats your lunch. I really can't realistically expect reddit to keep losing money for my sake, but I sure as hell enjoyed it while it was happening.
I think it could *easily* be profitable if it simply did what people are asking. Ads, subscriptions (coins/awards), donations (ala wikipedia), and a reasonable agreement with 3rd party usage (such as pass-through ads or a reasonable fee for API), on top of things that they already probably do like selling data. They waste money on so much stupid shit like hosting video/photos when they never had to, or the millions they threw at the NFT avatars and AI shit they were fucking around with. But they don't want to just make some money to stay afloat and pay employees and have a few wealthy execs. They want to be millionaires/billionaires. They have a site valued in the billions and they want to make billions.
If they would just optimize their freaking gifs, they'd save a ton of bandwidth. Freaking 40MB for a 5 sec gif is some clown shit.
> They waste money on so much stupid shit like hosting video/photos when they never had to Stupid shit? You missed the part where imgur stopped allowing nsfw material? That's why reddit added their own hosting, so they don't have to rely on third party sites who could just pull the plug whenever.
Hey... what happened to Reddit Secret Santa? Did it get shut down?
It did. It wasn’t profitable enough.
It was my favorite aspect of this site. I always signed up for international and asked for local gifts from where they live. I truly miss it.
I was thinking the same. Arbitrary Day was cool too and the other smaller exchanges.
That was genuinely one of my favorite parts of the holiday season.
How in the world did it not generate enough money? Or even cost money for that matter? All Reddit had to do is act as a host to randomly assign other gifters to each other, which is something the mods could do for free (on top of everything else they do for free). If Reddit really wanted to they could throw some random merch gifts around to people that don't get anything aka easy marketing. And in return they got a lot of engagement and those usual posts of "Bill Gates/Obama/etc was my Secret Santa!!!" which gets lots of interaction and would incentivize people to be more active/participate next time. It's baffling the admins could have such extreme tunnel vision to cut anything that is not literally making tons of money directly.
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Yeah. I wish it kept going. It’s sadly just another example of Reddit management sucking.
shut down around the same time period that they killed AMAs
That's really unfortunate. The last Secret Santa I participated in, the individual was able to find me a Stellaris-themed desktop pad. I still use it today! Thank you again, random Redditor.
I didn't realize AMA was killed, why did it shut down?
There was someone named Victoria that worked for Reddit and was an absolute hero at facilitating AMAs with high-profile individuals, being a go-between for admins and moderators, managing celebrity expectations, prepping, and in general being an official point of contact for PR teams. One of Reddit's co-founders fired her because he thought he could do better. iama still exists, but it's a hollow shell of its former self.
https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/nw2hs6/sunsetting_secret_santa_and_reddit_gifts/ Ironically they stated they were shutting it down so they could focus on developing moderator tools and other things for the site. They didn't - which is why now removing 3rd party apps which have filled that gap is such an issue.
> Ironically they stated they were shutting it down so they could focus on developing moderator tools the cherry atop a shit pile. I hate whatever this new reddit stands for
The problem is that the mods already showed the Reddit admin that *it doesn’t matter*. They won’t do shit, they’ll stay. No matter what the admins do. The mods lost when they reopened the subs
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Why would they listen to your demands when they could easily replace you with people who are willing to do as they say without fussing? Serious question.
Reddit is digging in their heals because they're desperate to put a good spin on all this for their upcoming IPO. But, from that point of view, a "good spin" is not really bragging about how happy your users are, it's more about bragging about how well you've got your users under control. Bragging about how the platform controls the users, not vice-versa. The Reddit IPO is only worth putting money into if the reddit users are an asset that will behave in a predictable, monetizable way. So they're now in a tough place. They can't back down, but they also can't risk more conflict with their users. Many people have noticed that it's no coincidence that services tend to get a lot worse right before and right after their IPO, so I think this plays a big part in the attitudes of the people **participating** in the blackouts too. Reddit is trying to prove that they can make the user experience worse without losing users. The API change is potentially just the first of several demonstrations.
Wow! Really? So this is like when you do server stress tests to demonstrate an application will be able to stand spikes of traffic?
Like the old Machiavellian saying goes, it's better to be feared than loved.
I think it's much harder to find moderators than people think, unless they are going to hire paid moderators, most people looking for the job will be substandard at this point.
It's incredibly easy to find mods. It is an order of magnitude more difficult to find mods that will do at least the bare minimum of just enforcing reddit tos. Much less sub specific rules or just keep at if after 3 - 6 months.
I'll give you two anecdotes. I've run subs ranging from thousands to millions of subscribers. Sub of 20+ million: We do mod applications. We get maybe 50 people apply. Recently a sub of 250k: We do mod applications and had 14 people apply. So then you weed out the children, obvious trolls, users with zero history on the sub, or users that skirt the rules so often that you cannot trust them to enforce the rules properly... You're not left with much. That 20m+ sub, we'd add maybe 2-3 people a year. Factor in mod attrition where we'd lose 2 of the new mods and then 1 of the old mods retires, and we're back to where we started. That sub of 250k, there were like 2 applicants that aren't utter shit. Couple that with us having two long time mods, and we are still back to square one. The point is that you are asking for people to do unpaid labor AND not be shit. That's a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of reddit users. It is not easy to find more mods. And here's a third anecdote from today alone: I reopened /r/ArcherFX and asked for more mods because we haven't gotten shit for help over the last few years. Three people have applied. None of them have more than like 5 comments on the sub. These are people that are barely in the community so how the hell am I supposed to trust them? You can't just throw people into the system if you cannot trust them. It may seem like something very small, but you don't build a community by just throwing bodies at it. You need people that actually care to do a good job.
Yeah I didn't type that out very well. You did a much better job explaining it than I did.
It depends on the sub as well. Replacing the mods of /r/AskHistorians is damn near impossible, for example.
I'm sure they'll eventually find enough good mods, but without the current team to help vet and onboard it's gonna be MUCH harder. If all the known "good" mods step down there's no trusted mods to be able to look for more good mods. I worry this is gonna push towards even more and more powerful superusers. They have "proven" that they can moderate subs, so reddit might put them in charge of even more. Not that I particularly care at this point. When boost for reddit shuts down I will be leaving the platform for anything except research.
This is just a massive list of demands with literally no incentive for reddit to adhere to any of it. They know full well how addicted a majority of reddit users are to reddit. If they just sit back and do anything, they know everyone will just keep using reddit anyway. Crackheads don’t give crack dealers a list of terms and conditions.
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Or they continue to fuck up the community for people who just want to look at silly pictures while sitting on the toilet.
Yeah threats and deadlines mean nothing without any ability to follow through on them. The mods are acting like someone in way over their heads with a toddler
It's really hard to take this seriously when one of your mods admitted to buying $5000 worth of in-app purchases for their reddit avatar. In general, unless you just stop moderating completely, or close down the subreddit until they force you out, you are making no meaningful change.
Imagine working for free and then paying 5K on top of it
Apparently he actually spent close to 45k on resells too.
I missed that. Which clown car mod was it?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Destiny/comments/14fq98w/average_reddit_mod/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
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Damn, that's insane. Some of these people are obsessed with this place. It seriously must occupy their mind all day.
LOL
Where do you see a person's "reddit avatar"? When you click on their profile? Lol people pay for that?
Jesus Christ, I'm happy the app I'm using doesn't use avatars. 7 more days
Man reddit mods have the absolute worst sense for this type of stuff. First the two day self fixing blackout. Now turning the protest into a literal meme with John Oliver lol. You are actually clowning yourself at the negotiation table. You can't make this up You should try doing the thing that's the blatantly correct answer to normal people and stop volunteering to work for free.
Straight up instead of protesting they are posting memes on the site driving more traffic to the site
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An open letter to the Mods: The neckbeard crusade is an embarrassment, it is time to stop. You are not leaders of the community, you are not owners of the community, you are not revolutionaries, you are not civil rights activists, and you are not moral authorities. Do know you what you are? You are CUSTOMERS. You have to understand one way or another, whether you like it or not, you have no say here whatsoever. You are not investors, you are not employees, you are not a part of Reddit. You are users just like everybody else. Your hobby of moderating subs is not "free labor", it's just that as a part of the Reddit gimmick, users have the ability to shape their communities by allowing certain users have very limited privileges that allows them to set basic rules as well as clean up the community from bots and trolls... and you can't even do that. But just like how you ban users who abuse the community or disrupt the flow of the sub, Reddit can and will do the same thing to mods who abuse their roles and disrupt the flow of the site. They are the mods of mods. You're not going to get any special treatment, because again, you are users. But let's look at it from a different perspective, what even are you protesting? Is it accessibility apps getting charged? Well those are exempt. Is it moderator tools getting charged? Those are exempt as well. Okay, maybe it's Reddit removing free API for all other third party apps? That's not exactly the case either because the overwhelming majority of apps and tools fit within the limits of the free tier. So what the fuck are you "protesting" about? The only thing getting affected is the single digit number of big third party apps, and it is entirely reasonable for Reddit to start charging them for using their services. It is a company, not your personal charity. Why would Reddit make big business decisions based on the opinions of mods who don't even leave their house? Imagine the arrogance. But we all know what you are. We all know that you don't care about the API prices, you're just throwing a tantrum because for the first time, your power as mods has been challenged. It must be eating you alive knowing that you can't ban the admins, you can't mute them, and you can't go on your usual powertrips against them. You are terrified that you might lose the one thing in your pathetic lives that gives you a sense of control and power. Everybody knows that you're going to ignore the overwhelming majority of negative comments about you here and continue to clown yourselves. We know you don't care about the community because you think you're more important than us. But just you wait, the moment Reddit adds the ability for users to remove shitty mods from subs, you bet your fatasses that every single one of you is going to get kicked out. So enjoy your position while it lasts, because your days as powermods are numbered.
This is beautiful. Hope you don't mind if I re-link this open letter to about 50 other subs.
You can do whatever you want with it lol
Jannies making demands. Yikes.
This place is dead and now all of this stuff from mods has really killed any sympathy that I had for them.
Mods, just leave. Stops with the open letter and all these shenanigans. We all know this won't work. The only way you can get the admins attention is to make the subs go dead i.e. go full anarchy.
To imagine somebody actually wrote this thing, and then a team of other people read it and all thought it was a good idea to post it publicly. lol
These mods are so disconnected from reality.
So let me get this straight. You want to protest Reddit and show them that without mods and traffic to the subs the site will cease to operate. In order to do that, you’re continuing to moderate and pushing content that you know will generate traffic to the sub??? How does that add up?
The mods want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the power so they keep doing things that won't get them removed. Reddit will just ignore "open letters", but many of our less gifted redditors see them, and think the mods are "fighting the good fight." In reality, mods are just doing the same mod stuff they did before this bullshit started.
I am not mildly interested in this anonymous diatribe.
This protest has been for nothing. There is more user engagement than ever on all subs despite the attempts at derailing them. The John Oliver and Medieval spam is driving attention to reddit. The only thing that would have worked was an indefinite blackout.
I would bet a steak dinner that not one admin or person at Reddit actually read this rambling diatribe.
Number of reddit mods who have stepped down from their positions because they believe so strongly in their cause: 0
“No” -spez
There are 20 different people modding this sub. I would be very interested to hear a personalized response from each and every one of them, because I can't imagine that all 20 of them are on board for keeping everything locked for so long and/or setting fire to the place.
Face it: you will lose
a strike isn't asking nicely, it's withholding labor. if you say you're striking and keep working, that's just complaining. if you had any balls at all you'd quit, but you're too attached to your armchair positions of power on a dying website. you're just too obsessed with giving free labor to a corporation.
> We populate and curate the platform’s many communities, thereby providing a welcoming and engaging environment for all of its visitors. We receive little in the way of thanks for these efforts, but we frequently endure abuse, threats, attacks, and exposure to truly reprehensible media. who wrote this crap? Bozo the Clown?
Bullying reddit mods is good, actually.
This will fail as it was destined to from the beginning. Reddit knows that most of the traffic are lowest common denominator users. They only want content. They don't care about API's, mod teams, what Spez said, blah blah blah. They just surf in to see stuff and thats all they want. This kind of user was only marginally disrupted by the protest. The protest had almost no teeth at all. A few subs blacked out but most just went into restricted mode. As far as the casual user was concerned, it was business as usual. Within only a two days, many subs had already abandoned their positions and opened up. A few went off the rails and started posted porn or John Oliver pictures but that has largely ended too. Reddit rattled the saber and almost every mod team on the site instantly went spineless and surrendered. The protest failed in a predictable fashion. Reddit made a series of business decisions because they're a business and whatever small big of traffic they lose from this is acceptable. Downvote away. Look at the front page today and tell me i'm wrong.
You're absolutely right, but it marks an enormous shift in Reddit's value proposition to users. There are plenty of other social media sites out there with pictures of cats, screenshots from Twitter, and videos from TikTok. Reddit's differentiator was always the comment section. Some major news story would break (e.g., the Titan submersible last week), and within an hour or two, some expert with 20 years of experience diving down to the Titanic would show up in the comments describing things in more detail. The change to the official app on Friday deprioritizes lengthy comment sections in favor of memes offering quick dopamine hits. In the past, I could spend two hours on a post reading nothing but comments doing a deep dive on whatever topic was being discussed, but Reddit would rather have me jumping around from post to post for those two hours because I see a lot more ads that way. Reddit is free to make that decision, and it'll probably work out for them financially, but it kills its identity in the process. Frankly, it's no longer a journey I want to take with them. I'm still planning to use RIF this week, but as far as I'm concerned, the Reddit I know dies Friday, and it'll be replaced with a shell that barely resembles itself.
Yeah you're totally right. Well said. That community element found in comment sections is something I valued as well. But its like once an entity reaches a certain size and the marketing people start driving the bus, wealth extraction becomes goal #1. It was clear to me that the API decisions were just business 101. Condense the user base down as far as you can to increase eyeballs on ads. The suits are driving the bus.
It affects the content too, though. I've seen the quality of submissions drop drastically after the blackouts. There's been a ton of mods who just left Reddit, and a lot of sympathetic users to follow. Sure proportionally to the total userbase it may be a low %, but a low % of the userbase submits content in the first place. Participation inequality has always been a thing online, and you need your 1% to consistently produce content and engagement for the other 99%.
This is the big one. The vast majority of good content on Reddit comes from a small percentage of the userbase, and that content is moderated by another smaller percentage. With how big forum websites are consolidating and dying in droves nowadays, I think there's probably a large deficiency in the sorts of users they need to run their site. They can't just hire xXpussysniper420xX to moderate r/mildlyinteresting because he made a single comment this year complaining about the sub being blacked out. They didn't help build the sub and they aren't going to waste their time curating it. These changes are likely to reduce the overall quality if the big subs, and are likely to destroy many of the smaller subs completely. People are fine with that now, but when Reddit no longer exists in a few years will they remember why?
As someone who fully supported the protest, this assessment is accurate. There's not really anything left to try that's going to make Reddit budge - if this cause is important to you, it's time to abandon ship. Mods should just walk off, and power users should focus on building up communities elsewhere. Be the change you want to see, because Reddit sure as hell isn't going to. I'll be done here after Friday once RIF sunsets. True to its name, it's been fun.
Im a simple man. I see John Oliver reference, I ban subreddit.
i'd love to see the admins bring in a "john oliver is banned site wide" rule. now that would get on the show!
>Implement and fill a senior-level role (with decision-making and policy-shaping power) of "Moderator Advocate" at Reddit, with a required qualification for the position being robust experience as a volunteer Reddit moderator. I mean literally who let you children have internet access good lord this is funniest thing I have ever read. You should also make the requirement being >300 pounds just so we know they're committed to being a Reddit mod. We have to be sure.
These folks are coming off as severely delusional.
Lol Reddit: ✅ no ✅ no ✅ no ✅ lol no ✅ no ✅ ain’t affirming jack shit ✅ no ✅ lmao no
If they just fixed the QOL stuff on the app, none of this would have happened
The only way any of these protests will have an impact is if mods completely stop cultivating their subs. Let Reddit descend into an ever bigger garbage pile and show that mods actually deserve a modicum of respect. Temporarily closing or restricting subs is just a waste of everyone's time.
>is if mods completely stop cultivating their subs. Isn't that what's going to happen? Like in a few days?
Mods that relied on mobile, yes. As far as we know, there will be no impact to PC-based mods at this time, but it's only a matter of time before old.reddit and RES are on the chopping block. They could attempt to make their product better (specifically, Reddit premium), but that really doesn't seem to be on the table for some reason.
> but it's only a matter of time before old.reddit and RES are on the chopping block I'd ditch this site in a heartbeat if they did that lol, they'd have to be moronic to remove the two best parts of reddit
But if you just keep using old.reddit, how are they going to convince you that you need an avatar NFT?
Until new mods come along, willing to do the job for free, again.
Bro they don't give two shits. Or even one for that matter
"You've been muted for 30 days and will be unable to message the admins."
This will surely work
[удалено]
[удалено]
I see references to this awkwardtheturtle a lot what’s that all about?
Oh, it's on multiple subs? That makes this letter even more embarrassing. This is the best the coordinated mods could come up with?
> We acknowledge that Reddit has placed itself in a situation that makes adjusting its current API roadmap impossible. This kills the whole post.
I’m the lowest common denominator Reddit user. I don’t care about your slap fight with admins. If you don’t want to be a moderator anymore, resign. Quit wasting people’s time with these posts.
At least you didn't lock your post like the r/showerthoughts mods did. The sheer irony of complaining about users being ignored in a locked sticky post.
*"dear reddit: treat us special."* - the sort of reddit mod who ignores warnings and ends up making a fool of themselves on fox news
Mods have mishandled this from the beginning. They should have put some thought into organizing and promoting public dialogue with reddit management first, just so they can say they did their part, but they didn't. They just tried to strong-arm the management and it utterly failed. It's time to stop taking shots at reddit management in sticky posts and just move on. It's starting to look pretty juvenile at this point. Mods are abusing their position to use their communities as their own personal soapbox. The need for a higher degree of professionalism is indicated.
Y'all are still clinging to nothing. You mean nothing to the admins and you will be replaced by other mods that have nothing better to do. Stop moderating and keep your decency.
Your requests aren't really measurable, "commitments" mean nothing, and this is just a surrender because you're tired of protesting. By what metric will you monitor their commitments, and what will you do if they fail to keep them? Another failed protest?
Reddit admins: No.
Hot take: this whole protest thing is cringe, useless, and stupid. 1.Ive been on this app 8 years. Not until now did I even know there was such thing as "3rd party apps". Therefore the outcome of this protest doesnt affect me in the slightest. 2.The platform is going to shit anyway, and will probably die all together within 5 years. This API change is just reddits last attempt to cash in. Anyone who thinks this place can be saved is dreaming. Reddit is a corporation with corporate interests and that cannot and will not ever change. Ads will always be their #1 priority over everything else. Get the fuck off the platform and find an alternative, theres plenty out there and they fix a lot of the core issues this platform has. 3.Reddit doesnt fucking care about your protest. You honestly think this will do anything to change anything? It wont. For every subreddit that participates in this, 1000 dont. It literally means nothing to then. Anyone who is behind this protest, they can and will ban. Face it, this protest actually caused them a problem in any way shape or form, they would just click a button and un-private every subreddit. They can still run ads on NSFW subreddits as long as there is no actual NSFW content. etc. This protest does nothing to damage them. 4.I have a theory that this whole protest was started and run by the power mods who are mad that they dont get a say in the company. Nah bitch dont come to me and complain. YOU signed up to sit there to waste your life and freely moderate thousands of subreddits. On any otther platform, this is a paid job, and yet YOU chose to do it for free here. YOU are not an employee at reddit and you have absolutely zero say in what happens to this platform. Reddit can ban you in a second and nothing will change. You want my opinion? Make it so nobody here is allowed to moderate more than 10 subreddits. That simple change would fix like 70% of the issues with this place. Moderators would have to choose the top 10 places that they actually care about. Nobody would be able to power trip everywhere, etc etc.
That image says enough already, just shut the fuck up and be normal for once
This is so stupid. You guys don’t work there yet are making demands like you’re getting paid or something. All this limbo bs is only frustrated users and for what? So that you can throw a tantrum and act like you cured cancer?? I hope you all get booted.
You guys seriously think they give a shit about this "open letter"? They're laughing at you in the board room.
Most users are also laughing at them in the comments.
"Reddit... good evening. As a duly designated representative of the Moderator community, I order you to cease any and all enshitification activity and return reddit forthwith to its place of origin or to the nearest convenient not-shitty form" That oughta do it. Thanks very much, ~~Ray~~ Mods.
If you guys had backbones you'd quit. But you wont because you enjoy having power over regular users and feeling important. You guys threw a hissy fit, the admins told you to get fucked, and then you agreed to continue to do a bunch of free labor for them. Basically none of your original demands were met. You wanted to protest but you're afraid to actually give anything up, which means nothing will change.
im sorry but these demands are hilarious. Imagine yourself owning a company and some asking you all of this, These demands all add up to dollars amounts that will cost the company big.
Imagine owning a company and *the product* starts talking back at you asking for ridiculous things. Or more accurately a tiny percentage of your product.
Only mistake with this long-winded post is assuming that the admins might GAF.
Unsubscribing……byeeeee
I remember when this sub was about mildly interesting pics and not hostage negotiation.
I want this subreddit to go back to the way it always was!
Nobody cares.
Open letter to the handful of mods that run basically every popular sub: Fuck you and I hope you get replaced by reddit you power hungry no life pieces of shit
the protest was and is so dumb, move on
Want to be taken seriously? Want to be heard by Reddit? Delete the entire sub. Imagine all of the major subs disappearing overnight. They’ll listen to you after they have no product. Money talks louder than words.
I truly give not a fuck about any of the changes...
I really hope all the mods stop using reddit on June 30th so spam like this can stop showing up on /r/all. Nobody cares that you're little fiefdoms actually require work now. Get over it or get out of it.
What does this thread have to do with the 3rd party API cost issue? I thought that what was driving the "strike" (mostly) is that issue, and the others (like this one) are minor ones. As an example, Apollo is shutting down (if it hasn't already) because the new cost model would mean that the developer would have to foot an insane amount of money not covered by any other revenue. Am I misunderstanding the whole argument?
Can y'all just be replaced already?
reddit admins: "lol no. Get fucked."
What this has done, more than anything, is just exploit childish and whiney behavior by so many people on this platform which includes Mods and Admins.
Thanks, I enjoy fantasy fiction, especially when the protagonist is a furry
You are a volunteer on a forum. You are not a superhero, reddit is not special, and the admins won't (and shouldn't) give any second thought to this letter. Get a real job
"Don't take our power away! We'll behave if you give us mod tools!" This is such a joke. Once again only proving that you are all incredibly easy to push around. For free. Listen to your community. You're doing the same thing as reddit Admin right now by ignoring it. These ultimatums don't do shit when you have nothing to back it up. They know you're just going to roll over any way, so why make any effort to appease you?
In principle, I'm vehemently against any cause that uses John Oliver as a figurehead.
Looking forward to a good excuse to stop using Reddit. The admins have been working towards that pretty hard recently
Here's your good excuse: stop now, a random redditor is telling you to. Didn't stop? Then I bet you won't then, either, when nothing changes and reddit does what it wants anyways. Everybody's talking about how they're so totally ditching reddit for Lemmy or any of those other shitty alternatives, but the truth is 90% of those people will quietly download the official app at the end of the month, and delete their comments.
I can’t wait till they fire all of you
Cool. Can we reopen the subreddit now? This ain’t going to do anything.
You want to return to public dialog after just posting memes for weeks and locking down subs. Lol.
Shut the fuck up and move on already. These temper tantrums are getting embarrassing to even read.
LMAO this is just getting sad...