Article by The Verge, providing details about various subreddits and their mods getting threatened because they are labeled as NSFW
The Verges coverage of this has actually been really good. Most other media outlets that have covered it at all have had 1 or 2 that demonstrated a superficial understanding of the conflict.
The verge has been regularly keeping up with what’s going on and seem to have a pretty good grasp on the issues.
Reddit forgets just how well this move went for Tumblr.
Different things. Tumblr actually banned NSFW, Reddit is reminding its mods that using tools provided by a platform to try and harm that platform is pointless. I have no idea what people thought would happen tbh. That Reddit would look at subs going “we’re going to go NSFW mode entirely for the sake of denying Reddit ad revenue”, not even bothering to change rules, and just say “yeah, fair cop”?
Yet this little hidden gem rests at the bottom of the page after the article.
Volunteer-made project that fights bots on Reddit is shutting down
Grab some popcorn, the bots are coming.
This feels a bit like Reddit is that city planning guy who insists on opening the Ghost Containment Unit in Ghostbusters.
I don’t moderate anything.
Quotes taken from https://maya.land/monologues/2023/07/01/spez-feudalism-reddit.html
Imagine starting [a subreddit], hyping it up, patiently providing four-fifths of the content until people show up, moderating spam, moderating jerks, growing it gradually over time. Setting rules, establishing tone, running the weekly topical threads. Would you feel like that /r/whateverItWas existed because of Reddit the company? Would you feel like it fundamentally belonged to his Royal Highness Steve, and Steve was just delegating it to you to run? No! You started it! You shaped it! You collaborated with the people it attracted to make it what it is! Even those users – they could switch tomorrow to /r/whateverItWasTwo and you couldn’t do a thing about it – if they decided they didn’t like your vision for /r/whateverItWas, they would, so the fact that they’re still here is a kind of voting with your feet, it validates what you’re doing… To the extent that /r/whateverItWas exists as a thing within Reddit as a whole, to be run or misrun, managed or mismanaged? It feels like yours.
But at the same time, to an external observer – you can see how they would feel that this is pretty silly, right? The thing that’s “yours” is nothing but rows and columns in Reddit’s databases13, a series of flags giving you the power to moderate. The only thing you have is set in Reddit’s systems, a permission to edit stuff under a certain scope a bit differently than other users, wowee aren’t you important. It’s not you who has a license to the user posts, it’s not you who controls anything but a tiny little square of grass Reddit let you mow. You’re gonna protest over that? The world at large already doesn’t understand why you might volunteer for this work, why you might care enough to do it unpaid – you seem like a schmuck to them, a victim.
or a power tripper.
I’ll admit that some mods probably are on a power trip. A clear example of “probably not, they have an actual reason to want to stay in power” is r/askhistorians, where you probably don’t want random people replacing people with lots of historical knowledge on a subreddit specifically about history that only allows informative replies complete with a works cited. They care about the online space they’ve built, not that they have a ban hammer and can wield it with prejudice. I’d imagine a lot of other mods are pretty similar. Knowledge about their niche community, though probably not as much as the people on r/askhistorians, a certain subreddit culture that they don’t want to collapse and fall apart… they’d rather preserve the online space they and many other people enjoy. Even if it just looks like free labor and power tripping to outsiders whenever they don’t want to just up and abandon Reddit.
“A clear example of “probably not, they have an actual reason to want to stay in power” is r/askhistorians, where you probably don’t want random people replacing people with lots of historical knowledge on a subreddit specifically about history that only allows informative replies complete with a works cited.”
Call it what you want. It is power tripping or having a sense of superiority or higher self for whatever reason.
Since when is Reddit the beacon of all that is right in regards of information? Why not pack up and start an community somewhere else?
Reddit is just a medium and nothing more.
The problem I have with these statements and the course of action overall is the following;
Why even protest? The most ironic thing should be that r/AskHistorians should know of all people what happens with mutinies or strikes that have weak or no resolve.
Why would you even strike when you would fold by the first sign of friction that is coming your way?
Just again, keep modding your community and ignore everything but don’t act like they are so very wronged and need to have some sort of sympathy when they are literally happily providing labor…for free.
For example:
2 months ago there were strikes in my country regarding distribution centres of one or the biggest supermarket chain in the country.
In these distribution centres are working around 5500 people and 2700 of them are “migrant workers”.
Quoting the union;
“The temporary workers in the distribution centers are almost all migrant workers. Hundreds of them have joined the strikes. That is special and very courageous, because they are in a weaker position and are often put under pressure to keep working.”
The end result?
“After months of negotiations and eleven days of strike, the Union has achieved a result with the supermarket group. In it, salaries will increase by 10% and austerity of the Sunday allowance is off the table. Temporary workers also get more certainty about their schedules.”
They fudging won big time.
Yeah, as someone who modded for several years, there were two insults people loved to throw at us: Either we were power tripping or we were janitors who didn’t matter.
Either of these were used whenever we enforced the rules of our community and kicked out people who didn’t want to play nice with the rest of it. Of course, they will never have a positive opinion of people who enforce a community’s rules.And that’s the thing: The community. You do not spend several years modding a subreddit without getting to know the people and having some sort of relationship with them. The community is not an abstract, it’s people you get to know - often over several years - and that’s not something you want to leave behind.
“And that’s the thing: The community. You do not spend several years modding a subreddit without getting to know the people and having some sort of relationship with them. The community is not an abstract, it’s people you get to know - often over several years - and that’s not something you want to leave behind.”
Who is asking them to leave it all behind?
The only way you can be part of a community is by being a mod?
If mods are feeling as wronged by Reddit as how they say they feel, why not resign as a mod and just join the community as a member?
I mean you would still be part of the community you say they hold so dear but in a different capacity.
I would think stepping down has some risks at the moment because you don’t know who’s replacing you. Someone who also cares about the niche topic just like you, or someone on r/redditrequest who just wants to collect the subreddit as their 483th moderated sub and won’t do anything? Less of a big deal if you have several mods, but if you’re the only one…
“I would think stepping down has some risks at the moment because you don’t know who’s replacing you”
You could literally give an notice to the Reddit admin or whoever you are in contact with that you disagree with the way they handle things, that you are gonna step down but would like to pick your replacement personally.
Reddit would likely agree because it means that they don’t have to search for a mod themselves and if the mods have such a strong connection with the community than finding a replacement should be in the realm of possibility.
The whole striking saga gives a whole lot of “We tried nothing and we are all out of ideas” vibe.
this fucking sucks. i am very disappointed that the protests lost steam and everything is just back to normal, swept under the rug. they showed their hand, acted like fucking dictators, and everyone is just like “welp thats it!” and gives the fuck up. it’s just sad. it feels like 90% of the people who said they were in this were all just being performative.
so many of us dedicated a lot of time to the protests, left our communities, migrated, all for everyone to just go crawling back. i won’t go back. i am staying on kbin. but man, it fucking sucks to see reddit face 0 consequences because Spez was right, “this will blow over”
I think this has done damage to Reddit, but it’ll be death by a thousand cuts rather than a big instantaneous failure.
To be honest, I really don’t care what happens to Reddit at this point. I’d rather have Kbin be a smaller, more dedicated community than have it “kill Reddit”.
