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Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

This is an exercise in power. It's basically the online version of every labor dispute ever.

In any labor dispute workers test the water to see how much power they weild. They threaten or invoke some sort of action (like a strike.) Management respond with lockouts, terminations and so on. Ultimately there is usually some resolution where both sides understand their co-dependence, but equally understand the limits of their own power.

Reddit is following the playback here. Moderators instigate a "strike" of sorts. They get locked out. Management tests the water to see if they weild actual community power, or are just a small group of malcontents.

It will be interesting to see this play out.

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Depends on your jurisdiction, what you described sounds like a labour dispute in a very employee hostile place. Where I live it's illegal to fire people who threaten to strike

Except for the most part, Reddit mods aren't employees; they're not even volunteers. They're users and customers of the site. They just happen to be users with access to more features than most.

they're not users nor customers, they're the product that reddit is selling

Lurkers are the product. Moderators are unpaid employees, which is why they are being treated like dogshit, same as any other employee. Reddit staff forgets they don't have much to lose by walking away.

It's as though the cows reject to being slaughtered!

reddit mods are notoriously terrible and have giant egos so honestly im a fan for many of them getting banned

Techicallyvyhry haven't been fired, just sort-of muzzled.

The law has evolved to help balance the relationship between employer and employee. It dictates limits on employer behaviour and also limits on employee behaviour. Usually there is a formal structure (union) to act as the employee representative.

None of which is in play here. There are no employees, just volunteers. There is no union. Yhe action appears to be somewhat arbitrary. Why private groups? Why 48 hours? Has there been any formal discussions to the root dispute? Is there a union for API users? What link us there between API users and moderators?

So yes, the response seems heavy-handed, but the proposed action seems premature. The mods are testing their power and Reddit is responding. And there's no law governing any of this, on either side.

For now, the modcoord subreddit functionally takes on the role of a union. I know that there have been times in the past when moderators were unhappy about the state of tools that Reddit provides for them to moderate. If I remember correctly there was also some kind of spontaneous organisation of moderators that adressed Reddit admins with their collective voice, although I am not sure if any "strike" kind of action was threatened back then.

Unfortunately, until congress passes legislation requiring companies that operate as a place of public discourse to follow certain conventions this will keep happening because technically they own you (or rather they own the words that you say as data).

They have basically reached the monetization phase, where most smart users bail either just before or shortly after. You get the same dynamics with tyrants, only you have more risks and more options available to you in the real.

Straight termination is illegal in most places, but more subtle yet unmistakenable steps can be taken. For instance freezing bonuses and other compensation over performance claims, or "promoting" an active movement leader physically away from the group, cutting budget on projects that directly affect prominent members, or moving them away from the critical projects thus killing their evaluation etc.

Sadly, fighting strikes and unions has probably become an art at this point.

Well sure it's a bit of a game between the employers and the union. Countries with more extensive labour laws will restrict a wider range of unethical behaviour from employers, giving the workforce more clout in negotiations.

Note that the difference here is much more ridiculous: there is no co dependence because reddit doesn't pay moderators anything.

Therefore management tries to excercise their power over nothing(?) in costs.

Costs can be more than money. Mods are exercising their power. Reddit is responding with their own power. Both sides are just demonstrating they have power.

Both will ultimately recognise the limitations of their power, which may ultimately be a lot more, or possibly a lot less, than they believe.

True. Some mods are an exercise in pettiness

I don't think that's an internally consistent way of looking at the situation.

Additionally I imagine 90% of reddit traffic is in the top subreddits which already have corporate-controlled moderators who don't care about any of this

Mods have no real power, because there are any number of volunteers waiting in the wings to take over to be able to wield that same power.

In most subs most care about having that power to silence and punish people they dislike more than to do actual good, IMO.

Exactly. They are not workers, they do it for free.

Even volunteers have power. The question is how much? Often workers (paid or unpaid) believe they are irreplaceable, and start acting that way. It behoves management to find out if that is true. It can also help the relationships a lot if the workers find out its not true.

We're all in relationships with others all the time. I can push my suppliers some, but not too hard. I complain about other suppliers, but in some cases have little power so walk softly.

Reddit moderators believe they have power over API pricing. I guess we'll see who is right.

The majority yes, but some of them are Reddit employees and are paid.

> In most subs most care about having that power to silence and punish people they dislike more than to do actual good, IMO.

I strongly disagree with this.

What you describe isn't most mods, it's just the loudest form of modding. Mods who do the banal tasks well will hardly even be noticeable.

I mod a few subs, in my experience most mods are just kinda boring.

I mod about 10 subs myself, biggest with just over a million subs. I think it's absolutely most mods.

Maybe not on the smaller subs that are truly community orientated, and maybe not on some of the bigger truly well run subs, but on most subs? Sure.

I agree with you, and some mods are actually Reddit employees. I have had an account permanently suspended by a Reddit employee mod, because he could.

It's not true that all mods are volunteers.

As an aside, the paid Reddit mods are likely to be on the side of reddit being profitable and able to pay their salaries, and thus support price hikes.

Especially in an era of layoffs.

I'm speculating here, I have no insight myself.

> because there are any number of volunteers waiting in the wings to take over to be able to wield that same power.

Yes, and that's why the "good" mods have power (against Reddit), because they know not to abuse that modding power.

Bad mods will destroy the spirit of a community in months if not weeks, tanking their utility and usage. Reddit knows that (or did know that at some point).

> Yes, and that's why the "good" mods have power (against Reddit), because they know not to abuse that modding power.

That's not true. Mods abuse power all the time and admins don't give a crap. The good mods are good mods because they're not petty dicks.

Social inertia is working okay for Facebook... kinda... let's go with what kinda works, guys!

(Might as well, the alternative is they just pack up their moneytables and get the hell out of our temple...)

>a "strike" of sorts

Why is everyone calling this boycott a "strike?"

The correct term is "industrial action". Its a kind of digital strike (locking out public users) but it's not a strike in terms of labour stoppage. Hence the air quotes.

Because the moderators provide (unpaid) labor for Reddit (or SO, to make the parallel with another post where you are asking the same question).

A boycott implies customers taking their business elsewhere. If this was simply people boycotting reddit there's nothing they can do.

However these are "more than customers" who are foing more than boycott. They are actively "locking the store" so others can't use it. It's not a strike (they're not withholding work) but it's also not a boycott since they are taking actual actions that lock out other customers.

you're describing a strong armed (because enforced) picket

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