> other than the mods being free labor for Reddit
Is this not the answer to your question? Reddit can't afford to pay people to do this job. They rely on impassioned people to volunteer.
Is this not the answer to your question? Reddit can't afford to pay people to do this job. They rely on impassioned people to volunteer.
/r/videos, sure, that's got its own culture, history, known reposts, moderation style needs, etc. It will take some work to for a group of communications majors to figure out how to moderate it.
But /r/PLC, where I hung out frequently? You need reasonably intelligent electrical engineers to discern spammy press releases from interesting news! We don't work cheap, except when we work for free. Elite athletics, weird hobby niches, professional forums, on and on...Reddit's long tail, where much of the value was, relies on domain experts who were also good communicators. Those are hard people to find.
Stackexchange, love it or hate it, has the same thing going. Are you going to hire a pilot to mod the aviation stack, or a post-doc to moderate mathematics?
If was working for Reddit I wouldn't take the assumption that these people can be easily replaced for granted.
Not if they get a chance to be in charge. Also many don't actually care about the changes despite what the mod blackout is asking people.
>If was working for Reddit I wouldn't take the assumption that these people can be easily replaced for granted.
Well this posts article tone makes it sound like they expect the mods to get bored. Which most will. And like I said, they are replaceable.