Reddit mods discuss forming a union and suing for back pay | Hacker News Reader

Reddit mods discuss forming a union and suing for back pay

old.reddit.com

30 pointsprhrb12 comments

Reddit is a privately owned business that moderators access as public users under agreement by a terms of service document.

This is what can happen when you devote too much emotional capital to somebody’s private commercial centrally controlled enterprise. Early contributors to IMDB went through the exact same thing when IMDB sold to Bezos in the 90s. I understand the situation is frustrating but it’s clearly becoming a confused hallucination.

A better solution is to follow the example of Libera Networks after they abandoned Freenode.

This is spot on. As people, a sense of community is not something we usually associate with commerce, but these online platforms are _only_ instruments to get a return on someone's investment.

The fact that part of the journey involves mutually beneficial behaviours (like using VC money to acquire more users, build a better UX, and make the community larger) is just an accident, and the incentive to capitalise the whole shebang will always win out.

This sort of thing feels like The Price We Eventually Pay for a massive, free-to-use online community.

>Reddit is a privately owned business that moderators access as public users under agreement by a terms of service document.

There isn't exactly a bright line in this regard as what's to be considered paid work as multifactor tests of one kind or another are used, but Reddit being a for-profit business (versus being a non-profit or government entity) has the least level of protection against subsequent claims for unpaid wages from volunteers and FLSA rights cannot be waived. In other words with wage claims regarding volunteer work, being a for-profit corporation is a negative not a positive as that works against an entity.

Libera isn't exactly a good example, it was very messy with that transition and a ton of history/community content and relations was lost.

They don't need to win the law suit as a union, they just need it to get past reddit's motion to dismiss the suit. Reddit would have a bad time IPO'ing with a class action active against it.

That isn't even vaguely logical. It's just a sunk cost fallacy with disconnected wishful thinking as some sort of qualifier for future decisions. People are sad because they voluntarily devoted too much time in somebody's else private garden and the owner changed some rules. They wish they can sue, wish that lawsuit does not get dismissed, wish that this may provide some financial leverage, and then wish that leverage may return things to the prior status quo.

In economics you cannot regain costs that occurred in the past. Attempts to do so only incur further expense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

Yes, I am aware of sunken cost fallacy. It only makes sense when there is a reasonable alternative. Lemmy isn't it, my whole reply was it is similar to libera and mastodon. Much like twitter, reddit will keep most users and communities.

To be honest, I don't think the core request (get paid) is unreasonable. Reddit has always relied on this fuzzy definition of what Mods powers and responsibilities are in order to tread the fine line between "You're employees we should pay, we're responsible - yes even for the child porn you guys are posting" and "You guys are totally independent we're not going to step in - yes even if you guys are posting child porn". It grew on the back of a weird free speech pitch, and quickly pivoted whenever it was convenient.

Right now, Reddit is clearly moving in the direction of professionalized moderators, so why not just bite the bullet and do it. 5% of advertiser revenue gets distributed to the moderators of a subreddit. It's a pittance, it gives the mods a financial stake in improving their sub-reddit and showing more ads. It also let's you say "As a moderator you get paid, but we expect X,Y,Z conditions". It also starts to answer some of those questions like "Can the founder of /r/WallStreetBets go off use that name as a trademark or does that belong to reddit?". If as a moderator you're signing an agreement and getting paid, then that question can be made very clear.

How can you demand monetary compensation for working on an entirely voluntarily basis?

They're already awarded power over the domain they moderate

>How can you demand monetary compensation for working on an entirely voluntarily basis?

It's actually quite easy. There's much ink regarding this issue as this has come up regarding Internships and the like, so is nothing new. As a new user I don't know what I can link to off-site, but there's for instance specific rules in California for what is allowable for unpaid internships and if that's not met, those volunteer interns can file successful unpaid wage claims.

I'd argue this isn't similar internship, while an internship is voluntary work, it is under an agreement between the "employer" and "employee"

In this case there is, at best, an implicit agreement. But moderators are under the same terms and conditions as all users.

Does that mean as a user, I can demand back pay for generating content on Reddit via posts and comments?

More like power hungry mods who were happy ruling their subreddits not being happy that there are people who are more powerful then them and willing to make decisions without them.

They can discuss whatever they want, doesn't mean it has any bearing on reality

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