No apologies as Reddit halfheartedly tries to repair ties with moderators | Hacker News Reader

No apologies as Reddit halfheartedly tries to repair ties with moderators

arstechnica.com

30 pointsa2tech12 comments

Reddit's disregard for the stewards and curators from which it derives its value from was strange to see. It doesn't seem wise for them to go to war with the people creating and managing the communities that provide the very backbone for which their entire platform is based on. The recent sequence of events has opened the door for allowing alternative platforms to surface.

Shameless plug, but I've been working on a platform called Sociables that focuses on providing a place for people to create communities instead of just posts. It's like a Reddit/Discord/Patreon hybrid taking the best features of each platform and combining them under one umbrella. One key aspect is we have optional non-intrusive monetization methods baked into each community where the revenue primarily goes to the community owner.

https://sociables.com/

Moderators' expectations were already rock bottom as Reddit had failed to deliver the tools it promised a decade ago.

Moderators who haven't left already will more than likely stick around for the long haul, so there's no real rush on Reddit's side anymore (again). We're back to the status quo, except now without third-party apps.

I don't approve of it, but it is what it is.

For anyone who doesn't like the new normal, consider r/redditseppuku

I only follow a few subreddits total. The mods of two of my favorite subreddits decided to implement silly rules that only memes could be posted from here on out as a protest.

They ruined the subreddit as a form of protest. Users are upset and unsupportive of the protest, but they don’t care because they can delete those posts.

I think this protest is less popular with actual Reddit users than all of the journalists are trying to suggest.

So I’m a long time Reddit user that has basically stopped using it entirely after their API terms change (other than when I need to use it as a reference). I don’t think I’ll be going back though.

Same. I can forgive the business realities and understand the company needs to become profitable but the way management handled themselves made me want to leave the site forever.

So, like you, I did.

Same. As far as I’m concerned, Reddit closed up shop.

I have uninstalled the app since the protest started and know a few people who did the same. Moderators are literally the only reason Reddit was what it was, and they do it for free. Them and a vibrant community of 3rd party developers are the only differentiators Reddit had. Now it's just another forum, nothing particularly impressive from a technological standpoint (and easily replaceable). Current leadership is taking cues from a social network that is literally bleeding money and a dwindling user base.

As an "actual Reddit user", the only thing I am actually upset about are people like you who clearly can't see the forest for the trees.

> I think this protest is less popular with actual Reddit users than all of the journalists are trying to suggest.

As a reddit mod and now a lemmy admin, you're right... Sorta.

If you look at all reddit users, most don't care about the protest. They just want to keep consuming their content without being inconvenienced.

If you look at the subset of users who post and generate content, I think the supporter % would be much higher. These are the users that will drive change to alternate platforms. As they stop engaging with reddit so heavily, the eyeballs will likely follow.

As a fellow mod, I agree. The people that actually interact with the site overwhelmingly support the protests (look at every poll thats been posted asking for feedback). The vast bulk of users though? They have such LOW engagement with the site (they're just passive consumers) they can't even be bothered to vote in a poll.

I go to reddit about once a day now to just see if there is any active mod things I need to take care of and I'm seeing my home page be way more static--things are hanging out for over a day when it used to be my landing page was changing over every few hours. So traffic numbers may not have plummeted during the protest, but you can't tell me engagement hasn't fallen right in the toilet.

Yea I’ve never rlly understood the Reddit users that r frustrated at the mods for this specifically. It’s definitely unfortunate, and I haven’t gone on Reddit in over a month as a result. Altho u basically already answered it:

> If you look at all reddit users, most don't care about the protest. They just want to keep consuming their content without being inconvenienced.

Notice that you aren't even considering creating your own subreddits that you moderate. Like any volunteer governance, you experience rule by the small population willing to volunteer.

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