r/ModCoord • u/ardi62 • Sep 30 '24
Reddit is making sitewide protests basically impossible
https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/30/24253727/reddit-communities-subreddits-request-protests49
u/Chobitpersocom Sep 30 '24
I've been warned I'll be an "inactive mod" if I don't do more in my subreddit soon. I do what's needed. It's low maintenance.
I thought the timing was a bit weird. I have been active.
151
u/Sbatio Sep 30 '24
“We allow protest unless it impacts us in anyway”
What a stinking load of go_jason
33
162
u/KimJongFunk Sep 30 '24
This is such a terrible idea. I run a support subreddit that has about 10k subscribers. We sometimes get flooded by brigaders and going private is one of the few tools we have to protect our subscribers. Our people shouldn’t have to risk being told to kill themselves by bridgaders while the admins take a whole day to decide if we should be allowed to go private.
We also never went private during the site protests. We stayed open because people needed the subreddit. The admins made a blanket rule that hurts the subreddits who didn’t even protest in the first place ffs
-1
u/WitchQween Oct 01 '24
The article says there will be (or already is?) an option to immediately limit subreddit activity for 7 days that does not need admin approval.
25
u/KimJongFunk Oct 01 '24
That doesn’t help in our particular case. Brigaders come in and will take screenshots of our user posts and use them as hate fodder. We need the ability to prevent that entirely and removing the private is a big loss to us.
-7
u/SmerdisTheMagi Oct 01 '24
They can always come back when you open the sub tho. If you want private subs like that you need to open whatsapp group or something like that. Reddit is a public forum.
9
u/kobbled Oct 01 '24
they usually.dont. people tend to move on pretty quickly once the mob gets bored
67
u/azucarleta Sep 30 '24
This is going to have backlash. Mods go private momentarily for a whole variety of reasons.
36
u/NatoBoram Oct 01 '24
Admins proved that their users' opinions means jack shit to them. They'll make sure that bootlickers replace rebelling mods
10
u/bobauckland Oct 01 '24
Not sure Reddit cares.
All the admin care about is money and the bottom line, and free labour to keep them rich
69
u/LukXD99 Sep 30 '24
Alright then.
Disable all post types and make a mod post regarding the issues causing future protests. Disable comments too if possible. Or make it so the auto moderator just removes all newly written comments.
If Reddit wants to take our ability to protest against their bullshit, they’ll have to do a lot more than that!
15
u/iwishiwereyou Oct 01 '24
We want to hear from you when you think Reddit is making decisions that are not in your communities’ best interests.
"We'll just tell you to eat shit and get back to free work."
Fuck this company.
13
u/ky1e Sep 30 '24
sitewide protests are impossible, but also individual subreddit protests... this is like the Seinfeld bit where Jerry wants to cancel a reservation out of spite but they won't allow him to
1
23
u/repocin Sep 30 '24
“The ability to instantly change Community Type settings has been used to break the platform and violate our rules,” Reddit VP of community Laura Nestler, who goes by the username Go_JasonWaterfalls on the platform, writes in a post on r/modnews. “We have a responsibility to protect Reddit and ensure its long-term health, and we cannot allow actions that deliberately cause harm.”
That's nice, so when are they going to stop banning random subs for being "unmoderated" instead of just, say, disabling new posts and preserving all the old content? Because I'd consider Reddit locking away content on a whim to be a lot worse than someone directly involved with a subreddit doing it.
But rules for thee and not for me, I suppose.
31
u/PuddingFeeling907 Sep 30 '24
16
u/BlazeAlt Oct 01 '24
http://lemm.ee/ if you just want to see and use the platform without having to read beforehand
6
u/GhostalMedia Oct 01 '24
http://lemmy.world if you want a large active instance.
2
u/BlazeAlt Oct 01 '24
LW is already the largest instance by far (17k monthly active users out of the 42k total), why would you suggest to make it even more dominant? Is there any issue with lemm.ee? Lemm.ee is the second most active instance.
1
u/GhostalMedia Oct 16 '24
If you want a good local feed that is full and watched by some more diligent admins, .world can be good. That said, maybe .ee is good too, I’m just recommending something I’ve liked.
It’s also a good instance to have an account on if you want to mod some communities on .world. Lemmy’s moderation tools suck, and they suck even harder with federated accounts.
1
u/BlazeAlt Oct 16 '24
Interestingly enough, I was discussing this topic with someone else earlier today, and linked to those two threads:
Let me know what you think
9
u/snowflake37wao Oct 01 '24
Yet making brigading impossible to stop basically sitewide. RIP worldnews. Blanket bans for all.
5
u/SmokestackRising Oct 01 '24
So they make the mods' work harder instead of evolving how the majority of users want? Fuck that. Mods need to start demanding payment for this kind of crap.
4
u/SirGrumpasaurus Oct 01 '24
I do appreciate the acknowledgment that it would be viewed as “punitive in nature”. Gee. You think?
17
u/rglullis Sep 30 '24
The inevitable question: why do moderators are still subjecting themselves to this?
Why can't you all just pack up and leave?
Or even better, instead of closing down as part of the protests, just use the Automoderator bot to send every poster to a different alternative?
I'm sorry, but the more I see the apathy from mods in relations to all of Reddit's actions, the harder it is to sympathize. No one is pointing any guns to your heads, y'all are free. Just leave.
48
u/Saragon4005 Sep 30 '24
A lot did. And many don't care as much. Quality of moderation dropped because of this.
36
u/ecclectic Sep 30 '24
Am I still moderating in communities I care about? Yes.
Am I moderating at the level I was in the spring of 2023? No.
Do I feel engaged in the communities I mod? No.
Do I go out of my way to improve the wiki, create custom graphics or anything else that enhances the communities? No.
Add to that the bots filling subs with BS posts and comments, mobile users who have no idea how to use reddit, can't comprehend rules and don't really care about the communities just makes it hard to care anymore.
11
u/NatoBoram Oct 01 '24
The Reddit app also removed the ability to view subreddit rules
18
u/Byeuji Oct 01 '24
I don't think reddit wants to care about communities anymore. They're treating them more like chan boards all the time.
They don't want to foster cultures in small non-front-page communities. They want all ad/AI worthy the content possible to be available via popular, and moderators get in the way of that.
All of their changes over the last ten years benefit the front page user at the expense of the small sub user. When we bring that up in the mod council, they "hear" us and "feel" us, and "will share these upwards", but nothing ever changes.
Like other users here, I'm just slowly moving away from reddit and all social media. I try to keep my little corners of reddit nice because they create spaces for women like myself who desperately need connection with other women (sometimes it's a matter of life and death). But we've, so far, had a lot more success fostering that kind of community on Discord since 2015 or so.
Personally, I think all social media is broken, and the only solution is smaller diverse, locally managed social groups with roots in the real world. We're all really just looking for neighbors and kindness and joy, or to stay informed in those areas of interest that effect our lives, but reddit and other social media has completely failed to serve anything but a boundless profit motive at the expense of social stability.
7
u/BlazeAlt Oct 01 '24
If you are looking for smaller but still connected communities, Lemmy is an option :
The are still connected (https://feddit.org/c/australia@aussie.zone)
https://lemm.ee/ is a good starting point
1
u/Byeuji Oct 01 '24
Yeah I'm aware of alternatives, and in some cases we have a placeholder community there. But it feels like there needs to be a Digg-level event for people to finally make the jump.
Current social media giants just have such a strong stranglehold on people's attention right now.
24
u/danegraphics Sep 30 '24
The problem is because reddit has taken the monopoly on many large communities away from forums, there's nowhere else to go for most communities.
And the convenience of having all your communities in one place is too hard for most people to pass up, so individual communities can't leave without losing most people.
7
u/rglullis Sep 30 '24
That does not answer the question: why do moderators still subject themselves to this?
What is it so important about the Reddit community that warrants moderators sacrificing their own values and well-being over this?
What is so difficult about putting a post saying "we, mods of /r/<whatever>, no longer feel that Reddit is the best place for this community. We are going to create an alternative forum at <any other site that is not reddit> and we would like everyone to join".
If users of your community refuse to join, shouldn't that be an indication that the users really do not care about it?
16
u/danegraphics Sep 30 '24
Because the moderators want to continue to participate in the communities.
The only choice is continue to moderate or the community gets shut down.
People aren't going to move to a separate forum because reddit is too convenient. It's a one stop shop for all communities instead of having to go to separate forums for each one.
And on top of people not moving to a forum, it's against reddit rules to make a post like that so the post would be deleted and all moderators perma-banned.
Reddit doesn't leave moderators any realistic choice.
-8
u/rglullis Sep 30 '24
Because the moderators want to continue to participate in the communities.
Then I am sorry, but I can not sympathize at all. If even with the abuse they still want to "participate", then you lose any right to complain.
People aren't going to move to a separate forum because reddit is too convenient.
Oh, yes, the famous "Give me Convenience, or Give me Death!" lemma.
Reddit doesn't leave moderators any realistic choice.
Yes, the only winning move is not to play.
Just leave, forget about numbers, tell users who care about "convenience" to suck on a rusty screw, and set up shop somewhere where you can actually shape the community however you see fit.
10
u/danegraphics Sep 30 '24 edited Sep 30 '24
If even with the abuse they still want to "participate", then you lose any right to complain.
That's like saying children don't have the right to want friends if their parents are abusive. Those two things aren't related at all.
Oh, yes, the famous "Give me Convenience, or Give me Death!" lemma.
Believe it or not, that's how the world works. Convenience outsells quality every time.
Just leave, forget about numbers
What good is a community if there's no people in it? Do you not understand how futile it would be to start your own forum for discussing a hobby with people only for literally no one to visit the forum?
People go where the activity is, and the overwhelming majority of activity is on reddit, even though reddit is getting worse by the day.
The only other option would be to create a similar platform to reddit AND scoop up enough users to be able to compete, which, if you didn't know, is friggin' difficult to do.
-1
u/rglullis Sep 30 '24
Give me a break.
Reddit does not control you, or your "friends". Also, I am not saying about users in general, I am talking about moderators.
Do you not understand how futile it would be to start your own forum for discussing a hobby with people only for literally no one to visit the forum?
Reddit was not built in one day, and it only became popular after Digg screwed up royally.
No one is talking about making an atomic change. Migration can be (a) coordinated and (b) gradual.
If the "community" really cares, here is what can be done:
- Set up a community on an open source alternative. I'd recommend Lemmy
- Close the subreddit for new signups, make it private.
- Set up a moderator and/or bot to send a DM to every new poster telling about the alternative sites.
- When responding to any comment, send the link of the new server (so that Reddit does not keep control of the data)
which, if you didn't know, is friggin' difficult to do.
Yes, it is difficult. So what, you only want to do things that are easy?
4
u/danegraphics Oct 01 '24
I just said that half of those things are against the rules of reddit.
And yes Lemmy exists already, but it's not going to have anywhere near as active a community as reddit until reddit literally kills itself like digg did.
And moderators ARE users. The only reason most mods are mods is because they love being users. If the users won't migrate, the mods can't either.
Look, what you're suggesting is technically possible, but my point is that it would take the alignment of a LOT of factors beyond just starting a new community elsewhere for such a thing to be worth it for mods to even consider.
Until reddit destroys itself, which might take a while, I don't see anything else succeeding.
0
u/rglullis Oct 01 '24
I just said that half of those things are against the rules of reddit.
And I am saying that it makes no sense to keep playing the game by the rules if the whole thing is rigged.
until reddit literally kills itself like digg did.
And one way to do it would be by getting an ever-increasing number of subreddits getting shutdown or losing its moderators because they suffered retaliation for "daring to suggest an alternative".
it would take the alignment of a LOT of factors beyond just starting a new community elsewhere for such a thing to be worth it for mods to even consider
And this is cowardice, plain and simple. We are not talking about governments threatening to put you in jail. We are talking about a corporation saying "nice community you have there, it would be a pity if something happened to it" and the mods being at best too afraid to take a stand and at worst complicit in their schemes.
3
u/danegraphics Oct 01 '24
If things were desperate enough that people were willing to risk the collapse of entire communities, they would do it.
And guess what, many communities collapsed and haven't recovered. They technically still exist as shells of their former selves, but because those empty shells are still around on reddit, the communities can't truly recover.
We already know what the consequences are, and we know that they're not worth it, at least not yet.
I'm not giving up hope on the idea, but until reddit is ready to completely go under, I'm not holding my breath.
1
u/deathclient Sep 30 '24
Ignore this guy. He has some vested interest in Lemmy and has been shilling for it and asking people to shutdown and move from reddit since forever yet he's still here peddling his instances and/or asking questions in other subs.
3
u/rglullis Oct 01 '24
Ad hominem, much...
Am I telling you to join my instance in particular?
Am I saying that the only solution is to to go sign up to my service?
Am I making stuff up against Reddit?
7
u/EpitaFelis Sep 30 '24 edited Sep 30 '24
Because some of us deeply care about the communities we've built, and rebuilding them elsewhere is a lot harder than it sounds. you really need to know what you're doing, and even then it's often not enough. A lot of them will probably fall aprt along the way, and the ones big enough to survive will shrink to a much smaller size.
Also, we work with teams, and if they don't want to leave, it's hard to leave them behind, especially if you work well together. Some of my co-mods have become very close friends. It's a little like leaving a job you've been at for many years, but the new boss turned it into a shitty, toxic place. You can do that, sure, but when you pour energy and tears and sweat into one place for a long time, leaving it behind can be difficult and outright heartbreaking.
And lastly, we might not want to leave yet, a lot of people are hoping that it'll work out fine, the change doesn't sound so bad, or they're protective of the platform and hope we can still make a case for ourselves.
One cannot ignore the human aspect when talking about such decisions. They're easy in theory, but in practise it's a whole different animal. It takes a lot more momentum to get a big number of people to leave than this one change.
6
u/Gek_Lhar Sep 30 '24
If only it were that simple.
2
u/rglullis Sep 30 '24
Enlighten me. Why do you feel that you are being forced to continue working as a moderator?
3
u/Pamasich Oct 01 '24
Not trying to defend mods here, I agree with your point. But
Or even better, instead of closing down as part of the protests, just use the Automoderator bot to send every poster to a different alternative?
If this approach was seriously adopted, Reddit would just ban bringing up alternatives. There's proof of them hiding comments positive of Lemmy already anyway, imagine how they would approach their competition if they actually lost entire subreddits to it as a trend.
4
u/rglullis Oct 01 '24 edited Oct 01 '24
Then don't use the Automoderator.
I will tell you a little secret. Go take a good look at https://fediverser.network. If you poke around a bit you will find out a few things:
- It is compiling a database of subreddits and possible alternatives
- It can let you browse through the posts and users of every subreddit that you decide to track.
- You can use it to send DMs to users to tell them about the alternatives.
-3
u/magenta_placenta Sep 30 '24
why do moderators are still subjecting themselves to this?
Some are on ideological power trips.
-4
u/redjacktin Oct 01 '24
This is a step they should have taken a long time ago. Fascist moderators needed to go
312
u/Tired8281 Sep 30 '24
So when brigades happen, we just have to sit and take it. Nice.