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I'm a mod (of an insignificant subreddit), have been active for 15+ years, 6 figure karma, even had the single most upvoted comment on all of reddit one day...t

I'm a mod (of an insignificant subreddit), have been active for 15+ years, 6 figure karma, even had the single most upvoted comment on all of reddit one day...they notify you and give you an award when that happens in case you wonder. My feelings about the site have evolved so much over the years but in the past couple of years the vibe has been turning consistently negative. I'm getting fed up and I imagine a lot of others are as well and I can't imagine this will end up benefiting Reddit in general.

pierat 3y ago
Congratulations for working for free for a for-profit company? Might I recommend you to turn towards places like Lemmy or other less-commercial and less exploitive websites? Reddit relies on free work, but doesn't value or help the mods. And now, they're doubling down on screwing everyone and manufacturing fake content for what appears their IPO. I think it's time to skedaddle.
- autoexec 3y ago
  I think I'm out of the loop... what is this about manufacturing fake content?
  - EamonnMR 3y ago
    Probably referring to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/13p889x/reddit_admins_were_just_caught_using_bots_or_fake/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/13p889x/red...
    - morkalork 3y ago
      Can't fault them for following a tried and true strategy from the same platform: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/reddit-founders-made-hundreds-of-fake-profiles-so-site-looked-popular/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/reddi...
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  You mean "volunteering to keep a community forum polite and productive". I wish people would quit shitting on mods like they're idiots for taking out the trash. Yes, though, the larger subreddits are political and repost astroturf. Anti-american garbage. But not every sub is like that. I'll look into Lemmy though.
  - BaseballPhysics 3y ago
    > You mean "volunteering to keep a community forum polite and productive". Both of those things can be true. The reality is those communities--which only thrive on Reddit because of effective moderation--are built on a private platform whose primary method of generating profits is to monetize the attention of those community members. So, yes, those mods are absolutely contributing free labour that Reddit is turning into private profits, and that labour comes in the form of volunteering to keep those forums polite and productive. Whether or not that's a reasonable tradeoff is up to each individual, though I have to confess I don't personally understand it (despite, in the past, benefiting from it). At least my day job pays me for the labour that they monetize. And now Reddit is taking a dump all over those free labourers by taking away critical tools that they use to make those forums polite and productive in the first place.
    - pierat 3y ago
      Thank you. That's why I recommended putting "volunteering time" with actual non-profit orgs and groups, so that 100% of the labor goes to all. I didn't advocate "quit volunteering for a community", cause that's the wrong thing to advocate. There's mastodon, Lemmy for 2. Discord isn't great, given earlier in the curve of monetization. Same for other for-profit areas. But again, I'd recommend finding communities in a not-profit-driven area and work there. The for-profit side of things has the same death spirals. I'm just sick of this "web2" crap profiteering and killing useful community stuff.
    - EdwardDiego 3y ago
      I mod a technical sub focused on a FOSS project because it's a good place for people to seek advice and share cool tech. I'm doing it for the people, and I'm doing it because I care about the project. It's small though, only just hit 10K subs, and the moderation load is light, basically just ensuring any vendors who turn up actually contribute to the community, not just a drive-by sales blurb.
- tester457 3y ago
  Lemmy is too slow to take off. And federation is too inconvenient for the average user.
  - digitallyfree 3y ago
    It's not easy to move a group to a new platform, and there's very little people using Lemmy currently. The thing about Reddit despite its flaws is that it allows access to many large communities with a single account.
- bmacho 3y ago
  > Congratulations for working for free for a for-profit company? They work for themselves, and use reddit resources free. If anything, this relationship is beneficial for the community, but reddit.
  - Panzer04 3y ago
    Reddit massively benefits from the existence of the community. They are sacrificing goodwill in the hope that the higher revenue per user is worth the backlash.
JohnFen 3y ago
> in the past couple of years the vibe has been turning consistently negative As a regular user, I gave up on reddit a couple of years ago because of exactly this problem.
postalrat 3y ago
I deleted my 15 year old account this week and don't miss it. My hn account is next but isn't that old. Why make it easy for the world to track you?

pierat 3y ago

Congratulations for working for free for a for-profit company? Might I recommend you to turn towards places like Lemmy or other less-commercial and less exploitive websites? Reddit relies on free work, but doesn't value or help the mods. And now, they're doubling down on screwing everyone and manufacturing fake content for what appears their IPO. I think it's time to skedaddle.

autoexec 3y ago
I think I'm out of the loop... what is this about manufacturing fake content?
- EamonnMR 3y ago
  Probably referring to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/13p889x/reddit_admins_were_just_caught_using_bots_or_fake/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/13p889x/red...
  - morkalork 3y ago
    Can't fault them for following a tried and true strategy from the same platform: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/reddit-founders-made-hundreds-of-fake-profiles-so-site-looked-popular/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/reddi...
unethical_ban 3y ago
You mean "volunteering to keep a community forum polite and productive". I wish people would quit shitting on mods like they're idiots for taking out the trash. Yes, though, the larger subreddits are political and repost astroturf. Anti-american garbage. But not every sub is like that. I'll look into Lemmy though.
- BaseballPhysics 3y ago
  > You mean "volunteering to keep a community forum polite and productive". Both of those things can be true. The reality is those communities--which only thrive on Reddit because of effective moderation--are built on a private platform whose primary method of generating profits is to monetize the attention of those community members. So, yes, those mods are absolutely contributing free labour that Reddit is turning into private profits, and that labour comes in the form of volunteering to keep those forums polite and productive. Whether or not that's a reasonable tradeoff is up to each individual, though I have to confess I don't personally understand it (despite, in the past, benefiting from it). At least my day job pays me for the labour that they monetize. And now Reddit is taking a dump all over those free labourers by taking away critical tools that they use to make those forums polite and productive in the first place.
  - pierat 3y ago
    Thank you. That's why I recommended putting "volunteering time" with actual non-profit orgs and groups, so that 100% of the labor goes to all. I didn't advocate "quit volunteering for a community", cause that's the wrong thing to advocate. There's mastodon, Lemmy for 2. Discord isn't great, given earlier in the curve of monetization. Same for other for-profit areas. But again, I'd recommend finding communities in a not-profit-driven area and work there. The for-profit side of things has the same death spirals. I'm just sick of this "web2" crap profiteering and killing useful community stuff.
  - EdwardDiego 3y ago
    I mod a technical sub focused on a FOSS project because it's a good place for people to seek advice and share cool tech. I'm doing it for the people, and I'm doing it because I care about the project. It's small though, only just hit 10K subs, and the moderation load is light, basically just ensuring any vendors who turn up actually contribute to the community, not just a drive-by sales blurb.
tester457 3y ago
Lemmy is too slow to take off. And federation is too inconvenient for the average user.
- digitallyfree 3y ago
  It's not easy to move a group to a new platform, and there's very little people using Lemmy currently. The thing about Reddit despite its flaws is that it allows access to many large communities with a single account.
bmacho 3y ago
> Congratulations for working for free for a for-profit company? They work for themselves, and use reddit resources free. If anything, this relationship is beneficial for the community, but reddit.
- Panzer04 3y ago
  Reddit massively benefits from the existence of the community. They are sacrificing goodwill in the hope that the higher revenue per user is worth the backlash.

JohnFen 3y ago

> in the past couple of years the vibe has been turning consistently negative As a regular user, I gave up on reddit a couple of years ago because of exactly this problem.

postalrat 3y ago

I deleted my 15 year old account this week and don't miss it. My hn account is next but isn't that old. Why make it easy for the world to track you?