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It's a demonstration of power; a sampler. This is a common strategy. You want to show them that you have the power so that serious negotiations can begin anew w
by guerrilla 3y ago
It's a demonstration of power; a sampler. This is a common strategy. You want to show them that you have the power so that serious negotiations can begin anew without disrupting the service you want to provide.
- candiddevmike 3y agoWhat power? Reddit can just takeover the subs and turn them back on.
- guerrilla 3y agoThe power of an organize and commit to a strike obviously. Reddit is nothing without mods. Going private is, as I said, just a sampler. The endgame would be for the mods to just leave if Reddit doesn't change course. This signals that that is a definite possibility since they've shown a. their unanimity of objection b. their ability to organize and c. their commitment to action.
- ben_w 3y agoAnd do they want to put in the same effort to curating those communities as the moderators there've just overruled? Communities can thrive or fail depending on who is in charge. (What happened with regard to the mod banning an artist because they thought their art looked like it came from an AI? Last I heard the artist was able to show their workflow but the mod was unwilling to back down…)
- 0xr0kk3r 3y agoThey'll just put the same effort in that Twitter does. Problem solved. No one has left twitter, despite Elon's tantrums. Do you really think CEOs care when their site has so much momentum and mods can be replaced in a snap?
- foota 3y agoTwitter and reddit are substantially different though.
- x86x87 3y agoAre you serious? Twitter is in shambles right now. Ads were pulled (59% revenue lost) and musk is throwing a hissy fit he does not want to pay the GCP bill and rent on the office space. Twitter is the walking dead
- 0xr0kk3r 3y agoThat's literally my point. CEOs don't care. Reddit is following suit. Reddit will become "a shambles". Although I think my sarcasm needs work.
- macintux 3y agoThey just have to keep the communities viable until the IPO; I'm sure they can find new moderators who are unsympathetic to the strike to keep the lights on that long.
- yanderekko 3y agoI expect that disrupting the powermod cabal would be a net positive for the site.
- dotnet00 3y agoMost of the powermods seem to be opposing this blackout.
- spiralx 3y agoDidn't both KotukuInAction and TheDonald get shut down by the sub's original creators due to them going off the rails and then forcibly re-opened by the admins and handed over to new moderators who were happy with the massive growth in a direction the original owner never intended and actively did not want?
- ben_w 3y agoI wouldn't know, but the question is more "can/will they do this to order?" rather than "can it ever be done?"
- isaacremuant 3y agoNo. TD was quarantined under false pretenses (ironic ones too, since a very pro police sub was accused of being anti police) and then basically killed while pretending it was alive. KIA is alive but heavily muzzled by admins on some topics such as a prohibition to mention trans in any shape or form. The mod takeover was because the original founder who didn't use the site took over it once and destroyed it something. There's been other cases where founders wreck havoc after years of not being active and were removed.
- CyberDildonics 3y agoWhy get upset about reddit? There are places where you can say whatever you can be as toxic as you want, spread misinformation and defend putin, like voat.
- BaseballPhysics 3y agoAnd then who will moderate them? Does Reddit have 18,000 employees ready to take over? Or a bunch of scans waiting in the wings?
- Ekaros 3y agoSurely there is enough people who would apply to take position of power in subreddit. And plenty of them would ignore any principles for that power.
- BaseballPhysics 3y agoI think you overestimate the number of people willing to take on that job. The vast majority of people lurk. Of those who are active, most just comment. Of the remainder, most just post. It's a vanishingly small group who actually want to moderate given the time commitment and all the headaches involved.
- unclekev 3y ago> vast majority > Of those who are active, most just comment You don't need the 'vast majority' or 'most'. You just need a few. > It's a vanishingly small group who actually want to moderate Not really, more people thank you seem to think are desperate for any sort of internet power.
- BaseballPhysics 3y agoValid point, you may be right, there may be a lot of potential mods out there if you're not worried about quality. But Reddit doesn't need shitty mods. They need good mods. Shitty mods kill communities.
- davewritescode 3y agoYes but unless they’re well moderated they’ll turn to crap. There’s a lot of moderators out there moderating by hand and using bots to run some of the bigger subreddits, much like IRC. Without those bots having access to the APIs, that job gets harder and it’s less likely to be done well. Personally I think Steve Huffman is the fall guy here and this is coming from the money people who have zero interest in where Reddit is beyond 6 months after the IPO. Reddit also has a history putting people in place to make controversial decisions only to fire them months later as appeasement to their community. Ellen Pao was the most recent example.
- x86x87 3y agoLol. What IPO? Do you think anyone is buying reddit stock after this clusterfuck?
- davewritescode 3y agoI'm not saying it's a good idea to IPO but if Reddit shows a 25% increase in ad impressions and minimal loss of users this might end up being better. Personally, if I were in charge with Reddit I'd go for an approach that required 3rd party clients to show ads that come back from Reddit's APIs and allow users to opt-out of adds for a small monthly fee directly from the user or even from the app developers who choose to incorporate it into their fee structure. Apps who don't comply get banned. The approach Reddit is going for is stupid and is burning goodwill earned over more than a decade.
- bredren 3y agoI also think the CEO is a scapegoat. I’d argue that Huffman showed more courage than Elon did, though. That said, Huffman’s handling of this was bumbling at best. It demonstrated a failure to understand his own users or the culture of the site. For that alone, he should go. But there are plenty of other reasons company leadership has failed its community, particularly it’s unpaid workers moderating content.