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>It's the thousands of mods and the millions of people creating and organizing the content that I go there to read. Until those people are happy with things, I'

>It's the thousands of mods and the millions of people creating and organizing the content that I go there to read. Until those people are happy with things, I'm not going back. You go there for the user content, not the mods. You can say mods cultivate communities, but to say that they deserve credit but not the admins or platform itself seems untenable. Furthermore, insinuations that the API changes will lead to a substantial decline in community quality via its impact on moderation seem to be broadly unsupported. It's unclear that there's a monotonic relationship between moderator power and community quality, similar to how most people would be skeptical of an argument that said that there's a monotonic relationship between state power (irl) community quality. For example, one thing that moderators have wanted to do in the past is create cross-subreddit blacklists. The admins pushed back on this with some success, which was probably healthy for the site as a whole.

arnorhs 3y ago
Fair enough. Usually this is the stance I would take in these sorts of discussions, since usually power users misunderstand how much they represent the majority of users. But in this case I would expect that a substantial part of active users use Reddit with a 3rd party app so I'm inclined to say a lot of people will stop using it because of the passive way it is used. I could be wrong and that is why I'm commenting. I can go back to this comment in 2-3 years. My feeling is that Reddit will have shrunk by that time
wpietri 3y ago
Oh? Thanks so much for telling me what goes on in my head, bub. The average bit of user-generated content is of very low quality. Which is why pretty much any successful platform, this one included, uses user-generated signals to filter the good stuff to the top. And any social context is prone to vicious circles where dark triad find somewhere successful and ruin it. Preventing that requires active weeding. All of that is labor I value. The platform deserves some credit. But as all the developers here know, Reddit is not succeeding on the strength of its software. Reddit doesn't have a technology moat. It's a pretty standard web forum. They didn't invent it, they didn't perfect it, and not only could it be replicated, it has been many times. So should the platform get paid? Definitely. Reddit-the-corporation should have enough cashflow to cover the bills and support the necessary staff. But right now the tail is trying to wag the dog, and Reddit-the-community is not having it.
- yanderekko 3y ago
  >Thanks so much for telling me what goes on in my head, bub. I mean, if you're going to Reddit to marvel at the sidebar rules or CSS stylings, then I guess you're going there for the mods qua mods. But I would assume that this represents a relatively rare user psychographic. Beyond this, my point is that it's unfair to give the mods credit for indirectly cultivating communities but refuse to extend this same consideration to the admins or platform. >The average bit of user-generated content is of very low quality. Which is why pretty much any successful platform, this one included, uses user-generated signals to filter the good stuff to the top. Yes, and Reddit was successful long before the moderation tools that are being impacted by the API changes were created. Treating this protest as being about the basic question of whether Reddit should have moderation or not is disingenuous. >But right now the tail is trying to wag the dog, and Reddit-the-community is not having it. Well, the powermods aren't having it. We'll see what "Reddit-the-community" thinks when the dust settles. A bunch of activists can't claim to speak for it, though obviously they'd like to pretend that they can.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - wpietri 3y ago
    If you're claiming that the main things Reddit mods do is a bit of rule text and some CSS, then I don't think you know enough about the topic to be worth further discussion.
    - subsistence234 3y ago
      in the best case mods remove spam and illegal content, and beyond leave the community alone to do its thing. unfortunately typical reddit mods feel compelled to do all kinds of other things, like they're on a mission from god.
      - GravityisaHoax 3y ago
        There are some subs I frequent where the mods have created bots that have completed transformed the sub for the better. Examples are the several marketplace subs, where bots are heavily used.
mbrameld 3y ago
Tell me you've never moderated a sizeable online community without telling me you've never moderated a sizeable online community.
- yanderekko 3y ago
  I haven't. So what? Is there anything I'm wrong about in a way that you could provide meaningful evidence on? Surely you aren't arguing that only moderators are qualified to weigh in on the social value of moderators - this sort of logic wouldn't pass the laugh test if we were talking about police, or soliders, or middle managers, or low-level government bureaucrats. This whole "thin blue line"-style thinking that moderators are flirting with here is... cringey.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

arnorhs 3y ago

Fair enough. Usually this is the stance I would take in these sorts of discussions, since usually power users misunderstand how much they represent the majority of users. But in this case I would expect that a substantial part of active users use Reddit with a 3rd party app so I'm inclined to say a lot of people will stop using it because of the passive way it is used. I could be wrong and that is why I'm commenting. I can go back to this comment in 2-3 years. My feeling is that Reddit will have shrunk by that time

wpietri 3y ago

Oh? Thanks so much for telling me what goes on in my head, bub. The average bit of user-generated content is of very low quality. Which is why pretty much any successful platform, this one included, uses user-generated signals to filter the good stuff to the top. And any social context is prone to vicious circles where dark triad find somewhere successful and ruin it. Preventing that requires active weeding. All of that is labor I value. The platform deserves some credit. But as all the developers here know, Reddit is not succeeding on the strength of its software. Reddit doesn't have a technology moat. It's a pretty standard web forum. They didn't invent it, they didn't perfect it, and not only could it be replicated, it has been many times. So should the platform get paid? Definitely. Reddit-the-corporation should have enough cashflow to cover the bills and support the necessary staff. But right now the tail is trying to wag the dog, and Reddit-the-community is not having it.

yanderekko 3y ago
>Thanks so much for telling me what goes on in my head, bub. I mean, if you're going to Reddit to marvel at the sidebar rules or CSS stylings, then I guess you're going there for the mods qua mods. But I would assume that this represents a relatively rare user psychographic. Beyond this, my point is that it's unfair to give the mods credit for indirectly cultivating communities but refuse to extend this same consideration to the admins or platform. >The average bit of user-generated content is of very low quality. Which is why pretty much any successful platform, this one included, uses user-generated signals to filter the good stuff to the top. Yes, and Reddit was successful long before the moderation tools that are being impacted by the API changes were created. Treating this protest as being about the basic question of whether Reddit should have moderation or not is disingenuous. >But right now the tail is trying to wag the dog, and Reddit-the-community is not having it. Well, the powermods aren't having it. We'll see what "Reddit-the-community" thinks when the dust settles. A bunch of activists can't claim to speak for it, though obviously they'd like to pretend that they can.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- wpietri 3y ago
  If you're claiming that the main things Reddit mods do is a bit of rule text and some CSS, then I don't think you know enough about the topic to be worth further discussion.
  - subsistence234 3y ago
    in the best case mods remove spam and illegal content, and beyond leave the community alone to do its thing. unfortunately typical reddit mods feel compelled to do all kinds of other things, like they're on a mission from god.
    - GravityisaHoax 3y ago
      There are some subs I frequent where the mods have created bots that have completed transformed the sub for the better. Examples are the several marketplace subs, where bots are heavily used.

mbrameld 3y ago

Tell me you've never moderated a sizeable online community without telling me you've never moderated a sizeable online community.

yanderekko 3y ago
I haven't. So what? Is there anything I'm wrong about in a way that you could provide meaningful evidence on? Surely you aren't arguing that only moderators are qualified to weigh in on the social value of moderators - this sort of logic wouldn't pass the laugh test if we were talking about police, or soliders, or middle managers, or low-level government bureaucrats. This whole "thin blue line"-style thinking that moderators are flirting with here is... cringey.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]