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I use Apollo to read Reddit, but mod using desktop web. Definitely the Apollo and handling of the API changes is annoying. But this was much more a straw that

I use Apollo to read Reddit, but mod using desktop web. Definitely the Apollo and handling of the API changes is annoying. But this was much more a straw that broke the camel’s back thing from a mod perspective. I’ve mentioned this before but I am on the mod team for r/portland and the Reddit admin has been terrible at providing tools and support for serious content mod problems and straight up platform abuse. There was an incident where we had someone who stuck out as disturbed say they would be carrying out a mass shooting event. There are a lot of problematic posts but this one was so subtly wrong and the second post from the user, rewording it from another pac NW sub. IIRC, at the time there was no way to report a content type problem like this to the Reddit admin. The content reporting UX was a dark pattern, seemingly purposefully or thoughtlessly designed to avoid allowing mods to report this kind of concern. I found a category to report it to anyway, and had to follow up multiple times to get any confirmation that an actual person had received my report. When I finally did get a reply, the message was a short form letter, providing the least possible commitment to addressing the concern. It was just a terrible showing. I recall discussing this specific instance w other portland mods and how much of a bummer it was to not have the company’s support on such a serious problem. But much more pedestrian of a concern has been astroturfing. There has been a persistent effort to highlight news and article headlines intended to divide people along racial and economic lines. It is ~ the same playbook used in targeted ads on Facebook leading up to the 2016 presidential election. This has been going on _years_, and it is no secret. It got to be so bad, at one point I emailed YC managing director and Reddit board member [1] Michael Seibel, about the problem and still got no reply. While Portland is a large city sub and likely has unique unaddressed moderation challenges inherent to it, I imagine there are many stories from the all-volunteer moderators in large subs who have been let down in various ways by Reddit. [1] https://www.redditinc.com/blog/reddit-welcomes-michael-seibel-to-board-of-directors/ https://www.redditinc.com/blog/reddit-welcomes-michael-seibe...

inferiorhuman 3y ago
I wouldn't say unique, r/bayarea has been a dumpster fire for a long time now. r/sanfrancisco followed suit a few years after that. I won't miss the toxicity they bring to Bay Area discourse at all.
pmontra 3y ago
> There was an incident where we had someone who stuck out as disturbed say they would be carrying out a mass shooting event. Did you report that to 911?
- ghayes 3y ago
  Unless the threat seemed imminent, wouldn't the FBI be better at addressing this concern?
websap 3y ago
Wow! Reddit as a business does a disservice to mods by not compensating them for the effort they put in to keep these communities safe and functional. Also, this entire thing about the API has made me feel that there is a future for decentralized apps, where money in the forms of tokens can exchange hands between - content creators, mods, consumers and those that help run the network, without a central entity consuming all the profits.
- ryanmercer 3y ago
  >Wow! Reddit as a business does a disservice to mods by not compensating them for the effort they put in to keep these communities safe and functional. No one is forcing us to mod. We mod because we value the communities we mod and like being active parts of them. I don't want Reddit to pay me, it isn't a job, it's a passion and a hobby.
eek2121 3y ago
For the person that threatened a mass shooting, the correct move would be to contact the FBI.The FBI would have then reached out to Reddit. I use third party apps exclusively, and will not be participating in Reddit after Apollo shuts down.
- grepfru_it 3y ago
  Why couldn’t the third party apps just ask the user to provide their own api key? It’s how chatgpt works, what is the pushback with this? I heard Apollo requires the app to communicate with an Apollo server. So are the Apollo devs mad they are now being charged for their data stream?
  - enragedcacti 3y ago
    That is how it worked already, apps made requests through the users OAuth creds and rate limits were specified by unique OAuth cred and App combo. The new system is just each app having global rate limits, after which they have to pay. Getting an API key requires submitting a written application to reddit and seemingly precludes "I want to use a third party app".

inferiorhuman 3y ago

I wouldn't say unique, r/bayarea has been a dumpster fire for a long time now. r/sanfrancisco followed suit a few years after that. I won't miss the toxicity they bring to Bay Area discourse at all.

pmontra 3y ago

> There was an incident where we had someone who stuck out as disturbed say they would be carrying out a mass shooting event. Did you report that to 911?

ghayes 3y ago
Unless the threat seemed imminent, wouldn't the FBI be better at addressing this concern?

websap 3y ago

Wow! Reddit as a business does a disservice to mods by not compensating them for the effort they put in to keep these communities safe and functional. Also, this entire thing about the API has made me feel that there is a future for decentralized apps, where money in the forms of tokens can exchange hands between - content creators, mods, consumers and those that help run the network, without a central entity consuming all the profits.

ryanmercer 3y ago
>Wow! Reddit as a business does a disservice to mods by not compensating them for the effort they put in to keep these communities safe and functional. No one is forcing us to mod. We mod because we value the communities we mod and like being active parts of them. I don't want Reddit to pay me, it isn't a job, it's a passion and a hobby.

eek2121 3y ago

For the person that threatened a mass shooting, the correct move would be to contact the FBI.The FBI would have then reached out to Reddit. I use third party apps exclusively, and will not be participating in Reddit after Apollo shuts down.

grepfru_it 3y ago
Why couldn’t the third party apps just ask the user to provide their own api key? It’s how chatgpt works, what is the pushback with this? I heard Apollo requires the app to communicate with an Apollo server. So are the Apollo devs mad they are now being charged for their data stream?
- enragedcacti 3y ago
  That is how it worked already, apps made requests through the users OAuth creds and rate limits were specified by unique OAuth cred and App combo. The new system is just each app having global rate limits, after which they have to pay. Getting an API key requires submitting a written application to reddit and seemingly precludes "I want to use a third party app".