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I don’t think anyone is claiming it’s the death of Reddit. They are going dark for 2 days, then it will be business as usual.

TheAnachronism 3y ago
It will be business as usual until the change of the APIs. Numerous moderation tools use these APIs and with Reddit shutting them down, many subs will be completely overrun with spam. /u/spez mentioned in the shitshow that was his AMA, that there would be moderation tools provided by Reddit, but nothing in that direction has ever been shown. So yes, maybe until the end of June it will be as usual, but afterward many parts of the platform will be unusable with the amount of spam and missing moderation.
- quenix 3y ago
  I remember the Reddit side quoting some very low number on third-party moderation tool use… something like 8% of moderators using third party tools. Maybe that effect is overstated.
  - fabian2k 3y ago
    I would assume that a small percentage of mods are doing the vast majority of actual moderating. So the interesting statistic would be the percentage of mod actions performed via third-party tools. This is a bit similar to Stack Overflow claiming only 11% of mods are participating in the strike there. What they didn't say is that it includes almost all of the active Stack Overflow mods and some community-run anti-spam and moderation tools. So the coverage of actual mod activity is far larger than that number might make you think (and the number is of course outdated as well).
    - quenix 3y ago
      I tracked down the original statistic. CEO u/spez wrote: > About 3% of mod actions come from third-party apps, and we’ve reached out to communities who moderate almost exclusively using these apps to ensure we address their needs.
      - joshstrange 3y ago
        At this point I wouldn’t trust anything he says also, we’ve heard them say that time and time again with no real/good changes so I have no clue why we’d expect it now. It’s similar to how the API is limited compared to what the official app can do and lacks many basic features (streaming or callbacks) that are needed to avoid polling it. They’ve said before that if they started charging there would be improvements to the API. Where are they? Are developers supposed to take them on faith/trust? I’m pretty sure Reddit has burned what little of that they have left.
      - Mindwipe 3y ago
        > About 3% of mod actions come from third-party apps, and we’ve reached out to communities who moderate almost exclusively using these apps to ensure we address their needs. I wouldn't be shocked if that's because third party bots are counted in there, and in terms of sheer scale of spam etc that is 80+ of mod actions. Huffman has a very good reason to use figures in a misleading way to downplay the impact here.
  - lm28469 3y ago
    And how many of these 8% are in the top XX millions user subreddit, how many of the 92% are moderators of the infinite list of < 200 users subreddit ?
querez 3y ago
Meh, I wouldn't be so quick to judge. I'm a mod of a several-million-subscriber subreddit (one that's likely highly popular among HN subscribers). When we asked our community if they wanted to join the protest, the answer was a very resounding "yes, but 2 days aren't going to cut it"... So we're still debating when/IF we're going to return after going dark. To add, all the mods are tired and don't have enough time to dedicate to the subreddit as it is (with mod-tools working, which won't be the case after the API changes). Only time will tell, but we're most likely only reactivating our subreddit once reddit signals clear willingness to ease on their squeeze. By which time a lot of damage (in terms of subscribers moving on) will be done. Also, some of the mods have said they won't come back after this, as this was the final drop in the bucket and they'll delete their account today. So all in all, there is some hope that this does serious damage to reddit (at this point, they're clearly seen as the enemy by a lot of us). Talking to mods at other very large subreddits, we're not the only ones thinking along these lines.
- davidgerard 3y ago
  same here. r/sneerclub (18.5k) wouldn't have joined without overwhelming community support. Only question is whether to come back in two days. Also I think everyone on the sub knows very well it's a complete waste of time lol
  - theobromananda 3y ago
    Thank you dgerard, you are doing (acausal robot) god's work.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- safety1st 3y ago
  If you don't stay on Reddit where will you go? I'm eager to join communities that are moving to something less user hostile than Reddit. Bonus for anything OSS or federated.
  - 3y ago

TheAnachronism 3y ago

It will be business as usual until the change of the APIs. Numerous moderation tools use these APIs and with Reddit shutting them down, many subs will be completely overrun with spam. /u/spez mentioned in the shitshow that was his AMA, that there would be moderation tools provided by Reddit, but nothing in that direction has ever been shown. So yes, maybe until the end of June it will be as usual, but afterward many parts of the platform will be unusable with the amount of spam and missing moderation.

quenix 3y ago
I remember the Reddit side quoting some very low number on third-party moderation tool use… something like 8% of moderators using third party tools. Maybe that effect is overstated.
- fabian2k 3y ago
  I would assume that a small percentage of mods are doing the vast majority of actual moderating. So the interesting statistic would be the percentage of mod actions performed via third-party tools. This is a bit similar to Stack Overflow claiming only 11% of mods are participating in the strike there. What they didn't say is that it includes almost all of the active Stack Overflow mods and some community-run anti-spam and moderation tools. So the coverage of actual mod activity is far larger than that number might make you think (and the number is of course outdated as well).
  - quenix 3y ago
    I tracked down the original statistic. CEO u/spez wrote: > About 3% of mod actions come from third-party apps, and we’ve reached out to communities who moderate almost exclusively using these apps to ensure we address their needs.
    - joshstrange 3y ago
      At this point I wouldn’t trust anything he says also, we’ve heard them say that time and time again with no real/good changes so I have no clue why we’d expect it now. It’s similar to how the API is limited compared to what the official app can do and lacks many basic features (streaming or callbacks) that are needed to avoid polling it. They’ve said before that if they started charging there would be improvements to the API. Where are they? Are developers supposed to take them on faith/trust? I’m pretty sure Reddit has burned what little of that they have left.
    - Mindwipe 3y ago
      > About 3% of mod actions come from third-party apps, and we’ve reached out to communities who moderate almost exclusively using these apps to ensure we address their needs. I wouldn't be shocked if that's because third party bots are counted in there, and in terms of sheer scale of spam etc that is 80+ of mod actions. Huffman has a very good reason to use figures in a misleading way to downplay the impact here.
- lm28469 3y ago
  And how many of these 8% are in the top XX millions user subreddit, how many of the 92% are moderators of the infinite list of < 200 users subreddit ?

querez 3y ago

Meh, I wouldn't be so quick to judge. I'm a mod of a several-million-subscriber subreddit (one that's likely highly popular among HN subscribers). When we asked our community if they wanted to join the protest, the answer was a very resounding "yes, but 2 days aren't going to cut it"... So we're still debating when/IF we're going to return after going dark. To add, all the mods are tired and don't have enough time to dedicate to the subreddit as it is (with mod-tools working, which won't be the case after the API changes). Only time will tell, but we're most likely only reactivating our subreddit once reddit signals clear willingness to ease on their squeeze. By which time a lot of damage (in terms of subscribers moving on) will be done. Also, some of the mods have said they won't come back after this, as this was the final drop in the bucket and they'll delete their account today. So all in all, there is some hope that this does serious damage to reddit (at this point, they're clearly seen as the enemy by a lot of us). Talking to mods at other very large subreddits, we're not the only ones thinking along these lines.

davidgerard 3y ago
same here. r/sneerclub (18.5k) wouldn't have joined without overwhelming community support. Only question is whether to come back in two days. Also I think everyone on the sub knows very well it's a complete waste of time lol
- theobromananda 3y ago
  Thank you dgerard, you are doing (acausal robot) god's work.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
safety1st 3y ago
If you don't stay on Reddit where will you go? I'm eager to join communities that are moving to something less user hostile than Reddit. Bonus for anything OSS or federated.
- 3y ago