4 ms·

There goes reddit. No one wants an unmoderated slop.

cm2012 3y ago
There will be plenty of people willing to be moderators, don't worry.
prepend 3y ago
I wouldn’t mind it. I moderate some smallish subs (5-10k users) and don’t really make many mod actions. Maybe 5 in the past 15 years. The subs are still pretty good as measured by increasing subscriber counts and my own enjoyment. I think the huge subs probably get a bunch of spam, but then I ignore them even with moderation.
- andrewmunsell 3y ago
  It's more than a spam problem, though: you only have to look as far as Twitter to see that lax moderation that allows toxic or illegal content to exist-- even on a small part of the site-- can begin to drive away advertisers across the whole site, which could turn into a death spiral for Reddit.
  - arbitrage 3y ago
    Oh no, won't someone think of the advertisers!?
  - prepend 3y ago
    I don’t care about that problem. The cost of running something like Reddit is so cheap. I’ve run bbs servers and it’s not free, but it’s really cheap. Reddit is just text if you stop hosting images and video. It was profitable 10 years ago. It just want “unicorn” “profitable” for a huge VC investment and IPO. I don’t care about that. Again, I’ve literally run subs for over a decade and haven’t seen this problem. Thousands of happy people are chugging along. No “toxic” material so far. I think the key ingredient may be some niche topic that doesn’t attract random people but some organizing interest.
bluescrn 3y ago
Some of them go waaaay too far. Mass purges of disagreement/dissent have become normal on there, but they're now going after 'prethoughtcrime' - banning anybody who's ever posted to any of a growing list of subreddits deemed 'bad'.
- nilespotter 3y ago
  The ideological enforcement is unbearable. I can't believe people still use it.
  - AlexandrB 3y ago
    I don't get why. Am I not allowed to create a community where rule #1 is "no Hacker News posters allowed" and ban anyone that seems to be coming from Hacker News? You don't have to engage with my community.
- joshstrange 3y ago
  On the surface that seems like a bad idea but get enough users coming in from another sub and "just asking the question" or not arguing in good faith and you'll understand really quick why it's easier to ban them all than play games where they try to stay just barely on this side of the rules while still harassing your community. You also get a lot of the "I'm a gay black guy [0]"-type people which makes modding even harder. I understand how on the outside it looks bad but I also know from experience what mods put up with and I totally understand reaching for this tool to avoid it. [0] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/11/10/21559458/dean-browning-dan-purdy-byl-holte-patti-labelle-twitter-gay-black-man https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/11/10/21559458/dean-brown...
  - carstenhag 3y ago
    This stuff started at the Donald subreddit and spread onto other similar subreddits. I haven't seen it in any sane subreddit.
    - joshstrange 3y ago
sarasasa28 3y ago
4chan has been running since 2003
- nisegami 3y ago
  4chan boards work pretty similarly to reddit subs, no? At least the major ones have volunteer jannies.
fallingknife 3y ago
Completely unmoderated would be a disaster. But Reddit was much better 10 years ago when it was much less moderated. IMO nerfing the mods will make it better.
randomdata 3y ago
It appears that they have been moving towards admins taking the moderator role for some time. I wrote, pre-blackout, what I thought was an innocuous comment stating that I would not be offended if someone called me gay (why would I be?) and I eventually received a site-wide suspension for it. No concern was raised from the moderators of the subreddit it was posted in despite the fact that their rules dictate not violating the site rules, which I apparently did. The panic over there is fascinating.

cm2012 3y ago

There will be plenty of people willing to be moderators, don't worry.

I wouldn’t mind it. I moderate some smallish subs (5-10k users) and don’t really make many mod actions. Maybe 5 in the past 15 years. The subs are still pretty good as measured by increasing subscriber counts and my own enjoyment. I think the huge subs probably get a bunch of spam, but then I ignore them even with moderation.

andrewmunsell 3y ago
It's more than a spam problem, though: you only have to look as far as Twitter to see that lax moderation that allows toxic or illegal content to exist-- even on a small part of the site-- can begin to drive away advertisers across the whole site, which could turn into a death spiral for Reddit.
- arbitrage 3y ago
  Oh no, won't someone think of the advertisers!?
- prepend 3y ago
  I don’t care about that problem. The cost of running something like Reddit is so cheap. I’ve run bbs servers and it’s not free, but it’s really cheap. Reddit is just text if you stop hosting images and video. It was profitable 10 years ago. It just want “unicorn” “profitable” for a huge VC investment and IPO. I don’t care about that. Again, I’ve literally run subs for over a decade and haven’t seen this problem. Thousands of happy people are chugging along. No “toxic” material so far. I think the key ingredient may be some niche topic that doesn’t attract random people but some organizing interest.

bluescrn 3y ago

Some of them go waaaay too far. Mass purges of disagreement/dissent have become normal on there, but they're now going after 'prethoughtcrime' - banning anybody who's ever posted to any of a growing list of subreddits deemed 'bad'.

nilespotter 3y ago
The ideological enforcement is unbearable. I can't believe people still use it.
- AlexandrB 3y ago
  I don't get why. Am I not allowed to create a community where rule #1 is "no Hacker News posters allowed" and ban anyone that seems to be coming from Hacker News? You don't have to engage with my community.
joshstrange 3y ago
On the surface that seems like a bad idea but get enough users coming in from another sub and "just asking the question" or not arguing in good faith and you'll understand really quick why it's easier to ban them all than play games where they try to stay just barely on this side of the rules while still harassing your community. You also get a lot of the "I'm a gay black guy [0]"-type people which makes modding even harder. I understand how on the outside it looks bad but I also know from experience what mods put up with and I totally understand reaching for this tool to avoid it. [0] https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/11/10/21559458/dean-browning-dan-purdy-byl-holte-patti-labelle-twitter-gay-black-man https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/11/10/21559458/dean-brown...
- carstenhag 3y ago
  This stuff started at the Donald subreddit and spread onto other similar subreddits. I haven't seen it in any sane subreddit.
  - joshstrange 3y ago

sarasasa28 3y ago

4chan has been running since 2003

nisegami 3y ago
4chan boards work pretty similarly to reddit subs, no? At least the major ones have volunteer jannies.

fallingknife 3y ago

Completely unmoderated would be a disaster. But Reddit was much better 10 years ago when it was much less moderated. IMO nerfing the mods will make it better.

randomdata 3y ago

It appears that they have been moving towards admins taking the moderator role for some time. I wrote, pre-blackout, what I thought was an innocuous comment stating that I would not be offended if someone called me gay (why would I be?) and I eventually received a site-wide suspension for it. No concern was raised from the moderators of the subreddit it was posted in despite the fact that their rules dictate not violating the site rules, which I apparently did. The panic over there is fascinating.