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I moderate several subreddits and have written my own apps/bots that perform various functions, such as updating CSS flair based on a remote set of changing ass

by avree 3y ago

I moderate several subreddits and have written my own apps/bots that perform various functions, such as updating CSS flair based on a remote set of changing assets, monitoring posts, etc. I am quite okay with the planned API costs, timeline, and communication. How were you affected by the changes? I read the Apollo guy's posts, but the reality is that he had built a very, very profitable business serving Reddit's content to the masses.

philote 3y ago
So as a moderator, you're ok with having to pay to better do your unpaid moderation duties? Edit: Also, I'm curious how much you'd be paying.
- secondcoming 3y ago
  How is it different to people contributing to Open Source software in their free time?
  - revscat 3y ago
    It’s not, and in OS communities when there is a disagreement, or people do not like the decisions made by core contributors, then people make their displeasure known. And if these problems aren’t addressed to their satisfaction then they take that as an opportunity to leave.
  - eageroryx 3y ago
    Open source is generally not a private company with shareholders.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    Reddit hasn't been open source for a decade. So, the "open source" part? If someone really likes my project but really hates me (or vice versa) you can fork my project and keep going. Take all the progress I contributed to and make your own ball. Reddit, not so much. Maybe you can clone the high level design, but the people wont follow. It's not like OS where contributers are well, contributing. Most of the audience is passive browsers.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  A moderator is a volunteer position that people do because they want to run a community. It is not “unpaid” labor, and moderators acting like they’re doing anyone favors is ridiculous. If it’s too much work for you to do for free then step down and tons of people from the community will step up.
  - johnnyanmac 3y ago
    >A moderator is a volunteer position that people do because they want to run a community. in the same way Spec work is a "volunteer position", sure. > It is not “unpaid” labor, and moderators acting like they’re doing anyone favors is ridiculous. I'd love for the mods to walk and show how correct they are. >tons of people from the community will step up. yes, because reddit never complained about power tripping users eager to be in a position of authority and praise how they make the site a better place. Surely hiring one of those in the midsts of a revolt is the best scenario.
    - edgyquant 3y ago
      If the mods walk Reddit will be just fine. If Reddit removes them, most of these mods won’t end up back in positions of power, some over hundreds of thousands of people. It’s the mods who need Reddit not vice-a-versa I’m sorry you’re upset about this, but mods are just users who enjoy running communities (or worse, are paid by an org to curate some mentality.) They are not Reddit employees nor do they improve reddits bottom line. They are just users of a platform, but unlike general users they are the one demographic it’s easy to replace since users tend to think they can do better by default.
      - johnnyanmac 3y ago
        >but unlike general users they are the one demographic it’s easy to replace could not disagree more. You could not pay me to put up with the riffraff of spam, angry users who don't care about me, and maintenance of tools that are not even suppotred by the site, despite relying on them. At least I have a bit of social pressure on my side as a cashier keeping people from throwing punches (a bit). Someone crazy enough to do that for free isn't someone I let go of (from the perspecive of a profit seeking executive). I can change algorithms and bargain with Google to get more traffic from "general users". But I guess we're talking past each other. You seem to see all mods as power hungry and foaming at the tooth to moderate a bunch of users. Sure, you can find SOMEONE, in the samw way on how you can find someone to do odd jobs on the street. That's not equivalent to a proper experienced moderator who has already hit those growing pains. Trying to rationalize this with you is like trying to rationalize at work why you shouldn't lay off experienced talent. I'll just shake my head as the company spirals down and points fingers instead of looking within and thinking "maybe we should value our workers and try and keep them happy".
- avree 3y ago
  Reddit's API is free for my use cases. From their documentation: "Our API allows free access to moderators and developers creating these tools for non-commercial use cases."
  - denlekke 3y ago
    *free [rate limited] access
waboremo 3y ago
How can you be a moderator on reddit, defend reddit on other sites, meanwhile they still don't have adequate native moderation tools that have been promised for months now? I genuinely don't get such allegiance. At least get paid for it or SOMETHING.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>I am quite okay with the planned API costs, timeline, and communication. How were you affected by the changes? Every app of choice I'd use for reddit is shutting down in a week. I don't like the supposedly official app. I already disdained reddit for several reasons over the years and this is the camel that broke the straw. I have no issues paying for good service (I bought a SomethingAwful account over a decade ago, and I donate to Tildes) and I don't think reddit is a good service, in its platform, its community, nor its general paradigms. It is not moving in a direction that I want to support. If that means a lonely migration to a new community, so be it. Not the first time, won't be the last. >but the reality is that he had built a very, very profitable business serving Reddit's content to the masses. and reddit didn't benefit from that free labor at all. This is always such a weird angle to take. That some dude paid 2 other people part time and hes stealing from a billion dollar coporation who employs 2000 people as is. Shocker that one is profitable and the other struggles. >uch as updating CSS flair based on a remote set of changing assets yeah, remember when reddit said it would implement native flairing? Glad you did that work for them (likely built on the work of others' free labor).
ryantgtg 3y ago
It sounds like you aren’t in the same camp of those who are struggling with these changes at reddit. And what does Apollo’s current profits have to do with anything? I was affected by twitter’s API changes multiple times between January and now. The tangible affects were from their technical mistakes (suspending my apps multiple times and then reverting the suspensions; creating their new API tiers but not actually putting me in one of them without my direct intervention). The less tangible affects were their multiple announcements of pending changes with no timelines or prices, which sowed confusion and were a huge waste of time to think about. In both cases, reddit and twitter, it takes no effort to see how these API changes could have been more professionally rolled out.

by avree 3y ago

philote 3y ago

So as a moderator, you're ok with having to pay to better do your unpaid moderation duties? Edit: Also, I'm curious how much you'd be paying.

secondcoming 3y ago
How is it different to people contributing to Open Source software in their free time?
- revscat 3y ago
  It’s not, and in OS communities when there is a disagreement, or people do not like the decisions made by core contributors, then people make their displeasure known. And if these problems aren’t addressed to their satisfaction then they take that as an opportunity to leave.
- eageroryx 3y ago
  Open source is generally not a private company with shareholders.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  Reddit hasn't been open source for a decade. So, the "open source" part? If someone really likes my project but really hates me (or vice versa) you can fork my project and keep going. Take all the progress I contributed to and make your own ball. Reddit, not so much. Maybe you can clone the high level design, but the people wont follow. It's not like OS where contributers are well, contributing. Most of the audience is passive browsers.
edgyquant 3y ago
A moderator is a volunteer position that people do because they want to run a community. It is not “unpaid” labor, and moderators acting like they’re doing anyone favors is ridiculous. If it’s too much work for you to do for free then step down and tons of people from the community will step up.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >A moderator is a volunteer position that people do because they want to run a community. in the same way Spec work is a "volunteer position", sure. > It is not “unpaid” labor, and moderators acting like they’re doing anyone favors is ridiculous. I'd love for the mods to walk and show how correct they are. >tons of people from the community will step up. yes, because reddit never complained about power tripping users eager to be in a position of authority and praise how they make the site a better place. Surely hiring one of those in the midsts of a revolt is the best scenario.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    If the mods walk Reddit will be just fine. If Reddit removes them, most of these mods won’t end up back in positions of power, some over hundreds of thousands of people. It’s the mods who need Reddit not vice-a-versa I’m sorry you’re upset about this, but mods are just users who enjoy running communities (or worse, are paid by an org to curate some mentality.) They are not Reddit employees nor do they improve reddits bottom line. They are just users of a platform, but unlike general users they are the one demographic it’s easy to replace since users tend to think they can do better by default.
    - johnnyanmac 3y ago
      >but unlike general users they are the one demographic it’s easy to replace could not disagree more. You could not pay me to put up with the riffraff of spam, angry users who don't care about me, and maintenance of tools that are not even suppotred by the site, despite relying on them. At least I have a bit of social pressure on my side as a cashier keeping people from throwing punches (a bit). Someone crazy enough to do that for free isn't someone I let go of (from the perspecive of a profit seeking executive). I can change algorithms and bargain with Google to get more traffic from "general users". But I guess we're talking past each other. You seem to see all mods as power hungry and foaming at the tooth to moderate a bunch of users. Sure, you can find SOMEONE, in the samw way on how you can find someone to do odd jobs on the street. That's not equivalent to a proper experienced moderator who has already hit those growing pains. Trying to rationalize this with you is like trying to rationalize at work why you shouldn't lay off experienced talent. I'll just shake my head as the company spirals down and points fingers instead of looking within and thinking "maybe we should value our workers and try and keep them happy".
avree 3y ago
Reddit's API is free for my use cases. From their documentation: "Our API allows free access to moderators and developers creating these tools for non-commercial use cases."
- denlekke 3y ago
  *free [rate limited] access

waboremo 3y ago

How can you be a moderator on reddit, defend reddit on other sites, meanwhile they still don't have adequate native moderation tools that have been promised for months now? I genuinely don't get such allegiance. At least get paid for it or SOMETHING.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>I am quite okay with the planned API costs, timeline, and communication. How were you affected by the changes? Every app of choice I'd use for reddit is shutting down in a week. I don't like the supposedly official app. I already disdained reddit for several reasons over the years and this is the camel that broke the straw. I have no issues paying for good service (I bought a SomethingAwful account over a decade ago, and I donate to Tildes) and I don't think reddit is a good service, in its platform, its community, nor its general paradigms. It is not moving in a direction that I want to support. If that means a lonely migration to a new community, so be it. Not the first time, won't be the last. >but the reality is that he had built a very, very profitable business serving Reddit's content to the masses. and reddit didn't benefit from that free labor at all. This is always such a weird angle to take. That some dude paid 2 other people part time and hes stealing from a billion dollar coporation who employs 2000 people as is. Shocker that one is profitable and the other struggles. >uch as updating CSS flair based on a remote set of changing assets yeah, remember when reddit said it would implement native flairing? Glad you did that work for them (likely built on the work of others' free labor).

ryantgtg 3y ago

It sounds like you aren’t in the same camp of those who are struggling with these changes at reddit. And what does Apollo’s current profits have to do with anything? I was affected by twitter’s API changes multiple times between January and now. The tangible affects were from their technical mistakes (suspending my apps multiple times and then reverting the suspensions; creating their new API tiers but not actually putting me in one of them without my direct intervention). The less tangible affects were their multiple announcements of pending changes with no timelines or prices, which sowed confusion and were a huge waste of time to think about. In both cases, reddit and twitter, it takes no effort to see how these API changes could have been more professionally rolled out.