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We’ve come along way from running our own web rings and PHPBBs. The internet was our audience but then we put it in the hands of companies looking to profit off

We’ve come along way from running our own web rings and PHPBBs. The internet was our audience but then we put it in the hands of companies looking to profit off our niche communities and now we’re having a leopards ate our face moment. My unpopular opinion is Reddit is making the right move and likely their only move. Moderators got what they signed up for and once a community was created and they owed it to their communities to hand over the keys when they ‘quit’ in protest. In the end, anyone unhappy with how Reddit handled the API situation should have walked instead of sticking around to watch Rome burn.

johnnyanmac 3y ago
>My unpopular opinion is Reddit is making the right move and likely their only move the inevitable move, maybe. The only move (for profits), yes. But they are executing this absolutely horribly. Reddit has never been an overly formal site, and I guess that is built into the culture of the admins as well. >they owed it to their communities to hand over the keys when they ‘quit’ in protest Historically speaking, they never did. We have seen mods run a sub to the ground several times and the result was users jumping ship to a new community. So while inevitable, it is inherently hypocritical for Reddit to suddenly care now as if they ever cared about users.
notfed 3y ago
Communication is everything. Their "move" isn't even the main point of contention, it's the horrifically mismanaged communication from CEO to the public. No reassurance, no de-escalation, no reasonable transparency of the decision making process. Just dictator moves, lack of communication in general except for a few emotion-driven jabs.
- notfed 3y ago
  Here's a template the Reddit CEO can use to immediately put a stop to this chaos: "Hi Reddit, this is the CEO. I admit it, I didn't handle this well. Some of our recent decisions have not been met well by our users. There are great points being made, and I've decided to take this into consideration. Let's start over."
that_guy_iain 3y ago
I think Reddit are pretty much right in this whole thing. > In the end, anyone unhappy with how Reddit handled the API situation But they've completely mishandled it. A prime example of that was a AMA where ~10 questions got answered.
alfalfasprout 3y ago
...except communities overwhelmingly supported protesting reddit's policies. You've bought into the provably wrong propaganda reddit is putting out about admins going rogue.
- sandoze 3y ago
  There were communities on Reddit that did a poll in Discord on whether or not they should go private. Given the where and who the audience was, what voices do you think were ‘overwhelming’ representative? In the end it was a way for many moderators to hijack a community and transfer it to their next pet social space (Discord seems to be the current favorite).
  - luc4sdreyer 3y ago
    Not sure why they went the discord route. That's not what some big subs did. For example, /r/nottheonion (definitely not niche) simply pinned a single post with three comments to simulate a poll. 88% (87.3k votes) supported continuing the blackout. https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/148w58w/vote_shall_we_blackout_again_or_remain_open/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/148w58w/vote_s...
  - JustBreath 3y ago
    It's not "hijacking" if it's the community they curated.
  - Applejinx 3y ago
    The ones I was in, asked what to do ON reddit, and I personally saw subreddits vote to go private. It would depend on the subreddit. r/stoicism (aka r/bro-icism ;) ) seemed very unimpressed and self-involved, and didn't see how the concept of 'virtue' entered into it. r/datingoverfifty overwhelmingly sided with its mods, in part because that subreddit was so actively moderated that women over fifty could post there without getting harassed, and scam artists were quickly run off by the mods. As such, that subreddit had experienced moderation as a positive force and trusted its mods' opinions, and its mods were repeatedly in touch with the subreddit explaining what they wanted to do and why, and asking whether they had user support. Looks like we saw different experiences, is all I'll say.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>My unpopular opinion is Reddit is making the right move and likely their only move the inevitable move, maybe. The only move (for profits), yes. But they are executing this absolutely horribly. Reddit has never been an overly formal site, and I guess that is built into the culture of the admins as well. >they owed it to their communities to hand over the keys when they ‘quit’ in protest Historically speaking, they never did. We have seen mods run a sub to the ground several times and the result was users jumping ship to a new community. So while inevitable, it is inherently hypocritical for Reddit to suddenly care now as if they ever cared about users.

notfed 3y ago

Communication is everything. Their "move" isn't even the main point of contention, it's the horrifically mismanaged communication from CEO to the public. No reassurance, no de-escalation, no reasonable transparency of the decision making process. Just dictator moves, lack of communication in general except for a few emotion-driven jabs.

notfed 3y ago
Here's a template the Reddit CEO can use to immediately put a stop to this chaos: "Hi Reddit, this is the CEO. I admit it, I didn't handle this well. Some of our recent decisions have not been met well by our users. There are great points being made, and I've decided to take this into consideration. Let's start over."

that_guy_iain 3y ago

I think Reddit are pretty much right in this whole thing. > In the end, anyone unhappy with how Reddit handled the API situation But they've completely mishandled it. A prime example of that was a AMA where ~10 questions got answered.

alfalfasprout 3y ago

...except communities overwhelmingly supported protesting reddit's policies. You've bought into the provably wrong propaganda reddit is putting out about admins going rogue.

sandoze 3y ago
There were communities on Reddit that did a poll in Discord on whether or not they should go private. Given the where and who the audience was, what voices do you think were ‘overwhelming’ representative? In the end it was a way for many moderators to hijack a community and transfer it to their next pet social space (Discord seems to be the current favorite).
- luc4sdreyer 3y ago
  Not sure why they went the discord route. That's not what some big subs did. For example, /r/nottheonion (definitely not niche) simply pinned a single post with three comments to simulate a poll. 88% (87.3k votes) supported continuing the blackout. https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/148w58w/vote_shall_we_blackout_again_or_remain_open/ https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/148w58w/vote_s...
- JustBreath 3y ago
  It's not "hijacking" if it's the community they curated.
- Applejinx 3y ago
  The ones I was in, asked what to do ON reddit, and I personally saw subreddits vote to go private. It would depend on the subreddit. r/stoicism (aka r/bro-icism ;) ) seemed very unimpressed and self-involved, and didn't see how the concept of 'virtue' entered into it. r/datingoverfifty overwhelmingly sided with its mods, in part because that subreddit was so actively moderated that women over fifty could post there without getting harassed, and scam artists were quickly run off by the mods. As such, that subreddit had experienced moderation as a positive force and trusted its mods' opinions, and its mods were repeatedly in touch with the subreddit explaining what they wanted to do and why, and asking whether they had user support. Looks like we saw different experiences, is all I'll say.