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If each subreddit with over 10,000 subscribers (all 2,000 of them) required just one hour of moderation per day and reddit had to pay $8/hr for it, that would c

by hoopd 11y ago

If each subreddit with over 10,000 subscribers (all 2,000 of them) required just one hour of moderation per day and reddit had to pay $8/hr for it, that would cost them over $5 million/yr. If each subreddit with 30,000 or more subscribers (all 1,000 of them) required just 5 hours of moderation per day, and that cost $8/hr, that's over $10 million/yr. This is ignoring many mods are industry specialists who could charge $50-200/hr for the time they're donating to reddit. Saying they would like their tools updated and to be taken seriously is a small "power play" considering the massive amount of labor they donate to the site each year.

mreiland 11y ago
Right, and McDonalds calls in plumbers to clean its bathrooms because it uses "Industry Specialists" for menial work. There seems to be this disingenuous need for those who are anti-reddit in this case to try and inflate what these people actually do. By and large, these mods are not content creators, they're mods. The people who post links on reddit are also not content creators, they're simply people who found something and posted a link on a site meant for linking stuff. Moderating takes work, but this idea that these moderators are people who have specialized knowledge and work day and night on this is horseshit. You do yourself and your cause a disservice when you talk like that.
- hoopd 11y ago
  Please don't call my ideas "horseshit" and then tell me I'm the one doing myself a disservice. You seem to think you have a pretty strong grip on things so you tell me: ballpark, how many hours of work do you estimate have been donated to reddit by its moderators and what's the dollar value of that work?
  - pvg 11y ago
    The dollar value of that work is zero. The moderators are willing to do it for free and there's a line of people who would do it for free. Consider this - what do people who feel their work is undervalued do? They negotiate for higher pay, they look for a better job, they leave. In this particular tantrum, how many moderators of popular subredits can you point to that resigned in protest? I'm guessing that number is also zero.
    - hoopd 11y ago
      People only leave when there are places for them to go. There's no reason to get sidetracked with a debate about how value is defined, it's a simple question.
      - pvg 11y ago
        What do you mean sidetracked? You brought up dollar value and I think there is an obvious answer to that part. The market dollar value of that work is nil. Additionally, these people don't want to go. They like whatever intangible benefits moderating brings them. If it was so onerous and awful, they'd simply leave. Again, it's telling that not a single one has.
        mreiland 11y ago
        exactly.
        hoopd 11y ago
        That's why I didn't say "market dollar value" or "market value". The challenge is to ballpark a lower bound for the value that reddit has received from the mods over the years. If you're dying of thirst and somebody offers you a glass of water some will argue the market value of that glass of water was zero. I get that. There's also the value of what that glass of water was worth to you and there are many ways to approximate that value. There's what you were willing and able to pay at the time, there's whatever water prices were at the time if you walked into a store, the size of a loan you would have taken out for it, etc. If for whatever reason this person gave you many life-saving glasses of water over the years, and you showed little appreciation, there may come a point where the two of you will debate the difference betwee market value and utility value. I'm not trying to debate market vs utility value. I'm just saying if the mods have donated $100 of time over the years it's different from if they've donated $100 million of time over the years. It's an attempt to have a rational discussion about whether or not they're "throwing a temper tantrum." You're getting sidetracked because I'm using dollars to measure utility value instead of market value. If you'd like you can think of it this way: what would the cost of reddit's mods be if this was happening in a "perfect" market where other companies were competing for moderators. > If it was so onerous and awful, they'd simply leave. Again, it's telling that not a single one has. This should be covered in the first semester of college economics: if a company has no close competitors you can not assert that its employees must be happy because they haven't left. People have been screaming for months for a similar place to leave to, it doesn't exist yet.
  - mreiland 11y ago
    the idea you're espousing is horseshit, and I'll repeat that as many times as I like. As for your question, I reject it on the grounds that the assumption is faulty and therefore not worth discussing.
    - hoopd 11y ago
      Perhaps you should refamiliarize yourself with the commenting guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - mreiland 11y ago
        it makes you feel good doesn't it?
politician 11y ago
It may be more interesting to consider what would happen if this angry "minority" left for greener pastures.

by hoopd 11y ago

mreiland 11y ago

Right, and McDonalds calls in plumbers to clean its bathrooms because it uses "Industry Specialists" for menial work. There seems to be this disingenuous need for those who are anti-reddit in this case to try and inflate what these people actually do. By and large, these mods are not content creators, they're mods. The people who post links on reddit are also not content creators, they're simply people who found something and posted a link on a site meant for linking stuff. Moderating takes work, but this idea that these moderators are people who have specialized knowledge and work day and night on this is horseshit. You do yourself and your cause a disservice when you talk like that.

hoopd 11y ago
Please don't call my ideas "horseshit" and then tell me I'm the one doing myself a disservice. You seem to think you have a pretty strong grip on things so you tell me: ballpark, how many hours of work do you estimate have been donated to reddit by its moderators and what's the dollar value of that work?
- pvg 11y ago
  The dollar value of that work is zero. The moderators are willing to do it for free and there's a line of people who would do it for free. Consider this - what do people who feel their work is undervalued do? They negotiate for higher pay, they look for a better job, they leave. In this particular tantrum, how many moderators of popular subredits can you point to that resigned in protest? I'm guessing that number is also zero.
  - hoopd 11y ago
    People only leave when there are places for them to go. There's no reason to get sidetracked with a debate about how value is defined, it's a simple question.
    - pvg 11y ago
      What do you mean sidetracked? You brought up dollar value and I think there is an obvious answer to that part. The market dollar value of that work is nil. Additionally, these people don't want to go. They like whatever intangible benefits moderating brings them. If it was so onerous and awful, they'd simply leave. Again, it's telling that not a single one has.
      - mreiland 11y ago
        exactly.
      - hoopd 11y ago
        That's why I didn't say "market dollar value" or "market value". The challenge is to ballpark a lower bound for the value that reddit has received from the mods over the years. If you're dying of thirst and somebody offers you a glass of water some will argue the market value of that glass of water was zero. I get that. There's also the value of what that glass of water was worth to you and there are many ways to approximate that value. There's what you were willing and able to pay at the time, there's whatever water prices were at the time if you walked into a store, the size of a loan you would have taken out for it, etc. If for whatever reason this person gave you many life-saving glasses of water over the years, and you showed little appreciation, there may come a point where the two of you will debate the difference betwee market value and utility value. I'm not trying to debate market vs utility value. I'm just saying if the mods have donated $100 of time over the years it's different from if they've donated $100 million of time over the years. It's an attempt to have a rational discussion about whether or not they're "throwing a temper tantrum." You're getting sidetracked because I'm using dollars to measure utility value instead of market value. If you'd like you can think of it this way: what would the cost of reddit's mods be if this was happening in a "perfect" market where other companies were competing for moderators. > If it was so onerous and awful, they'd simply leave. Again, it's telling that not a single one has. This should be covered in the first semester of college economics: if a company has no close competitors you can not assert that its employees must be happy because they haven't left. People have been screaming for months for a similar place to leave to, it doesn't exist yet.
- mreiland 11y ago
  the idea you're espousing is horseshit, and I'll repeat that as many times as I like. As for your question, I reject it on the grounds that the assumption is faulty and therefore not worth discussing.
  - hoopd 11y ago
    Perhaps you should refamiliarize yourself with the commenting guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - mreiland 11y ago
      it makes you feel good doesn't it?

politician 11y ago

It may be more interesting to consider what would happen if this angry "minority" left for greener pastures.