Things are moving fast again, so this is going to be another quick and dirty post… Reddit is now removing mod teams without any pretense of speaking for mode…
Keep digging, spez
It’s amazing how many different shovels he is able to come up with.
Even Shovel Knight’s going “Daaaamn.”
@friend_of_satan I think it has a better meaning if you don’t go the shovel route with that comment, if you know what I mean
yep, the entire 22-account (i think) team at r/mildlyinteresting got booted about half an hour or so ago and now the sub has an advert to ask for it in redditrequest
What happens if you ask to mod it and set it to NSFW again?
At least reddit is irrelevant for me now or else I’d be pissed.
It’s very satisfying to me that it has transitioned from irritation to genuinely finding the whole fiasco hilarious. I’ve mentally disengaged from reddit, feel no void from its absence, and I’m just enjoying watching them fumble their way through this. Ignoring everyone from the outset would have played better than whatever they’ve been up to.
frfr no cap
There’s no way to effectively protest a corporation on its own platform. It controls the platform, it can and will change the rules or enforce them unequally just to shut you up, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
I feel sort of bad for the bootlickers who are trying to take advantage of the situation for their own ends. With the precedents being set, they’re going to have even less authority to run the subs when it’s done and their sucking up will mean nothing.
The only good move is to leave.
I mean, I kinda feel like this is a way to effectively protest, because even if they can heavy handedly force you to shut up, you can at least force them to actually do that. The more visibly reddit tries to stamp out dissent, the more people will notice them doing that, and the more upset those people will be. Unlike the irl equivalent, there are few stakes for most people in being involved in this kind of digital protest. At the worst, you get banned there and move somewhere else, which you probably were going to eventually do anyway if youre angry enough to protest reddit like this.
Doing things that force reddit’s hand, like making subs nsfw, harms them in some way no matter what: either they do nothing, and lose ad revenue and potentially anger people who just wanted their subs to be what they were, or they capitulate, losing them whatever they wanted to do in the first place and showing precedent for the future, or they try to force things back to normal, and fuel the anger against them even further due to people having feeling restricted. It might not kill the site (even digg and tumblr and such still exist, its very hard for a sufficiently big social site to actually die completely), but it can erode its userbase and grow that of competitors, which reduces the potential revenue the site can make.
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At least we can hope that this will severely damage the ipo.
There’s no way to effectively protest a corporation on its own platform. It controls the platform, it can and will change the rules or enforce them unequally just to shut you up, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
You can still make it painful for them on the way out. They are using up a shitload of resources dealing with this, and it will be hurting their image and valuation. The more Reddit has to stomp on its users, the more damage they do to their brand in the long run.
You can’t win, but you can go down fighting, and possibly take Reddit down with you.
Reddit may win, but make it as Pyrrhic a victory as possible.
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I like this saying a lot. The story, not so much.
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as an ethos, the story doesn’t help though… they not only took his car but also his life, and all he did was make it annoying for them?
that’s the definition of cutting off your nose to spite your face
True but they can go anytime. In the meantime they’re making a fuss, keeping the issue alive in the news and making Reddit take action instead of making it easy for them.
E.g. “If you want me gone fire me because I’m not quitting so you can save face.”
On one hand, causing chaos on reddit and ending up in the news is maybe good?
On the other hand that drives traffic to the site. Quietly leaving and bitching somewhere else will do nothing.
Best case is that video strike where people go just long enough to upload 1gb videos of white noise to tax their servers without adding any content.
“The only good move is to leave.”
Completely agree
Wait, so people can post crazy content to those now unmoderated subs? Did they not think this through or do they now have paid moderators?
Soon it’ll all be ineffective scabs or overwhelmed admins. Have at.
I’m wondering how many spammers and/or trolls are applying to become moderator right now.
Hopefully a lot. The more shitty mods they have, the more amusing it will be to me.
Definitely time to try it out. See if the scabs really knew what they signed up for.
No they restricted them to new posts.
How far is he willing to take this? I mean AskHistorians hasn’t gone full NSFW yet - but they are in a protest mode. Albeit one that still will end up producing decent content, just less frequently.
The AskHistorians team is the closest thing to irreplaceable, I’d be very surprised if even he’s stupid enough to pick that particular hill to die on.
Not a chance. Even though they want to Instagram the shit out of Reddit, the respect for /r/askhistorians is basically universal. It’s THE quality subreddit, without question. No other compares.
If Spez is stupid enough to do what he’s done so far, then I indeed think it’s a possibility.
I don’t think Reddit cares. People talk about well run subs as good things but reddit admins don’t really see mods as curators they see them as janitors. They don’t like it when mods curate subreddits they want up votes to be the only thing that matters.
I doubt askhistorians really has the numbers (the numbers the imaginary advertiser or investor demands) to do anything to fight back.
they need engagement! Not removed posts and comments! Clickbait and especially ragebait are number makers not these posts with 90 % removed comments.
I respectfully disagree. A sub like AskHistorians generates tons of traffic for the site via google searches alone. It’s also got 2 million subscribers that happily remain subscribed for the quality content with all the spam filtered out.
Google hits are probably the least valuable page view. They have killed far bigger subreddits for far dumber reasons. Like AMA. Is history a highly valuable advertising interest? I have no idea but I’ve never seen a history based advertisment.
Knew this would happen since before day one … still a shame to see it actually happen though.
Naw we jumped ship before it sank, this place will only grow and it’s a better direction.
Even if they reversed course I wouldn’t go backMe either. Virtually finished wiping my account, just waiting on a sub to go public before deleting.
When your ship’s bow has been driven into an iceberg and water is flowing into the hull, there is no longer an option to reverse course. Ask the orchestra to play you a farewell tune, because they’re going down with you.
What if they burned spez at the stake, and user membership was tied to company shares?
Spez is just a scapegoat for corporate suits wanting to profit off every little internet community they can while selling data and allowing shadow entities to manipulate conversations.
That can still happen here but it will be harder. Federation should be the future
“Damn you, human cattle! You get right back in your stanchions and stand there quietly while we milk you for your precious, precious content!”
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
I feel mildly bad for the parent who has to explain some depraved sexual act because the unmoderated subreddits get inundated with unmarked porn.
Reddit wasn’t really a place for kids even before all of this.
Yeah, they should really give the people that volunteer to moderate the 3rd party tools they need to control that sort of stuff, huh?
Without a doubt. It’s a cesspool over there right now but at least those communities were marked NSFW and the subs were polled to verify that was the direction they wanted the sub to go (because ‘democracy’ and ‘mods are landed gentry’ and so forth)
They have archived those subreddits for the time being. I found this:
If reddit wants to exercise such substantial control over key aspects of the performance of the work, determining how moderating is to be done and the need to meet contractually agreed-upon quality control standards, perhaps they should look into some of those
…oh god what is the word?
The subs are marked as NSFW and you have to verify that you are 18+ before entering, and most apps require logging in to see NSFW subs. Not that it would stop a child from clicking, but it is marked.
It would be a shame if there were an influx of complaints about porn in the official Reddit app in the App/Play store…
Not to naysay, but they will just request google take them off like they did the thousands of 1-star reviews they got a couple days ago.
But posting NSFW is allowed in Reddit, if the rules of the subreddit allows it. So changing the rules is within the rules.
They are altering the deal. Pray they don’t alter it any further.
Actually, pray they do.
I remember thinking T_D was crazy for calling out spez. Even when he edited their comments on the database side.
Well, they’re still crazy but they were right about one thing: spez is a clown
Editing their comments (which was a wave of fuck you spez pings) was a personal tantrum. As a human being, I could sort of get where it would seem mischievous and justified to go and throw it back at someone else. Awful judgment, huge breach of trust, but understandable from the POV of someone who just wants to be petty and immature for a moment. I can relate.
As part of a broad pattern though, he clearly has issues veiling his annoyance and contempt for his own users.
All of these were purged. The list is still growing as they’re being reported in the modcoord Discord
r/TIHI r/Celebrities r/interestingasfuck /r/mildlyinteresting r/ShittyLifeProTips r/Self r/IllegalLifeTips
Paint Hufferman swings the axe… only to lop off his own wang in the process.
@stopthatgirl7 well it was either this or a complete nsfw ban. Reddit wouldn’t needs content, eyeballs and ad friendlY. Besides how dare a user protest/sarcasm 🙄
