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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
Ah yes, I’m sure mass firing mods and replacing them with random assholes will be very good for the Reddit community.
You’d be surprised how few users can tell the difference between good and mediocre moderation.
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.
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.
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.
deleted by creator
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?
I feel mildly bad for the parent who has to explain some depraved sexual act because the unmoderated subreddits get inundated with unmarked porn.
Edit: left off the /s tag.
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.
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?
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.
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.
