They’re gonna be left with bottom of the barrel mods. It’s a thankless task to begin with - a marginal proposition at best. Add some threats as a thank you for the unpaid work and it becomes downright abusive
Who the hell is going to want to mod in that context?
This was my thought as well. To answer your question, though, I imagine bad faith actors of various flavors will be flocking the site:
1. Corporate marketing departments
2. Unpopular political/religious factions seeking to surreptitiously "move the needle"
3. Those who wanted to become mods before but didn't make the cut for completely valid reasons. Now they have an opportunity, only the quality will decrease as a result
Finally, I can fulfill my destiny of taking over r/television and banning anyone who says anything positive about a show with a laugh track. It should never have been allowed to begin with.
I have a feeling they won't have a hard time finding deranged weirdos who want to mod and will remove anything that could in any way raise an eyebrow of advertisers/payment processors/etc
The worst mods for the community will be the best mods for reddit's bottom line. The power-tripping is payment in itself for those types.
> "The worst mods for the community will be the best mods for reddit's bottom line."
Will it though? Twitter's moderation policies have all but collapsed and the net result is a near-total flight of high-profile high-dollar advertisers.
Like others have mentioned in the thread, the people who will most likely want to take over these subs are going to be some combination of bigots, cranks, and the severely deranged. That doesn't seem like it will do good things for user participation or advertiser attractiveness.
Who wants to advertise on /r/movies if the mod team is exclusively made up of chemtrails connoisseurs and the main topic of discussion is what movies are secret plots by the Jewish cabal?
>The power-tripping is payment in itself for those types.
As if the current mods are any different?
Honestly I don't mind this at all. The big subreddits have become so ossified in their power structures, that each community is its' own little fiefdom now. There is massive friction to being able to post anywhere. Reddit would be objectively better with a less heavy handed approach to moderation, and some kind of site-wide formal appeals process that neuters the ability of any individual mod from going on a power trip.
>I have a feeling they won't have a hard time finding deranged weirdos who want to mod and will remove anything that could in any way raise an eyebrow of advertisers/payment processors/etc
8 years ago a bunch of Reddits went dark to protest the firing of Victoria Taylor. The AMA sub claimed that they wouldn't be able to continue without Victoria's help. Eventually the sub opened back up and things continued as they had before; the average user noticed no difference. If you told people today that Reddit AMA's hadn't been working for the past 8 years because the company fired an employee then, they'd probably laugh.
> If you told people today that Reddit AMA's hadn't been working for the past 8 years because the company fired an employee then, they'd probably laugh.
That's technically true, but that's because nobody today really thinks about Reddit AMAs, because there are fairly few of them and they're mostly lousy.
When they employed Victoria, AMAs were frequent and involved high-profile public figures engaging with the users in a way that, even if it was self-promotion, felt relatively genuine and was entertaining - This was because Victoria was essentially interviewing people with user-submitted questions, and she was good at it. The Reddit AMA was a cultural touchstone, like the late-night talk-show circuit.
Victoria herself was not somehow utterly irreplaceable, but as far as I can tell, they fired her and replaced her with nothing. With the result that Reddit lost a popular, interesting feature and a lot of cultural relevance.
I think it's very appropriate to compare that situation with the situation today, though perhaps not as you intended it; it won't burn down the site, Reddit will go on, but it will be a little worse and a little closer to that tipping point because of yet another bad management decision.
I still use Reddit and I get that beloved people get fired for any number of reasons, but AMAs have been noticeably worse since Victoria’s time running them.
I actually can’t think of more than a handful of examples of great AMAs the last few years. At one point it was a press stop for almost anyone famous doing a tour, and that doesn’t seem to be true anymore.
I think r/IAMA got a lot worse since Victoria left.
I used to visit it often back when she was around, but I don't think I even remembered it exists anymore, until you happened to mention it. It just lost relevance.
That's funny because I use this example the opposite of you. AMA's completely changed after Victoria's departure and haven't been the same since. There were weekly high-profile AMAs that got large media coverage and it never went back to that.
Ultimately that protest went no where because there was no end game -- Victoria didn't want her job back. It was just done. End of era.
Huh, that explains why I haven’t looked at a Reddit AMA in the last ~5-10 years or so. I’m guess it was actually 8 years and I never realized what happened.
I haven't seen a good AMA in a very long time. Tons of enshitification is eventually tolerated, especially by people who had no experience with an older version. That doesn't make it good.
It's subjective I guess, but the AMA content quality on reddit did seem to fall off a cliff after she left. Not reddit destroying but definitely left a hole
They were actually right. This is exactly when Reddit AMA's went from something spectacular to spectacular garbage. They were producing bangers left and right, and what have they done since then?
Jesus I completely forgot about r/IAMA and Im a daily reddit visitor.
I can't say that that subreddit was better in the Victoria Taylor era than today because I don't visit it anymore. I also can't say I stopped visiting it because of the same event.
But I know at some point I stopped caring about the high profile threads and the answers they gave.
The /r/science mods are all coming back on Monday, a decision they made a few days ago, before any threats were made. They are worried that if they got replaced, it would be with people who would destroy the community they worked so hard to build.
I suspect a lot of communities, especially the smaller ones, feel the same way.
And thus, Reddit holds all the power. If the mods are so attached to their community, that Reddit can dictate whatever terms they want, then the mods have no leverage.
/r/science was already thrash too so biased it hurts, might as well be /r/politics2. Honestly nothing value would be lost with that sub.
Current front page:
>A new study has found that both Christian nationalism and biblical literalism are associated with a greater tendency to believe in conspiracy theories
>Being female, liberal, intellectually humble, and having weak party identification are all positively associated with writing more persuasive political arguments
>When house prices increase, homeowners are likely to strengthen their belief in meritocracy
/r/programming was predicted to remain open during the strike, due to it being modded by Reddit admins. But they also went dark when the top post was collecting examples of chatgpt generated anti-protest comments. https://web.archive.org/web/20230612074029/https://old.reddi...
everyone always says this yet getting a mod to relinquish their position is nearly impossible. Reddit mods desperately want to be mods and will do everything in their power to hold on to it. I know its a stereotype, but for many it is literally the only semblance of power/control they have over their life.
>Reddit mods desperately want to be mods and will do everything in their power to hold on to it. I know its a stereotype, but for many it is literally the only semblance of power/control they have over their life.
Based on a quick google search, only .004% of Reddit users are mods. I find it difficult to believe that reddit will have a hard time finding competent mods within the remaining 99.996% of its userbase.
Ever since most of these social sites launched their advertising portals, moderation has basically become a practice in how to creatively subvert non-paying posters anyway.
These sites need to ensure they deliver on numbers represented to paid advertisers, and now it's pretty much the only way to make it to top rankings, so how much one is willing to pay determines what's on the front page more than anything else now.
The corporate mods are the ones that prevent harmful and deceptive things from staying at the top of the front page I bet, and they're not likely to be regular mod roles any time soon due to the power wielded.
These massive social media sites all get corrupted after a while and then can never manage to come back. This may well be that point for Reddit.
> They’re gonna be left with bottom of the barrel mods.
There are surprisingly few mods for how much engagement the subreddits have. There has to be mods that are just as good as the current batch, but haven't had a chance to shine.
This of course assumes the selection process is built to identify and promote mods that are as good, or better than the old mods.
Question for HN: If you were the Reddit admins, how would run the moderator selection process to get a great crew?
I used to moderate a support subreddit, we eventually moved to Discord and encouraged everyone to move there as well. Behaviour such as only supports our move.
That's not exactly a list of people who are likely to do a good job.
I think that's part of Reddit's problem - They can replace the mods with random people if they want, but the likelihood that those people will put in the work and do a good job is not high.
No. It would be able to do some of the parts of moderation everyone would find easy, none of the stuff people would find hard and would cost a lot.[1] There are AI-powered companies and tools[2] that help with moderation but nothing that can automate everything that human mods do on any site with a reasonable user community.
I'm not sure how you would properly prompted LLM change moderating standards based on community feedback? Sticky threads for popular topics? Have the understanding of things like local politics or a newly released game in 2023 to be able to separate out bad faith discussion from real? Reddit isn't twitter where the main thing the mods do is remove abusive replies. They're community crafters and maintainers.
I'm almost starting to think they really will break Reddit.
When all this started I had no doubt that the protests would come, make their point, end, and then Reddit would continue on its way.
But this has been so poorly handled.
I think a key to reddit's "success" (such as it is) is that they figured out how to scale moderation -- by getting volunteers to do the tough work for free. I'm sure reddit can toss all the uncooperative mods and get as many new ones as they could ever want.
But they are changing the fundamental dynamic between mod, subreddit and reddit the company. I wonder if this won't actually break the system.
Before, mods could run subreddits as they saw fit, users could choose the subreddits they participated in, and a user can always create a new subreddit if they don't think any existing ones suit their needs.
Now mods will have to accept that supporting reddit's business goals is the "zeroth law" for any subreddit. I just wonder if enough quality moderators will be willing to put in the time and effort required to keep a larger community from devolving into a cess pool, or to build up new subreddits -- for free.
When you're working for yourself doing what you want, when you want, you don't mind not getting paid for it. When a boss is telling you want to do and when to do it, you expect to get paid. Reddit is making itself the boss of the mods.
The thing is, this is an entirely unforced error. Overwhelmingly, the natural interests of subreddits are aligned with Reddits business goals, or at least aren't in opposition to them. The horribly handled roll out of the API pricing has essentially backed mods into a corner, basically forcing them to protest and then extend the protest.
IDK, maybe this was all 4D chess, and reddit wanted to get rid of third party apps and have an excuse to purge moderators with a sense of ownership over the subreddits they moderate. But it sure seems to me like they just don't know what they are doing. I know reddit needs to figure out how to become sustainable (profitable), and changing the dynamic between reddit and third-party apps is likely a necessary part of that. But I can't believe disengaging moderators can possibly help.
> Before, mods could run subreddits as they saw fit, users could choose the subreddits they participated in, and a user can always create a new subreddit if they don't think any existing ones suit their needs.
As a frequent Reddit user I don't agree with that. The network effects of subreddits plus the fact that they usually own the default name for a topic grant a lot of subs effective monopolies.
As a user if I don't like something about a certain subreddit including how it's moderated, the more realistic option is just to not participate in that subject matter on Reddit. I can still use Reddit for other topics but I feel like there's very rarely an alternative subreddit on the same topic which is anywhere near as active as the main one.
So, no offense to Reddit mods, but I really don't think these are all highly skilled, irreplaceable individuals. There's no competition that incentivizes the best people to rise to the top, these are just average folks that volunteered at the right time and now they're mods. There is apparently even a lot of cronyism among the mod community and I have heard that it can be hard to break into for first time mods.
If Reddit forces some of them out, there will be many people willing to step in who can do just as good of a job. It might even be a net positive thing to get new people involved.
> The network effects of subreddits plus the fact that they usually own the default name for a topic grant a lot of subs effective monopolies.
That's often the case, but not always. A bad mod can drive people to an alternate subs. And having the default name doesn't mean that a sub with an alternate name can't thrive. I enjoy r/marijuanaenthusiasts despite the fact that I've never smoked.
> When you're working for yourself doing what you want, when you want, you don't mind not getting paid for it. When a boss is telling you want to do and when to do it, you expect to get paid. Reddit is making itself the boss of the mods.
This is spot on. Reddit's success relies entirely on the intrinsic motivation of moderators. That intrinsic motivation in turn is derived from the feeling of building something of long-lasting value.
There is no instrinsic joy in wading through your mod queue and deleting spam and garbage. The work itself is deeply unfun.
The reward is feeling that if you do that work and do it consistently, then you will create a space where a community of people you care about can thrive.
Now Reddit is sending a clear signal that at any point in time, they can stomp all over your community and kick you out. If I was mod of any decent-sized Reddit, that would make no longer feel safe investing the time it takes to earn that intrinsic reward, when the reward could evaporate at any moment.
They don't give a shit about us (14 year old account here), they've already gotten everything. What they want is the endless hordes of TikTok normies posting animated gifs and HD user pics etc. And it's working. The old reddit we loved is never coming back.
> If there are mods here who are willing to work towards reopening this community, we are willing to work with you to process a Top Mod Removal request or reorder the mod team to achieve this goal if mods higher up the list are hindering reopening. We would handle this request and any retaliation attempts here in this modmail chain immediately.
> Our goal is to work with the existing mod team to find a path forward and make sure your subreddit is made available for the community which makes its home here. If you are not able or willing to reopen and maintain the community, please let us know.
Classic attempt to break a strike. Would mods be employee, this would be illegal (at least in France). This shows how Reddit the company think how the people who work for them for free on Reddit the platform and make its value.
Mods don't work for Reddit. They volunteer for Reddit moderation. Much like you can volunteer to be the leader of the DND club at a local hobby shop. They are not an employee. People who don't like what Reddit is doing should stop showing up. Mods who don't like it should stop moderating. It's as simple as that, if enough people agree, Reddit will be no more.
My mind immediately went to strike-breaking too. This isn't quite the same as they are targeting a volunteer group that has shown no interest to form a union, but this is so obviously a play out of the union busting handbook. Divide the group, make it seem like only a few select leaders want whatever they are negotiating over, and offering to elevate cooperative people into positions of power if they are willing to participate in a coup.
The analogy appears fitting at first glance, but it's crucial to note that the moderators in question aren't simply choosing to abstain from their duties—they're actively hindering others who might wish to take up those responsibilities.
I may not be an expert in French law, yet an analogy that comes to mind would be envisioning workers of a grocery store who've decided to go on strike. But rather than merely expressing their refusal to work, they also opt to seal the store's doors, blocking customers from entering.
Of course, customers might find the current situation unfavorable due to the absence of employees (think of barren shelves, paralleling communities overpopulated with off-topic discussions). Management, too, would likely find the situation objectionable due to a lack of employees to ensure transactions are being made legally (equivalent to the absence of moderators who uphold site rules, a scenario potentially hazardous to Reddit). Even though management might be compelled to shut down the store under these circumstances, it's essential to remember that closure remains a management prerogative, not a decision for the striking workers.
Kinda crazy how a lower mod can request a higher mod's removal. Pretty unhealthy precedent for a community where mods are already power hungry lunatics and your most obsessed power hungry mod who spends all day needlessly moderating the subreddit can appeal to reddit with "look how much more active I am than him; he barely does anything! So, gimme the subreddit pls."
> mods are already power hungry lunatics and your most obsessed power hungry mod
I mean, here you are just describing the mods that are holding these subreddits hostage. It seems appropriate for reddit to return these to the community in the case where the obsessed power hungry mod's behavior goes against what the community wants.
I guess the trick would be to flood Reddit with requests from allied mods that will keep the sub closed anyway. Presumably Reddit doesn't have the bandwidth to really vet these requests.
This is the way. Especially if the action can be more unpredictable than simply taking the subreddit private. Maybe remove all new posts or something.
If you can turn all of the subreddits into tens of thousands of problem children for Reddit that they can’t fix with automation, they will be unable to cope.
It sounds to me like there are Top Mods who want to continue the boycott, with others who don't and that Reddit is looking at giving the other mods a path forward.
One of the things I have noticed is that the boycott is not from the users but from the mods of the community. Even if the community had a vote, if you want to boycott fine but they are forcing others to go along with with them.
So either they are not the majority or they feel that the community has such little willpower to continue the boycott that they must force them to take part.
Ask yourself, who told you that was true? The strikers? Or the guy with the vested interest in breaking the strike and desperate to find anyone -- literally anyone -- to cross the line?
I mod a top-1000-by-subs subreddit with about 800-900K subs. It has tight rules and aggressive automods. And people like that subreddit.
Not gonna lie, if reddit strips our moderation, once the automod rules get figured out by the spammers, the value that particular subreddit will collapse into trash and spam.
so, sure, aim that footgun and start pulling the trigger... go on then.
I don’t blame them. Reddit owns the subreddits, not redditors.
I have no idea why someone would put the time required into moderating a large sub for no money just for Reddit’s benefit in the first place. A Reddit model where the mods share in profits (kind of how YouTube creators do) would be interesting.
But if you’re going to sign up for that, you can’t expect Reddit to just let you tank their site. It was never yours.
I’d do the same thing if I were Reddit, though I guess I’d also not be in this situation if I were them either because I’d just price the API reasonably.
There are distinct questions here: whether Reddit has the right to forcibly reopen subreddits, whether it’s justified in doing so, and whether it’s a good idea at all. The first isn’t in dispute, but the other two are open for debate.
It could all go super well and everyone forgets about this shakeup, or it could engender further animosity and chase people (particularly trend-setting power users) to some other platform. It could also ruin some communities if the wrong new mods are chosen.
I’m not sure how likely this is but it is plausible.
Yeah. I get the whole fear of the same thing happening to Reddit that happened to Digg. But digg had Reddit nipping at its heels and it was still small, Reddit is huge there’s nowhere to chase them to.
The other alternative is for Reddit to just stand by and let the blackouts chase people away indefinitely. It is hard to imagine that is better. It will upset the people who have already decided to leave Reddit anyway, but for most of the people who just want to see funny GIFs, it will be better.
Thats why I argue that the boycott should be user driven and not mod driven. Let each user individually decide if they want to boycott rather than trying to force everyone into a boycott but shutting down entire subs.
There's a quite simple non-malicious reason to become an unpaid mod - to make a community that you use better. I'm sure a substantial percent of mods joined for this reason. I've been a part of poorly moderated communities and thought: "wish I could just take down this non-compliant story or abusive comment".
Then there's a lot of negative reasons to join. For power, to gain a sphere of influence, possible to sell this as a product.
I think it’s the one that’s hardest to replace. There’s no viable competitor. People aren’t going anywhere else.
To large extent, the authors are only authors because the sub is on Reddit. They have the network effect that brings the other two. That’s very hard to replace. You could easily find another person to make up dumb rules and arbitrarily enforce them, which is what they’re doing and we’re discussing. They will succeed.
Mods should engage in malicious compliance. Historically, Reddit has done absolutely nothing to help communities suffering from malicious moderation, including banning users and censoring posts without good reason. Mods can just open up their subs, but start moderating in such a way that they drive away users. Reddit would look very hypocritical removing mods who do this now when they have been fine with that sort of behavior historically.
In the last week Reddit has shown it has no qualms with being incredibly hypocritical. Addressing issues it's ignored for sometimes it's entire lifetime only now that they are threatened. It's quite disgusting especially since I've been on the other end of begging for help/changes/etc that they ignored.
On the one hand, I think this a stupid decision for Reddit, that it's disrespectful and very bad for the internet.
On the other hand, if it's what they're going to do, then that's how it is. You can't really expect them to just leave a namespace like, say, /r/politics in the hands of someone who openly says they aren't going to use it. So of course they're going to remove mods who stick to a blackout, what else could they do? At the end of the day it's their site and everyone's free to leave if they don't like how it's run. This was always the problem with making a home on Reddit, some of us have been saying so all along.
(PS: Please understand that Discord is going to have a moment like this. Maybe in two years, maybe in five, but it'll happen. It is inevitable.)
Because they know most will put up with it, just like users. At least, in my view. I've moved from Reddit (user, not a mod), but i think we're fringe. Reddit is going to be humming along like normal soon enough as long as they don't severely upset the average user.
reddit moderators have an unbelievably inflated sense of their worth, which is why they thought this blackout was going to accomplish anything in the first place.
I assure you, there is a line around the block of people clamoring to become mods. There's a reason its nigh impossible to become a mod of a big sub, the people that are doing it really like doing it and dont want more people joining to dilute their share of the power.
>reddit moderators have an unbelievably inflated sense of their worth
If moderators were inconsequential Reddit wouldn't be trying to hire and fire them.
>I assure you, there is a line around the block of people clamoring to become mods.
The willingness of others to do the same work doesn't make what someone does inconsequential. Would you say an NBA player is inconsequential because you could find a million people who would like to play in the NBA? Obviously being a Redditor moderator and being an NBA player are two different things but by how you are valuing based on willingness to replace, an NBA player would be more inconsequential than a Reddit moderator.
But many subreddits took a vote before taking action, so it's not like the moderators did this out of the blue.
The subreddit model seems to me to work as a combination of moderators setting and enforcing some rules, users submitting content (hopefully good) and users upvoting and commenting on content.
If the mods are wrong on all of this, then the users who voted to blackout either weren't contributing much or will back down and things will go back to business as usual.
But it's also possible that replacing the mods will just lead to many of the users who voted to blackout taking further action. A subreddit without content or with protesting users posting spam isn't fixed by adding more mods.
I think it's likely that at least some of the reason they don't add more mods is that it's hard to find and vet good mods, so there's an element of risk in adding more mods.
Couldn't agree more. This is a flagrant abuse of power by mods. I hope this is a wake-up call to major companies never to let your employees unionize because the employees don't care about you or your company - they'll kill it just to spite you and then move on to the next company.
I don't see a way that Huffman can follow through on his threat. According to Reddark [1] at the time of this writing there are still 4752 subs that are dark. I understand that powermods exist, but were Huffman to follow through on his threat he would have to come up with many hundreds of willing moderators, on a rather short timeframe.
Frankly, I don't see this happening, at least not without significant pain. Not to mention the ill will that is continuing to build, which will only compound the difficulty of getting new volunteers on board.
It’s actually not that hard since they have processes in place for this sort of thing. They have u/ModCodeOfConduct make a post in the affected community (I assume they reopen the sub and restrict it except for that post). https://www.reddit.com/r/oldbabies/comments/143cszv/new_mode...
I tend to agree. Their thinking has to be that most mods (at least for the most important subreddits) either aren't willing to risk their positions or aren't that invested in the protest.
Readit News
Who the hell is going to want to mod in that context?
1. Corporate marketing departments
2. Unpopular political/religious factions seeking to surreptitiously "move the needle"
3. Those who wanted to become mods before but didn't make the cut for completely valid reasons. Now they have an opportunity, only the quality will decrease as a result
How would that be different from the status quo?
The worst mods for the community will be the best mods for reddit's bottom line. The power-tripping is payment in itself for those types.
Will it though? Twitter's moderation policies have all but collapsed and the net result is a near-total flight of high-profile high-dollar advertisers.
Like others have mentioned in the thread, the people who will most likely want to take over these subs are going to be some combination of bigots, cranks, and the severely deranged. That doesn't seem like it will do good things for user participation or advertiser attractiveness.
Who wants to advertise on /r/movies if the mod team is exclusively made up of chemtrails connoisseurs and the main topic of discussion is what movies are secret plots by the Jewish cabal?
As if the current mods are any different?
Honestly I don't mind this at all. The big subreddits have become so ossified in their power structures, that each community is its' own little fiefdom now. There is massive friction to being able to post anywhere. Reddit would be objectively better with a less heavy handed approach to moderation, and some kind of site-wide formal appeals process that neuters the ability of any individual mod from going on a power trip.
Remember, "Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People". <https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_...>. This also applies to powermods, assuming they're not being paid on the side to push some ideology.
That's technically true, but that's because nobody today really thinks about Reddit AMAs, because there are fairly few of them and they're mostly lousy.
When they employed Victoria, AMAs were frequent and involved high-profile public figures engaging with the users in a way that, even if it was self-promotion, felt relatively genuine and was entertaining - This was because Victoria was essentially interviewing people with user-submitted questions, and she was good at it. The Reddit AMA was a cultural touchstone, like the late-night talk-show circuit.
Victoria herself was not somehow utterly irreplaceable, but as far as I can tell, they fired her and replaced her with nothing. With the result that Reddit lost a popular, interesting feature and a lot of cultural relevance.
I think it's very appropriate to compare that situation with the situation today, though perhaps not as you intended it; it won't burn down the site, Reddit will go on, but it will be a little worse and a little closer to that tipping point because of yet another bad management decision.
I actually can’t think of more than a handful of examples of great AMAs the last few years. At one point it was a press stop for almost anyone famous doing a tour, and that doesn’t seem to be true anymore.
I think the general consensus among Reddit is that AMA's were a lot higher quality back then.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/top/?t=all
I had to scroll for pages and pages to find one that was recent. The heyday appears to have been 5 to 9 years ago.
It looks like this sub got established as the place to go and then it slowly lost momentum over time.
I used to visit it often back when she was around, but I don't think I even remembered it exists anymore, until you happened to mention it. It just lost relevance.
Ultimately that protest went no where because there was no end game -- Victoria didn't want her job back. It was just done. End of era.
I can't say that that subreddit was better in the Victoria Taylor era than today because I don't visit it anymore. I also can't say I stopped visiting it because of the same event.
But I know at some point I stopped caring about the high profile threads and the answers they gave.
I suspect a lot of communities, especially the smaller ones, feel the same way.
It's psychologically unhealthy, any therapist would tell you that.
Current front page:
>A new study has found that both Christian nationalism and biblical literalism are associated with a greater tendency to believe in conspiracy theories
>Being female, liberal, intellectually humble, and having weak party identification are all positively associated with writing more persuasive political arguments
>When house prices increase, homeowners are likely to strengthen their belief in meritocracy
Mods that feel that strongly about protecting their community would do so much better in a federated context.
There are certainly those, but not sure it is accurate to generalize to mods as a whole.
Remember, "Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People". <https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_...>. This also applies to powermods, assuming they're not being paid on the side to push some ideology.
I was going more for "very hard, especially in bulk and on short notice" than irreplaceable there.
>wouldn’t it make more sense to protest by quitting?
Already did a while back...used to mod some big-ish subs.
Going private seems like a reasonable intermediate step though. A bit like workers holding a strike instead of straight to mass resignation
Competent - many I'm sure. Damn near anyone that has supervised people in just about any context is probably overqualified.
Competent and willing to put in hours of unpaid work dealing with crazy people and drama and bickering and spam deletion...less so.
The same type of people who want to be on the boards of HOA's. eg: the ones you least want doing it.
These sites need to ensure they deliver on numbers represented to paid advertisers, and now it's pretty much the only way to make it to top rankings, so how much one is willing to pay determines what's on the front page more than anything else now.
The corporate mods are the ones that prevent harmful and deceptive things from staying at the top of the front page I bet, and they're not likely to be regular mod roles any time soon due to the power wielded.
These massive social media sites all get corrupted after a while and then can never manage to come back. This may well be that point for Reddit.
There are surprisingly few mods for how much engagement the subreddits have. There has to be mods that are just as good as the current batch, but haven't had a chance to shine.
This of course assumes the selection process is built to identify and promote mods that are as good, or better than the old mods.
Question for HN: If you were the Reddit admins, how would run the moderator selection process to get a great crew?
I really hope a mass migration to lemmy instances really sticks.
Why do I need so many members to show up when search for servers? That means I need to have a community somewhere else.
Who would want to instantly have status over millions of people? Hmm, that's a hard one...
They are not asking a lot, just don't shut down the site in a hissy fit
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People with vendettas and power vacuum opportunists
People that want a different narrative on a subreddit
There are tons of people that have other causes and interests than API tooling or company drama
You know, this is all quite ignorable
I think that's part of Reddit's problem - They can replace the mods with random people if they want, but the likelihood that those people will put in the work and do a good job is not high.
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I made no such statement.
[1] Source: am responsible for trust and safety including the tech solution and the moderation team for a 1bil+ views site. [2] For example https://hivemoderation.com/ or https://www.openweb.com/
I'm not sure how you would properly prompted LLM change moderating standards based on community feedback? Sticky threads for popular topics? Have the understanding of things like local politics or a newly released game in 2023 to be able to separate out bad faith discussion from real? Reddit isn't twitter where the main thing the mods do is remove abusive replies. They're community crafters and maintainers.
When all this started I had no doubt that the protests would come, make their point, end, and then Reddit would continue on its way.
But this has been so poorly handled.
I think a key to reddit's "success" (such as it is) is that they figured out how to scale moderation -- by getting volunteers to do the tough work for free. I'm sure reddit can toss all the uncooperative mods and get as many new ones as they could ever want.
But they are changing the fundamental dynamic between mod, subreddit and reddit the company. I wonder if this won't actually break the system.
Before, mods could run subreddits as they saw fit, users could choose the subreddits they participated in, and a user can always create a new subreddit if they don't think any existing ones suit their needs.
Now mods will have to accept that supporting reddit's business goals is the "zeroth law" for any subreddit. I just wonder if enough quality moderators will be willing to put in the time and effort required to keep a larger community from devolving into a cess pool, or to build up new subreddits -- for free.
When you're working for yourself doing what you want, when you want, you don't mind not getting paid for it. When a boss is telling you want to do and when to do it, you expect to get paid. Reddit is making itself the boss of the mods.
The thing is, this is an entirely unforced error. Overwhelmingly, the natural interests of subreddits are aligned with Reddits business goals, or at least aren't in opposition to them. The horribly handled roll out of the API pricing has essentially backed mods into a corner, basically forcing them to protest and then extend the protest.
IDK, maybe this was all 4D chess, and reddit wanted to get rid of third party apps and have an excuse to purge moderators with a sense of ownership over the subreddits they moderate. But it sure seems to me like they just don't know what they are doing. I know reddit needs to figure out how to become sustainable (profitable), and changing the dynamic between reddit and third-party apps is likely a necessary part of that. But I can't believe disengaging moderators can possibly help.
As a frequent Reddit user I don't agree with that. The network effects of subreddits plus the fact that they usually own the default name for a topic grant a lot of subs effective monopolies.
As a user if I don't like something about a certain subreddit including how it's moderated, the more realistic option is just to not participate in that subject matter on Reddit. I can still use Reddit for other topics but I feel like there's very rarely an alternative subreddit on the same topic which is anywhere near as active as the main one.
So, no offense to Reddit mods, but I really don't think these are all highly skilled, irreplaceable individuals. There's no competition that incentivizes the best people to rise to the top, these are just average folks that volunteered at the right time and now they're mods. There is apparently even a lot of cronyism among the mod community and I have heard that it can be hard to break into for first time mods.
If Reddit forces some of them out, there will be many people willing to step in who can do just as good of a job. It might even be a net positive thing to get new people involved.
That's often the case, but not always. A bad mod can drive people to an alternate subs. And having the default name doesn't mean that a sub with an alternate name can't thrive. I enjoy r/marijuanaenthusiasts despite the fact that I've never smoked.
This is spot on. Reddit's success relies entirely on the intrinsic motivation of moderators. That intrinsic motivation in turn is derived from the feeling of building something of long-lasting value.
There is no instrinsic joy in wading through your mod queue and deleting spam and garbage. The work itself is deeply unfun.
The reward is feeling that if you do that work and do it consistently, then you will create a space where a community of people you care about can thrive.
Now Reddit is sending a clear signal that at any point in time, they can stomp all over your community and kick you out. If I was mod of any decent-sized Reddit, that would make no longer feel safe investing the time it takes to earn that intrinsic reward, when the reward could evaporate at any moment.
> the reward could evaporate at any moment
Wait a minute, is the reward the fact that the community exists? That's not going to evaporate overnight when Reddit replaces a mod.
The fear of your reward evaporating sounds a lot more like this work is driven by ego and the desire for control.
> If there are mods here who are willing to work towards reopening this community, we are willing to work with you to process a Top Mod Removal request or reorder the mod team to achieve this goal if mods higher up the list are hindering reopening. We would handle this request and any retaliation attempts here in this modmail chain immediately.
> Our goal is to work with the existing mod team to find a path forward and make sure your subreddit is made available for the community which makes its home here. If you are not able or willing to reopen and maintain the community, please let us know.
I will bet Reddit will be just fine.
I may not be an expert in French law, yet an analogy that comes to mind would be envisioning workers of a grocery store who've decided to go on strike. But rather than merely expressing their refusal to work, they also opt to seal the store's doors, blocking customers from entering.
Of course, customers might find the current situation unfavorable due to the absence of employees (think of barren shelves, paralleling communities overpopulated with off-topic discussions). Management, too, would likely find the situation objectionable due to a lack of employees to ensure transactions are being made legally (equivalent to the absence of moderators who uphold site rules, a scenario potentially hazardous to Reddit). Even though management might be compelled to shut down the store under these circumstances, it's essential to remember that closure remains a management prerogative, not a decision for the striking workers.
I mean, here you are just describing the mods that are holding these subreddits hostage. It seems appropriate for reddit to return these to the community in the case where the obsessed power hungry mod's behavior goes against what the community wants.
If you can turn all of the subreddits into tens of thousands of problem children for Reddit that they can’t fix with automation, they will be unable to cope.
One of the things I have noticed is that the boycott is not from the users but from the mods of the community. Even if the community had a vote, if you want to boycott fine but they are forcing others to go along with with them.
So either they are not the majority or they feel that the community has such little willpower to continue the boycott that they must force them to take part.
Ask yourself, who told you that was true? The strikers? Or the guy with the vested interest in breaking the strike and desperate to find anyone -- literally anyone -- to cross the line?
Not gonna lie, if reddit strips our moderation, once the automod rules get figured out by the spammers, the value that particular subreddit will collapse into trash and spam.
so, sure, aim that footgun and start pulling the trigger... go on then.
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I have no idea why someone would put the time required into moderating a large sub for no money just for Reddit’s benefit in the first place. A Reddit model where the mods share in profits (kind of how YouTube creators do) would be interesting.
But if you’re going to sign up for that, you can’t expect Reddit to just let you tank their site. It was never yours.
I’d do the same thing if I were Reddit, though I guess I’d also not be in this situation if I were them either because I’d just price the API reasonably.
It could all go super well and everyone forgets about this shakeup, or it could engender further animosity and chase people (particularly trend-setting power users) to some other platform. It could also ruin some communities if the wrong new mods are chosen.
I’m not sure how likely this is but it is plausible.
The other alternative is for Reddit to just stand by and let the blackouts chase people away indefinitely. It is hard to imagine that is better. It will upset the people who have already decided to leave Reddit anyway, but for most of the people who just want to see funny GIFs, it will be better.
Reddit owns Reddit, no? They have the right to do whatever they want with their website.
Community is a bit like a butterfly. Try to grip it too tightly and you no longer have a butterfly just mush
Reddit can do whatever they want with their site but they can't force users to do anything.
feeling of power and purpose?
Remember, "Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People". <https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_...>. This also applies to powermods, assuming they're not being paid on the side to push some ideology.
Then there's a lot of negative reasons to join. For power, to gain a sphere of influence, possible to sell this as a product.
I view a subreddit as a composite of three parts: The authors, the curators, and the host.
Reddit, Inc. owns only one of those three, and it's arguably the one that's most easily replaced.
To large extent, the authors are only authors because the sub is on Reddit. They have the network effect that brings the other two. That’s very hard to replace. You could easily find another person to make up dumb rules and arbitrarily enforce them, which is what they’re doing and we’re discussing. They will succeed.
In what way would it be interesting?
There would, of course, be some downsides too.
On the other hand, if it's what they're going to do, then that's how it is. You can't really expect them to just leave a namespace like, say, /r/politics in the hands of someone who openly says they aren't going to use it. So of course they're going to remove mods who stick to a blackout, what else could they do? At the end of the day it's their site and everyone's free to leave if they don't like how it's run. This was always the problem with making a home on Reddit, some of us have been saying so all along.
(PS: Please understand that Discord is going to have a moment like this. Maybe in two years, maybe in five, but it'll happen. It is inevitable.)
Closing it IS using it, in a very public and visible way. They just don't like HOW it is used by the people who built it.
I assure you, there is a line around the block of people clamoring to become mods. There's a reason its nigh impossible to become a mod of a big sub, the people that are doing it really like doing it and dont want more people joining to dilute their share of the power.
If moderators were inconsequential Reddit wouldn't be trying to hire and fire them.
>I assure you, there is a line around the block of people clamoring to become mods.
The willingness of others to do the same work doesn't make what someone does inconsequential. Would you say an NBA player is inconsequential because you could find a million people who would like to play in the NBA? Obviously being a Redditor moderator and being an NBA player are two different things but by how you are valuing based on willingness to replace, an NBA player would be more inconsequential than a Reddit moderator.
The subreddit model seems to me to work as a combination of moderators setting and enforcing some rules, users submitting content (hopefully good) and users upvoting and commenting on content.
If the mods are wrong on all of this, then the users who voted to blackout either weren't contributing much or will back down and things will go back to business as usual. But it's also possible that replacing the mods will just lead to many of the users who voted to blackout taking further action. A subreddit without content or with protesting users posting spam isn't fixed by adding more mods.
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Frankly, I don't see this happening, at least not without significant pain. Not to mention the ill will that is continuing to build, which will only compound the difficulty of getting new volunteers on board.
[1] https://reddark.untone.uk