“we respect the protests, but we will remove everyone that will protest”
the part “decide that don’t want to be a mod anymore” is so infuriating and unrespectful. Like they don’t know what’s goin on…
Actually, as a mod, that’s the strongest action you could take… stop moderating for free for reddit. “Jun 12, 2023 When they’re all functioning normally, Reddit boasts nearly 140,000 active subreddits at any given time” according to https://wegotthiscovered.com/social-media/how-many-subreddits-are-on-reddit/ Now imagine 1 in 10 subreddits were abandoned by their mods. That’s 14,000 subreddits without moderation. Let Spez take over the role of the Landed Gentry for 14,000 subreddits. If he thinks he’s not making money now, how much will he have to pay to take care of all those subreddits?
As much as I agree with you, I have to disagree as well. In the short term they would have to pay their staff to mod those pages. But for how long will it take for them to find another sucker of a mod to do it for free?
Yes it would cost them money but it would not be for long.
That’s slippery. Pay one mod, and no more mods will be willing to work for free anymore. The only reason a mod was seen as a volunteer position is because there was an overall informal agreement that the community collectively owned the subreddit, its activity and its content. Reddit just made it very clear that they think the corporation owns the content, and the users that produce the content in the subreddits. The facade is gone, pay one mod and Reddit unravels even faster.
But for how long will it take for them to find another sucker of a mod to do it for free?
Modding, especially on larger subs, is a PITA and takes way more time than most people think. You can always find users who say they will do it but in my experience with across several 1M+ subs most new mods will either drop out or go inactive in 3 weeks or less.
Less popular subs in the 250k user range will sometimes only get 1 or 2 volunteers and sometimes no one at all.
It isn’t nearly as easy to replace moderators as you’re making it out to be.
Probably a bribe of free reddit coins or a Reddit+ subscription for being a scab.
Why bother doing that when an AI will do it
This might actually be the reason they started this.
That would make the decision even more short sighted.
It won’t end with AI moderation, It will end with moderation that is very exploitable, bad to adjust to all subreddits and because of this whole mess they will drive community engagement into the ground. And that is without even so much as taking a peak on the possible affects to the IPO. It’s gonna be mess, even if the platform survives.
The AI that media is talking about generating text that looks very much like what a human would write. There might be other AI capable of moderating, but this is not it.
The LLM could be used to pretend there are users if one day they would go somewhere else.
Spez is a narcissist. Why give him your labor for free?
Sure, they may get another sucker to do it for free, why be a narcissist’s sucker?
If he’s abused these mods, he’ll abuse those mods. And yes, he could get AI to do this, but then again, years ago* (Steve H became CEO in 2015) we were promised a better Reddit app. Like the music business, Reddit is constantly losing money, unwilling to change, but still around.
*I would link it, but for some reason, U/Spez’s history stops 3 years ago. I’m sure it’s a Reddit glitch that will be fixed just like the better Reddit app that’s waiting for us under the rainbow.
have fun scaling
Fuck em. This is my first post on Lemmy and I’m happy it exists.
Does that also mean your first word on Lemmy is “fuck”?
Just spoke to @Tamhenk’s parents, fuck was their first word in general.
It’s how they were made too!
it’s fucks all the way down
all of us are fucks
😏
Dear person volunteering your time and effort for what you thought was a worthy endeavor. We’re trying to commodify your work so we can make a killing so don’t fuck it up for us.
Dear Spez,
I’ve learned that Reddit wants to profit from my content. I’ve therefore decided to monetize my content going forward. I have very reasonable rates of $50 USD per post. $75 USD for long posts.
I’m willing to discuss this with Reddit but these rates are nonnegotiable.
This
Subreddits belong to the community of users…
Spez, read that again. Slower this time.
It’s not even true though. Subreddits belong to the user who creates it, they become the top mod and delegate to other mods. If users don’t like how a subreddit is moderated, they are free to make their own subreddit - they aren’t supposed to take over someone else’s subreddit.
This is the fundamental shift that reddit is trying to make right now. Subs no longer belong to you, and if you “misbehave” (displease reddit) they’ll gladly move what they now consider to be their thing to someone else.
Communist Country Citizens: First time?
Alright. They can hire some employees to moderate all of Reddit then.
Reddit doesn’t make enough revenue. Even if all posts were ads, it won’t be enough to pay minimum wage for all the staff necessary to mod just the protesting communities.
maybe spez should have thought about that before alienating arguably his most valuable users
That’s even better then.
I wish them the best of luck
“Hey mod! Go back working for free so we can make money or we’ll take action you peasant. You own nothing. Kneel and obey.”
Steve Hoffman probably
"…we’ll take action you
peasantlanded gentry…FTFY
Reddit: “Subreddits are for the community of reddit users who rely on them.”
Community of reddit users: “We think the sub should stay private, and if you force it open, we’ll spam sexy John Oliver and porn.”
Reddit: “wait no not like that”
This message is mind-blowingly tone deaf.
It’s not tone deaf so much as it’s gaslighting. Their intention isn’t to get compliance or work through any of the valid concerns - their intention seems to be to cover themselves and give plausible deniability for potential investors.
They’re sending this to mods as if they are the audience, which we know is not the case since anything the mods say is not actually considered.
Except that’s not always what’s happening. A couple subs I’m in have voted to reopen, when they’ve had the ability to vote at all (since it’s hard to vote when the subreddit is locked).
One voted to reopen and the mods removed the poll and are pretending it went their way despite some people having screenshots of the poll.
“Reopen this, or else!”
But they’re carefully avoiding to say or else what. My guess is every next step option would cost them resources at the scale of subreddits they’re reaching out to, so they’re hoping that the empty threat alone will cause some to relent without costing them anything. Right?
What’s there to take? Like, these guys are working for free running on their enthusiasm and passion. You make them question whether the community is really worth their time, even if they relent for now, how does that do reddit any good? It isn’t like reddit has any actual power over the mods on their ultimate decision of quiting.
Unfortunately, from what I’m seeing in a lot of subs, it’s working. You do have protests from places like r/aww and r/pics doing the John Oliver thing, and r/Steam posting about literal steam. But it seems like on the large, threats of people losing their ability to give Reddit free labor is working to get subs back open.
Edit: r/pics changed, they’ve chosen total anarchy.
They are slowly snowballing but it’s accelerating. Once a certain amount of people leaves or stops interacting altogether, the site bleeds activity and dies. Roughly 2% of people who went on Reddit were responsible for some 90% of the content. 50% of people browsed without an account (you want those because they’re the eyeballs ad are meant for) and the rest were lurkers who occasionally commented. That means if that even half of that 2% of content creators leave, there’s no more content for the rest of the users to see or interact with. Once they leave, all lurkers leave. None of the lurkers are going to take up posting to Reddit, modding or create an account. They will just close the tab and move on to something else. That’s the snowball that’s coming.
(Numbers are roughly remembered from an old analysis of Reddit traffic, but they’re consistent with almost all social media)
Responding solely to move from Reddit lurker to a Lemmy contributor… this is literally the secret right here… join the revolution, hit the effing reply button, y’all…
Okay, reply button hit. Now what?
Do we get party hats?
No, but you get a reply from a different stranger and that’s the microdose of dopamine we all live for.
livin’ for those brain slushies
Hey I am sorry you have to learn it this way, but yes, you do get a party hat too. I got my right here.
Please don’t attack me personally like this
/s
If we did, we could be rich in RuneScape
I did not know it was so low. That’s crazy. It makes sense though. I don’t know anyone who posts in real life. All the people I know who use Reddit are just lurkers.
I was a prolific poster for years. In the end it just felt like screaming into the void.
On a sunny day walking on a trail, one can’t help but to contemplate all they are going to do when they are out of the woods and back home. By that point all they are going to remember is the thinly veiled threat. They are not going to last long.
Reddit was fun. That was really the only thing everyone need and everyone want. All the utilities that comes with the scale is just derivatives. With the way they decide to go forward, modding for reddit will never be fun ever again.
They’d most likely take over at least the frontpage subs. They could hire contractors for dirt cheap from the far corners of the world and it would probably be good enough.
Open it back up and just stop moderating it? Make them mildly infuriated that you’re acting your wage.
It seems like that’s common at the moment, the amount of trash being let slide on Reddit is unreal. I’m not surprised at all.
Roses are red, violets are blue. Open your sub, or we’ll boot you too.
Roses when plucked, they leave a grass hole. Fuck Spez, he’s such an asshole
Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead, the sugar bowl’s empty, just like spez’s head
Subreddita belong to the community is not what reddit says when mods abuse their power
I love the condescension here - your protest is “taking a break from moderating”
It’s corporate rhetoric.
They define the reality they want their audience (press, investors) to see: No protests, no demands, no conflict with Reddit, just moderators not taking their job seriously while Reddit is taking its communities seriously and reaching out in good faith and with empathy.
Then they go all method actor and assume this reality, and start writing.
Subreddits belong to the community of users…
So you’re providing tools to allow democratic control of subreddits, right?
Right?
If you set a few AutoModerator rules, you can make everyone a moderator.
Pure chaos. It’s brilliant.
One of the other admins said they hadn’t talked about that in an interview shortly after spez said that.
So once again he’s talking out both sides of his mouth.
I mean, one of the subreddits just gave all subscribers to it mod status. I think it was political humor. Something like 1 million people are now mods for that subreddit.
You have the right to decide which hand your mind control chip gets installed on.
Fuck em. God its nice to be able to say “fuck em” without having to worry about elon or spez getting butthurt and banning my account.
