this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Technology
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Why don't they move here? They are being exploited there anyways
And give up their power as mods of a large subreddit and starting again from scratch? Most of them probably aren't willing to do that.
I'm a mod of /r/Disneyland, and we recreated our sub over here on Kbin ( @Disneyland, https://kbin.social/m/Disneyland).
The issue is that we had 500k subs on Reddit. That sounds like a lot, but in reality it equates to about a dozen posts a day, maybe less.
Over here on Kbin, we almost have 100 subs - and I'm really proud of that! - but 100 subs is basically nothing. A fraction of a percent of people are actually content contributors, and the whole community rests on them. Then combine that with the fact that we're a niche subject (not some general thing like "video games") and that impacts what can be contributed.
On top of that, the magazine is fairly empty. Not barren - we have a few posts - but it certainly looks and feels empty. And because it's empty, nobody wants to post, which means it stays empty.
Compare that to Reddit, which has a very dedicated community for us. Not a massive community, but certainly a passionate one. We care about our community; we've stewarded it for years. All of us mods started out as members of that community (the subreddit founder is long gone), and we're all unpaid volunteers that want to keep that community healthy.
Reddit threatened to take it from us and give it to another mod team for a related Disney subreddit that played along with the admins. The issue is that multiple Disney subreddits have, uh, issues with those mods (which has been the case for years to the point where explaining the history is part of onboarding for a lot of Disney mods).
So the issue was reframed - either we reopen our sub on our terms... or we stick to our guns, force Reddit to remove us, and get replaced by a different mod team. This other team is known to be harsh about banning users for any kind of dissent, they abuse their mod powers to spread anti-vax nonsense all over their "non-political" subreddit, they have multiple subreddit drama threads talking about their actions, they've been gunning for all of the Disney subs for years... and they'd immediately jump at the chance to reopen the subreddit we've worked hard on so they could run it their way.
When you look at it like that... there's only one real choice. I hate Reddit, but our community doesn't deserve that.
I realize saying "we choose to keep our powers for your own good" makes me sound like, oh, I dunno, "landed gentry"... but users don't see that side of moderation or Reddit drama, and frankly they shouldn't have to.
So we opened and are taking the abuse. Users are torn between "you caved, scabs" and "told you this was a useless gesture, how dare you take my sub away". Neither one is great.
But there's more to it than what appears on the surface, and frankly that's true across a lot of subs.
It’s certainly a hard situation, but I don’t think going along with the malicious agenda of the administration for the good of the community is a strong position. At some point you have to be decisive and accept that there will be negative consequences. Critically, it is not your fault! Someone is saying if you don’t do bad thing A, I’ll do bad thing B. If they do B, that’s not on you.
Of course you have to find balance, choose your battles etc., and everybody should have their own take, but the stakes here just aren’t that high for most folks: it’s low grade bullying that you can walk away from, and, in the process, show others that they don’t need to stay there either. Some subscribers will stick with a crumbling Reddit community to the bitter end, but others will see it go sour and look around for where the good parts of the community went. If you shift your efforts to a new setting, then some of those users will follow the gradient up from toxic Reddit to wherever you setup shop. If you work to keep the Reddit community as comfortable as possible, then you are reducing whatever impetus there is to find a better home.