this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (4 children)

If they force subs back open, mods all over the site should go on strike. If the admins don't value mods enough to honor their word and follow their own rules, they should see what an unmoderated reddit looks like. Maybe that will be a wake up call.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 year ago

I was a mod and just quit entirely. Fuck them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I think mods should just do a bad job at modding. Silent quitting ftw. Let bots through, let spam pass through. At this point reddit made it clear they don’t want to work with mods.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If they replace the mods and add the ability to vote out mods like they said, community should just repeatedly vote out the scabs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Won't happen because the votes aren't actually going to be votes. Reddit will just claim a majority voted in favor of kicking out the current ones, and then claim that no one wants to kick out the ones they instill

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah it’s not like Reddit is a governmental body here lmao. What’s the repercussion if they fake a vote? Downvotes?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Or sabotage it by only voting for the worst mods.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Do mods have the power to just nuke their subreddit? That'd be the biggest move. If a few big subreddits were to do this, that'd be an instant and significant loss.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just make a python bot that auto removes every single post and comment from the subs. That would completely kill Reddit in a matter of hours

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This'll do it once you identify the right buttons: Selenium. Pick the WebDriver for your browser, and then start writing code to pull up a browser and start pretending to be you clicking the buttons.

I know there's Selenium IDE on there that's easier, but it's too fragile for anything of this scale. You could record it logging in and then hitting delete once, and then it fails because it can't find the next delete link.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I imagine somebody inside reddit has already considered that as a possibility, assuming it's something they can do, and will have a plan involving backups to restore them. Assuming the backups aren't full of deleted posts or garbage by the time they realize they need them.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago (3 children)

plans to pursue changes” that would let regular users vote moderators out more easily

I think that's a good thing in the long run. A lot of reddit moderators are absolutely shit people, and having an actual process to remove them is a good thing.

It should go without saying fuck u/spez and that his motives here are absolutely malicious in nature, but I do see some small good coming from this.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think it’s a weird way to look at moderation as if it was democratic. Voting bad mods out is one thing, but I don’t think you can just vote new good mods in. Moderation is a lot of unpaid work. Even if a large part of a community is unhappy with a mod decision, removing the mods doesn’t mean there will be people with that much time on their hands to step up, and even if there are, it’s not easy to choose the good ones among them by a simple popular vote…

Some of the subs I was on had some elaborate setups with mod tools and bots and the mods were still quite busy. Replacing them with randoms who then also don’t have access to the tools would be entirely pointless.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

On the other hand, it's a terrible system to have mods as unassailable tyrants.

As an example, I was banned from a popular sub for corrective someone about a minor detail of a shooting. I correctly cited the appropriate state law in question, and I was banned for being a right-wing extremist. I am a leftist, and linked numerous comments I had made in the past that reflected as such. The mods made a vague excuse about how my comment would just cause unnecessary confusion and muted me. People like that should not be allowed authority over anything, let alone a forum for public discourse.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

On the other hand, it's a terrible system to have mods as unassailable tyrants.

Absolutely.

Unfortunately, I think the best system requires trusting site Admin to oversee and enforce things like code of conduct and standards. Setting up an external appeal mechanism of some sort. In Reddit's case, it would be a massive job and the company can't afford the staff to do that themselves, isn't trying, and has just tossed hands up and walked away from the problem entirely. They're not really to be trusted and the userbase knows that, so that's IMO why the site has never come up with a good solution to the issue.

Most other mechanisms have or create bigger problems than they directly solve, and no solution will prevent 100% of wrongful bans or abuses of power.

Open elections leave communities - especially small ones - open to being overwhelmed and hijacked, while even if that can be avoided tend to result in mods being unwilling to make any tough decision that might risk their popularity, while also pandering to populist interests within the community.

Closed elections (ie: community participation thresholds) can be gamed with a little more effort, but tend to have the opposite problem from above - you create a clique that runs the community, very similar to the existing problem with moderator teams who'll have each others' back no matter how shitty the others are.

Oversight boards are a moderately better solution, in that they remove the direct populism and much of the risk of community hijack, but there then runs the risk that the board(s) themselves get either hijacked, or rule on cases according to their own biases, putting slant on whole-site culture.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I think that's a good thing in the long run. A lot of reddit moderators are absolutely shit people, and having an actual process to remove them is a good thing.

You want Nazi's taking over? Because that's how you get Nazis taking over.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Divide & conquer

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This seems to have rattled a few cages. r/Science the latest to effectively back down and unfortunately I think there will be more following suit.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

r/nfl did an hour and a half ago.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This, for me, was the final straw. Deleted my reddit and joined some of the alternatives.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Agreed. I'm no longer active on the fairly popular sub that I founded, but I can only imagine how it would have felt to receive this message if I were.

I put endless hours of work into my sub for years. Brainstorming scalable rules, working with the community to maintain discussion quality, acculturating new users, dealing with problem users, working with OPs to help their posts meet expected standards of quality. And we did a good job. We regularly sought feedback and had a great relationship with our community.

The absolute entitlement of this guy coming along and saying that those communities into which we poured our blood, sweat, and tears belong to him. Because there is absolutely nothing in these changes that serve to improve mod quality. It's all about forcing subs back open.

This is the danger of building a home on land that you don't own. Steve is about to learn, though, that his land isn't worth what he thinks it's worth when he drives away everyone who wants to build on it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

"In a pinned message on r/funny, the biggest subreddit to go private before recently reopening, a moderator implored Reddit “to listen to its moderators, its contributors, and its everyday users” and asked it to “not tacitly enable bad actors by working against your volunteers.” r/Apple also recently reopened after being closed out of fears that it would be forcibly reopened. “We want the best for this community and have no choice but to open it back up — or have it opened for us,” a moderator wrote. Another r/Apple mod is resigning in protest of Reddit’s actions."

Imagine having no spine, except that 1 mod (kudos to that person).

Why even bother to blackout if you are gonna bulge after the first threat?

Do even the subs themselves thought that 48 hours was enough to do something? Can someone be that naive?

I thought the subs were actually gonna abide by what the community wants?

How is opening up helping the community when you voted to be down indefinitely just 1 day ago? It is actively screwing them because it shows Reddit is right.

Following it up with a pinned message telling how you still not agree, b*tch please.

Just stop with the posturing then and bend over for Reddit already.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It is like an abusive relationship. Just imagine how much time these mods spend on those subs. How much effort they've put in. I don't fault some of them for not being able to walk away or be unable to bear handing the keys over to a bad actor.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I fully understand that. Plus, there would be no way of organizing what I had mentioned anyway. I just sucks seeing this guy lie, and tear down these communities and quite frankly, escapes for a lot of people.

I saw a comment on r/eyebleach asking them not to go private again, because they like to browse it when they're feeling down... all because of greedy ass hats.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

If Reddit is your only escape then one needs actual help.

Putting all your hapiness or support system into a application that is owned by a handful of stakeholders/investors who are looking at nothing but profit is nothing short of ridiculous.

They could literally put everything behind a paywall when they want and your support system would be locked and/or unavailable.

Also with the person above about a "Abusive relationship" I have been in 2 of them and the best course of action is to walk away.

You otherwise will just get strung along until Reddit (the abuser) makes a decision that will see you cut off and in shambles. It will happen.

People are also starting to forget that 3rd party applications were a big help towards the community and for moderators. The fact that some vain threats are enough to bulge is well hilarious and expected.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Conspire against them, and "replace" the mods with more who are just going to continue to protest as well!

Wishful thinking, I know.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"you better get back to working for free or we're going to let the bots vote you out in the future."

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

This.

Everytime a vote would happen sub are going to get lot of "new subscriber"that vote exactly for the pro-reddit mod

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

plans to pursue changes” that would let regular users vote moderators out more easily

I think that's a good thing in the long run.

There is already a perfectly fine mechanism to deal with bad mods, you just go to a different sub. That approach has worked fine for many years.

There's a reason they never added any other mechanism.

Don't forget there are people with tens of thousands of aged accounts that are itching for ways to make money with them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And then watch the fuckery as it gets reversed. That's how low they've stooped.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'll just edit it again. More load on the reddit API is not my problem.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The problem is finding your comments that were undeleted. They no longer show on your profile. Really really scummy behavior.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It’s really eye opening reading thinly veiled threats in Reddit’s wholesome chungus corporate-speak these past couple days. What a garbage company

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

"Hey, would you like to stab your colleagues in the back? We've got a knife you can use right here!"

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