this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
178 points (99.4% liked)

Reddit

17698 readers
1555 users here now

News and Discussions about Reddit

Welcome to !reddit. This is a community for all news and discussions about Reddit.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules


Rule 1- No brigading.

**You may not encourage brigading any communities or subreddits in any way. **

YSKs are about self-improvement on how to do things.



Rule 2- No illegal or NSFW or gore content.

**No illegal or NSFW or gore content. **



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-Reddit posts using the [META] tag on your post title.



Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.

If you vocally harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



:::spoiler Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

It's obvious that Reddit as a company has no respect for its users and less than that for the mods. It's a thankless, difficult job that isn't even a paid position. I think a lot of us have probably quit real jobs for less bs than Reddit has pulled.

So why stay? Why bother with protests and such when the company has made it clear they don't value your work or your opinions? Why not just pull out en masse and let the place burn to the ground?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] sycamore 47 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're asking the people who quit reddit why they haven't quit reddit. Maybe ask over there?

[–] mtalon 14 points 1 year ago

Because I deleted my account and I don't want to give them any more of my time or thoughts :D

I got some good answers here though.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (3 children)

As a (soon to be) former reddit mod, reddit moderators are all power hungry. Modding and feeling like they're important is a coping mechanism for many of their lives.

[–] kabe 24 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Speak for yourself.

I got stuck with the job because it needing doing and no one else stepped up.

[–] STUPIDVIPGUY 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

what they said is true for probably 95% of mods

[–] MiddleWeigh 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I personally never had an interaction with any mods, but I can imagine it being much like any other position of power within any type of human interaction. But, Tbf, the job is prob a pain in the ass, and I wouldn't want it.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] pineapplefriedrice 4 points 1 year ago

It's also just addictive. I don't think all mods are "power hungry" in a bad sense - certainly many of them mod communities well and responsibly, but most of the ones that put in a lot of time are hooked to that community for one reason or another - either it gives them a sense of accomplishment or it's comfortable and familiar or they just feel valued there. It's easy to slip into that trap.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] justlookingfordragon 37 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Of course I can't speak for everyone else, but: I've been asked to become a mod for a sub with 2.3 million users, and I have contributed to that site for almost a decade. It took me 3 days to save and then manually delete all of my posts, and I'm still working through the comments a week later. It absolutely HAD to be done, because I'm not going to let a certain someone earn cash with my literal years of unpaid volunteer work any longer, but I would be lying if I said that it was an easy decision.

Why? Because that action punishes the users. A whole lot of what I posted were in-depth game guides, and reddit users now no longer have access to those. I regularily called out scammers, provided sources for artworks, answered dozens of questions daily - I felt responsible for that sub and its users. And if you feel responsible for something, then you can not easily toss it away without feeling a certain degree of guilt, whether that feeling is justified or not.

But just for the record: I do not regret the decision. Yes I feel a bit bad for the community, but it had to be done. I can still understand why others might be more reluctant tho.

(and of course there are also power mods who just don't like losing their status / influence, but that's a different story)

[–] Dark_Blade 10 points 1 year ago

It sucks for the users that they lost all the content you made, but spez fucking deserves it. Besides, maybe when the community decides on a place to settle, the content could just go there instead.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] Dark_Blade 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At this point, I think some of 'em are just sticking around to push spez as far as possible. Look at all the shit some of 'em are doing, does it look like they care whether or not they're still mods at the end of it all?

[–] Holyginz 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Tbf, when the mods turn to the community and the community understands the ship is going down no matter what, the fun can actually begin for every party involved except for spez.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] grue 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I sabotaged my subreddit and I'm not deleting my account so that I can check on it and try to make sure it stays sabotaged.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Some places, for example AskHistorians have a lot of amazing content to protect. Other communities would suffer greatly if "insensitive" (read Nazi) mods took over.

It's so frustrating. For years they refused to touch moderators of truly cruel and dangerous subs. But let them suffer a little pushback, and suddenly they are more than willing to remove people from positions of power.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] GustavoM 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Popularity is one hell of a drug -- they can't "just quit" unless their "dopamine fix" starts to become irrelevant. In other words -- make others quit, and the "mods" will follow along.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My guess. Many of the mods who have been doing it for years have a sense of ownership and personal investment in the role/sub. Modding is a thankless task most of the time, so if they are still doing it, for free, they must be getting some emotional benefit.

It may also be the only aspect of their lives where they can exert any control or agency.

[–] mordred 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ahem.. not anymore apparently

[–] Zelda 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

As long as there is someone that will ignore what the CEO os doing in exchange for being able to be mod, it will not matter how many real mods leave, there will always be someone next in line to be mod.

That said, it probably will make the quality of the subs degrade over time

[–] teolan 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yes, but mods accepting this kind of behavior from Reddit are much more likely to be shitty themselves. Led them take the lead, and let reddit turn to shit as the mods actually doing moderation are gone and there are only power-tripping mods left.

[–] morgan_423 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

As u/YaztromoX (mod of r/canning) pointed out yesterday, there are subreddits where actually dangerous misinfo gets posted, and the mod team, who are subject matter experts in the subreddit's topic, have to remove that, or people could get seriously hurt.

There are going to be serious consequences in some communities for letting the scab mods take over.

[–] teolan 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sounds like a reddit problem, not a volunteer problem

[–] assassin_aragorn 8 points 1 year ago

You're right, the problem is that mods for these subs actually have a conscience and morals, unlike Spez.

[–] Dark_Blade 7 points 1 year ago

The thoughtless buffoon in-charge of the website clearly hasn't thought that far; he thinks everyone on the website is replaceable, modding every sub is as easy as removing some porn, and he'll find equally qualified mods literally everywhere.

Spez likely doesn't actually care about anyone who could end up dead because of something they found on Reddit, but he'd certainly give a shit about the legal implications.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Also like, most of the subs I frequented had pinned posts about looking for mods for months, sometimes years. To some it could be tempting, but its still hard unpaid work, and this time with less people to front it than when the mod searches were being held.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] GreenSkree 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Eh, I quit.

15 year user of Reddit. I helped mod a very small sub, but didn't do a whole lot mod-wise besides delete a few spam posts now and then when they popped up.

I don't have any current plans to go back and be a part of those communities for the time being, which sucks because there were a few great (obscure) ones that I'm not sure will migrate or be replaced in the short term.

But the thing about Reddit is that it's not a homogenous group of people. Sure, it fosters a lot of group think by amplifying the most popular opinion, but if a large chunk of people with one attitude leave, then loudest voices will be the next most popular opinion. Plus, there's so many casual users now too. Most of my friends were like, "Huh? Something's going on with Reddit?"

The whole thing feels similar to the whole Digg -> Reddit fiasco. Guess we'll see how things shake out though.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] pointofgravity 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I am the moderator of a small (~1.9k subscribers) subreddit and I haven't made the switch yet. I will eventually, but at the moment I feel like I have not gathered enough information in order to completely migrate my community off-site for a) archival purposes and b) functional parity purposes and I feel like taking the subreddit offline without having a solid migration plan will just result in the community dissolving entirely.

it's a subreddit that's pretty unique,but niche at the same time - it follows the releases of underground/unsigned/indie music acts in a certain Asian country (it's not hard to discern what I'm talking about if you look hard enough) and whilst there are other sites on the internet that do the same thing, I feel like what I've built on Reddit is unique enough in the as a link aggregating format with search functionality.

sure, I could work at manually posting everything that was ever posted to the subreddit to a new lemmy server, but I'm just one guy, and alas, the chronological documentation will be messed up, which I'd like to preserve as best as possible.

so at the moment, I am thinking about moving my subreddit off the site, but I'm waiting for some utility tools to help me do that.

[–] escaped_cruzader 7 points 1 year ago

You should think about making your own site with all the historic reddit data. Something like a static site generator so you can host it for almost free

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] sotolf 18 points 1 year ago

I quit, I stayed on for the protests because it felt nice to work together on it, and then when the sub I was moderating decided they didn't want to take part in the protest anymore I deleted all my posts and my account.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

For me, just to fuck with reddit as a whole.

It's a fine line though. Spez is too much of a wimp do the dirty work, so we're dealing with whoever is running the modcodeofconduct account.

That means we can't go too far, not without risking someone that's just trying to get through their day unnecessary stress via abusive language.

It takes a bit of dancing to walk the line between calling them on the shit they copy/paste in, and not going after the flunky that's on duty.

There's still some mods that have given up and keep working for free because they don't realize that reddit as we knew it is dead. They think (and this is from talking to some of them) that the communities will just keep going like they were, and that the community itself is worth bending the knee.

They genuinely can't conceive that the community could exist anywhere else. And they're partly right because there's always going to be the bulk numbers that are too damn lazy to leave. They've signed up there, they're used to things, and fear change.

What the mods that are clinging to the idea of the community don't seem to get is that the real community that provided good conversation, good posts, and were doing more than scrolling and waiting for a chance to drop a one liner they don't realize has already been made five times, have left.

They think that the ones still there, whining about just wanting to scroll and fuck around, were actually part of the community. That thinking is wrong. I've seen it. The ones that are left behind, that are now attacking the mods that opened back fully, were never useful. The guys that mattered are here, or on discord, or have just fucked off entirely. I say guys, but it's meant as a general term, not a gendered one.

So, my ass is going to keep throwing up pictures of pigs and calling them spez until every alt I have is burned. If they haven't banned my mod account by then, I'll burn that fucker up too.

It's pure, stubborn, spiteful resistance just for the sake of saying fuck off to spez and any shitty capitalist drek like him that think they bring value.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] BendyLemmy 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The question was already answered.

Many people don't have a life, they get addicted to Reddit (or something similar) and it's importance to them becomes extreme.

Such people managed a protest, but as Spez rightly pointed out - they'll be back.

Basically, I think the way forward is to get SEARCH engines to dig content from the Fediverse - because that is the area where Reddit wins. You don't have to go there, you just do a search - and Reddit comes up all over the place.

Lemmy.world, lemmy.ml, Beehaw etc just don't exist there when you want to get answers to questions that would exist, for example r/Firefox, r/CSSFirefox.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Probably some form of addiction. I mean, if I didn‘t have this convenient substitute, staying away from Reddit would be more of a struggle for me too.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Before i discovered kbin, I was trying to use mastodon.social, but it's not the same. I've never really liked twitter and didn't see the point of it, and I kind of feel the same way about mastodon. But I was trying to come to like it anyway. That didn't happen. Now I have kbin, and it's everything i want it to be.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] jerrimu 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They’re gonna save her, fight the admins and marry Reddit. She don’t wanna be saved.

[–] Orez66 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Realistically, a good portion of them could be influence peddlers, paid by states , advertising agencies or others to shape online discussion.

That makes more sense to me than both idealistic community builders or no-life narcissists, which are the two most common ways I've seen mods characterized.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

considering how many of the subs are.... controlled by a relative handful of mods... lets call them 'super mods'... chances are very solid they spend a great deal of their time modding. Which means... they probably earn money from it.

or... they walk dogs.

(edit to be clear, I'm only talking about the ones where you see 'moderator of' listing dozens of communities.)

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] breadsmasher 11 points 1 year ago

They don’t want to give up their powertrips

[–] eleitl 11 points 1 year ago

I've modded a few communities I created and a few others. I dropped many of them over the years but two, and will be leaving these soon. The reason was admin abuse and user toxicity.

[–] Nahvi 11 points 1 year ago

Sunk Cost Fallacy - A lot of mods just can't bear to give up all the time and effort they have put into Reddit.

Of course, there are better and worse reasons than that too. Just like in any group of people there are the good, the bad, and the other.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago
[–] Donjuanme 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Some are paid by the company's the sub represents, they might be community managers.

But most should definitely just quit. It's a thankless abused neglected, and soon to be much more difficult, position.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] m3t00 8 points 1 year ago

mods for one duckduckjeep group encouraged people to leave cute ducks on jeeps in parking lots. turned out they were just selling plastic ducks https://www.amazon.com/s?k=plastic+ducks

I rarely used reddit but people generally should spend more time unplugged

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Probably because it's hard to quit all of the sudden. They put a lot of effort in mantaining a community and to let it go is hard...

[–] Monkeyhog 8 points 1 year ago

A lot of them think that what they're doing is "important " somehow, like they'll let the "community" down if they quit. They're all deluded.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Some people are dedicated and like working for their community, the work being its own reward. They may be worried what would happen to their community if they leave (and new mods are appointed by the overlords) which is a real concern for many, especially the more niche ones, I think. Recreating those communities elsewhere can be tough (and no, Lemmy / the Fediverse isn't an alternative for everyone yet, not least because of the relatively higher initial investment into understanding the structure). They may feel like there is still is hope, they don't want to abandon ship until the bitter absolute end and I can respect that. Some people may also simply like the attention (we are talking about mods here after all ololol mods ghey).

[–] ultimate_question 4 points 1 year ago

The cynical answer would be that moderator privileges on reddit are likely to attract power seeking users and it's unlikely that they're going to want to give up their influence for the sake of an improved user experience or sticking it to the man

load more comments
view more: next ›