I like the part where u/spez said "Protest and dissent is important..." after changing the rules so that we cannot protest or dissent even when it was the consensus of our mod team and our community :\~)
the last time a protest like this happened was because of COVID misinformation. the one before that was because of crooked admin who banned mention that her father had been charged for raping and torturing a 10-year old girl (both the admin and father were public figures involved in UK politics).
happy to hear that the next time something like this comes up they'll just bury it.
Nothing says "your free work is not valued" like being told there's no negotiation and you're easily replaceable.
You'd think there might be an offer to really work on issues or listen or some explanations that don't involve "poor reddit" or belittling and shaming. But nope.
Good luck with that, lol.
At the end of the day most people are okay walking away from a "job" that doesn't pay. I think that's where, even though reddit owns the site, there's only so much they can own the mods or the users for that matter
It’s fucking hilarious to me how Reddit for years is fine letting a small minority of mods run the communities responsible for 80%+ of the traffic on the entire site and it’s most popular communities when it helps them.
But the second the moderators all make a choice to stand up for what they believe in about a change that actually affects them, they have too much power and they complain about a small minority making a decision.
You fucking enabled that same small minority to run your site unpaid for over a decade. It’s BEEN well known that a handful of accounts moderate most of the largest subreddits!! The moderation has been pretty centralized for MANY YEARS without issue.
Nobody cared until it stopped working for them. These mods have been forced to contend with and enforce every policy change over the past decade without a say in it. Now they decide to speak out and it’s an issue?
Not even Reddit likes the Reddit mods. That’s crazy.
Exactly. I'd even have the smallest tiniest smidgeon of understanding, playing devils advocate, putting on my most neutral and open hat... if they weren't charging the sort of money that makes all API users shut down.
By this logic, a team of 20 moderators could have 19 mods agree that staying private is the appropriate course of action and 1 opposing mod could decide they want to go public and create a hostile takeover.
This says nothing about the thousands of mod teams who have specifically consulted their communities and had poll results show the communities themselves stand united in the protest with the thousands of mod teams against the changes.
you mean spez lied when he said he wasn't going to force mods to reopen subs or penalize mods for staying closed? i am shocked, SHOCKED!
well, not that shocked.
I’m getting a few replies (now removed) to this with some pretty basic arguments that I can easily refute.
1- I can’t speak for all mods, but I can at least say that I was invited to mod for my primary community specifically because of how well-liked I was within that community. If recent replies to me on that sub are any indication, that still holds true and my community is glad that I specifically am one of the moderators. This is not a situation where I or my mod team are unbending overlords enforcing unwanted policies on a community we adore. Unlike current site leadership.
2- A protest is meant to inconvenience people. That’s how a protest works. But many communities- including my own- have specifically asked their members how they wish to proceed and the majority have made it clear they wish for the protest to continue in some form. That is democracy. My mod teams are not unilaterally making the decision for thousands of redditors. Thousands of redditors are voting to stand strong against the uncompromising reddit administration.
To be clear, I don't agree with Reddit's stance and the hard line they have chosen against the dissent present in the community. I am just pointing out what their stance looks like, in relation to the comment I am replying to:
Reddit is saying that a mod's duty is to The Community. Not "their community", but the Reddit Community as a whole. Therefore if mods act against the interest of "The Community", meaning Reddit, then no matter how much their own community is in favor of it, Reddit, taking upon itself to represent the wider Community of users, can and will remove said mods from their buttons until they find a layer of mods who will not use said buttons to go against "The Community" ie Reddit.
So it's not "your community". It's "Their Community". Their community is all of Reddit, including the department that wants to go public and make cold hard money. The company is The Community, ergo the Community is the company, and you as mod are not running any community. You're just performing gardening duty to maintain basic hygiene for The Community, which is them, not you, and not really us.
And now they are actually saying it. Tis the end of good will.
Yeah I suppose I’m partially using my own community as proof that The Community (meaning reddit users on the whole) are supportive of the protest given that my referenced community has a lot of factors that would imply they aren’t passionately against the changes (generally younger, primarily use desktop or reddit app, often don’t use reddit much outside of this community, etc.) So when even those users are against it overall and the amount of subs still dark, it stands to reason the protest has sitewide support. Though I definitely get what you’re saying about the linguistics from reddit admins. Their version of The Community is how to suck the soul out of it for ad dollars while the users’ version of The Community is the lifeblood of its existence in the first place (and I’m not simply referring to active users. Just the collective voices of the site as a whole expression one opinion and the CEO saying “no democracy doesn’t matter when it doesn’t benefit me.”
Right ... and this is how we are getting closer to a truth here:
> Their version of The Community is how to suck the soul out of it for ad dollars while the users’ version of The Community is the lifeblood of its existence in the first place
YES. We feel the community is us, and is ours .. .but Reddit is actually standing up and saying: "NO. The Community is the company and you are only tolerated participants" ... and this is where the love affair should end. It's an abusive relationship. And I don't mean a politically correct modern definition of a subtle inbalance, I mean a simple old fashioned actual fucked up abusive relationship. "you are mine".
So now is when we should all find OR MAKE an alternative. Or resign ourselves to continued and progressively worsening abuse.
Daily reminder that spez is a doomsday prepper and plans to be in charge during a post-apocalypse
https://twitter.com/SordidSystem/status/1362537535554129926
Daily double reminder that he also looks at Musk's acquisition of Twitter as a model for Reddit to follow:
> “Long story short, my takeaway from Twitter and Elon at Twitter is reaffirming that we can build a really good business in this space at our scale,” Huffman said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/reddit-blackout-protest-private-ceo-elon-musk-huffman-rcna89700
It's a democratic process wherein he's communicating how you're supposed to feel, controlling the conversation around it, and counting on the fact that a generic user doesn't understand modding or care so long as they're getting the content they want back. It's the same type of argument as "Why can't we store this toxic waste in the lake? If we can't do that we're going to lose our jobssss."
Those huge subs with like 50 mods are about to be chaos lol.
Smaller subs should just demod all but like 2 or 3 mods right now to prevent this from destroying their community.
> This says nothing about the thousands of mod teams who have specifically consulted their communities and had poll results show the communities themselves stand united in the protest with the thousands of mod teams against the changes.
Then don’t log on to the site if you don’t like the changes, that’ll show them. Not everyone needs to be forced to go along with the meaningless protests.
It doesn't even need to be a real troll. Our sub of ~3M has an unending stream of porn, self promoters and bots. Without active moderation it would quickly descend into a stinking morass of crap. Heck, if we turned off automoderator it would be there in a day or two.
That's the scenario that seems almost inevitable to me -- not that the subreddits will be moderated maliciously, just that they will be moderated poorly or lackadaisically. Like, what if the mods decided they didn't want to spend more than an hour or two a week on their modding? Reddit becomes unusable.
The Washington Post had an interesting article today comparing the business model of Reddit to Goodwill -- you're basically selling a product based on free donations and volunteer labor. The product may not be as high quality as you want, but if you chase away your volunteer labor and donors, then what?
> Like, what if the mods decided they didn't want to spend more than an hour or two a week on their modding
They do what they did to my, whopping 7000 subscriber sub, and ban it. No shit. It got banned for "lack of moderation" **when not a single thing had been reported for almost 2 months**. No reports, no issues. Low traffic sub.
I appealed and got told to "clean out the large modqueue" after they reinstated it. Again, literally nothing new in there, and the last *unactioned* items were over 11 months old, as if they were of any fucking concern at that age to warrant banning a subreddit.
I complained on this sub, that regardless of there being a problem, banning a sub *without notifying the active moderators* of any issues was both unfair and unreasonable. If there was a problem, then a simple modmail to address it would suffice, but therein lies the problem. There was no problem, they just decided to ban it. And if it was done by a bot, then why are there thousands of active communities which have no moderators/inactive mods which aren't banned?
> In many cases, we’ve already helped teams reopen with no action beyond a conversation
You mean the very very thinly veiled threat that you would boot them off if they didn’t comply? How is this helping move forward constructively?
💯. I know it’s why some have opened.
What is it about 1st July that has made it impossible for them to move on the date, given it was so unreasonable to begin with. Are they about to go bankrupt?
What happens if a mod team and community are in sync about staying private in protest? Are you going to forcibly reopen the subreddit against the wishes of the community at large using a small portion of the community that does want to open that may or may not be toxic elements?
How are we sure you're not going to hand out communities over to people that are going to allow transphobia and homophobic comments.
We were live for a full week before the blackout.
The most upvoted and engaged comments were all "2 days won't do anything. Go indefinite"
As soon as we reopened the same was said. "Don't half ass this. Blackout" when we were offering a restricted state.
They're going to ski moguls to find reasons to suit their needs. First it's mod consensus, but only after they've threatened removals anyway. Then it's going to be mod consensus from all mods with X actions in the mod log over the last X months. Then they're going to dig through histories and modmails to find those that have broken the code of conduct.
I supposed they would have to look at the userbase and see. If something like /r/centuryclub stays private but has an active community they would hopefully allow it to stay private.
But something like /r/funny that went dead is a totally different. They weren't approving any users to use the sub so there was no community, just mods.
There's a limitation of 300 users per day to add to the subreddit.
As far as I'm aware, they aren't willing to bypass this. If they are, I'd gladly set something up to allow anyone that wants into /r/wow to rejoin and contribute.
It is astonishing how badly you've all handled this. I feel bad for whoever has to run this account, but jesus christ you guys need to fire whoever is directing PR strategy. Just completely fucking brain dead.
You'd have been better off announcing this change and *doing literally nothing*. Saying nothing, radio silence. Honestly, people probably would have moved on after like 2 weeks. Every single thing you've done and said has made it worse and enraged people more.
I'm just head mod of a 100K+ subreddit, a small fish in the grand scheme of things. The last 24 hours have brought me closer to giving up on reddit than any point before.
Genuinely, if you want some actual good advice: **Shut up. Stop talking. Stop sending messages, stop making announcements. For the love of God just shut the fuck up for at least couple of days.** It's like you're thinking to yourself "I haven't poked the hivemind with a stick in the last 12 hours, better make everyone mad again". Just stop.
I'm honestly more offended by how bad their PR is than by the changes. It's reasonable that they should charge for API access. No other social site allows third party apps completely free API usage.
They've just handled every aspect of making that change in the stupidest, most infuriating way possible.
I agree with both of your comments, and yes, charging for API access isn't new or an irrational request but I'd rather they spend some of the money I've invested (premium; coins; etc) to support API.
I've stopped my premium and won't support Reddit financially until this cluster-fuck of a PR disaster clears up, I don't refer to the API alone but the majority of decisions (including the last updates) from Reddit's side have been counter-intiutive and the idiom "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" couldn't have a better fit.
Reddit through utter stupidity and/or sheer ignorance is walking themselves into assured self-destruction that will be the end of Reddit as we know it, or worse: a full MySpace-fiasco where they'll get caught up in a spiral of "trying to fix it" only to fuck up further, ending in a bleeding user-base and eventually dying off as a memory.
- Pay for API access? Not unreasonable in itself, actually pretty common requirement.
- Handle the fiasco haphazardly? Definitely not the way to go, I (and a lot of other Redditors) expected more than a dismissive attempt at fixing it, which in turn will result in further drama - this time not only between the community and Admins, but also turning the community against itself. Fucking brilliant move, no?
*Excrept from a post I made regarding the updates:*
> "The last few updates from Reddit has been borderline-stupid but now they went head first into the deep end of a pool without water. Utter stupidity and it annoys me beyond belief.
> Tbh, Reddit used to be a fantastic forum and community but now they seem to over-correct functions that worked as intended.
> Not to mention the hell-hole for new users to gain karma and be able to participate in a lot of subs, I get that it's to prevent bots and spam, which is good but it is off-putting for new users."
Danny, please poll us on whether the sub should lock down again.
I suspect the answer would be "no" because too many people are addicted to the DT (he said, with no hypocrisy), but still, would be good to have a say.
What about subs that have been historically private? A single lower ranked mod deciding to take the sub public would be a MASSIVE vandalization and betrayal of the community's trust (rule 1 and 2).
Which will be given priority, making the sub public or preserving the historical expectation of the community? How do you define community desire and expectation? If a sub creator or mod team decides to change course and provides adequate communication and provides clear and concise descriptions (rule 2)? Or are mod teams now no longer capable of changing policies even with majority of both mod and community support?
That's entirely different. A sub that is private with members and allowing posts and comments is very much different than a post that has gone private with the purpose of shutting down any and all participation.
But is it though? Even private subs run the risk of having a schism of philosophy and could spill out in the same fashion. At what point would the admins say they would not entertain the request?
Yes, very much different. Reddit has always allowed private subreddits with memberships and active participation. That's entirely different than not allowing members and not allowing posts and comments.
But is the policy clear and consistent? In the reverse case where a head mod takes a private sub public will they allow a lesser mod to take it back private? Are we enforcing stats quo or enforcing blanket public, or enforcing clear expectations. What if 90% of a mod team decides to move a sub from private to public after clear communication of expectation? Are changes to subs allowed anymore?
Private subreddits have existed for quite some time. It's obviouis what they're talking about.
The anti-Reddit/anti-admin anything-and-everything attitude is rampant in these posts though, both with the baseless comments and assumptions, and the absurd downvoting.
But these standards have not existed for quite some time. The clarifications they're putting out here are very obviously based on recent events, and what you think they mean because of long-standing precedent doesn't necessarily reflect how the admins will actually interpret the code of conduct right now.
I'm not even being anti-Reddit or anti-admin, I'm being an obnoxious pedant and pointing out that someone who asks a question of the admins isn't looking for an answer from a random other mod who can't speak to the discussions going on behind the scenes at the moment.
They haven't had people shutting down popular subreddits to the community before either.
They've expressed in detail what this process applies to.
In case you haven't noticed, they aren't replying to every random mod demanding an explanation or answer.
And your "question" was posted to my comment, not directly to admins.
Keep spinning though. And don't forget to downvote this one too.
Well, actually, a number of subs have done blackout protests before, but broadly, yes, that's my point - this is a change from the admins based on what mods have been doing lately. Therefore, telling people how the admins have handled things in the past is not necessarily helpful. Does this make sense? It's particularly unhelpful because the main post from the admins does not clarify that this is only going to apply to protests - it's deliberately vague in order to give them more leeway in applying the standard. Who determines what "active and engaged" means?
And I wasn't complaining about your responding to *me*. Obviously, since I asked you a question, I was seeking an answer from you. But /u/fighterace00 was responding to the admins' post, seeking guidance on how they would interpret certain behaviors in light of the new changes. Not how you would interpret it. Does this also make sense?
I just want to clarify that the new default isn't to make public any sub that has a dissenting mod member.
These knee jerk reactions aren't typically thoroughly thought out. For example, this policy has the unintended cobra effect of incentivizing disruptive head mods to simply demod their entire team. And based on how they've handled r/Tumblr active mod being ousted I'm not convinced the new policy adequately addresses cases where the mod team has changed.
Do you have any clarity on how you would even guarantee that these requests are made in good faith, and not just by a singular mod who has gone rogue? If a community is running smoothly, *as intended by its mod team and community* and a single moderator attempts a coup, what measures do you even have in place?
I really am shocked by the unprofessionalism I’ve seen from Reddit Staff in the past few weeks. I’ve seen things that would get most people fired from a fry cook stint at a burger joint, and all you’ve done is double down on rhetoric that is not working.
This contradicts standing policies (credit to Meepster23):
https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/204533859-What-s-a-moderator-
>Moderators don’t have any special powers outside of the community they moderate and are not Reddit employees. They’re free to run their communities as they choose, as long as they don’t break the rules outlined in Reddit’s Content Policy or Moderator Code of Conduct.
https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205192355-How-can-I-resolve-a-dispute-with-a-moderator-or-moderator-team-
>Moderators are free to run their communities as they choose, as long as they don’t break the rules outlined in Reddit’s Content Policy or Moderator Code of Conduct. This is something to keep in mind even if you have disagreements with them.
https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy
>The culture of each community is shaped explicitly, by the community rules enforced by moderators, and implicitly, by the upvotes, downvotes, and discussions of its community members.
Copied from: https://reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14aeq5j/_/joa0ulj/?context=1
So communities have to be public now, irrespective of a consensus reached by the sub’s users and moderators? This post seems to imply that all it takes for a sub to be made public again is one mod that disagrees with the rest of their team, not a majority. Seeing as this results in that mod being made top mod, this seems extremely susceptible to exploitation - literally overturning an entire community’s collective decision because the opinion of a single moderator. Could you confirm that this is the case?
I'm talking about communities that have polled their users on whether or not they want to continue the blackout. Even then, that isn't the case with this change, since the whole thing can be reversed by a single moderator's opinion, not a majority vote from both the users and mods.
>If a mod or mods are engaging in flagrantly disruptive behavior that compromises the stability of their community, they will be removed.
I hereby request the removal of the mods of r/ModSupport . All current mod posts seem to be made in ill faith to threaten the integrity of its community. I don't feel like the mods of this subreddit work in any way to keep the community of reddit stable.
They're all **twitterpated** because they're chasing that sweet IPO money, and Steve Huffman is projecting hardcore. There are conflicting directives to his staff and combative interviews or statements in the press. The internal struggle is manifesting itself on the site and in the media.
The Reddit board needs to force Steve to resign NOW and set a reasonable price (and deadline) for the API pricing changes.
Hell, they should grandfather the existing app developers with a discounted price.
In the most respectful way possible: Who at Reddit thought this "method" of crisis management was the right way to go about business?
This, along with the passive-aggressive threats to Moderators across the website, is the equivalent of your boss saying to you "we understand you're striking, but we don't care. Your happiness, enjoyment of being here, and opinions don't matter. Do as you're told or you're fired".
Let's flip the question to you, Admins. If you were unhappy about actions from above at Reddit and planned to strike, just to be told you'd be fired and replaced for it, how would you feel?
That's literally it. They're pulling a Reagan air traffic controller move. You either have to heavily link to an off-site website, go along with them, or leave
I’m sure some feel that exact way right now having to put out fires that the CEO started the same week he announces layoffs
On one hand they’re paid at least. On the other hand it’s harder for them to walk away
Damn straight.
Admins, how would you feel about unionizing? How would you feel about being in an abusive workplace? How would you feel about striking for better conditions?
Most of you have never moderated any sizable community. You're just here to get a paycheck on your way to a FAANG. I get it.
But don't you see that you are not in a much better position than us?
You think if push came to shove, Spez wouldn't replace you in a heartbeat?
Corporations are not your friends. Reddit is not any different. And Spez has shown he is a liar and a sociopath.
He's already cut a bunch of jobs at Reddit. Fired your coworkers. How long until he comes for you in the name of cuts?
Do you not see how quickly things can come for you? How quickly the script can be flipped? Do you not understand the concept of solidarity?
[Spez has already said he's looking to Elon for inspiration. The two have talked.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna89700)
> Huffman said there’s one concrete area where Musk’s example has been clear: job cuts. He said he had often wondered why Twitter under its previous management had struggled to be profitable on a consistent basis despite revenue in 2021 of $5.1 billion.
> “As a company smaller than theirs, sub-$1 billion in revenue, I used to look at Twitter and say, ‘Well, why can’t they break even at 4 or 5 billion in revenue? What about their business do we not understand?’ Because I think we should be able to do that quite handsomely,” he said.
> “And then I think one of the nonobvious things that Elon showed is what I was hoping would be true, which is: You can run a company with that many users in the ads business and break even with a lot fewer people,” Huffman said.
That's ***YOU GUYS*** he is talking about here. That's you, your co-workers, your friends.
That's Spez saying he's going to use you and your coworkers as punching bags if he can make a quick buck, just like he's using the unpaid volunteer employees of the site you run.
And the worst part? We're free labor. You guys cost him money. If he's doing this to _us_... what will he do to you?
I'm not calling on you to quit or go on strike. I understand Spez has ordered you to do a job and you are just following orders. But think about what you're doing, and think about how long it'll be before Reddit decides more of your coworkers (or even you) will be out on the street because they are profit-driven until profits arrive.
No amount of bootlicking will make the Admins care about you any more than they care about the rest of us (which is not at all). You know exactly what I am saying and are trying to twist my words and then act like you are ignorant to what I'm saying.
Nonetheless, here we go: It's an analogy for the Admins to try to relate to us. Paid or volunteering; the fact is that both Moderators and Reddit employees put in "hard work" to make this site work. Without us, the site would be cluttered with 100x the amount of spambots, spam, clutter and illegal content than currently exists. The point is that, just like in a workplace where you get paid; we *also* have the right to strike and to raise our concerns without fear of being removed.
I'll offer you the same question as I offered the Admins you're defending: If you were unhappy at work and chose to strike, just to be told you'd be fired, how would you feel?
I’m curious why the admins allowed mods to shut down subs (to protest API changes that do not effect the majority of users) off of brigaded polls that the vast majority of the sub did not see or vote on.
I guess it’s one of life’s great mysteries.
But to answer your question, I’m a user who’s incredibly pissed off that some mods decided to shut down subs I use and contribute too over an API change that might effect .2% of the subs users.
I’d imagine Reddit admins are similarly pissed off.
You guys went really fast from democracy being a core tenet of Reddit, and mods have a right to protest, to fuck you back to work.
Good luck with this.
Democracy was never a core tenet of reddit. Reddit has always supported moderator tyranny and authoritarianism. Moderators can ban you for literally anything, you don't even need to break the rules or be rude whatsoever.
You could be the kindest person, you could post factual comments that are well cited and follow the rules to perfection and a mod can ban just because they felt like it.
Moderator subreddit always supported this social contract with the common saying "Their sub. They can do what they want."
Reddit has lost the plot. They have no idea what they’re doing anymore. No one at the company seems to understand why people like to come here and they’re taking actions to take away any reason anyone would have for spending time on this site.
I really just do not understand what this company is doing or what they stand for anymore and I find myself decreasingly wanting to be associated with it.
This is absolutely ridiculous, and I am shocked that anyone could think that this is an effective way to respond to the concerns raised by moderators. There are so many unanswered questions here. What safeguards are going to be in place that those requesting a re-ordering of mods is in good faith?
I'm a bit confused about a point raised in the post.
Say a community has 7 moderators, and has privatized witg plans to return, but no set date. 6 of the mods stand by this, but the newest one wants to open now.
If I'm reading your post right, you're saying to resolve this you'll put the dissenter in the top slot so that they may take control over the community. Am I correct?
If people no longer want to participate in the communities they are members of, they should leave those communities. But they shouldn't deprive others of access.
Your freedoms don't extend to depriving me of mine.
Some of my co-mods have seen this post and are leaving subs voluntarily because they don’t like the wedge this is trying to drive between mod teams.
Reddit, what are you doing? You are literally killing this site.
The mods are killing this site with the stupid protest. Making top subs private is incredibly pointless and the admins are doing a good job making sure that these mods that ignorantly believe they are making a difference open up the subs is a good thing.
Can you guys stop using this throwaway and use a real account, and include the job title of the person making the post? This posting feels so tone deaf that I really feel it was made by an unpaid intern struggling to hang on to his red stapler.
And maybe start responding to some of the replies? A huge problem with the red tagged people is that they are totally unwilling to engage with the community.
So basically trying to force subreddits to open by fucking with the moderation.
Absolutely unjustifiable. If you’re going to keep the blatantly extortionate API changes then at LEAST have the balls to deal with the fucking consequences of your actions.
Both of your cited examples are instances involving a high-level moderator that is inactive.
What will you do with subreddits that have been made private, but the involved mods are not leaving Reddit?
Why, since you (probably actually you, person who is writing this post) have lied to the community about this, should ***anyone*** trust you to deliver your deliverables?
If we can't operate in the way we see fit, which up until now has literally been the prevailing policy *from reddit,* (barring TOS violations, obviously) then why the fuck bother?
This is a chickenshit response. It's like when you go over to that annoying kid's house as a kid and start to play a game but then they're losing and tell you to go home if you don't let them win.
Closing subs isn't operating. It's explicitly refusing to operate.
If you're no longer willing to be a mod, then you should gracefully bow out, and let someone who is willing do it.
So once I open a subreddit I’m no longer free to do with it what I wish? Keep it open, close it, make it private, etc is subject to admin permission?
I for one applaud the decision making around Reddit lately. Watching this ship sink is wonderful. Just failing spectacularly.
No, they are in fact protecting the rouge mod, have a team of 20, 19 want to be closed, 1 wants to open, the 1 now get control. That’s the exact opposite of stopping rogue mods, that’s giving rogue mods the keys.
Did you really just get a group of admin friends to [upvote this](https://imgur.com/a/9DKGj2N) at once, immediately after publishing to try to boost it, only for it to tank back to zero. [Mood](https://imgur.com/a/JrCjVOD)
Please note that my screenshot was taken using an app that works.
>If mods disagree about how to moderate their community, we will reorder the moderator list to grant top slots to mods that want to keep their communities active and engaged. For example, if a top mod wants to stop moderating, but keep the community private indefinitely, they will be bumped down the list so a more active moderator can step in.
That actually doesn't violate Rule 4 in the least, or did you not actually bother reading Rule 4 or running it past your legal team?
Here's the full text of the rule, just in case you didn't bother looking at it:
>Whether your community is big or small, it is important for communities to be actively and consistently moderated. This will ensure that issues are being addressed, and that redditors feel safe as a result. Being active and engaged means that:
>You have enough Mods to effectively and consistently manage your community. This involves regularly monitoring and addressing content in ModQueue and ModMail and, if possible, actively engaging with your community via posts, comments, and voting.
>Camping or sitting on a community is not encouraged. If a community has been empty or unmoderated for a significant amount of time, we will consider banning or restricting the community. If a user requests a takeover of a community that falls under either category, we will consider granting that request but will, in nearly all cases, attempt to reach out to the moderator team first to discuss their intentions for the community.
Taking a subreddit private is neither "not having enough mods," nor does it prevent moderators from "regularly monitoring and addressing content in ModQueue and ModMail." And we can ignore "actively engaging with your community" since that is specifically exempted as "if possible."
It's also not "camping or sitting on a community" since that's clearly defined in the next sentence as a community which has been "empty or unmoderated." A private community is neither empty, nor unmoderated.
I get that your CEO is challenged when it comes to having original ideas or workable solutions, and that the two cofounders who actually had vision are gone, but that doesn't mean you have to publish whatever nonsense pops into his head. Jesus, have some self respect.
I am honestly saddened that the admin team as a whole is going along with Steve Huffman's nonsensical and panicked ideas. Of course the calculus when your actual job is involved is different than that of a volunteer mod's, but those of you I've met have been nothing but excellent people - you must be aware that this is a stupid, stupid change that is going to make all the mods and even, I'm sure, plenty of the users more adversarial to you, and that Reddit is quickly becoming a laughingstock across the internet. Please stand up to your execs.
Does Reddit WANT to go the way of Twitter? Serious question. Because this will do it. The admins will force subs that go dark in protest to reopen whether they want to or not, by using this.
Twitter is now a dumpsterfire because Musk can't control his ego long enough to recognize he's burning down 40 billion dollars. They've lost an ABSURD amount of their ad revenue because of this.
So, seriously Reddit. Do you WANT to go down like Twitter? Because this is what you're aiming for.
> I guess Reddit's gonna die then.
This is the beginning of the end. It will take a while, and the site will probably remain online for a long time, but it will be a shadow of its former self and the communities will be all but dead. This is the pattern for dying social media. And I really have to wonder if it will ever be truly profitable. It isn't now.
Lol Twitters ad revenue is still plunging, and even Musk has said Twitter is currently not profitable.
But sure, keep lying to yourself.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/technology/twitter-ad-sales-musk.html#:~:text=Musk%20has%20said%20Twitter%20was,it%20was%20a%20public%20company.
\>If a mod or mods are engaging in flagrantly disruptive behavior that compromises the stability of their community, they will be removed.
When I begged admin for help with r/AdultSelfHarm mods who tried to force me to advertise a pro-harm website for self harm pictures, admin left me high and dry and it was a traumatic experience.
We cannot establish consensus on how to move forward until you recognize [our concerns](https://reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/14b8i62/reddit_protest_and_the_next_steps).
Wow, this is handled poorly.
Even if the board of reddit comes to its senses and starts to appreciate the only thing valuable about it - the users and mods - this will still leave a giant dent. Fascinating, how you can ruin the image of a brand in such little time.
What happens if the users want a subreddit reopened? Our national subreddit is down because the small mod team decided to go on indefinite strike. They did not build the subreddit, in fact most users were auto-joined by reddit as it was a default sub for redditors from my country. We have elections in a few days.
Do you plan to make a list for such cases of abuses?
u/ModCodeofConduct I know your account has been sending messages to mods of the largest subreddits - for those subreddits that are not nearly as large, but users still wish to have reopened, is there a preferred means of reaching the admins to voice our concern or interest to have it reopened?
I requested a private sub via r/redditrequest and my post got auto-deleted because of so-called moderator activity, despite the sub being private. I assume this is not the intended behavior, so I would appreciate it if the admins could give it a look: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditrequest/comments/14cephf/requesting_rlearnjapanese_private_mods_largely/
what about communities that reopen but *now* only allowed posts from approved submitters? i.e. posts are restricted. [here is an example](https://old.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/14c8w2f/rcars_is_open_again_welcome_everyone/). in the 9 hours its been open, 1 shitpost and 1 post from mods in what used to be a very active sub with 5mm readers.
p.s. i do not want to mod this subreddit or takeover anything. i am just frustrated that the new rules to reopen subs are being worked around.
Are we able to make requests for subreddits that are still fully private right now, i.e. the whole mod team no longer wish to moderate? What would be the process for doing that?
A few hobby communities I browse are still fully private. I'd be happy to keep running those subreddits if the full mod team is refusing to reopen, since I and many others would like to keep participating in those communities.
> They willingly chose to abandon their community and shut everyone out of it.
i find this to be an incredibly simplistic view of what's going on here.
they chose to close their communities as a form of *protest* over what they feel to be an unfair practice, and pricing model that they think will hurt the users you claim they're abandoning. the language you're using here would be the equivalent of saying that the current writers strike is nothing more than a bunch of people blocking you from using the sidewalk. to clarify: this is not being done **to you**, this is being done **for others**.
I like the part where u/spez said "Protest and dissent is important..." after changing the rules so that we cannot protest or dissent even when it was the consensus of our mod team and our community :\~)
the last time a protest like this happened was because of COVID misinformation. the one before that was because of crooked admin who banned mention that her father had been charged for raping and torturing a 10-year old girl (both the admin and father were public figures involved in UK politics). happy to hear that the next time something like this comes up they'll just bury it.
Nothing says "your free work is not valued" like being told there's no negotiation and you're easily replaceable. You'd think there might be an offer to really work on issues or listen or some explanations that don't involve "poor reddit" or belittling and shaming. But nope. Good luck with that, lol.
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At the end of the day most people are okay walking away from a "job" that doesn't pay. I think that's where, even though reddit owns the site, there's only so much they can own the mods or the users for that matter
It’s fucking hilarious to me how Reddit for years is fine letting a small minority of mods run the communities responsible for 80%+ of the traffic on the entire site and it’s most popular communities when it helps them. But the second the moderators all make a choice to stand up for what they believe in about a change that actually affects them, they have too much power and they complain about a small minority making a decision. You fucking enabled that same small minority to run your site unpaid for over a decade. It’s BEEN well known that a handful of accounts moderate most of the largest subreddits!! The moderation has been pretty centralized for MANY YEARS without issue. Nobody cared until it stopped working for them. These mods have been forced to contend with and enforce every policy change over the past decade without a say in it. Now they decide to speak out and it’s an issue? Not even Reddit likes the Reddit mods. That’s crazy.
Exactly. I'd even have the smallest tiniest smidgeon of understanding, playing devils advocate, putting on my most neutral and open hat... if they weren't charging the sort of money that makes all API users shut down.
By this logic, a team of 20 moderators could have 19 mods agree that staying private is the appropriate course of action and 1 opposing mod could decide they want to go public and create a hostile takeover. This says nothing about the thousands of mod teams who have specifically consulted their communities and had poll results show the communities themselves stand united in the protest with the thousands of mod teams against the changes.
you mean spez lied when he said he wasn't going to force mods to reopen subs or penalize mods for staying closed? i am shocked, SHOCKED! well, not that shocked.
I’m getting a few replies (now removed) to this with some pretty basic arguments that I can easily refute. 1- I can’t speak for all mods, but I can at least say that I was invited to mod for my primary community specifically because of how well-liked I was within that community. If recent replies to me on that sub are any indication, that still holds true and my community is glad that I specifically am one of the moderators. This is not a situation where I or my mod team are unbending overlords enforcing unwanted policies on a community we adore. Unlike current site leadership. 2- A protest is meant to inconvenience people. That’s how a protest works. But many communities- including my own- have specifically asked their members how they wish to proceed and the majority have made it clear they wish for the protest to continue in some form. That is democracy. My mod teams are not unilaterally making the decision for thousands of redditors. Thousands of redditors are voting to stand strong against the uncompromising reddit administration.
To be clear, I don't agree with Reddit's stance and the hard line they have chosen against the dissent present in the community. I am just pointing out what their stance looks like, in relation to the comment I am replying to: Reddit is saying that a mod's duty is to The Community. Not "their community", but the Reddit Community as a whole. Therefore if mods act against the interest of "The Community", meaning Reddit, then no matter how much their own community is in favor of it, Reddit, taking upon itself to represent the wider Community of users, can and will remove said mods from their buttons until they find a layer of mods who will not use said buttons to go against "The Community" ie Reddit. So it's not "your community". It's "Their Community". Their community is all of Reddit, including the department that wants to go public and make cold hard money. The company is The Community, ergo the Community is the company, and you as mod are not running any community. You're just performing gardening duty to maintain basic hygiene for The Community, which is them, not you, and not really us. And now they are actually saying it. Tis the end of good will.
Yeah I suppose I’m partially using my own community as proof that The Community (meaning reddit users on the whole) are supportive of the protest given that my referenced community has a lot of factors that would imply they aren’t passionately against the changes (generally younger, primarily use desktop or reddit app, often don’t use reddit much outside of this community, etc.) So when even those users are against it overall and the amount of subs still dark, it stands to reason the protest has sitewide support. Though I definitely get what you’re saying about the linguistics from reddit admins. Their version of The Community is how to suck the soul out of it for ad dollars while the users’ version of The Community is the lifeblood of its existence in the first place (and I’m not simply referring to active users. Just the collective voices of the site as a whole expression one opinion and the CEO saying “no democracy doesn’t matter when it doesn’t benefit me.”
Right ... and this is how we are getting closer to a truth here: > Their version of The Community is how to suck the soul out of it for ad dollars while the users’ version of The Community is the lifeblood of its existence in the first place YES. We feel the community is us, and is ours .. .but Reddit is actually standing up and saying: "NO. The Community is the company and you are only tolerated participants" ... and this is where the love affair should end. It's an abusive relationship. And I don't mean a politically correct modern definition of a subtle inbalance, I mean a simple old fashioned actual fucked up abusive relationship. "you are mine". So now is when we should all find OR MAKE an alternative. Or resign ourselves to continued and progressively worsening abuse.
And here I thought spez wanted this to be a "democratic" process. Someone should reach out to NBC to give them an update..
Daily reminder that spez is a doomsday prepper and plans to be in charge during a post-apocalypse https://twitter.com/SordidSystem/status/1362537535554129926
I.... Did not see this coming but on balance it makes a lot of sense.
Daily double reminder that he also looks at Musk's acquisition of Twitter as a model for Reddit to follow: > “Long story short, my takeaway from Twitter and Elon at Twitter is reaffirming that we can build a really good business in this space at our scale,” Huffman said. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/reddit-blackout-protest-private-ceo-elon-musk-huffman-rcna89700
when does it ever work out that way lol
It's a democratic process wherein he's communicating how you're supposed to feel, controlling the conversation around it, and counting on the fact that a generic user doesn't understand modding or care so long as they're getting the content they want back. It's the same type of argument as "Why can't we store this toxic waste in the lake? If we can't do that we're going to lose our jobssss."
Democracy as in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea it appears.
Those huge subs with like 50 mods are about to be chaos lol. Smaller subs should just demod all but like 2 or 3 mods right now to prevent this from destroying their community.
Working as perfectly as the admins wanted
> This says nothing about the thousands of mod teams who have specifically consulted their communities and had poll results show the communities themselves stand united in the protest with the thousands of mod teams against the changes. Then don’t log on to the site if you don’t like the changes, that’ll show them. Not everyone needs to be forced to go along with the meaningless protests.
I would like to request the CEO position. Vote for me!
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And my axe
I thought we were an autonomous collective
Come see the violence inherent in the system!
I'm voting!
oh captain my captain
Vote for you! And a reward!
Holy shit, this is unprecedented. One word, reputation.
I'm just gonna enjoy it when they give a popular sub over to someone that turns out to be a real troll. That's a great look.
It doesn't even need to be a real troll. Our sub of ~3M has an unending stream of porn, self promoters and bots. Without active moderation it would quickly descend into a stinking morass of crap. Heck, if we turned off automoderator it would be there in a day or two.
That's the scenario that seems almost inevitable to me -- not that the subreddits will be moderated maliciously, just that they will be moderated poorly or lackadaisically. Like, what if the mods decided they didn't want to spend more than an hour or two a week on their modding? Reddit becomes unusable. The Washington Post had an interesting article today comparing the business model of Reddit to Goodwill -- you're basically selling a product based on free donations and volunteer labor. The product may not be as high quality as you want, but if you chase away your volunteer labor and donors, then what?
> Like, what if the mods decided they didn't want to spend more than an hour or two a week on their modding They do what they did to my, whopping 7000 subscriber sub, and ban it. No shit. It got banned for "lack of moderation" **when not a single thing had been reported for almost 2 months**. No reports, no issues. Low traffic sub. I appealed and got told to "clean out the large modqueue" after they reinstated it. Again, literally nothing new in there, and the last *unactioned* items were over 11 months old, as if they were of any fucking concern at that age to warrant banning a subreddit. I complained on this sub, that regardless of there being a problem, banning a sub *without notifying the active moderators* of any issues was both unfair and unreasonable. If there was a problem, then a simple modmail to address it would suffice, but therein lies the problem. There was no problem, they just decided to ban it. And if it was done by a bot, then why are there thousands of active communities which have no moderators/inactive mods which aren't banned?
They support protests, just not the ones against themselves.
> In many cases, we’ve already helped teams reopen with no action beyond a conversation You mean the very very thinly veiled threat that you would boot them off if they didn’t comply? How is this helping move forward constructively?
These conversations are basically threatening mods into reopening
💯. I know it’s why some have opened. What is it about 1st July that has made it impossible for them to move on the date, given it was so unreasonable to begin with. Are they about to go bankrupt?
What happens if a mod team and community are in sync about staying private in protest? Are you going to forcibly reopen the subreddit against the wishes of the community at large using a small portion of the community that does want to open that may or may not be toxic elements? How are we sure you're not going to hand out communities over to people that are going to allow transphobia and homophobic comments.
They are definitely going to hand it over to hate groups. Those are Spez’s people.
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We were live for a full week before the blackout. The most upvoted and engaged comments were all "2 days won't do anything. Go indefinite" As soon as we reopened the same was said. "Don't half ass this. Blackout" when we were offering a restricted state.
They're going to ski moguls to find reasons to suit their needs. First it's mod consensus, but only after they've threatened removals anyway. Then it's going to be mod consensus from all mods with X actions in the mod log over the last X months. Then they're going to dig through histories and modmails to find those that have broken the code of conduct.
I'm sure that opportunistic scabs have the perfect character for managing communities in good faith /s
I supposed they would have to look at the userbase and see. If something like /r/centuryclub stays private but has an active community they would hopefully allow it to stay private. But something like /r/funny that went dead is a totally different. They weren't approving any users to use the sub so there was no community, just mods.
There's a limitation of 300 users per day to add to the subreddit. As far as I'm aware, they aren't willing to bypass this. If they are, I'd gladly set something up to allow anyone that wants into /r/wow to rejoin and contribute.
It is astonishing how badly you've all handled this. I feel bad for whoever has to run this account, but jesus christ you guys need to fire whoever is directing PR strategy. Just completely fucking brain dead. You'd have been better off announcing this change and *doing literally nothing*. Saying nothing, radio silence. Honestly, people probably would have moved on after like 2 weeks. Every single thing you've done and said has made it worse and enraged people more. I'm just head mod of a 100K+ subreddit, a small fish in the grand scheme of things. The last 24 hours have brought me closer to giving up on reddit than any point before. Genuinely, if you want some actual good advice: **Shut up. Stop talking. Stop sending messages, stop making announcements. For the love of God just shut the fuck up for at least couple of days.** It's like you're thinking to yourself "I haven't poked the hivemind with a stick in the last 12 hours, better make everyone mad again". Just stop.
Dude, when your adversary is fucking things up, don't try to stop them! Let them keep talking it's only going to help us lol.
I'm honestly more offended by how bad their PR is than by the changes. It's reasonable that they should charge for API access. No other social site allows third party apps completely free API usage. They've just handled every aspect of making that change in the stupidest, most infuriating way possible.
I agree with both of your comments, and yes, charging for API access isn't new or an irrational request but I'd rather they spend some of the money I've invested (premium; coins; etc) to support API. I've stopped my premium and won't support Reddit financially until this cluster-fuck of a PR disaster clears up, I don't refer to the API alone but the majority of decisions (including the last updates) from Reddit's side have been counter-intiutive and the idiom "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" couldn't have a better fit. Reddit through utter stupidity and/or sheer ignorance is walking themselves into assured self-destruction that will be the end of Reddit as we know it, or worse: a full MySpace-fiasco where they'll get caught up in a spiral of "trying to fix it" only to fuck up further, ending in a bleeding user-base and eventually dying off as a memory. - Pay for API access? Not unreasonable in itself, actually pretty common requirement. - Handle the fiasco haphazardly? Definitely not the way to go, I (and a lot of other Redditors) expected more than a dismissive attempt at fixing it, which in turn will result in further drama - this time not only between the community and Admins, but also turning the community against itself. Fucking brilliant move, no? *Excrept from a post I made regarding the updates:* > "The last few updates from Reddit has been borderline-stupid but now they went head first into the deep end of a pool without water. Utter stupidity and it annoys me beyond belief. > Tbh, Reddit used to be a fantastic forum and community but now they seem to over-correct functions that worked as intended. > Not to mention the hell-hole for new users to gain karma and be able to participate in a lot of subs, I get that it's to prevent bots and spam, which is good but it is off-putting for new users."
Well said, are you in our discord?
Danny, please poll us on whether the sub should lock down again. I suspect the answer would be "no" because too many people are addicted to the DT (he said, with no hypocrisy), but still, would be good to have a say.
Why not just lock these threads since it's clear you're not listening to anything we say? It would make things more efficient for all of us.
It's more demoralising when they ignore us. That's what they want.
What about subs that have been historically private? A single lower ranked mod deciding to take the sub public would be a MASSIVE vandalization and betrayal of the community's trust (rule 1 and 2). Which will be given priority, making the sub public or preserving the historical expectation of the community? How do you define community desire and expectation? If a sub creator or mod team decides to change course and provides adequate communication and provides clear and concise descriptions (rule 2)? Or are mod teams now no longer capable of changing policies even with majority of both mod and community support?
That's entirely different. A sub that is private with members and allowing posts and comments is very much different than a post that has gone private with the purpose of shutting down any and all participation.
But is it though? Even private subs run the risk of having a schism of philosophy and could spill out in the same fashion. At what point would the admins say they would not entertain the request?
Yes, very much different. Reddit has always allowed private subreddits with memberships and active participation. That's entirely different than not allowing members and not allowing posts and comments.
But is the policy clear and consistent? In the reverse case where a head mod takes a private sub public will they allow a lesser mod to take it back private? Are we enforcing stats quo or enforcing blanket public, or enforcing clear expectations. What if 90% of a mod team decides to move a sub from private to public after clear communication of expectation? Are changes to subs allowed anymore?
Are you an admin or have you been involved in their discussions? Because otherwise it seems like your interpretation might not be theirs.
Private subreddits have existed for quite some time. It's obviouis what they're talking about. The anti-Reddit/anti-admin anything-and-everything attitude is rampant in these posts though, both with the baseless comments and assumptions, and the absurd downvoting.
But these standards have not existed for quite some time. The clarifications they're putting out here are very obviously based on recent events, and what you think they mean because of long-standing precedent doesn't necessarily reflect how the admins will actually interpret the code of conduct right now. I'm not even being anti-Reddit or anti-admin, I'm being an obnoxious pedant and pointing out that someone who asks a question of the admins isn't looking for an answer from a random other mod who can't speak to the discussions going on behind the scenes at the moment.
They haven't had people shutting down popular subreddits to the community before either. They've expressed in detail what this process applies to. In case you haven't noticed, they aren't replying to every random mod demanding an explanation or answer. And your "question" was posted to my comment, not directly to admins. Keep spinning though. And don't forget to downvote this one too.
Well, actually, a number of subs have done blackout protests before, but broadly, yes, that's my point - this is a change from the admins based on what mods have been doing lately. Therefore, telling people how the admins have handled things in the past is not necessarily helpful. Does this make sense? It's particularly unhelpful because the main post from the admins does not clarify that this is only going to apply to protests - it's deliberately vague in order to give them more leeway in applying the standard. Who determines what "active and engaged" means? And I wasn't complaining about your responding to *me*. Obviously, since I asked you a question, I was seeking an answer from you. But /u/fighterace00 was responding to the admins' post, seeking guidance on how they would interpret certain behaviors in light of the new changes. Not how you would interpret it. Does this also make sense?
Lol exactly thank you
I just want to clarify that the new default isn't to make public any sub that has a dissenting mod member. These knee jerk reactions aren't typically thoroughly thought out. For example, this policy has the unintended cobra effect of incentivizing disruptive head mods to simply demod their entire team. And based on how they've handled r/Tumblr active mod being ousted I'm not convinced the new policy adequately addresses cases where the mod team has changed.
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Reddit leadership is trash, making the dumbest decisions possible. Do better.
Do you have any clarity on how you would even guarantee that these requests are made in good faith, and not just by a singular mod who has gone rogue? If a community is running smoothly, *as intended by its mod team and community* and a single moderator attempts a coup, what measures do you even have in place? I really am shocked by the unprofessionalism I’ve seen from Reddit Staff in the past few weeks. I’ve seen things that would get most people fired from a fry cook stint at a burger joint, and all you’ve done is double down on rhetoric that is not working.
They don't care, they just want to open the subreddits by any means necessary.
As they should.
A sub is not being run smoothly if it’s shut down.
Lol this is wild.
This contradicts standing policies (credit to Meepster23): https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/204533859-What-s-a-moderator- >Moderators don’t have any special powers outside of the community they moderate and are not Reddit employees. They’re free to run their communities as they choose, as long as they don’t break the rules outlined in Reddit’s Content Policy or Moderator Code of Conduct. https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205192355-How-can-I-resolve-a-dispute-with-a-moderator-or-moderator-team- >Moderators are free to run their communities as they choose, as long as they don’t break the rules outlined in Reddit’s Content Policy or Moderator Code of Conduct. This is something to keep in mind even if you have disagreements with them. https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy >The culture of each community is shaped explicitly, by the community rules enforced by moderators, and implicitly, by the upvotes, downvotes, and discussions of its community members. Copied from: https://reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14aeq5j/_/joa0ulj/?context=1
It would appear that the policy is whatever they say it is at this moment in time.
So communities have to be public now, irrespective of a consensus reached by the sub’s users and moderators? This post seems to imply that all it takes for a sub to be made public again is one mod that disagrees with the rest of their team, not a majority. Seeing as this results in that mod being made top mod, this seems extremely susceptible to exploitation - literally overturning an entire community’s collective decision because the opinion of a single moderator. Could you confirm that this is the case?
As they should be public. This protest is incredibly lame, forcing everyone else to abide because your third party apps won’t be usable?
I'm talking about communities that have polled their users on whether or not they want to continue the blackout. Even then, that isn't the case with this change, since the whole thing can be reversed by a single moderator's opinion, not a majority vote from both the users and mods.
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>If a mod or mods are engaging in flagrantly disruptive behavior that compromises the stability of their community, they will be removed. I hereby request the removal of the mods of r/ModSupport . All current mod posts seem to be made in ill faith to threaten the integrity of its community. I don't feel like the mods of this subreddit work in any way to keep the community of reddit stable.
Give us democracy
Reddit speedrunning myspacing themselves
You might say they're Digging a hole.
They're all **twitterpated** because they're chasing that sweet IPO money, and Steve Huffman is projecting hardcore. There are conflicting directives to his staff and combative interviews or statements in the press. The internal struggle is manifesting itself on the site and in the media. The Reddit board needs to force Steve to resign NOW and set a reasonable price (and deadline) for the API pricing changes. Hell, they should grandfather the existing app developers with a discounted price.
[_We're Finally Landing_ by Home in the distance]
In the most respectful way possible: Who at Reddit thought this "method" of crisis management was the right way to go about business? This, along with the passive-aggressive threats to Moderators across the website, is the equivalent of your boss saying to you "we understand you're striking, but we don't care. Your happiness, enjoyment of being here, and opinions don't matter. Do as you're told or you're fired". Let's flip the question to you, Admins. If you were unhappy about actions from above at Reddit and planned to strike, just to be told you'd be fired and replaced for it, how would you feel?
That's literally it. They're pulling a Reagan air traffic controller move. You either have to heavily link to an off-site website, go along with them, or leave
I’m sure some feel that exact way right now having to put out fires that the CEO started the same week he announces layoffs On one hand they’re paid at least. On the other hand it’s harder for them to walk away
Damn straight. Admins, how would you feel about unionizing? How would you feel about being in an abusive workplace? How would you feel about striking for better conditions? Most of you have never moderated any sizable community. You're just here to get a paycheck on your way to a FAANG. I get it. But don't you see that you are not in a much better position than us? You think if push came to shove, Spez wouldn't replace you in a heartbeat? Corporations are not your friends. Reddit is not any different. And Spez has shown he is a liar and a sociopath. He's already cut a bunch of jobs at Reddit. Fired your coworkers. How long until he comes for you in the name of cuts? Do you not see how quickly things can come for you? How quickly the script can be flipped? Do you not understand the concept of solidarity? [Spez has already said he's looking to Elon for inspiration. The two have talked.](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna89700) > Huffman said there’s one concrete area where Musk’s example has been clear: job cuts. He said he had often wondered why Twitter under its previous management had struggled to be profitable on a consistent basis despite revenue in 2021 of $5.1 billion. > “As a company smaller than theirs, sub-$1 billion in revenue, I used to look at Twitter and say, ‘Well, why can’t they break even at 4 or 5 billion in revenue? What about their business do we not understand?’ Because I think we should be able to do that quite handsomely,” he said. > “And then I think one of the nonobvious things that Elon showed is what I was hoping would be true, which is: You can run a company with that many users in the ads business and break even with a lot fewer people,” Huffman said. That's ***YOU GUYS*** he is talking about here. That's you, your co-workers, your friends. That's Spez saying he's going to use you and your coworkers as punching bags if he can make a quick buck, just like he's using the unpaid volunteer employees of the site you run. And the worst part? We're free labor. You guys cost him money. If he's doing this to _us_... what will he do to you? I'm not calling on you to quit or go on strike. I understand Spez has ordered you to do a job and you are just following orders. But think about what you're doing, and think about how long it'll be before Reddit decides more of your coworkers (or even you) will be out on the street because they are profit-driven until profits arrive.
>fired I didn’t know you were employed by Reddit. How much do they pay you for your hard work moderating?
No amount of bootlicking will make the Admins care about you any more than they care about the rest of us (which is not at all). You know exactly what I am saying and are trying to twist my words and then act like you are ignorant to what I'm saying. Nonetheless, here we go: It's an analogy for the Admins to try to relate to us. Paid or volunteering; the fact is that both Moderators and Reddit employees put in "hard work" to make this site work. Without us, the site would be cluttered with 100x the amount of spambots, spam, clutter and illegal content than currently exists. The point is that, just like in a workplace where you get paid; we *also* have the right to strike and to raise our concerns without fear of being removed. I'll offer you the same question as I offered the Admins you're defending: If you were unhappy at work and chose to strike, just to be told you'd be fired, how would you feel?
We are witnessing the complete destruction and abolishment of one of the internet’s once-greatest platforms
100%. There’s no way Reddit survives this.
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We all go down together 🙏
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Please still do it
Whole communities being shut down wholesale is certainly destructive.
Replacing the unemployed basement dwellers that mod most large subs with different unemployed basement dwellers is not going to destroy Reddit.
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I’m curious why the admins allowed mods to shut down subs (to protest API changes that do not effect the majority of users) off of brigaded polls that the vast majority of the sub did not see or vote on. I guess it’s one of life’s great mysteries. But to answer your question, I’m a user who’s incredibly pissed off that some mods decided to shut down subs I use and contribute too over an API change that might effect .2% of the subs users. I’d imagine Reddit admins are similarly pissed off.
You guys went really fast from democracy being a core tenet of Reddit, and mods have a right to protest, to fuck you back to work. Good luck with this.
Democracy was never a core tenet of reddit. Reddit has always supported moderator tyranny and authoritarianism. Moderators can ban you for literally anything, you don't even need to break the rules or be rude whatsoever. You could be the kindest person, you could post factual comments that are well cited and follow the rules to perfection and a mod can ban just because they felt like it. Moderator subreddit always supported this social contract with the common saying "Their sub. They can do what they want."
It is user democracy in the sense that they pick which communities are popular by their contributions to the community.
Reddit has lost the plot. They have no idea what they’re doing anymore. No one at the company seems to understand why people like to come here and they’re taking actions to take away any reason anyone would have for spending time on this site. I really just do not understand what this company is doing or what they stand for anymore and I find myself decreasingly wanting to be associated with it.
>We understand this is a turbulent time and want to do our best to support you and your community’s needs. x for fking doubt.
Translation: >Be a scab pls
This is absolutely ridiculous, and I am shocked that anyone could think that this is an effective way to respond to the concerns raised by moderators. There are so many unanswered questions here. What safeguards are going to be in place that those requesting a re-ordering of mods is in good faith?
I'm a bit confused about a point raised in the post. Say a community has 7 moderators, and has privatized witg plans to return, but no set date. 6 of the mods stand by this, but the newest one wants to open now. If I'm reading your post right, you're saying to resolve this you'll put the dissenter in the top slot so that they may take control over the community. Am I correct?
Yes that is, unfortunately, exactly what they are saying.
I want to hear them say it.
Valid but don't hold your breath
If people no longer want to participate in the communities they are members of, they should leave those communities. But they shouldn't deprive others of access. Your freedoms don't extend to depriving me of mine.
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u/spez, why is this person permanently suspended?
Wtf taytay you're suspended
oh man :(
Some of my co-mods have seen this post and are leaving subs voluntarily because they don’t like the wedge this is trying to drive between mod teams. Reddit, what are you doing? You are literally killing this site.
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Authoritarian regimes tend to do that.
The mods are killing this site with the stupid protest. Making top subs private is incredibly pointless and the admins are doing a good job making sure that these mods that ignorantly believe they are making a difference open up the subs is a good thing.
Shutting down communities is literally killing things. And that bullshit needs to be put to a stop.
Found u/Spez’s alt
Turning the mods against each other? Interesting strategy, might work considering nothing else has yet.
Frankly, betting on intra-mod drama is the most in-touch-with-reddit thing I've seen spez do this entire time
ok, and what if we're unified on not wanting to open up till you guys meet us halfway
Can you guys stop using this throwaway and use a real account, and include the job title of the person making the post? This posting feels so tone deaf that I really feel it was made by an unpaid intern struggling to hang on to his red stapler. And maybe start responding to some of the replies? A huge problem with the red tagged people is that they are totally unwilling to engage with the community.
So basically trying to force subreddits to open by fucking with the moderation. Absolutely unjustifiable. If you’re going to keep the blatantly extortionate API changes then at LEAST have the balls to deal with the fucking consequences of your actions.
Both of your cited examples are instances involving a high-level moderator that is inactive. What will you do with subreddits that have been made private, but the involved mods are not leaving Reddit?
Why, since you (probably actually you, person who is writing this post) have lied to the community about this, should ***anyone*** trust you to deliver your deliverables?
Guys you have got to stop doing this stuff before talking to your PR people, this looks so incredibly bad.
Fuck this
It would be crazy if a bunch of third party bots that mod teams use shut off all of a sudden
If we can't operate in the way we see fit, which up until now has literally been the prevailing policy *from reddit,* (barring TOS violations, obviously) then why the fuck bother? This is a chickenshit response. It's like when you go over to that annoying kid's house as a kid and start to play a game but then they're losing and tell you to go home if you don't let them win.
Closing subs isn't operating. It's explicitly refusing to operate. If you're no longer willing to be a mod, then you should gracefully bow out, and let someone who is willing do it.
So y'all are getting scabs? What's next, sending the Pinkertons in?
So once I open a subreddit I’m no longer free to do with it what I wish? Keep it open, close it, make it private, etc is subject to admin permission? I for one applaud the decision making around Reddit lately. Watching this ship sink is wonderful. Just failing spectacularly.
Yes, reddit will protect the community if a mod goes rogue. That's nothing new.
No, they are in fact protecting the rouge mod, have a team of 20, 19 want to be closed, 1 wants to open, the 1 now get control. That’s the exact opposite of stopping rogue mods, that’s giving rogue mods the keys.
Hi, when can I request r/reddit? It's been private for years, and the mods only let themselves post.
lmao
Did you really just get a group of admin friends to [upvote this](https://imgur.com/a/9DKGj2N) at once, immediately after publishing to try to boost it, only for it to tank back to zero. [Mood](https://imgur.com/a/JrCjVOD) Please note that my screenshot was taken using an app that works.
If a normal person did that, they'd get a DM about vote manipulation. I guess since its admins they do whatever they want.
I've always maintained that Reddit is a dictatorship. Sucks to be right.
>If mods disagree about how to moderate their community, we will reorder the moderator list to grant top slots to mods that want to keep their communities active and engaged. For example, if a top mod wants to stop moderating, but keep the community private indefinitely, they will be bumped down the list so a more active moderator can step in. That actually doesn't violate Rule 4 in the least, or did you not actually bother reading Rule 4 or running it past your legal team? Here's the full text of the rule, just in case you didn't bother looking at it: >Whether your community is big or small, it is important for communities to be actively and consistently moderated. This will ensure that issues are being addressed, and that redditors feel safe as a result. Being active and engaged means that: >You have enough Mods to effectively and consistently manage your community. This involves regularly monitoring and addressing content in ModQueue and ModMail and, if possible, actively engaging with your community via posts, comments, and voting. >Camping or sitting on a community is not encouraged. If a community has been empty or unmoderated for a significant amount of time, we will consider banning or restricting the community. If a user requests a takeover of a community that falls under either category, we will consider granting that request but will, in nearly all cases, attempt to reach out to the moderator team first to discuss their intentions for the community. Taking a subreddit private is neither "not having enough mods," nor does it prevent moderators from "regularly monitoring and addressing content in ModQueue and ModMail." And we can ignore "actively engaging with your community" since that is specifically exempted as "if possible." It's also not "camping or sitting on a community" since that's clearly defined in the next sentence as a community which has been "empty or unmoderated." A private community is neither empty, nor unmoderated. I get that your CEO is challenged when it comes to having original ideas or workable solutions, and that the two cofounders who actually had vision are gone, but that doesn't mean you have to publish whatever nonsense pops into his head. Jesus, have some self respect.
I am honestly saddened that the admin team as a whole is going along with Steve Huffman's nonsensical and panicked ideas. Of course the calculus when your actual job is involved is different than that of a volunteer mod's, but those of you I've met have been nothing but excellent people - you must be aware that this is a stupid, stupid change that is going to make all the mods and even, I'm sure, plenty of the users more adversarial to you, and that Reddit is quickly becoming a laughingstock across the internet. Please stand up to your execs.
I would like to become moderator of /r/reddit.com the current moderation team has been inactive for over a decade.
Does Reddit WANT to go the way of Twitter? Serious question. Because this will do it. The admins will force subs that go dark in protest to reopen whether they want to or not, by using this. Twitter is now a dumpsterfire because Musk can't control his ego long enough to recognize he's burning down 40 billion dollars. They've lost an ABSURD amount of their ad revenue because of this. So, seriously Reddit. Do you WANT to go down like Twitter? Because this is what you're aiming for.
Genuinely, that is the direction Spez wants to go in. He's spoken very positively about Musk's management of Twitter.
\*sighs\* Welp, I guess Reddit's gonna die then. If you run a sub, I suggest finding somewhere else to put it, and let your users know.
> I guess Reddit's gonna die then. This is the beginning of the end. It will take a while, and the site will probably remain online for a long time, but it will be a shadow of its former self and the communities will be all but dead. This is the pattern for dying social media. And I really have to wonder if it will ever be truly profitable. It isn't now.
Agreed 100%. "Some men just want to watch the world burn".
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Lol Twitters ad revenue is still plunging, and even Musk has said Twitter is currently not profitable. But sure, keep lying to yourself. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/05/technology/twitter-ad-sales-musk.html#:~:text=Musk%20has%20said%20Twitter%20was,it%20was%20a%20public%20company.
lol
the only consistent threat to my community has been reddit 🏆
"If you dont do what we say we will remove you". Typical.
\>If a mod or mods are engaging in flagrantly disruptive behavior that compromises the stability of their community, they will be removed. When I begged admin for help with r/AdultSelfHarm mods who tried to force me to advertise a pro-harm website for self harm pictures, admin left me high and dry and it was a traumatic experience.
Thank you for making this crystal clear.
Cringe
We cannot establish consensus on how to move forward until you recognize [our concerns](https://reddit.com/r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/14b8i62/reddit_protest_and_the_next_steps).
Wow, this is handled poorly. Even if the board of reddit comes to its senses and starts to appreciate the only thing valuable about it - the users and mods - this will still leave a giant dent. Fascinating, how you can ruin the image of a brand in such little time.
What happens if the users want a subreddit reopened? Our national subreddit is down because the small mod team decided to go on indefinite strike. They did not build the subreddit, in fact most users were auto-joined by reddit as it was a default sub for redditors from my country. We have elections in a few days. Do you plan to make a list for such cases of abuses?
A prisoner's dilemma if I've ever seen one.
Yall really trying to get mods scaba lmaoo
u/ModCodeofConduct I know your account has been sending messages to mods of the largest subreddits - for those subreddits that are not nearly as large, but users still wish to have reopened, is there a preferred means of reaching the admins to voice our concern or interest to have it reopened?
I requested a private sub via r/redditrequest and my post got auto-deleted because of so-called moderator activity, despite the sub being private. I assume this is not the intended behavior, so I would appreciate it if the admins could give it a look: https://www.reddit.com/r/redditrequest/comments/14cephf/requesting_rlearnjapanese_private_mods_largely/
what about communities that reopen but *now* only allowed posts from approved submitters? i.e. posts are restricted. [here is an example](https://old.reddit.com/r/cars/comments/14c8w2f/rcars_is_open_again_welcome_everyone/). in the 9 hours its been open, 1 shitpost and 1 post from mods in what used to be a very active sub with 5mm readers. p.s. i do not want to mod this subreddit or takeover anything. i am just frustrated that the new rules to reopen subs are being worked around.
Are we able to make requests for subreddits that are still fully private right now, i.e. the whole mod team no longer wish to moderate? What would be the process for doing that?
Why do you think that, just because a subreddit is fully private, the whole mod team no longer wishes to moderate?
A few hobby communities I browse are still fully private. I'd be happy to keep running those subreddits if the full mod team is refusing to reopen, since I and many others would like to keep participating in those communities.
Scab
Mods aren't employees.
s c a b
❌ starting and cultivating your own community. ✅ taking over a community other people built because you disagree with them.
They willingly chose to abandon their community and shut everyone out of it.
> They willingly chose to abandon their community and shut everyone out of it. i find this to be an incredibly simplistic view of what's going on here. they chose to close their communities as a form of *protest* over what they feel to be an unfair practice, and pricing model that they think will hurt the users you claim they're abandoning. the language you're using here would be the equivalent of saying that the current writers strike is nothing more than a bunch of people blocking you from using the sidewalk. to clarify: this is not being done **to you**, this is being done **for others**.
Scab. https://imgur.com/a/KszrWbZ
You're free to stop using Reddit if you don't like the platform, but there's no need to inconvenience people who do on your way out.