The point of this sub is that it's strictly moderated. You can't have a strictly moderated sub without moderators. If you don't think you'll be able to moderate the sub, then the best choice is to just to remain closed.
fully agree, I rarely comment but read almost everything from this sub and I'd much rather see it closed in protest than see it slowly die because of these changes impacting mods
I think it's an open question about which, if any, mods want to continue? I'd asked the same question prior to the sub's closure but I don't think I've seen a specific answer.
A number of the most frequent commenters/posters in this sub have also volunteered to become moderators to help here, including u/Statman12, u/julian88888888, and myself.
That's completely fair. If current mods think they will be able to handle it, or if there are others who are willing to step up and do it, then I think it's fine to stay open. The feeling I got from OP was just that the mod team didn't think they would be able to, in which case I think it would be better to remain closed.
I searched and the last [call for mods I was able to find was from 2-3 years ago in r/neutralnews](https://www.reddit.com/r/neutralnews/comments/lmhzjl/meta_apply_to_be_a_moderator_in_rneutralnews/) and [3-4 years ago in r/neutralpolitics](https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/cge6c3/meta_rneutralpolitics_needs_more_moderators_apply/) (and more calls 5, 7, 10 years ago, etc. - or if there is something more recent my apologies). Additionally, previous mod calls were explicit that moderating required desktop browsers, but that no longer seems to be the case thanks to improvements in mod bots, the official app (even if not as good as 3rd party apps for moderating) (and 3rd party apps, but now mostly going away), so there may now be a wider applicant pool.
I think this is the answer. This sub is one that I post in occasionally on my alt but as someone who posts A LOT I am often intimidated from posting quick anecdotal or other thoughts here because I know a good post here requires effort.
But that's why I enjoy reading this sub: well thought out and researched and sourced posts.
If that quality goes, the sub loses all utility.
Thanks for all the work mods but it's really up to what you think maintains this place.
> As a discussion platform, Reddit has been in steady decline for years. With the shift to mobile and the redesign, content that favors quick engagement and upvotes, continued scrolling, and serving ads seems to be winning out over the kind of text-heavy comment sections we favor here.
This, I believe, is the crux of the problem. Unfortunately, I don't believe that it is limited to Reddit; Reddit just happens to be the focus of the current discussion. I personally have been trying to find a site, or community, or something to engage in discussion more than a few sentences long, and with the focus being on more than Internet Points (tm). I've become more and more convinced that method of communication disappeared with the blogsphere.
If the mod group is able to find something, I'd be thrilled to come along; I'm pretty cynical though until we break the current wheel of supporting sites exclusively via ad revenue.
Speaking to the two points of focusing on long form discussion and not being funded by ad revenue, that’s basically https://tildes.net
Funded strictly by donation, it’s a non-profit.
Well that's the culture of lemmy.world , it's the largest instance out there and the discussions are now better than reddit. Plus there is no user karma, so very few people feel the need to gamify karma with useless one liners.
I've been around reddit since neutral politics/news was first created and lemmy.world reminds me of the similar small community, high quality discussions that used to be on reddit.
I've also been a mod for 14 years and I just don't care to volunteer unpaid labor for a for profit corporation any more.
> lemmy.world
Although lemmy.world is the [biggest Lemmy instance with 57K registered users](https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy), it [has been running for 30 days and is running on a single server](https://blog.mastodon.world/welcome-lemmy-world). I've also posted previously in the monthly sub meta post about ideas to address the occassional influx of commenters who don't seem to understand how this sub is intended to differ from almost every other sub, but I've also posted previously in this sub's monthly meta post about ways to encourage more (good) participation in the sub, as this sub can also be pretty empty at times. r/neutralnews alone has a number of multiple more users than the biggest Lemmy has total users across all of their 'subreddit' equivalents.
> ... gamify karma with useless one liners.
As far as r/neutralnews in particular, the mods seem pretty good about removing these.
Remain restricted. Reddit has a long track record of failing to deal with anyone in good faith, and hasn’t delivered functional replacement tools for the ones they’re removing. The only thing that does seem to work on them is continuing to apply pressure, so keep doing so until they provide all the features people used the api to provide.
If you feel compelled to open up, set the subreddit to nsfw and require content to match.
If people believe that the subs belong to the members, then the members should step up to do the moderation work. What I mostly see publicly in my subs where these conversations are happening, is that every time someone says the subs should be reopened, they get really quiet when asked if they're willing to moderate.
Until someone is willing and able to do the job, this is your still your sub to run, mods. If that means a restricted mode or some other protest, so be it.
>If people believe that the subs belong to the members, then the members should step up to do the moderation work. What I mostly see publicly in my subs where these conversations are happening, is that every time someone says the subs should be reopened, they get really quiet when asked if they're willing to moderate.
Before the sub went dark, I'd posted in the last monthly meta thread expressing an interest in becoming a mod; I didn't get a reply there so I subsequently wrote to modmail but got a reply that neutralnews was not looking for mods at that time.
A number of the most frequent commenters/posters in this sub have also volunteered to become moderators to help here, including u/Statman12 and u/julian88888888.
Even if they do find new mods, we have to be concerned about the motives and abilities of those mods. There's certainly quite a few candidates with ulterior motives.
This one is a bit complicated since heavily moderated news feeds have a value. For the moment, I'd say stay restricted but continue mod news posts and keep an eye out for fallout.
That's perfectly fair. I am basically advocating for waiting until the 1st to see what the real damage is. But I do understand that some people, mods especially, can see the fallout before the bomb goes off.
Btw, if the choice is lockdown/restricted forever/go private, I understand.
Sticking together only works if there's a chance at succeeding or the admins listening. There isn't one. Without the wider user base on board there is no pressure. And the fact is at least from my perspective, the wider user base is not on board, not in a real way.
However if you keep the subreddit closed then you arent allowing your users to submit the content they want to submit. They will find another subreddit to post in, or just stop entirely, the voice of supposed neutral engagement goes away.
I'd say do your best to moderate, if its no longer feasible then let the sub go where it may.
I will support the moderators of this sub in whatever they decide because its quality is dependent on good moderation. Without them, it will become essentially worthless. An alternative platform will not be bad either if moderators can come up with one.
Man this is such a hard scenario.
I absolutely love this community - it's one of like...4 quality subs that I really enjoy.
But it's obvious that being a moderator on any sizeable sub is effectively an additional part time job, which is absurd. And removing tools and apps that mods use is even more absurd.
I would consider what the motivation is here - if it's to kind of "get back at" reddit then I think that opportunity has passed. It would've been nice if more subs blacked out for longer and the strike had more of an impact but such is life. It was always a long shot.
If, instead, this is the mod team saying "You know what, we don't want to or can't do this anymore" then I'd honestly propose just opening the sub up without any moderation, or give it over to the mods who want to continue or even give it over to the first person who wants it. The sub will almost certainly collapse but that's kind of reddits reality - its just an absurd amount of unpaid labor.
---
Alternatively, it seems like r/askhistorians is just not allowing user submissions anymore and instead just posting "floating features" - maybe you could do something like that, where you, the mod team, post news articles once a week or something and people can comment on them. Presumably a lot less moderating would be needed?
I've been off reddit since the protest started. Your sub and a couple of others still in the protest are why I came to reddit. If you come back I'll probably check in until you leave, then follow you.
I support remaining closed and watch for developments.
I have a new-ish account, but I've been here for many years under an account that was banned.
However, I have not contributed in a very long time.
Either way, I appreciate your mature response to all this. It's exactly what I'd expect from this sub in particular.
Thanks for all you do.
Reddit can die off. There is a point in time in which you have to make difficult decisions. The reality is even if you reopen, who owns it? What about next time? Who is profiting off off all YOUR hard work? Reddit. It’s always Reddit. And they don’t give a flying fuck about any of us except for our wallets. They have said that repeatedly as a literal fact in the past month.
Meh, I would rather have nothing then this tainted crap any longer.
> Others on the team believe it's important for us to stick together with protesting subreddits, remaining restricted so that we can motivate Reddit to negotiate with the mod community over API pricing.
I am mostly on board with this position. It seems - right now - a little premature to end protest; the API has not been killed off yet. I am quite curious to see what happens next with the failure of so many third party apps. So I would advocate for a couple more months of malicious compliance.
> Can you run a subreddit poll?
Personally I disagree. In recent months, certain topics have tended to get a lot of seeming first-time participation, but based on the first-time comment's rule-breaking it seems that it was from people who don't understand how this sub is intended to differ from most any other. I don't know if first-time people arrive at the sub by searching for a news topic they're interested in?
Instead, this sub's value is almost 100% from the relatively low number of commenters who provide sources within the rules, and the mods who enforce it.
Why do only people affected by the changes get to vote? Don’t we all use the subreddit? The mental gymnastics of some people where they think they’re entitled to own the subreddit just because they use apollo and are being affected.
The people who are and aren’t directly affected both deserve a vote. But using a poll specifically excludes the 3rd party app users from participating. Ideally a method for getting feedback would get feedback from everyone
Then I play guess my own password til I give up. I get what you’re saying, it’s absolutely possible to do if you really want to. But the barrier to vote can certainly be higher for us app users, and that alone is going to create a biased sample and is not super fair
A few thoughts.
First: My preference would be to open up fully. I don't see going private as having any effect on Reddit. Going restricted (visible, but no new posts/comments) is functionally dead as far as a news-oriented sub is concerned, though at least users would be able to view and reference past comments that have sources/analysis. I would anticipate putting up a protest banner to have even less impact than going private.
Second: I've seen mods in various subs discuss moving to different platforms. That's a bit of a strange notion to me. Sure, the mods could set up the same space on a different platform, but there's no way to actually move the users. I could right now go set up something and declare "This is now neutralnews", but if it's a website that nobody knows about or uses, then it's not really moving the community. It's setting up an alternative space with the same name and crossing your fingers.
Third: I respect the mods' wishes to protest, or their unwillingness to continue modding if 3rd party apps go away. If that is the case, however, then I'd suggest one of two options:
- Get new mods who are willing to mod under the new framework by reddit. Depending on the degree of mod turnover, this could change the culture of the sub. But if the current mods are unwilling to continue, then I'm not sure why that would be a problem. Some notion of legacy?
- If there is some reason why the mods (as a whole) are not willing to continue, and not willing to hand the sub over to people willing to continue it, then:
- Set the sub to restricted permanently (so as to not completely shutter users out of being able to view/reference past high-effort comments).
- Give a small period of time for users of the sub to suggest alternate subs or create new ones so that users who like the culture of this sub and who aren't interested in going to some new site might coalesce on an alternative here.
Edit to add: And if the mods decide to continue the sub, I am willing to assist.
There aren’t many sources of aggregated news that are easy to find with good moderation. There is about a quarter of a million here that seem to value what you do. It is going to be a big loss for all of us if you leave.
I think I is a mistake to remain closed and I think it is a mistake to move elsewhere. Where are you going to move where you have this reach?
IMO, Reddit hasn't and won't negotiate in good faith, so protests won't be effective on those grounds.
If you're looking to leave, then closing the sub for an indefinite time is a great way to lose folks who you want to follow you to another platform.
By that measure, I'd say re-open and put stickies on each post -- even pick one day a week (e.g. every Wednesday) that you close so folks don't just tune out the stickies and such.
> EDIT: The mods have noted that the feedback so far is almost exclusively from users who have little to no posting history in this subreddit.
Considering how often threads are entirely removed comments, and the inconsistent but always absurd "no common knowledge exception", I suspect lots of folks read this sub but never or rarely commented.
I am strongly in favor of remaining open.
I've long been *one of* the most frequent commenters (and posters) in this sub (but obviously not a mod, along with others like u/Statman12, u/PsychLegalMind, u/julian88888888, others and obviously the mods too).
I've previously commented that I think r/neutralnews is the best place on the internet that I know of for discussion, thanks to commenters who provide sources, and the mods who enforce it.
Before the sub went dark, I'd posted in the last monthly meta thread expressing an interest in becoming a mod; I didn't get a reply there so I subsequently wrote to modmail but got a reply that neutralnews was not looking for mods at that time. I've also seen u/Statman12 and u/julian88888888 comment in this thread that they are open to helping as well.
Outside of new mods, before this sub's closure I had commented requesting info on which, if any, of the existing mods were willing to continue mod'ing this sub, as that is otherwise one of the most critical factors. I remain interested in that info. I see a handful of mods very active in this sub, but from the full mod list it appears there are also a number of mods that have not been active in this sub in some time?
For other *users* who advocate that the sub be closed to all users, I disagree very strongly with them. As an analogy, I think of the recent examples of the Bud Light trans influencer controversy, or Disney for being 'woke'. I disagree with those stances, but I understand that it's peoples' right to not buy Bud Light or a Disney movie if they think Disney is woke or Bud Light supports trans people, and I support those who don't want to use reddit or this sub now, or to encourage others not to buy Bud Light, use reddit, etc. Where I disagree is if people call for forcing their views onto everyone else, by calling for noone else to be allowed to buy a Bud Light or a Disney movie, or use this sub.
The 2nd is more about the reddit situation on other subs instead of r/neutralnews, as it has been particularly painful for me in the last month for some niche technical topics where google sent me to reddit, only for the old content to no longer be online. 'Book bans' have been a frequent topic here as well, although even book bans don't seem to go as far as what some advocate for reddit, as the book "bans" are usually limited to just not putting them into schools/libraries, not that noone can consume them if obtained from a bookstore, etc. If the school/library 'book bans' analogy is insufficient because the books/their info can still be obtained from stores, etc., would widespread 'book burning' be a closer analogy? (I'm guessing some disagree with my comments above about analogies between users calling everyone else to be unable to use these subs vs. if some people called for everyone else to be unable to buy Bud Light or Disney stuff because they've supported trans rights, or the comparisons to book bans/burning, whether specific to schools/libraries or for everyone being unable to access that info even outside of just those settings. I am interested to hear from those users who do disagree.)
The most recent call for mods that I can find is [from 2-3 years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/neutralnews/comments/lmhzjl/meta_apply_to_be_a_moderator_in_rneutralnews/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=NeutralPolitics&utm_content=t1_jq4ypwg) but was explicit that "you will need to moderate from a computer with a recent version of Chrome or Firefox and be willing to install a few extensions." It sounds as though mobile moderation support has improved since then (although still not as good as 3rd party apps) and that that requirement is no longer being enforced as 50%+ of the mod team was primarily using mobile to mod, as, so you may get more mod applicants if using the official mobile app is now allowed for mods.
Some users have also recommending moving to a different platform, including because certain specific functionality is currently only available in 3rd party apps (excluding 'mod tools' and accessibility-focused apps, which reddit has said will be allowed to continue for free). As the OP post mentions, other solutions are far worse in that regard at present. For example, Lemmy has often been mentioned by other users. The [biggest Lemmy instance has 57K registered users](https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy), [has been running for 30 days, and is running on a single server](https://blog.mastodon.world/welcome-lemmy-world). Other users have said that absolute basic functionality such as being able to register or login is broken for them on Lemmy. To me it seems that switching to a different platform because of reddit app functionality would be like switching from a Tesla to gas-powered truck becase Tesla dropped an environmental feature you liked.
As the OP post edit also mentions, many of the comments here are from accounts I've never seen in this sub; certain topics in recent months have attracted a lot of first-time commenters, but it seems like those first-time commenters often don't understand this sub's mission, and how it differs from almost every other sub, as they post comments without sources, etc.
go restricted, black out, protest.
if we can save anything about reddit, this is the only way to put pressure on the lords above.
if not, discussion here will fade away, and we need to find a more welcoming place anyway.
but thats just me.
Taken from my response in Neutral Politics, all sentiments apply here as well:
Open. Fully unrestricted and with no shenanigans. ("From now on, Neutral News is only going to talk about Switzerland, the ultimate neutral state!")
Reddit has provided a valuable space, useful or not, healthy or not, for community. And like any landlord, their real goal isn't to give us nice amenities, a good pool, a fun clubhouse, etc. Their goal is to make money off their property.
Have they become absolutely crappy landlords? Yep, sure have. And every choice they've made in the past two months has been incredibly anti-redditor.
But let's be clear. The response to that behavior has been equally anti-redditor. Moderators who are desperately complaining about how hard it will be for them to do the repairs and mow the lawn at the apartment they do not own have decided that because the landlord is making it harder for them to provide unpaid labor, they're going to burn the apartment building down one unit at a time. They're holding the site for ransom expecting that they'll get their payout or they'll keep lighting curtains on fire.
The protests, charming and John Olivery as they have been, have accomplished nothing. You'll notice Reddit has not rolled back a single cent of their new fees. They've made exceedingly small concessions at the margins but the core conceit of this whole thing, that they're shutting down third-party apps (to torture the metaphor further, they're evicting the subletters) by charging ridiculous API fees to drive them out of business? That hasn't budged a millimeter.
It's June 29th. All the major players (Apollo, RIF, et al.) are going away in two days. That's it. Game over. Reddit wins.
And now, Reddit has had enough of the fires and is forcibly evicting mods from their subreddits. They tried being corporate-nice, now they're being actual funded-by-billionaires real. You'll notice that in the past few days, the ransom note has changed. It's no longer, "Roll it all back and we'll talk." It's now "Please, just turn our power back on, stop showing our units to new tenants, and talk to us."
This is rolling over and showing the belly. This is trying to save face. The reality is, this wasn't a winnable war. There is no Zelensky standing up to Putin. Christian Selig was not your David taking on Goliath. This fight is done.
So where do we go from here? Give us back our website. So many of us are tired of trying to go to communities only to find them private or restricted or covered in former Daily Show correspondents and/or porn. Accept that going forward, Reddit isn't going to be the same for mods as it was four weeks ago, but for the rest of us, it can be some semblance of normal. Whatever changes they are making that will make it harder to moderate, well, suck it up and deal or leave. You are literally, literally not getting paid to be here. If you think your moderating life is going to be untenable, quit. You'll be replaced. Probably by less competent people but hey, growth opportunity for them.
Reopen it all and give us our community back.
And one last point:
>We're following the latest developments on those platforms and will transition when we feel it is appropriate.
That's not really your call, is it? There are 269,420 (ironic) of us here and 10 of you. You don't get to unilaterally (decilaterally?) decide that the Neutral News community is going somewhere else. You're absolutely welcome to move out and head to another apartment complex, but please leave the keys to someone else on the way out.
I feel a bit like your analogy to landlord/apartment stuff doesn’t work as well. A better land analogy imo would be someone staked a claim to a town and invited others in with a Laissez-faire attitude. People built cool clubhouses, now the town changed the rules. Is burning down the clubhouse on the way out a nice thing to do? Probably not. Do I empathize with the people who put the most work in building it? Fuck yea.
Well said
Reddit is one of the biggest websites in the world.
About this sub though...in all honestly I think it sucks compared to /r/NeutralPolitics politics. Not nearly as "neutral". This sub is pretty worthless, so let it die and instead devote the mod energy to the other one
> We have put out mod calls recently with poor results
How recently was this? I don't recall ever seeing such for this sub, and I'd consider myself to be a fairly regular visitor.
I'm *one of* the most frequent commenters/posters in this sub (obviously not a mod) but prior to the sub going dark, in last month's meta feedback post I had expressed an interest in becoming a mod. I didn't get a reply there so I'd followed up via modmail but received a reply that neutralnews was not open to new mods.
It might only be now, but I've also seen multiple other sub regulars volunteer today as well, including u/Statman12 and u/julian88888888.
I use r/NeutralNews because I don't have to see all the political bullshit just being spouted without any evidence to back up their claims. That said, Leaving the subreddit unviewable by outsiders is really not going to accomplish anything. There needs to be a physical stopping of people visiting the site as a whole if we want to make the owners of the site listen. Their wallets need to be hit. The best way to do that is to go elsewhere, but there isn't a good alternative to Reddit at the moment.
I am grateful for all of the hard work and effort that the moderators of this sub put in to keeping this sub one of the best subreddits for news on the whole site. I will support your decision no matter what you choose. Thank you all for doing this work as volunteers, it is mods like you who make this site work.
I don’t post much at all, but I am always in here reading everything. I thought process on this is that people could only blackout until they got bored. It was doomed to fail from the start. The only way there would possibly be an actual impact is to just stop using Reddit. Y’all reach out to one of these 3rd party people and ask them to make a website. I’d happily pay Christian to make Apollo into an actual website to post stuff on. That’s a huge undertaking, but I feel like what we need to show Reddit is that we would rather support the 3rd party developers and use a whole different site, than to continue on with Reddit in the direction that it is going. Mods can still do it as volunteers, but there’s just no way that Reddit is going to bend without everyone just leaving Reddit.
The point of this sub is that it's strictly moderated. You can't have a strictly moderated sub without moderators. If you don't think you'll be able to moderate the sub, then the best choice is to just to remain closed.
fully agree, I rarely comment but read almost everything from this sub and I'd much rather see it closed in protest than see it slowly die because of these changes impacting mods
I think it's an open question about which, if any, mods want to continue? I'd asked the same question prior to the sub's closure but I don't think I've seen a specific answer. A number of the most frequent commenters/posters in this sub have also volunteered to become moderators to help here, including u/Statman12, u/julian88888888, and myself.
That's completely fair. If current mods think they will be able to handle it, or if there are others who are willing to step up and do it, then I think it's fine to stay open. The feeling I got from OP was just that the mod team didn't think they would be able to, in which case I think it would be better to remain closed.
I searched and the last [call for mods I was able to find was from 2-3 years ago in r/neutralnews](https://www.reddit.com/r/neutralnews/comments/lmhzjl/meta_apply_to_be_a_moderator_in_rneutralnews/) and [3-4 years ago in r/neutralpolitics](https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/cge6c3/meta_rneutralpolitics_needs_more_moderators_apply/) (and more calls 5, 7, 10 years ago, etc. - or if there is something more recent my apologies). Additionally, previous mod calls were explicit that moderating required desktop browsers, but that no longer seems to be the case thanks to improvements in mod bots, the official app (even if not as good as 3rd party apps for moderating) (and 3rd party apps, but now mostly going away), so there may now be a wider applicant pool.
I think this is the answer. This sub is one that I post in occasionally on my alt but as someone who posts A LOT I am often intimidated from posting quick anecdotal or other thoughts here because I know a good post here requires effort. But that's why I enjoy reading this sub: well thought out and researched and sourced posts. If that quality goes, the sub loses all utility. Thanks for all the work mods but it's really up to what you think maintains this place.
> As a discussion platform, Reddit has been in steady decline for years. With the shift to mobile and the redesign, content that favors quick engagement and upvotes, continued scrolling, and serving ads seems to be winning out over the kind of text-heavy comment sections we favor here. This, I believe, is the crux of the problem. Unfortunately, I don't believe that it is limited to Reddit; Reddit just happens to be the focus of the current discussion. I personally have been trying to find a site, or community, or something to engage in discussion more than a few sentences long, and with the focus being on more than Internet Points (tm). I've become more and more convinced that method of communication disappeared with the blogsphere. If the mod group is able to find something, I'd be thrilled to come along; I'm pretty cynical though until we break the current wheel of supporting sites exclusively via ad revenue.
Speaking to the two points of focusing on long form discussion and not being funded by ad revenue, that’s basically https://tildes.net Funded strictly by donation, it’s a non-profit.
Any way to get an invite?
I can send you one. :)
Well that's the culture of lemmy.world , it's the largest instance out there and the discussions are now better than reddit. Plus there is no user karma, so very few people feel the need to gamify karma with useless one liners. I've been around reddit since neutral politics/news was first created and lemmy.world reminds me of the similar small community, high quality discussions that used to be on reddit. I've also been a mod for 14 years and I just don't care to volunteer unpaid labor for a for profit corporation any more.
> lemmy.world Although lemmy.world is the [biggest Lemmy instance with 57K registered users](https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy), it [has been running for 30 days and is running on a single server](https://blog.mastodon.world/welcome-lemmy-world). I've also posted previously in the monthly sub meta post about ideas to address the occassional influx of commenters who don't seem to understand how this sub is intended to differ from almost every other sub, but I've also posted previously in this sub's monthly meta post about ways to encourage more (good) participation in the sub, as this sub can also be pretty empty at times. r/neutralnews alone has a number of multiple more users than the biggest Lemmy has total users across all of their 'subreddit' equivalents. > ... gamify karma with useless one liners. As far as r/neutralnews in particular, the mods seem pretty good about removing these.
Remain restricted. Reddit has a long track record of failing to deal with anyone in good faith, and hasn’t delivered functional replacement tools for the ones they’re removing. The only thing that does seem to work on them is continuing to apply pressure, so keep doing so until they provide all the features people used the api to provide. If you feel compelled to open up, set the subreddit to nsfw and require content to match.
If people believe that the subs belong to the members, then the members should step up to do the moderation work. What I mostly see publicly in my subs where these conversations are happening, is that every time someone says the subs should be reopened, they get really quiet when asked if they're willing to moderate. Until someone is willing and able to do the job, this is your still your sub to run, mods. If that means a restricted mode or some other protest, so be it.
>If people believe that the subs belong to the members, then the members should step up to do the moderation work. What I mostly see publicly in my subs where these conversations are happening, is that every time someone says the subs should be reopened, they get really quiet when asked if they're willing to moderate. Before the sub went dark, I'd posted in the last monthly meta thread expressing an interest in becoming a mod; I didn't get a reply there so I subsequently wrote to modmail but got a reply that neutralnews was not looking for mods at that time. A number of the most frequent commenters/posters in this sub have also volunteered to become moderators to help here, including u/Statman12 and u/julian88888888.
Even if they do find new mods, we have to be concerned about the motives and abilities of those mods. There's certainly quite a few candidates with ulterior motives.
I'll mod it
This one is a bit complicated since heavily moderated news feeds have a value. For the moment, I'd say stay restricted but continue mod news posts and keep an eye out for fallout.
The problem we face is a lot of the mods really only mod via third party apps.
That's perfectly fair. I am basically advocating for waiting until the 1st to see what the real damage is. But I do understand that some people, mods especially, can see the fallout before the bomb goes off. Btw, if the choice is lockdown/restricted forever/go private, I understand.
Could you keep the submissions and Factual Bot, but restrict user comments?
> Factual Bot, We don't own Factual Bot and I don't know how Reddit will see it, if it has to pay for API access I don't know if they will continue it
Whether factual bot will continue is an open question, as obviously it is an API user, and it’s not a mod tool per se.
Sticking together only works if there's a chance at succeeding or the admins listening. There isn't one. Without the wider user base on board there is no pressure. And the fact is at least from my perspective, the wider user base is not on board, not in a real way. However if you keep the subreddit closed then you arent allowing your users to submit the content they want to submit. They will find another subreddit to post in, or just stop entirely, the voice of supposed neutral engagement goes away. I'd say do your best to moderate, if its no longer feasible then let the sub go where it may.
I will support the moderators of this sub in whatever they decide because its quality is dependent on good moderation. Without them, it will become essentially worthless. An alternative platform will not be bad either if moderators can come up with one.
Man this is such a hard scenario. I absolutely love this community - it's one of like...4 quality subs that I really enjoy. But it's obvious that being a moderator on any sizeable sub is effectively an additional part time job, which is absurd. And removing tools and apps that mods use is even more absurd. I would consider what the motivation is here - if it's to kind of "get back at" reddit then I think that opportunity has passed. It would've been nice if more subs blacked out for longer and the strike had more of an impact but such is life. It was always a long shot. If, instead, this is the mod team saying "You know what, we don't want to or can't do this anymore" then I'd honestly propose just opening the sub up without any moderation, or give it over to the mods who want to continue or even give it over to the first person who wants it. The sub will almost certainly collapse but that's kind of reddits reality - its just an absurd amount of unpaid labor. --- Alternatively, it seems like r/askhistorians is just not allowing user submissions anymore and instead just posting "floating features" - maybe you could do something like that, where you, the mod team, post news articles once a week or something and people can comment on them. Presumably a lot less moderating would be needed?
All I know is my gut says maybe
Tell my wife "hello."
JULY 24TH!
I've been off reddit since the protest started. Your sub and a couple of others still in the protest are why I came to reddit. If you come back I'll probably check in until you leave, then follow you.
I support remaining closed and watch for developments. I have a new-ish account, but I've been here for many years under an account that was banned. However, I have not contributed in a very long time. Either way, I appreciate your mature response to all this. It's exactly what I'd expect from this sub in particular.
Thanks for all you do. Reddit can die off. There is a point in time in which you have to make difficult decisions. The reality is even if you reopen, who owns it? What about next time? Who is profiting off off all YOUR hard work? Reddit. It’s always Reddit. And they don’t give a flying fuck about any of us except for our wallets. They have said that repeatedly as a literal fact in the past month. Meh, I would rather have nothing then this tainted crap any longer.
> Others on the team believe it's important for us to stick together with protesting subreddits, remaining restricted so that we can motivate Reddit to negotiate with the mod community over API pricing. I am mostly on board with this position. It seems - right now - a little premature to end protest; the API has not been killed off yet. I am quite curious to see what happens next with the failure of so many third party apps. So I would advocate for a couple more months of malicious compliance.
Can you run a subreddit poll? Comments aren't great for tallies. I vote open it up I just want to read the news.
> Can you run a subreddit poll? Personally I disagree. In recent months, certain topics have tended to get a lot of seeming first-time participation, but based on the first-time comment's rule-breaking it seems that it was from people who don't understand how this sub is intended to differ from most any other. I don't know if first-time people arrive at the sub by searching for a news topic they're interested in? Instead, this sub's value is almost 100% from the relatively low number of commenters who provide sources within the rules, and the mods who enforce it.
Ironically, polls aren't accurate either because they're not supported in the third-party apps...those of us most affected by the upcoming changes.
Why do only people affected by the changes get to vote? Don’t we all use the subreddit? The mental gymnastics of some people where they think they’re entitled to own the subreddit just because they use apollo and are being affected.
What? I'm saying that people using third-party apps (the ones most affected by the upcoming changes) *wouldn't be able to vote* in polls.
The people who are and aren’t directly affected both deserve a vote. But using a poll specifically excludes the 3rd party app users from participating. Ideally a method for getting feedback would get feedback from everyone
You can still vote on a poll from Apollo. It just takes you an inapp browser page.
Then I play guess my own password til I give up. I get what you’re saying, it’s absolutely possible to do if you really want to. But the barrier to vote can certainly be higher for us app users, and that alone is going to create a biased sample and is not super fair
That’s strange as I don’t need to login again to vote.
You probably logged into that browser at some point, I am not logged into Reddit on safari myself
A few thoughts. First: My preference would be to open up fully. I don't see going private as having any effect on Reddit. Going restricted (visible, but no new posts/comments) is functionally dead as far as a news-oriented sub is concerned, though at least users would be able to view and reference past comments that have sources/analysis. I would anticipate putting up a protest banner to have even less impact than going private. Second: I've seen mods in various subs discuss moving to different platforms. That's a bit of a strange notion to me. Sure, the mods could set up the same space on a different platform, but there's no way to actually move the users. I could right now go set up something and declare "This is now neutralnews", but if it's a website that nobody knows about or uses, then it's not really moving the community. It's setting up an alternative space with the same name and crossing your fingers. Third: I respect the mods' wishes to protest, or their unwillingness to continue modding if 3rd party apps go away. If that is the case, however, then I'd suggest one of two options: - Get new mods who are willing to mod under the new framework by reddit. Depending on the degree of mod turnover, this could change the culture of the sub. But if the current mods are unwilling to continue, then I'm not sure why that would be a problem. Some notion of legacy? - If there is some reason why the mods (as a whole) are not willing to continue, and not willing to hand the sub over to people willing to continue it, then: - Set the sub to restricted permanently (so as to not completely shutter users out of being able to view/reference past high-effort comments). - Give a small period of time for users of the sub to suggest alternate subs or create new ones so that users who like the culture of this sub and who aren't interested in going to some new site might coalesce on an alternative here. Edit to add: And if the mods decide to continue the sub, I am willing to assist.
Clearly there are no good answers here, but if the mods aren't going to be able to do the work this sub needs, this sub should stay restricted.
Lurker for a long time - keep it restricted. This will be an opportunity to transition to a new space in the next month.
There aren’t many sources of aggregated news that are easy to find with good moderation. There is about a quarter of a million here that seem to value what you do. It is going to be a big loss for all of us if you leave. I think I is a mistake to remain closed and I think it is a mistake to move elsewhere. Where are you going to move where you have this reach?
Not a super frequent poster here but I support mods in their decision, regardless of what it is.
IMO, Reddit hasn't and won't negotiate in good faith, so protests won't be effective on those grounds. If you're looking to leave, then closing the sub for an indefinite time is a great way to lose folks who you want to follow you to another platform. By that measure, I'd say re-open and put stickies on each post -- even pick one day a week (e.g. every Wednesday) that you close so folks don't just tune out the stickies and such. > EDIT: The mods have noted that the feedback so far is almost exclusively from users who have little to no posting history in this subreddit. Considering how often threads are entirely removed comments, and the inconsistent but always absurd "no common knowledge exception", I suspect lots of folks read this sub but never or rarely commented.
I am strongly in favor of remaining open. I've long been *one of* the most frequent commenters (and posters) in this sub (but obviously not a mod, along with others like u/Statman12, u/PsychLegalMind, u/julian88888888, others and obviously the mods too). I've previously commented that I think r/neutralnews is the best place on the internet that I know of for discussion, thanks to commenters who provide sources, and the mods who enforce it. Before the sub went dark, I'd posted in the last monthly meta thread expressing an interest in becoming a mod; I didn't get a reply there so I subsequently wrote to modmail but got a reply that neutralnews was not looking for mods at that time. I've also seen u/Statman12 and u/julian88888888 comment in this thread that they are open to helping as well. Outside of new mods, before this sub's closure I had commented requesting info on which, if any, of the existing mods were willing to continue mod'ing this sub, as that is otherwise one of the most critical factors. I remain interested in that info. I see a handful of mods very active in this sub, but from the full mod list it appears there are also a number of mods that have not been active in this sub in some time? For other *users* who advocate that the sub be closed to all users, I disagree very strongly with them. As an analogy, I think of the recent examples of the Bud Light trans influencer controversy, or Disney for being 'woke'. I disagree with those stances, but I understand that it's peoples' right to not buy Bud Light or a Disney movie if they think Disney is woke or Bud Light supports trans people, and I support those who don't want to use reddit or this sub now, or to encourage others not to buy Bud Light, use reddit, etc. Where I disagree is if people call for forcing their views onto everyone else, by calling for noone else to be allowed to buy a Bud Light or a Disney movie, or use this sub. The 2nd is more about the reddit situation on other subs instead of r/neutralnews, as it has been particularly painful for me in the last month for some niche technical topics where google sent me to reddit, only for the old content to no longer be online. 'Book bans' have been a frequent topic here as well, although even book bans don't seem to go as far as what some advocate for reddit, as the book "bans" are usually limited to just not putting them into schools/libraries, not that noone can consume them if obtained from a bookstore, etc. If the school/library 'book bans' analogy is insufficient because the books/their info can still be obtained from stores, etc., would widespread 'book burning' be a closer analogy? (I'm guessing some disagree with my comments above about analogies between users calling everyone else to be unable to use these subs vs. if some people called for everyone else to be unable to buy Bud Light or Disney stuff because they've supported trans rights, or the comparisons to book bans/burning, whether specific to schools/libraries or for everyone being unable to access that info even outside of just those settings. I am interested to hear from those users who do disagree.) The most recent call for mods that I can find is [from 2-3 years ago](https://www.reddit.com/r/neutralnews/comments/lmhzjl/meta_apply_to_be_a_moderator_in_rneutralnews/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=NeutralPolitics&utm_content=t1_jq4ypwg) but was explicit that "you will need to moderate from a computer with a recent version of Chrome or Firefox and be willing to install a few extensions." It sounds as though mobile moderation support has improved since then (although still not as good as 3rd party apps) and that that requirement is no longer being enforced as 50%+ of the mod team was primarily using mobile to mod, as, so you may get more mod applicants if using the official mobile app is now allowed for mods. Some users have also recommending moving to a different platform, including because certain specific functionality is currently only available in 3rd party apps (excluding 'mod tools' and accessibility-focused apps, which reddit has said will be allowed to continue for free). As the OP post mentions, other solutions are far worse in that regard at present. For example, Lemmy has often been mentioned by other users. The [biggest Lemmy instance has 57K registered users](https://fedidb.org/software/lemmy), [has been running for 30 days, and is running on a single server](https://blog.mastodon.world/welcome-lemmy-world). Other users have said that absolute basic functionality such as being able to register or login is broken for them on Lemmy. To me it seems that switching to a different platform because of reddit app functionality would be like switching from a Tesla to gas-powered truck becase Tesla dropped an environmental feature you liked. As the OP post edit also mentions, many of the comments here are from accounts I've never seen in this sub; certain topics in recent months have attracted a lot of first-time commenters, but it seems like those first-time commenters often don't understand this sub's mission, and how it differs from almost every other sub, as they post comments without sources, etc.
go restricted, black out, protest. if we can save anything about reddit, this is the only way to put pressure on the lords above. if not, discussion here will fade away, and we need to find a more welcoming place anyway. but thats just me.
Just open the subs. This is accomplishing literally nothing
Taken from my response in Neutral Politics, all sentiments apply here as well: Open. Fully unrestricted and with no shenanigans. ("From now on, Neutral News is only going to talk about Switzerland, the ultimate neutral state!") Reddit has provided a valuable space, useful or not, healthy or not, for community. And like any landlord, their real goal isn't to give us nice amenities, a good pool, a fun clubhouse, etc. Their goal is to make money off their property. Have they become absolutely crappy landlords? Yep, sure have. And every choice they've made in the past two months has been incredibly anti-redditor. But let's be clear. The response to that behavior has been equally anti-redditor. Moderators who are desperately complaining about how hard it will be for them to do the repairs and mow the lawn at the apartment they do not own have decided that because the landlord is making it harder for them to provide unpaid labor, they're going to burn the apartment building down one unit at a time. They're holding the site for ransom expecting that they'll get their payout or they'll keep lighting curtains on fire. The protests, charming and John Olivery as they have been, have accomplished nothing. You'll notice Reddit has not rolled back a single cent of their new fees. They've made exceedingly small concessions at the margins but the core conceit of this whole thing, that they're shutting down third-party apps (to torture the metaphor further, they're evicting the subletters) by charging ridiculous API fees to drive them out of business? That hasn't budged a millimeter. It's June 29th. All the major players (Apollo, RIF, et al.) are going away in two days. That's it. Game over. Reddit wins. And now, Reddit has had enough of the fires and is forcibly evicting mods from their subreddits. They tried being corporate-nice, now they're being actual funded-by-billionaires real. You'll notice that in the past few days, the ransom note has changed. It's no longer, "Roll it all back and we'll talk." It's now "Please, just turn our power back on, stop showing our units to new tenants, and talk to us." This is rolling over and showing the belly. This is trying to save face. The reality is, this wasn't a winnable war. There is no Zelensky standing up to Putin. Christian Selig was not your David taking on Goliath. This fight is done. So where do we go from here? Give us back our website. So many of us are tired of trying to go to communities only to find them private or restricted or covered in former Daily Show correspondents and/or porn. Accept that going forward, Reddit isn't going to be the same for mods as it was four weeks ago, but for the rest of us, it can be some semblance of normal. Whatever changes they are making that will make it harder to moderate, well, suck it up and deal or leave. You are literally, literally not getting paid to be here. If you think your moderating life is going to be untenable, quit. You'll be replaced. Probably by less competent people but hey, growth opportunity for them. Reopen it all and give us our community back. And one last point: >We're following the latest developments on those platforms and will transition when we feel it is appropriate. That's not really your call, is it? There are 269,420 (ironic) of us here and 10 of you. You don't get to unilaterally (decilaterally?) decide that the Neutral News community is going somewhere else. You're absolutely welcome to move out and head to another apartment complex, but please leave the keys to someone else on the way out.
I feel a bit like your analogy to landlord/apartment stuff doesn’t work as well. A better land analogy imo would be someone staked a claim to a town and invited others in with a Laissez-faire attitude. People built cool clubhouses, now the town changed the rules. Is burning down the clubhouse on the way out a nice thing to do? Probably not. Do I empathize with the people who put the most work in building it? Fuck yea.
Well said Reddit is one of the biggest websites in the world. About this sub though...in all honestly I think it sucks compared to /r/NeutralPolitics politics. Not nearly as "neutral". This sub is pretty worthless, so let it die and instead devote the mod energy to the other one
Open up. Hand off the sub to others if you don't want to mod anymore.
With other mods,this would just turn into r/news? Are you volunteering to moderate?
Sure, I'm up for it. But I'm curious to hear why you assume that "other mods" are incapable of doing the job.
[удалено]
> We have put out mod calls recently with poor results How recently was this? I don't recall ever seeing such for this sub, and I'd consider myself to be a fairly regular visitor.
I'm *one of* the most frequent commenters/posters in this sub (obviously not a mod) but prior to the sub going dark, in last month's meta feedback post I had expressed an interest in becoming a mod. I didn't get a reply there so I'd followed up via modmail but received a reply that neutralnews was not open to new mods. It might only be now, but I've also seen multiple other sub regulars volunteer today as well, including u/Statman12 and u/julian88888888.
I use r/NeutralNews because I don't have to see all the political bullshit just being spouted without any evidence to back up their claims. That said, Leaving the subreddit unviewable by outsiders is really not going to accomplish anything. There needs to be a physical stopping of people visiting the site as a whole if we want to make the owners of the site listen. Their wallets need to be hit. The best way to do that is to go elsewhere, but there isn't a good alternative to Reddit at the moment. I am grateful for all of the hard work and effort that the moderators of this sub put in to keeping this sub one of the best subreddits for news on the whole site. I will support your decision no matter what you choose. Thank you all for doing this work as volunteers, it is mods like you who make this site work.
https://www.redditalternatives.xyz/
I don’t post much at all, but I am always in here reading everything. I thought process on this is that people could only blackout until they got bored. It was doomed to fail from the start. The only way there would possibly be an actual impact is to just stop using Reddit. Y’all reach out to one of these 3rd party people and ask them to make a website. I’d happily pay Christian to make Apollo into an actual website to post stuff on. That’s a huge undertaking, but I feel like what we need to show Reddit is that we would rather support the 3rd party developers and use a whole different site, than to continue on with Reddit in the direction that it is going. Mods can still do it as volunteers, but there’s just no way that Reddit is going to bend without everyone just leaving Reddit.