Breaking news: Reddit is on fire again. In other news, rain contains water and Twitter is full of Nazis. More at ten.
Mods react as Reddit kicks some of them out again: “This will break the site”
Submitted 6 months ago by vegeta@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
I don’t want more Nazis at ten tho ):
TheObviousSolution@lemmy.ca 6 months ago
Holy shit, they are finally doing something about karmawhores and troll factories! Not in a particular effective way, they can just alt themselves to kingdom come, but they are doing it.
umbraroze@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
Limiting the power mod reach is a good thing, but still, this will break Reddit. Ordinary users will not be lining up to step in as small time moderators. Especially if Reddit Inc is going to remove them if they do anything they don’t like.
Reddit Inc will just go “what the hell, we’ll throw more AI shit in the Automoderator. It’s not like it’ll do worse than the current arbitrary quagmire of moderation rules - or maybe it will be, who can tell the difference anyway”.
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 6 months ago
Ordinary users will not be lining up to step in as small time moderators
That’s where you’re wrong. There is a never ending line of power hungry incels and neckbeards just waiting for a chance to have any semblance of power.
BombOmOm@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah, during the last blackout they removed hundreds (thousands?) of moderators who wouldn’t toe the party line. These people aren’t coming back and there aren’t quality people lined up behind them to donate their time.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 6 months ago
“Worse” only being “less engagement in the next quarter.”
AI mods are probably pretty good in that respect. Random bans don’t really matter, letting more controversial or ragebait disinformation through is a plus. In the short term.
Bennyboybumberchums@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Good. We already saw the abuses of certain mods who were basically running a reddit mafia, with power over multiple subs and abused the every living fuck out of that power. Reddits mods, I cant think of anyone more deserving of having their power striped away. Ideally, it would be 1 sub, as 5 is still too many.
Bunbury@feddit.nl 6 months ago
Hey, they chose to offer free labor for a company that has proven time and time again to not give a crap about the mods or the users. I get why they are complaining but I at least hope that they aren’t surprised or expect that their complaints will do anything.
ronl2k@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Mods get to control the political climate of their subreddit. Those with a political agenda would pay for that privilege.
yamamoon@lemmings.world 6 months ago
I have negative respect for mods at this point.
I’ve seen too much unchecked mod abuse to ever take their decisions seriously again.
Bennyboybumberchums@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I was in the WNBA sub a while back. And there was a conversation going about fair pay. I wasnt too into it, but I commented “Is the league profitable now? I thought it was still needing investment from the NBA?” Got instantly banned, and a rather nasty message from a lesbian woman, who was also non binary and “2S”. Why was any of that relevant to the conversation? Fuck knows. But she made a point of telling me anyway, while calling me a troll for saying that the WNBA was shit… which I didnt, as you can see from the comment. During the discussion of her inserting what she thought I was saying, I got the back story. I was then reddit banned for “harassment”. Thats right, she reported me to reddit for asking why I was banned, and saying that I never did what she said I did.
That was the last interaction I had with a mod, the first was about 20 years ago in an xbox forum. Somehow, a playstation fanboy had got into the mod team and started banning people for saying that they prefer xbox to playstation… on an xbox forum… I have hated mods for as long as Ive been on line. They have nothing been anything other than power hungry bullies.
Itdidnttrickledown@lemmy.world 6 months ago
All power to the owners. But go on suckers. Keep pretending you have power as mods.
pressanykeynow@lemmy.world 6 months ago
So some of the gentry is not so landed anymore?
Mubelotix@jlai.lu 6 months ago
Funny to hear from the new mods that replaced their predecessors during the protest. Now it’s their turn to be replaced
Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 months ago
One the one hand I can understand the issue that one person wielding mod power in many subs is a problem, especially if that mod is prone to abuse of the mod position.
On the other hand, some subs, especially smaller ones, might go modless.
What I would have done differently is that I would not align this rule on the number of subs alone. The size of a sub should also be a factor, as well as overall number of mods in those groups. A good solution would be not as easy as what they propose.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Tbh, I’m active in some modless subs, and apart from the occasional spam or lost redditor it mostly works. r/Arduino (iirc) for example is unmoderated and not exactly small.
People downvote garbage content and it gets hidden fast.
Compare that to e.g. r/showerthoughts which is so heavily moderated that you need a masters degree just to manage to post there without getting your content deleted or r/WiiUHacks where the mods ban you for mentioning the wrong Wii U hacking project (e.g. Pretendo).
The AI moderation is crap as well, but the upvote/downvote system is robust enough to work as a makeshift automoderation system.
silasmariner@programming.dev 6 months ago
moderating more than five subreddits with 100,000 monthly visitors.
I mean, that’s clearly a rule that considers size of sub a factor, so, um, what?
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s social media, people only react to the headlines… they don’t educate themselves on the issue because that would interfere with them generating the next hot take.
Evotech@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Honestly just get rid of the mods.
These days some AI bot instructed on the sub rules would probably do a much better job. Nd not be a power hungry bitch
Muaddib@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
What are you talking about? We’ve had artificial power hungry bitch technology for years
Senseless@feddit.org 6 months ago
There’s a saying in my language that fits this situation perfectly: “Tja.”
Nikls94@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Senseless@feddit.org 6 months ago
If I might add also for: play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Hupf@feddit.org 6 months ago
killeronthecorner@lemmy.world 6 months ago
In my language we also have a saying: “nyeeerrrrrrr”
Goldholz@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
“Ja mai”
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 months ago
These mods have ignored the previous waves of people leaving reddit. They were aware of this and have been warned but chose to stay
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 months ago
its the admins and spez instituiting these changes, reddit was doomed the moment it went public.
biotin7@sopuli.xyz 6 months ago
They are power-hungry
Chaoticjoy@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Fuck Reddit basement dwelling mods and fuck Reddit in general, so glad I’m done with that shit app, I say something a little mean and I get perm banned, fucking losers
source_of_truth@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The echoes in the chamber get louder every day.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 months ago
the mods that arnt playing ball with reddit that is. the power mods, or the mods that have the admins ear wont be affected.
Blackfeathr@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m starting to get convinced that Redditors and mods are just gluttons for punishment by that platform.
They’re planning on kneecapping old.reddit in this update too, and you see all the typical howling about “if they kill old.reddit I’m leaving fr this time” while at the same time, another big thread one comment lower is about all the ridiculous bans that people have gotten. And this is a mere two years after the API fiasco.
Why do people continue to use a platform that has proven time and time again that the asshole(s) in charge do not give a single fuck about them?
FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au 6 months ago
How are they kneecapping old.reddit?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Reddit is in an incestuous relationship with Google. So it’ll remain relevant as long as it’s results keep getting into the front page of the biggest search engine. Add to that, the results getting fed into AI responses.
Influencers and marketers love Reddit at least as much as they still love Twitter.
Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Fuck it’s been two years…
Cybersteel@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It’s not about the platform but it’s where most of the people are. There’s just not a lot of people here, especially in relation to niche subjects.
chilicheeselies@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Thats what i like about it. They can stay there.
some_designer_dude@lemmy.world 6 months ago
There could be if people had / acted in accordance with any kind of principles of self respect. They’re ants in some rich mega douche’s ant farm, donating their time and energy to their captor, but refuse to make the fucking 6-inch journey to a free ant hill beside them.
Almost all of us are here because of the API bullshit. Those who stayed did us a favour, I reckon.
CovfefeKills@lemmy.world 6 months ago
It limits mods to 5 subs with over 100,000 monthly visits it seems reasonable to limit the mods reach they all have back deals going on to push agendas and ads it’s pretty fucked.
DreamlandLividity@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah, I thought it actually may be a rare Reddit W for 2 minutes, until I saw reddit admins will grant exceptions. So likely, mods that push reddits agendas will stay while the uncooperative onse will have to go.
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 6 months ago
I’m surprised that Reddit has any active users, personally. It’s just so… Fake now.
HuskerNation@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
And so many more right wingers. Even 10 years ago those people would have been downvoted to oblivion now they make top comments.
Reddit for me was an escape from my red state and actually talk about policies I’d like to see along with just other general interest. And if I want to shit on someone for their take or just to blow off Steam. That was the place to do it. It hasn’t been that for about 2 years now. I’ve been off reddit completely for the last 6 months.
I won’t even click a Google link to it in search results.
I really would like lemmy to become more popular because it’s user base is so small
Schlemmy@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
Sadly the few subs I frequented are still active and more useful than their Lemmy counterparts.
eleitl@lemmy.zip 6 months ago
You can only lead horses to water.
MedicPigBabySaver@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Fuck Reddit and Fuck Spez.
Zen_Shinobi@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’m only on reddit for a few subs and the pointless awards. I’m hovering close to 500 day in a row award lol
Ulrich@feddit.org 6 months ago
Reddit users, as have Xitter, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, etc., have all demonstrated that you can do whatever the fuck you want to them and they’ll just keep coming back for more, no matter what.
lordnikon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Its like almost like the sites are drugs and the users are junkies that will do anything for a hit.
Regrettable_incident@lemmy.world 6 months ago
There’s a real sunk cost fallacy going on when you’ve been on Reddit for, say, ten years - until you realise that karma, reputation, and awards and stuff are just bollocks.
ceph@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I recall recently a post that alluded to the fact that the two industries that call their customers “users” are drug companies, and online services.
NarrativeBear@lemmy.world 6 months ago
ABetterTomorrow@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Site is already broken
mereo@piefed.ca 6 months ago
Piefed/Lemmy/Fediverse: freedom from capitalist tyranny. True organic, human communities.
Reddit is cyberpunk. It's a world governed by a corporation that acts as its government and only cares about its shareholders, not its citizens.TachyonTele@piefed.social 6 months ago
Further, subreddits will stop displaying subscriber counts and instead show their “unique number of unique visitors over the last seven days, based on a rolling 28-day average,” Reddit’s rep said. Notably, old.reddit.com will not get these new stats but will still lose subscriber counts.
That's hilarious
Sucks to suckTollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 months ago
hiding the bot numbers, no doubt.
mintiefresh@piefed.ca 6 months ago
Thank goodness for the fediverse.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I’ve been off Reddit totally since 2023, so part of my understanding may be out of date, but before that I was on for many years and watched how powermods became powermods.
Thus this situation is very unusual. Reddit never did anything about the powermod situation before, but now, suddenly, it’s a big deal. For years (over a decade, at least) users have been screaming about the worst abuses on the site being from powermods, and time after time Reddit bent over backwards to not only avoid doing anything about it, but seemed to grasp every opportunity to enhance the problem any way they could, shutting down complaints rather than the power trippin’ bastards that were regularly creating the problems.
Note that powermods very frequently mod the largest subs, which is how they became powermods to start with: modding a sub that got big and then being invited to help mod new subs that then also grew in popularity.
For myself, I don’t think anyone would give two shits if “powermods” only had an aggregate total of 500 users each, but very frequently they have millions, even tens of millions. Looking at the largest subs on the site and the powermods on those subs, and how many of those powemods are crossovers on equally dominant subs, you see the same core group of powermods across all the top sites, give or take a few individually here and there.
Strangely, this is the group Reddit is now disbanding.
Another thing to consider is how many powermods went on to become admins over the years. At least a handful: I don’t know the exact number anymore but it’s non-zero. Powermods who are admins are especially useful to Reddit, because they ensure that the c-suite has direct control over some of the largest subs without ever appearing to do so.
All this is to say that the powermod situation has been mutually beneficial to Reddit admin for ages, which is why they never changed it or even really acknowledged it.
But now, for the first time since 2005, Reddit powermods are suddenly a problem. So what’s changed? Cui bono?
My guess is that Reddit admin is about to a) yank the entire site to the hard right by removing pretty much all effective human moderation and thus preventing powermods from being able to stand in their way across the largest subs (some of which we’ve already seen and the article addresses), and/or b) introduce some other vile change or policy that is certain to piss off EVERYONE, including every non-bot mod on the site, to the point that admin expects a general revolt even among the powermods and need to dilute the individual power of mods in advance.
One very hypothetical change that could do the trick is Reddit forcing mods, including powermods, to quietly engage in collecting evidence of and reporting users and content that admin would like to sell to the current US admin, for example: intel which Reddit is well situated to provide and for which the current administration has already been calling in the wake of a certain recent death. What if Reddit decides to go all in with the present political trajectory, looking for political power as well as the payout they’re usually in it for, and in so doing force mods to comply or lose their subs? It’s not like Reddit hasn’t already done it for less.
Again, these are just my own musings. But whatever the reason, Reddit admin calling it quits with the powermods suggests something much larger than just another light rehabbing of Reddit power structures.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 months ago
they allowed 92 mods to control over 500+subs, im betting these are mostly the subs that have alot of traffic and controversy(mainly discussion based subs, plus news and politics and any subclones of these subs)
TachyonTele@piefed.social 6 months ago
When i read the section on how they'll no longer be responding to complaints i had the same exact thought you did. Triming the fat to make the change easier on themselves in the future.
darkkite@lemmy.ml 6 months ago
Seems okay, Reddit should eliminate the powermods
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 months ago
i wouldnt be surprised if reddit just have AI managing these subs in the future.
Jaysyn@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Good?
cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
putting limits on the number of subs a user can moderate is like putting limits on the number of articles a wikipedia editor can edit.
typically moderation is an opt in job and you want people who actually want to do it to keep things going smoothly. all this will do is make the pool even smaller which will lead to subs becoming more toxic.
Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Then how do you manage the type of people who just want control over as much a possible to stroke their own ego while doing a terrible job or pushing their own agenda?
Surely it’s better for unmoderated pages to prune themselves, leaving only ones with enough interest to survive.
ronl2k@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Allowing opt-in moderation attracts mods with an agenda. That’s a big problem with Reddit.
FauxLiving@lemmy.world 6 months ago
I think it’s a pointless change, it’s not too difficult to create multiple identities if you wanted to moderate multiple subreddits. The actors trying to control subreddit moderation for commercial or political purposes will not be slowed down by the requirement that they maintain multiple identities.
If they wanted to ‘fix’ the comment toxicity problem, they could require x active moderators per active user. If it goes above that then non-subscribers can’t comment. The rules don’t mean much if there are 10,000 people commenting on each of 3 posts and there is 1 moderator who’s afk and checking the report queue a few time per day.
Also, if you notice from most of Lemmy, having a smaller community creates social pressure for people to behave better. Once it gets to the point where you never see the same person twice people think they can behave badly because nobody knows them.