The value is in the users, the people who create content. And to that end the freest, fairest, and most democratic choice is the individual's private decision to participate. Closing subs to protest takes that choice out of the hands of the user. Make organic posts to the site to raise awareness of any particular issue or cause you like, and let those get viewed and voted as they will. But using moderator powers to make these statements is an abuse of power and abuse of the user base, and it's exactly what I would expect from the archetype reddit moderator. I wouldn't be too upset to see a few get their comeuppance for it.
I say this as someone who dislikes the reddit organization, the CEO, their lies and underhandedness, has been proudly perma banned from there, and would get some petty satisfaction from reading about them crashing and burning. But if people like it and want to use it and continue to participate in their communities they are a part of there, they should be permitted to.
People unhappy with moderator choices can do what they always did, make the community that matches what they want.
> if people like it and want to use it and continue to participate
... Except the blind of course, or anyone else with accessibility needs. They'll be required to pay extra for access
For your first point, the moderators don’t own the subreddits they moderate, so the users should not have to attempt to recreate a community every time they encounter a power-tripping moderator. The moderators are stewards that are supposed to reflect the desires of the community, not owners who get to control the ability to use that community based on their whims.
Reddit picked two accessibility apps seemingly at random and ignored the requests of /r/Blind for example.
How does this dubious and unsourced claim address anything I wrote even if it were true?
> People unhappy with moderator choices can do what they always did, make the community that matches what they want.
You can't on one hand protest that people should "do the right thing" and on the other hand do the "well akshually the rules..." thing. Going by the rules and what has always been done, reddit's owners can remove moderators and set API pricing how they like.
> ... Except the blind of course, or anyone else with accessibility needs. They'll be required to pay extra for access
People who "have accessibility needs" can interact with computers and web pages. And it doesn't even present a coherent argument to what I wrote anyway, it's just an appeal to emotion. Users can not be trusted with the decision to participate in communities they built because doing so would be an attack on blind people? That dog doesn't hunt.
Context for others: There are powermods who "moderate" hundreds of subreddits. This is not an exaggeration. Hundreds. At least one has/had thousands.
When questioned, they invariably say that they "just watch the incoming queue" or something, and the other mods "do all the work". While likely true in the literal sense (again, hundreds), such answers of course completely evade the question.
Remember, "Most of What You Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People" <https://np.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/9rvroo/most_...>. This also applies to powermods, assuming they're not being paid on the side to push some ideology.
Basically, losers who crave ruling a petty fiefdom because it's the only thing they can exercise agency over in their lives. And/or are mentally ill.
>and for each moderator there are 100 sycophants and narcissists lined up to take their place
Correct.
Most mods know this, which is why so many surrendered and reopened their subreddits the moment admins told them that otherwise they would be replaced. /r/formula1's mods forthrightly said as much; those of /r/nba claimed that negotiations had progressed far enough to justify reopening, which the thousands of replies show that the userbase 100% disbelieves.
>Closing subs to protest takes that choice out of the hands of the user. Make organic posts to the site to raise awareness of any particular issue or cause you like, and let those get viewed and voted as they will.
Even worse, a) /r/nba's top mod made more than 150 comments to six other NBA teams' subreddits during the blackout. b) /r/nba mods posted secret threads—including the Game 5 discussion that they denied from their own users—and made comments during the blackout. When users discovered the threads the mods of course scrubbed the comments, but there is no way for mods to actually delete (as opposed to hiding) posts, so evidence of their hypocritical behavior will live on forever.
>I wouldn't be too upset to see a few get their comeuppance for it.
We may yet see more than a few indeed get what they deserve, given the number of still-closed subreddits. I hope that when it happens it will be a ban on both accounts and IPs, so that as mods desperately log into alts each one get flagged and banned too.
Bonus: Speaking of getting what they deserve, the classic post in which a mod thinks what he does is worth $175K a year <https://np.reddit.com/r/35orquit/comments/qw1v3e/what_do_peo...>. Be sure to read to the end, where he explains how he "saves lives".
That will bode well for the health of the platform. /s
Then again, maybe such platforms were never “healthy” to begin with. Instead of healthy open discussion, the karma system creates a scenario no different from the Black Mirror episode “Nosedive”.
The altruistic mods left when it became clear they aren’t building a community, they are doing unpaid janny work for a corporation that hates them.
Paid staff would indeed be a huge, huge improvement over ideologically driven no-lifes.
What tipped me over to Reddit's side regarding the API change is the possibility that it will end the practice of mods sharing automated block lists (if you post in a wrongthink subreddit, many other subreddits will preemptively ban you regardless of your actual activity in them, if any). If so, and if there are fewer handfuls of powermods that control dozens/hundreds/thousands of subreddits, I'm all for the change.
This is not to say that I condone what /u/spez did regarding editing /r/The_Donald comments, or misrepresenting what happened on the call with Apollo's owner. Paid staff can and do unduly push their own ideological bents. But when there is a name and a face attached to a company employee, there is some hope of holding people to account. The Challenor mess should never have happened, but at least the person was fired by Reddit. I have never, ever seen any evidence in more than a decade on Reddit of any level of accountability from faceless, nameless mods when they misbehave.
It’s easy for paid mods to remove abuse and illegal content. But it will be much harder for them to filter out off topic or low effort posts.
Can you provide links to such mods? Just 2 or 3 will do. I'm a bit skeptical.
https://www.reddit.com/user/merari01/
A special case is https://www.reddit.com/user/maxwellhill/, who is mod of /r/worldnews, one of the largest subreddits, and is widely believed to be Ghislaine Maxwell. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29838084>
r/adviceanimals was the first major subreddit to be retaliated against in this way, where an inactive mod used the opportunity to appeal to admins and remove the others.