If you have joined the subreddit, you can still see the content. For the most part, the content for newly private subs are mocking reddit though. A regular post will get downvoted to oblivion with the exception of people saying goodbye before they delete their account.
I can’t say I frequented any subreddits full of assholes. I’m sure there are plenty.
Anyway, I was strictly comparing the technical experience of the website vs a third party app.
Yeah, r/golf took a poll, and the response was basically, “Blackout? During U.S. Open Week? I don’t think so.”
Yeah, it really makes me curious what effect all this will have. Like, numbers are being affected to a noticeable degree, but I have to think that for every user who’s erasing everything and leaving right now, or finds browsing the site insufferable without their favorite app, there has to be at least one or two who either don’t care or are waiting to see if moderation suffers first. (Though I recently realized that my age may be one reason for my attitude; I almost never web surf on my phone, preferring to use my tablet, and I can count the number of website specific apps I have on one…finger).
There will absolutely be a “brain drain,” but what I’m curious about is how major it’ll be overall (since obviously it’ll vary from sub to sub). There are alternatives out there, but it’ll take years to get those anywhere close to Reddit level, and in the meantime, there are communities and niche interests out there wondering what their next steps will be.
Then there’s the ethical question I keep wondering: is it “wrong” somehow to not support the blackout by staying away from the site entirely? Are those still using “doing something wrong”? Obviously, the ones strongly invested will be inclined to think so, and some issues are, to me, pretty clear cut (like the CEO tossing around false accusations). It’s kind of like Twitter and JK Rowling in a sense, I guess; maybe I don’t have the moral fortitude that I should…
More likely, the Reddit servers weren’t prepared when the part of their code that checks if a user is allowed to post to a private subreddit suddenly started getting about 10,000% more traffic than normal in a 24 hour period.
I don’t think this is an issue of morals. The people in charge made a business decision based on money, and others think that decision was a poor choice based on greed and control-freakyness. If you think reddit should be allowed to make as much money as possible, then there’s no reason to support the blackout.
If you think they made a bad choice, and want to make them notice you, well, the only thing corporations actually pay attention to is their bottom line, so you have to hit them there if you want to have an effect.
To me, it’s not a question of morals, but of strategies.
Sure, though as I said, there is at least a moral tinge to it, through the CEO, who also apparently believes he’d be a lord post-apocalypse. That’s where I was going with evoking Musk and Rowling.
If I was going to start boycotting companies just because their CEO are megalomaniacal autocrats, I’d be living in the forest somewhere, trying to grow potatoes and hunt squirrels with rocks.
Count me as another Reddit refuge who is returning to the SDMB during the blackout.
I’m honestly skeptical that this reddit blackout will actually accomplish anything, but I’m open to being pleasantly surprised.
And you would be surprised how few squirrels have rocks.
I will say, of the subs that are still up, I don’t see any backlash to the ones that are still posting. I don’t think anyone was expecting every sub to go dark.
I think the best we can hope for is that it gives us pause to consider how much control a few tech execs have over our attention and behavior.
There are a few weirdos like me don’t want to be so beholden to these people who don’t give a flying flock about me — but I assume most people will be like, IDGAF, just give me my daily hatebait and car crashes.
Reddit’s gonna Reddit. I just personally don’t want to reward bad behavior.
Reddit apparently brought r/AdviceAnimals back up themselves. They will probably do that for every subreddit they want to, the mods/creators own nothing and ultimately only control what Reddit allows them to.
I’m on another service called Lemmy (specifically lemmy.world), but I suspect Reddit will be fine at least for a while. I get the impression that the majority of Reddit users watch ads, don’t mind the default site and mobile client, and will stick around as long as there is enough interesting content.
Reddit already knows how much traffic they get from third-party clients versus official clients, and I would certainly hope have done the math to make the gamble. It will be up to Reddit to provide moderation, subreddits, and posts if need be. It’s hard to speculate whether the most technical and active users were also the biggest posters.
From what I read, that sub held a moderator vote and it was nearly unanimous to go private including the Senior Mod who is ultimately the boss. One of the lower tier mods appealed to the Reddit admins who let him or her take over. So, it’s sorta kinda different than Reddit just installing someone but they can definitely do just that if they want.
More context. The mod in charge now says that he has been doing nearly all the work on that sub for the past couple of years. He said that the vote was to do what they did for the last few protests and stay open. The reasoning is that they are a meme sub and they wanted anti-Reddit memes to be made and distributed as a way to get the word out.
The Top Mod, who had been inactive for over a year, showed up and made the sub private against the wishes of the mod team. That was the basis of the ruling to place him in charge now.
I’m confused as to why there would be more than one sub for anything specific, so I guess the answer is yes?
Because anyone can create their own sub, so similar ones can, and often do, co-exist. There’s about 140,000 subs. They are not made up of 140,000 unrelated topics.
Whatever sub you’re were talking about, you could go and create similar one, try and get some people to join it and moderate it however you feel appropriate. And, come to think of it, that’s one way you end up with multiple subs on the same/similar topics.
Since navigating reddit right now is a bit of a chore, I can’t go and get concrete examples, but off the top of my head r/WhatIsThisThing is very similar to r/HelpMeFind.
If you think the people in r/Ender3 (3d printer) are assholes, you cold move over to any one of the many other subs for 3D printing.
During covid, there were subs for EIDL and PPP help, but they’ve since been locked and everyone uses the r/smallbusiness forum. All of them, plus a few more, were almost entirely overlapping anyway.
I’m guessing there’s probably several dozen meme subs.
If you don’t like ExplainLikeIm5, you could check out r/AskReddit or r/NoStupidQuestions.
The point is for most subs, you can probably at least one or two others that are pretty similar. But, again, it’s simply an option if you wanted to stay on reddit but avoid specific subs.
is there any information on how hard they were hit - ahem … hitwise?
donno, there was an alexis (alexa or so?) ranking page, but I don’t know how immediately of a data they can pick up …
any educated guesses ? 10%, 20, 30% fewer views? … any hard date would be even better…
This is correct. In fact it’s common for someone to start a sub that’s the same as an existing one because they felt that the moderators were assholes.
I read about 6-8 subs on a daily basis. I don’t use any app, I just go to the sub’s URL. Why would you need an app? 3 of my regular subs are still going and they are getting a ton of exposure when Reddit sends you to browse. Heck, browsing Reddit is the freakin best! Thanks, protesters!