It has already been explained in this thread that the moderation tools on the third party apps are far superior and it’s effectively impossible for the moderators of large subreddits to stay on top of things without those tools.
I have an account that’s well within the Top 0.1% of total karma and I have never used anything but a regular browser either. The subreddits that I run are small and require very little attention. I am still capable of empathy for the power mods that are the back bone of reddit.
Congradulations Reddit moderators! You have failed to understand your un-paid role on the web site. You are not in charge of anything, anything at all. It is time that you realized that. The blackouts, threads going private, on a web site that you pay zero dollars to moderate, and think that you own the place. All Reddit is and all it ever has been is a bunch of kids who think that they are the power and how dare the owners try to make any money.
I had several Reddit sites in my favorites. Old Reddit not the newer abomination. One about the Sopranos TV show, one called Food Porn about interesting food, and I don’t remember the others, I just checked them and deleted the private ones from my Favorites, never to return. Now watch your private r/ threads wither away, if Reddit even allows them to remain. Reddit will probably in the end disallow private, unfunded threads. Why would they keep them.
Yeah, but why would I want to stay on Reddit when the only communities I tok part in were filled with people I didn’t like? Why wouldn’t I instead conclude that Reddit itself is filled with people I don’t like? I understand your point, but I don’t see how it applies to me. The only reason I have ever visited Reddit is that Google search results take me there. I’ve always hated the people that frequent it, and every time I go back because of a search result I get reminded of that. Why would I want to start my own community there? Why would I ever think there are people that I would tolerate at all?
I personally have a rule to not use any discussion forum that allows people to downvote (and have that be displayed and meaningful), because it just leads to divisiveness. Now, the causation might be backwards - all the boards that have downvotes need them because their communities have a lot of toxic people and they need to be able to be popularly moderated automatically. But that just shows that it’s a place I don’t want to be.
Oh, it’s not that all the people on Reddit are assholes. It’s that the assholes are upvoted instead of moderated, because people like that shit there. That’s the real problem. Most people are perfectly nice, but the fact that they tolerate and upvote things I find obnoxious means I can’t justify staying there due to potential mental health issues if I get wound up. So that’s just me and my fragile mental state that needs to not have people throwing around offensive insults regularly. That’s why I’m here.
The thing is, there’s not really a such thing as “the people on reddit.” Each subreddit is a discrete community with its own rules, norms, and tone.
There’s a running gag about how the Rimworld subreddit is one of the friendliest places on the internet despite much of its content being pretty grim (in a cartoon violence kind of way).
I mean don’t get me wrong, I think avoiding stressful communities online is an incredibly healthy decision. So you should keep doing that. Life’s too short to let rando internet nerds wind you up.
The whole point of taking it private was for people not to use those threads. In fact, that’s why going private seemed to me not to be the best choice for a black out.
I don’t think they care that they’re pushing you away. A lot of them are quitting. They’re doing unpaid labor and now the people in charge have decided to make that more difficult for them.
This a strike. What you’re saying here is “Stupid workers. I’m gonna stop buying Widgets. Watch your sales numbers drop!” Well, yeah. That’s what the strikers want.
Cows are fenced in. Your analogy is far from perfect.
While “you’re the product, not the customer” is a good snarky line and I’ve used it myself, the reality is that the product needs to be kept happy so there are limits to what the meat packing company can do without the cows wandering off.
I wonder how well this works when anyone else can start an essentially exact replica. It depends on the cows’ willingness to show loyalty to the old paddock in protest, when all the grass is in the new paddock. My guess is that such loyalty will be hard to find and shortlived.
There is a lot of utility for me and a lot of other people. The mental health subs, which are not striking, are tightly moderated and a godsend for people in need. My little sub for the city where I live is great for sharing local information from well informed people without the toxicity of nextdoor. The subs that discuss episodic tv are great in my experience. So are the ones for niche hobbies in my experience although there are some notable exceptions.
If Reddit isn’t for you, that’s fine. You don’t really understand it though.
A lot of us remember the big outrage with Ed’s new language rules a bit over ten years ago. A lot of people left in protest supposedly never to return. Most came back in short order and new people joined and it didn’t end up making that big of a difference, the decline in message boards in general notwithstanding.
I think that reddit will make some concessions and the subs will come back on their own and not too many people will leave. Thursday will tell a lot of the story when we know how many of the subs remain private.
One of the Reddits I regularly participate in is devoted to painting miniatures. Little models used for games like D&D, Warhammer, Battletech, or just as display pieces. I could post a picture of a miniature I painted that’s just absolutely awful, and the majority of replies I’d get would be very friendly suggestions on how I could improve. “Hey, bud, good effort on blending your colors, but thin your paints.” Some of them are very, very friendly. Others, holy cow, the people can be quite mean. Antiwork is one of my favorite ones to browse just to see all the bad advice given out.
Some of the Reddits I participate in have decided to go permanently dark at the end of the month. The miniature painting Reddit has a poll up asking what people want to do and going private permanently and continuing to exist are running neck and neck.
The one for legal advice is notoriously horrible to the point of parody.
That’s one where someone will just start a new one that will populate fairly quickly because it’s a popular hobby.
Private subreddits can continue to grow but people have to ask for permission to join. That’s how it’s always been for certain subreddits where you need to be vetted, for example ones for war veterans of the US Military.
There’s a sub r/trees which, of course, is all about marijuana (trees is a term some use for buds, cause they look like little trees).
Some arborists got together and started the sub r/Marijuanaenthusiasts which, of course, is all about trees.
Check out r/plumbing sometime. If someone asks a question in a way that makes them seem weak, the standard reply is, “Well, have you tried hitting it with your purse?” Other than that it’s a great source of information, though.
There’s also r/leaves for people who are trying to quit smoking pot.
r/santabarbara is a really good community. Since it’s a popular tourist town we have a lot of very informative links on the front page of places to see, great restaurants, hikes, etc. Fairly often people who are about to visit will make a post asking for very generic advice who clearly are too addle brained to not realize that that it’s clearly a common question and not look at the links or do a simple search. We always find ways to send them to the Little Caesars in the worst* part of town.
*“worst” for Santa Barbara is by no means dangerous.
I’m everywhere! If I get disgusted with the outcome of the blackout and nuke my account, r/SantaBarbara will be one of the useful subreddits I miss most. It’s no Nextdoor, for sure. It’s an example of how Reddit works best, information with a bit of a local idiosyncratic way of operating. I’ll have a drink tonight in honor of our long gone u/PapaParmesano, the guy I’m pretty sure started the Little Caesars thing before he got suspended.