Article by The Verge, providing details about various subreddits and their mods getting threatened because they are labeled as NSFW
Article by The Verge, providing details about various subreddits and their mods getting threatened because they are labeled as NSFW
I don’t moderate anything.
Quotes taken from https://maya.land/monologues/2023/07/01/spez-feudalism-reddit.html
or a power tripper.
I’ll admit that some mods probably are on a power trip. A clear example of “probably not, they have an actual reason to want to stay in power” is r/askhistorians, where you probably don’t want random people replacing people with lots of historical knowledge on a subreddit specifically about history that only allows informative replies complete with a works cited. They care about the online space they’ve built, not that they have a ban hammer and can wield it with prejudice. I’d imagine a lot of other mods are pretty similar. Knowledge about their niche community, though probably not as much as the people on r/askhistorians, a certain subreddit culture that they don’t want to collapse and fall apart… they’d rather preserve the online space they and many other people enjoy. Even if it just looks like free labor and power tripping to outsiders whenever they don’t want to just up and abandon Reddit.
Yeah, as someone who modded for several years, there were two insults people loved to throw at us: Either we were power tripping or we were janitors who didn’t matter.
Either of these were used whenever we enforced the rules of our community and kicked out people who didn’t want to play nice with the rest of it. Of course, they will never have a positive opinion of people who enforce a community’s rules.
And that’s the thing: The community. You do not spend several years modding a subreddit without getting to know the people and having some sort of relationship with them. The community is not an abstract, it’s people you get to know - often over several years - and that’s not something you want to leave behind.
“And that’s the thing: The community. You do not spend several years modding a subreddit without getting to know the people and having some sort of relationship with them. The community is not an abstract, it’s people you get to know - often over several years - and that’s not something you want to leave behind.”
Who is asking them to leave it all behind?
The only way you can be part of a community is by being a mod?
If mods are feeling as wronged by Reddit as how they say they feel, why not resign as a mod and just join the community as a member?
I mean you would still be part of the community you say they hold so dear but in a different capacity.
I would think stepping down has some risks at the moment because you don’t know who’s replacing you. Someone who also cares about the niche topic just like you, or someone on r/redditrequest who just wants to collect the subreddit as their 483th moderated sub and won’t do anything? Less of a big deal if you have several mods, but if you’re the only one…
“I would think stepping down has some risks at the moment because you don’t know who’s replacing you”
You could literally give an notice to the Reddit admin or whoever you are in contact with that you disagree with the way they handle things, that you are gonna step down but would like to pick your replacement personally.
Reddit would likely agree because it means that they don’t have to search for a mod themselves and if the mods have such a strong connection with the community than finding a replacement should be in the realm of possibility.
The whole striking saga gives a whole lot of “We tried nothing and we are all out of ideas” vibe.
First off, Reddit is not responding to mods at all ATM. They don’t care and they don’t even have the resources.
Second, most people do not want to be mods, because they know that its lost of unpaid work. Even before all of this mess started, the subreddit I co-modded made attempts to recruit new mods without much success.
Third, the subreddit held a vote. The community had the choice between returning to normal, shitposting or closing down. They voted for closing down and the mods respect the community’s decision.
“A clear example of “probably not, they have an actual reason to want to stay in power” is r/askhistorians, where you probably don’t want random people replacing people with lots of historical knowledge on a subreddit specifically about history that only allows informative replies complete with a works cited.”
Call it what you want. It is power tripping or having a sense of superiority or higher self for whatever reason.
Since when is Reddit the beacon of all that is right in regards of information? Why not pack up and start an community somewhere else?
Reddit is just a medium and nothing more.
The problem I have with these statements and the course of action overall is the following;
Why even protest? The most ironic thing should be that r/AskHistorians should know of all people what happens with mutinies or strikes that have weak or no resolve.
Why would you even strike when you would fold by the first sign of friction that is coming your way?
Just again, keep modding your community and ignore everything but don’t act like they are so very wronged and need to have some sort of sympathy when they are literally happily providing labor…for free.
For example:
2 months ago there were strikes in my country regarding distribution centres of one or the biggest supermarket chain in the country.
In these distribution centres are working around 5500 people and 2700 of them are “migrant workers”.
Quoting the union;
“The temporary workers in the distribution centers are almost all migrant workers. Hundreds of them have joined the strikes. That is special and very courageous, because they are in a weaker position and are often put under pressure to keep working.”
The end result?
“After months of negotiations and eleven days of strike, the Union has achieved a result with the supermarket group. In it, salaries will increase by 10% and austerity of the Sunday allowance is off the table. Temporary workers also get more certainty about their schedules.”
They fudging won big time.
I’m not a mod, but I think if I became one I would hold onto my position unless I knew my replacement would be good. Don’t want them removing the rule against calling people slurs, then I and many others might start avoiding the community that gave me joy. Of course, this is a more drastic example about concerns over how a replacement mod would moderate—but you’ve probably seen internet fights about seemingly niche problems and mods probably don’t want a stable community position on that topic devolving into firefights over it again. Could be taken as power tripping, enforcing your opinion on a specific small position and being unhappy that someone else might not do that anymore, but could also just be genuine desire for a peaceful place and not wanting flame wars over that contentious topic.
Right now, if you don’t quit protesting and get your entire mod team removed by Reddit, you will all be replaced by an unknown. Will they take the “wrong” stance on Niche Problem and upset the community? More importantly, will they even care and remove harassment and ban rule-breakers? Or will it be a free-for-all as they do absolutely nothing? Now this might not be a problem if everyone would just move off of Reddit, but that’s easier said than done.
Also, people who probably have history degrees may not be better people than me or superior to me in general, but I’d imagine they’re more highly qualified to run a history subreddit than I am. There’s the arrogant “I’m superior to everyone” and there’s also the realistic “I am superior to the average person at this one particular task.” Most average people have some level of competence in an area that surpasses that of others in at least their immediate social group. Maybe this friend grows really good tomatoes, you’d want them to teach you to do that and not your friend who doesn’t do that. You’re all equally worthy people, but tomato-growing friend is honestly superior to the rest of your social circle in that one task. You don’t have to believe you have some amazing special gift nobody else can acquire, just that you might have interests some others might not and spent time gaining skills related to that interest that others spent elsewhere.
Reddit is not the beacon of everything right, it’s also carried disinformation before. But it is a place a lot of people liked to source information from. People might want to leave up posts to help other people who search something, keeping in mind Average Joe who just wants his tech problem fixed (and of course, found nowhere else online where it got solved) and favoring his plight over leaving good data in Reddit hands for them to get more clicks and money from.
Also, packing up and moving somewhere else is easier said than done. I’ve been trying to get people to move from one nice niche community to a Fediverse replacement, messaging moderation teams and posting about the existing Fediverse replacement in the subreddit. A lot of people just kept posting on the subreddit. Sometimes this post about the Fediverse replacement has extremely restricted visibility because it gets removed if not put in a self-promotion thread nobody reads. Mod teams don’t always reply. It’s easier with official backing instead of one random user doing it, but even still a lot of subs with official Fediverse replacements still have people posting on the original.
I actually have no idea what their actions are besides not all abandoning stepping down, but I’m pretty sure they have posts about it. Will edit this post with links to them.
EDIT: most current post (link is libreddit and will not give Reddit traffic)
Why do people make New Year’s Eve resolutions that they break within the first month? Because they don’t have a crystal ball and think they can do it, and not everyone is exposed to statistics about how most New Year’s Eve resolutions get broken. I think it’s encouraging they at least tried, not everyone is born a perfect protestor.
As for your last three paragraphs, good for the union, honestly, it would be nice if stories like that were more common. Especially from people who have a ton to lose if it goes wrong—that goes above and beyond in my eyes.