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Will this undermine most of what makes IAmA special? Probably. But Reddit leadership has all the funds they need to hire people to perform those extra tasks we formerly undertook as volunteer moderators, and we’d be happy to collaborate with them if they choose to do so.

  • Brownboy13@programming.devEnglish
    112·
    1 year ago

    That is an understatement. I’m a former mod of r/iama (u/Brownboy13) and I was signing on to handle a high profile ama when Victoria messaged that she wouldn’t be able to help us as she was let go without notice. Admin didn’t even bother informing the guest that the employee handholding them through the process would no longer be available. We were caught entirely off guard and I don’t think /r/iama has ever been the same. There was a level of trust the /u/chooter would be in the same room as a guest or at least on a call and make sure it was them answering and not pr teams. It’s been like fucking pr junket since then.

    This was the start of my disillusionment with reddit, and it seems to have been finalized with this last shitshow of a decision.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
      27·
      1 year ago

      Wow, hard to grasp that was 8 years ago?!

      I was never a user of IAMA, but I clearly remember how shitty reddit behaved in that situation.

      I did delete my account later, and only lurked through links to my favorite subs for a few years. Now I have deleted my links too.

      Reddit has devolved steadily for to many years, time to cut the cord completely.

      • kobra@lemmy.worldEnglish
        16·
        1 year ago

        tbh I had totally forgotten about the Victoria situation. In retrospect, maybe I am dumber than I realized for being surprised at some of the recent Reddit decisions.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
          30·
          1 year ago

          IDK, I started using reddit 15 years ago. Maybe you had to contrast it to what it was back then to see it clearly.

          For instance it was open Source, which they abandoned about 10 years ago.

          Reddiquette was a thing that was actually observed, and you were reminded of if you broke it. Have you even heard of it?

          e/The_Doonald could never have existed if reddiquette had been observed. Pau who worked to prevent such things were fired in 2014.

          The new layout is pandering to bling and short attention span, a repeat of mistakes made by Digg, that hurt more valuable content, and increase the amount of comments that are nothing more than noise without value.

          Cofounder Alexis Ohanian was instrumental in the firing of Victoria, which till this day has no reasonable explanation why she was fired.

          There are few real values left at reddit, but fortunately they exist here. ;)

          • ijeff@lemdro.idEnglish
            10·
            1 year ago

            16-year Reddit account here. There was definitely a different atmosphere in the earlier days. The community aspect felt stronger.

            • Paradox@lemdro.idEnglish
              12·
              1 year ago

              They also hired exclusively from the community, and were part of it. All the early admins, myself included, came from reddit. The idea of an admin with a 1 karma account was absurd

            • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
              5·
              1 year ago

              I agree, and the difference is huge. As you say, there was much more community about it. Not because it was smaller IMO, it was plenty big when I started using it. But the users were different, and it wasn’t as toxic as it became later.

              • ijeff@lemdro.idEnglish
                6·
                1 year ago

                Definitely. Somewhere along the way, it was also missed that downvotes were intended to be for content that were off-topic or not constructive to the conversation rather than something one merely disagreed with. I’ve found much of my moderating had become about reminding people to keep it civil.

                • Buffalox@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  6·
                  1 year ago

                  Yes absolutely, it’s bad rediquette to downvote just because you disagree, if it contributes to the debate.

                  I wonder how many even know that on reddit today? I bet most think they are just “like” buttons.

                  • XiELEd@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    2·
                    1 year ago

                    As someone who joined Reddit when it became mainstream, I didn’t know that something like “Reddiquette” existed, and that it had changed drastically in its history. I thought it just boiled down to social norms like “NO EMOJIS ALLOWED”, don’t ask obvious questions (which can be subjective), or answer a question that was meant to be rhetorical.

              • sheogorath@lemmy.worldEnglish
                2·
                1 year ago

                More mainstream appeal and younger users joining doesn’t really help with the quality of the discussion. IIRC when I created an account at reddit in 2011, the active users is still under 50 mils compared to 500 mils. Eternal September is a very real thing.

      • Brownboy13@programming.devEnglish
        46·
        1 year ago

        No, thank you. I’m done with putting in volunteer effort for these kinds of things. I transitioned to mostly lurking on reddit, and I’m likely to remain that way here as well. Modding requires too much of a time and effort commitment for something that I’ll have nothing to show for depending on the whim of others.

        • ThrowawayOnLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          Completely understandable. Thanks for the mod work you previously did. It’s a shame reddit happily took your good will, time and effort only to basically kick you in the nuts as reward.