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0 pointswpietri3y ago0 comments

Oh? Thanks so much for telling me what goes on in my head, bub.

The average bit of user-generated content is of very low quality. Which is why pretty much any successful platform, this one included, uses user-generated signals to filter the good stuff to the top. And any social context is prone to vicious circles where dark triad find somewhere successful and ruin it. Preventing that requires active weeding. All of that is labor I value.

The platform deserves some credit. But as all the developers here know, Reddit is not succeeding on the strength of its software. Reddit doesn't have a technology moat. It's a pretty standard web forum. They didn't invent it, they didn't perfect it, and not only could it be replicated, it has been many times.

So should the platform get paid? Definitely. Reddit-the-corporation should have enough cashflow to cover the bills and support the necessary staff. But right now the tail is trying to wag the dog, and Reddit-the-community is not having it.

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yanderekko3y ago· 4 in thread

>Thanks so much for telling me what goes on in my head, bub.

I mean, if you're going to Reddit to marvel at the sidebar rules or CSS stylings, then I guess you're going there for the mods qua mods. But I would assume that this represents a relatively rare user psychographic. Beyond this, my point is that it's unfair to give the mods credit for indirectly cultivating communities but refuse to extend this same consideration to the admins or platform.

>The average bit of user-generated content is of very low quality. Which is why pretty much any successful platform, this one included, uses user-generated signals to filter the good stuff to the top.

Yes, and Reddit was successful long before the moderation tools that are being impacted by the API changes were created. Treating this protest as being about the basic question of whether Reddit should have moderation or not is disingenuous.

>But right now the tail is trying to wag the dog, and Reddit-the-community is not having it.

Well, the powermods aren't having it. We'll see what "Reddit-the-community" thinks when the dust settles. A bunch of activists can't claim to speak for it, though obviously they'd like to pretend that they can.

wpietriOP3y ago

If you're claiming that the main things Reddit mods do is a bit of rule text and some CSS, then I don't think you know enough about the topic to be worth further discussion.

subsistence2343y ago

in the best case mods remove spam and illegal content, and beyond leave the community alone to do its thing. unfortunately typical reddit mods feel compelled to do all kinds of other things, like they're on a mission from god.

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squeaky-clean3y ago

Mods don't just edit the css, they moderate. You can clearly see the difference a good mod team does. After the reddit blackout is over, check out the difference between /gaming and /AskHistorians. AskHistorian threads are often 90% deleted comments because people try commenting without posting any sources.

For smaller communities mods keep away trolls and spambots. They enforce custom rules that sub will have.

> Yes, and Reddit was successful long before the moderation tools that are being impacted by the API changes were created

Are you forgetting about Reddit Enhancement Suite? There is no mod that just uses the built-in reddit moderation. There hasn't been since the days when Reddit was a website only known to tech related college students.

memefrog3y ago

I compare /r/gaming and /r/AskHistorians. The latter is overmoderated and exhibits what I call the "Reddit effect": people will take to be true and accurate anything that is said in a clear and authoritative tone. Yes much of what is on that subreddit is high-quality, but by no means is it all high-quality, and they often remove comments from people that dispute the narratives that are pushed there. The topics of history they choose to cover are very narrow and they have a pretty narrow view of what "history" is: the narrative of mainstream US academic historians.

It's a weird comparison to make, too. You're comparing a default subreddit that is mostly for memes with one of the subreddits held in highest regard. Lots of highly-moderated subreddits are just awful. Why not compare /r/AskHistorians with the large number of highly- but poorly-moderated subreddits? There are many (I won't name names) that you would expect to be reasonably neutral places but because of who picked the name originally have become politically extreme over time. Or just as a result of the effect of the upvote/downvote mechanism. The high influence that early votes have on submissions means that if a small group of people make it their life's work to watch /new (and they do exist!) they can control the narrative very successfully.

The idea that reddit mods are some great asset to the site is just strange, IMO. To me, they're one of the worst things about the website. Most of the big subreddits are dominated by the same group of power moderators who have some questionable conflicts of interests with outside forces. Smaller subreddits tend to be dominated by high-school-style cliques.

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