Steve Huffman, the Reddit CEO, told NBC News in an interview that a user protest on the site this week is led by a minority of moderators and doesn’t have wide support.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, democracy simply doesn't work
If userbases vote for mods you will get an absolute cesspit. It has not worked in the past when subreddits have done it willingly, and it will not work in the future.
I think this is a bluff tbh. He has seen it fail in the past every single time it has been willingly implemented by a subreddit. It doesn't work. The userbases do not participate enough to know whether certain people running to be mod are good or not.
It would also completely remove "ownership" of a subreddit from moderators, meaning that there is essentially no incentive to do it, no feeling of reward for your hard work because your community is yours. They will kill all motivation for moderators.
If he's dumb enough to actually allow voting for mods, we should just brigade that shit and use the mod positions to agitate. Otherwise it'll just be 4chan doing it.
We should yes but every single event will become a "the tankies are trying to takeover" thing. And it will all be turned into anti-communism by a neoliberal-fascist alliance. We will lose that war. We will then be voted out of any positions we take.
So, there is a chance to get into positions of power on reddit, and we should take it. I don't think that there's anything constructive to be built on reddit, because even if the ideal scenario were to play out (there's somehow a coordinated effort to get leftists into positions of """power""" on reddit and use their moderation to direct the conversation on one of the biggest platforms away from the reactionary gameplan), you'd still have to contest with the administration of the site itself. The moment this movement would become successful, the FBI agents that run r/worldnews or r/politics would step in, remove you, and replace you with someone who's down for glassing China. The anti-left, pedophilic, frankly stale discussion on reddit was consciously cultivated by both its format and who they put into positions of day to day influence.
I say that we should take these leadership positions to tank it. Reddit dying isn't like an edgy "return to monke" dream, if capture of this platform isn't possible then we should be doing everything we can to push people away from it and ideally sink the site (especially since most other newer social media platforms like the reddit clones/mastadon/etc have a very limited appeal and will never reach the numbers of reddit).
If, by some miracle you do end up winning one of these elections:
Keep track of active posters/posters who seem to respond to other users in earnest. Every now and then, permaban then for the slightest infraction/no reason at all.
Demand an ongoing democratic process. Discussion of these stupid elections should be something most users of a given subreddit should have to put up with.
Cut back on weekly/monthly events. Stopping all overnight would be noticeable, but a few movie nights missing here and there over the course of a few months will add up.
Avoid punishing contentious or even outwardly reactionary users. Nobody wants to willingly hang out with /pol/ dweebs, if you allow that, you create an impression of an unwelcoming community where trying to talk about something like Tetris or old bikes is going to be met with race science, and even most internet users don't want to deal with that.
Attempt to remove or undermine other moderators, especially the more active ones. Going into whatever modchat exists and saying "you're all losers" isn't a good idea, but dropping hints over conversations with the others that effective staff might be bad at their job is more likely to create tension. Posting about other mods might or might not be a good idea, err on the side of "not" unless there's a history of doing so.
Delete threads/posts early that could lead to active discussion and blame it on site policies/technical bullshit. If a thread has 30 upvotes in a hour, cull it before it grows too big.
Sticky niche recurring topics. The megathreads on here work because they have a jumping off point for discussion but you can talk about whatever. You want the first two posts on your reddit to be automated and with low engagement.
The goal should not be to create another r/antiwork, nor should it be to loudly come in after elections yelling about how you're going to create the internet version of the Paris commune. If it was possible to build something lasting and decent on reddit we'd all still be on r/cth. Throw wrenches into gears, get people to log off.
Yeah hexbear tried the full democratic approach back in the chapo.chat days and it flopped hard.
While I disagree with some of the decisions made since then, the site is now very functional, fun to use and engage in, and not in a permanent state of :blob-on-fire: . Can't ask for anything better really.
Idk, maybe, I do feel that he’s dumb enough to actually do it. I mean I feel like he has already made so many unforced errors, like randomly accusing the apollo dev of blackmail, and then doubling down in the ama.
What happens when a modteam simply removes all meta-discussion about the subreddit? How the fuck do the users express or discuss with one another about being unhappy with the mods?
They can't. All of that can be completely suppressed. You'd have to create a secondary "bullshit subreddit politics" space where moderators aren't allowed to moderate in order for users to talk about moderation with one another.
And that space itself will be filled with debate about hatespeech, transphobia, all kinds of bullshit simply because it can't be moderated by the mods.
All the "woke" mods on the site will get voted out by bands of roaming fascists doing takeovers of lgbt subreddits.
It's a stupid fucking policy and there is absolutely no fucking way that they're stupid enough to entertain it as any kind of possibility. This is a bluff, 100% bluff. The more I think about it the more ridiculous it gets.
You're not wrong, I just think spez is an absolute moron. Would you have believed me if I told you elon musk was going to run twitter into the ground like he did?
Musk is a much bigger moron though, one who doesn't understand how twitter works.
Spez on the other hand has been there since the start of reddit. He understands what it is at the very foundation and he definitely knows all the theory of reddit shit that has forged the site over the years.
He's an asshole but he's an asshole that genuinely understands his site.
I suppose you know better than me. I guess I don't even really understand why they're hardballing so hard on this 3PA shit, I know everyone says it's all the IPO shit but surely this is also hurting any IPO plans as well? Like, it all seems so moronic to me
If userbases vote for mods you will get an absolute cesspit. It has not worked in the past when subreddits have done it willingly, and it will not work in the future.
Most famously we tried it back in the early days of the website with the Republic of Reddit subreddits. Regular moderator elections and democratic control over the subreddit's tone. It was killed by a complete lack of engagement, the only people seeking election being the ones who shouldn't have power, and those mods then quitting before the next election because the job sucks. Those same problems would exist if reddit forces democracy on the users while giving the mods shittier tools to moderate with. If I could keep mods on r/snackexchange, a relatively low population subreddit, for more than a month then I'd have more than two active mods who both depend on multiple tools that the API changes will kill.
Users are not engaged enough and do not have enough incentive to do so. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to know what's going on and it's BORING for 95% of people.
Reddit's moderators are ultimately motivated by feeling like they "own" their communities. Reddit even knows this, which is why they have not infringed on moderators decisions about their own spaces as much as possible, the motivation of moderators is exceptionally important to the site. It is not only what keeps mods doing the work in spaces they currently run but also is what causes them to make new spaces.
It's the only upside to moderating. I know r/modernart won't have posts that aren't about modernism if I'm actively removing the things which don't fit the vision of the subreddit. I know r/snackexchange won't be taken over by an import business or do corrupt promotions with them if I'm the person in charge and nobody except this one steak company has tried to bribe me. I know r/fifthworldproblems won't become an even more cringe place taken over by Dr. Who/SCP/Star Wars fans if my first rule is that posts can't reference existing canon. There's no real power trip to it if the ants in your ant farm hate you, but the subreddit only has a defined purpose and culture if the same people are committed to those things.
Give it to someone apathetic or hostile to that original vision and the whole place goes to shit. The piggies only see shit, they see it get upvoted, and they only post shit because they know shit gets upvoted.
I'm still mad at that one because they seemed like a decent steaks. It was like a smaller version of Omaha Steaks that offered me beef jerky and then never sent it.
It would also completely remove “ownership” of a subreddit from moderators, meaning that there is essentially no incentive to do it, no feeling of reward for your hard work because your community is yours. They will kill all motivation for moderators.
i would argue that this is a plus point
with the exception of your good self of course
Yeah I agree. But the point is he doesn't mean it. The tactic being deployed here is to kill popular support among the userbase so that moderators feel compelled to give up. This is why the "landed gentry" shit is being deployed and this is also why he's going with "we'll make it more democratic".
His aim is to use the wider userbase against moderators, knowing full well that the wider userbase is already predisposed to being against mods in the first place.
The correct tactic for organisers to deploy here is "We're happy to talk about adding more democracy to moderation if Huffman is happy to add more democracy to administrator decisions as well." Turn it back on him. This all started because absolutely nobody wants to see Apollo or RiF shut down. That's on reddit, they're completely capable of solving that but don't want to. They want them dead. If it were up to the userbase the users would be against it.
Online voting always fails because you can't effectively limit one person to one vote. Anyone can make a trivial reddit botnet without paid proxies and spam the votes.
If userbases vote for mods you will get an absolute cesspit. It has not worked in the past when subreddits have done it willingly, and it will not work in the future.
I think this is a bluff tbh. He has seen it fail in the past every single time it has been willingly implemented by a subreddit. It doesn't work. The userbases do not participate enough to know whether certain people running to be mod are good or not.
It would also completely remove "ownership" of a subreddit from moderators, meaning that there is essentially no incentive to do it, no feeling of reward for your hard work because your community is yours. They will kill all motivation for moderators.
If he's dumb enough to actually allow voting for mods, we should just brigade that shit and use the mod positions to agitate. Otherwise it'll just be 4chan doing it.
We should yes but every single event will become a "the tankies are trying to takeover" thing. And it will all be turned into anti-communism by a neoliberal-fascist alliance. We will lose that war. We will then be voted out of any positions we take.
All of that is still going to happen if we don't.
So, there is a chance to get into positions of power on reddit, and we should take it. I don't think that there's anything constructive to be built on reddit, because even if the ideal scenario were to play out (there's somehow a coordinated effort to get leftists into positions of """power""" on reddit and use their moderation to direct the conversation on one of the biggest platforms away from the reactionary gameplan), you'd still have to contest with the administration of the site itself. The moment this movement would become successful, the FBI agents that run r/worldnews or r/politics would step in, remove you, and replace you with someone who's down for glassing China. The anti-left, pedophilic, frankly stale discussion on reddit was consciously cultivated by both its format and who they put into positions of day to day influence.
I say that we should take these leadership positions to tank it. Reddit dying isn't like an edgy "return to monke" dream, if capture of this platform isn't possible then we should be doing everything we can to push people away from it and ideally sink the site (especially since most other newer social media platforms like the reddit clones/mastadon/etc have a very limited appeal and will never reach the numbers of reddit).
If, by some miracle you do end up winning one of these elections:
The goal should not be to create another r/antiwork, nor should it be to loudly come in after elections yelling about how you're going to create the internet version of the Paris commune. If it was possible to build something lasting and decent on reddit we'd all still be on r/cth. Throw wrenches into gears, get people to log off.
True, but its a pretty low stakes conflict so... :edgeworth-shrug:
Yeah hexbear tried the full democratic approach back in the chapo.chat days and it flopped hard.
While I disagree with some of the decisions made since then, the site is now very functional, fun to use and engage in, and not in a permanent state of :blob-on-fire: . Can't ask for anything better really.
old heads remember when beatnik promised admin elections
in hindsight, yeah that would never have worked
still pissed me off though lmao
The site would be taken over by feds lmao.
agreed
i have an ML brain, but an anarchist heart
hard mood
How's your spleen?
posadist
Imagine who would be the admins lol.
We had idiots on here voting to change the community names from c/chat to c/hat, I'm sure an admin election would've gone down well haha.
No joke, I'd post in a theoretical /c/hat. Of course rule #1 would have to be "No fedora pics after the 1940s".
Idk, maybe, I do feel that he’s dumb enough to actually do it. I mean I feel like he has already made so many unforced errors, like randomly accusing the apollo dev of blackmail, and then doubling down in the ama.
How the fuck would it even work?
What happens when a modteam simply removes all meta-discussion about the subreddit? How the fuck do the users express or discuss with one another about being unhappy with the mods?
They can't. All of that can be completely suppressed. You'd have to create a secondary "bullshit subreddit politics" space where moderators aren't allowed to moderate in order for users to talk about moderation with one another.
And that space itself will be filled with debate about hatespeech, transphobia, all kinds of bullshit simply because it can't be moderated by the mods.
All the "woke" mods on the site will get voted out by bands of roaming fascists doing takeovers of lgbt subreddits.
It's a stupid fucking policy and there is absolutely no fucking way that they're stupid enough to entertain it as any kind of possibility. This is a bluff, 100% bluff. The more I think about it the more ridiculous it gets.
You're not wrong, I just think spez is an absolute moron. Would you have believed me if I told you elon musk was going to run twitter into the ground like he did?
Musk is a much bigger moron though, one who doesn't understand how twitter works.
Spez on the other hand has been there since the start of reddit. He understands what it is at the very foundation and he definitely knows all the theory of reddit shit that has forged the site over the years.
He's an asshole but he's an asshole that genuinely understands his site.
I suppose you know better than me. I guess I don't even really understand why they're hardballing so hard on this 3PA shit, I know everyone says it's all the IPO shit but surely this is also hurting any IPO plans as well? Like, it all seems so moronic to me
Why did they do the ama though? How could anyone familiar with the site think that was a good idea
hubris and narcissism. he's incompetent but more importantly he has a large ego that's easily wounded.
it is a terrible idea but a much better alternative, according to a CEO than their unpaid volunteers unionizing.
Most famously we tried it back in the early days of the website with the Republic of Reddit subreddits. Regular moderator elections and democratic control over the subreddit's tone. It was killed by a complete lack of engagement, the only people seeking election being the ones who shouldn't have power, and those mods then quitting before the next election because the job sucks. Those same problems would exist if reddit forces democracy on the users while giving the mods shittier tools to moderate with. If I could keep mods on r/snackexchange, a relatively low population subreddit, for more than a month then I'd have more than two active mods who both depend on multiple tools that the API changes will kill.
Yeah exactly.
Users are not engaged enough and do not have enough incentive to do so. It takes a considerable amount of time and effort to know what's going on and it's BORING for 95% of people.
Reddit's moderators are ultimately motivated by feeling like they "own" their communities. Reddit even knows this, which is why they have not infringed on moderators decisions about their own spaces as much as possible, the motivation of moderators is exceptionally important to the site. It is not only what keeps mods doing the work in spaces they currently run but also is what causes them to make new spaces.
It's the only upside to moderating. I know r/modernart won't have posts that aren't about modernism if I'm actively removing the things which don't fit the vision of the subreddit. I know r/snackexchange won't be taken over by an import business or do corrupt promotions with them if I'm the person in charge and nobody except this one steak company has tried to bribe me. I know r/fifthworldproblems won't become an even more cringe place taken over by Dr. Who/SCP/Star Wars fans if my first rule is that posts can't reference existing canon. There's no real power trip to it if the ants in your ant farm hate you, but the subreddit only has a defined purpose and culture if the same people are committed to those things.
Give it to someone apathetic or hostile to that original vision and the whole place goes to shit. The piggies only see shit, they see it get upvoted, and they only post shit because they know shit gets upvoted.
Well said, 100% agree.
Shit, did :trump-anguish: send you an email?
I'm still mad at that one because they seemed like a decent steaks. It was like a smaller version of Omaha Steaks that offered me beef jerky and then never sent it.
i would argue that this is a plus point
with the exception of your good self of course
Yeah I agree. But the point is he doesn't mean it. The tactic being deployed here is to kill popular support among the userbase so that moderators feel compelled to give up. This is why the "landed gentry" shit is being deployed and this is also why he's going with "we'll make it more democratic".
His aim is to use the wider userbase against moderators, knowing full well that the wider userbase is already predisposed to being against mods in the first place.
The correct tactic for organisers to deploy here is "We're happy to talk about adding more democracy to moderation if Huffman is happy to add more democracy to administrator decisions as well." Turn it back on him. This all started because absolutely nobody wants to see Apollo or RiF shut down. That's on reddit, they're completely capable of solving that but don't want to. They want them dead. If it were up to the userbase the users would be against it.
fair enough, i defer to your greater wisdom of the topic at hand
This is a plus if you don't want any moderation at all. Why would anyone spend their time moderating a sub for free if there's nothing in it for them?
Online voting always fails because you can't effectively limit one person to one vote. Anyone can make a trivial reddit botnet without paid proxies and spam the votes.
Well the moderators will just do what they do best and stop the brigading…
Ah, I see a number of problems with this idea of his.
/r/anarchism has great moderation tbh