Reddit tried to sticky this post for moderators around 12p CST today, and they’ve since tried to bury it. Thought it might be good to back up the link here.
Don’t forget, “We’re gonna pay some of our staff to go to cool cities to meet several of you! What an incredible opportunity for them to get frequent flier miles and for you to show up (again, unpaid) at a fake meeting in your free time. This will surely have some kind of impact on how we run things, in that nothing will change whatsoever.”
It just brings up RiF for me, which doesn’t work. I’ve only 99% left though, so I can’t pihole it. I copy over some content and use the pages that turn up on Google search results.
Pretend your the mod of a moderately sized subreddit. You have third party tools you rely on to help keep your community functioning. Reddit takes away your tools, then tells you “you can spend more of your free time in a pointless meeting with us”
It also is the statement “we’re here to listen to you” in response to a protest with a lot of clear demands. There was no concession or acknowledgement of the possibility of any. There was no apologies for the absolute assholery of the CEO. There wasn’t even an acknowledgement that they’re the ones in the wrong.
It’s like if you’ve been sleeping on the couch until your spouse stops cheating on you and they say “I know you’re mad, but let’s talk this out after work tomorrow” like no, you have to say sorry and that you’ll stop, then we need to talk about how to rebuild the shattered trust.
I can’t tell what that person’s intent is because the post is filled with “I’m sorry you’re upset” platitudes that accept no responsibility or even an understanding of why the mods are so upset in the first place; just more unpaid work they’re expected to do to keep it from happening again.
Unlucky, didn’t see this until after I clicked. The new default for posts about reddit here on Lemmy should be that any links are just screenshots or archived versions or something
On one hand Im happy to see that dumpster fire ignite even more. Then on the other hand Im happy to see all those mods end up not being listened to and frustrated by those who have the power.
I picture the employees playing rock, paper, scissors to determine who was going to have to make that post; I can’t imagine any of them didn’t know how this was going to play out.
…And the dude that won (lost?) didn’t even know how to link his own username. It looks like he did it via an actual hyperlink! Now that is fantastic example out of touch management.
Yes they problem is we haven’t given them enough feedback. Surely if we have them now feedback they would understand the problem. Shutting down the entire website for multiple days was not clear.
“We’re gonna have meaningful weekly meetings with all the hundreds or thousands of you, and we’re gonna take the opportunity to really listen. Now, this isn’t just some platitude to quiet you until we take the company public, but you know, we might suddenly get too busy for these once we’re diving into our piles of cash.”
“We’re gonna compile your input and file it away somewhere safe. Look! I already bought a basket to hold all of them and lined it with a plastic bag! And when my comment can gets reeeeeeaaaallllllly full, I’ll file your comments into a larger bin until the city files those comments with the other valuables!”
“We wanna show you how much we care. We care sooooooooo much that we’re gonna visit you on our “Fuck you, I Wanna be Rich” vacation! We’re gonna see the country and occasionally talk to people in a patronizing tone. For all the shit-holes we don’t feel like visiting, we’re gonna throw you a pizza party! It’s gonna be super revolutionary cuz it’ll be a virtual pizza party! Pay for your own food and watch us eat pizza while we explain to you that you’re not really upset with us, you’re just scared of change and passionate about things that don’t make us rich. Remember to dress up nice, we’d hate for you poors to make us look bad.”
They can’t even do bullshit PR correctly. You do the listening tour before the steady stream of unpopular decisions that go against the feedback you just collected.
Fuck Reddit and fuck everyone running it. During my last months there I was subject to continuous harassment and explicit death threats from one specific troll. When I brought this to the admins, they told me pound sand. They didn’t do a fucking thing. Nothing.
I’m very tempted to put together a dossier of all these interactions and start sending emails to marketing departments of the most common reddit advertisers and make sure they understand the platform they are using to sell shit to people.
I’m very tempted to put together a dossier of all these interactions and start sending emails to marketing departments of the most common reddit advertisers and make sure they understand the platform they are using to sell shit to people.
I anticipate in the future that that mods will be required to fill out weekly TPS reports. However, if you only have one subreddit you’re moderating, please use up the old cover sheets. If you’re moderating two or more subreddits, please use the new cover sheet. Did you get the memo on this? I’ll send you a copy of the memo.
“Reddit as a hosting service. We provide you the infrastructure and discoverability necessary to build and maintain a growing community. Yours for only $50/month!”
Don’t give them ideas because that’s actually kind of too brilliant for them — instead of selling ads only, also directly sell the user base to interested parties.
The word “openly” is the only thing that separates your comment from currently-happening-reality. Plenty of subs and their mods are bought and paid for.
Also this whole post from the VP is such a load of shit. “We have a seat for you at the table… if you want it.” Boy only a VP in a big corporation could keep a mouth so loaded with horseshit.
Hey mods, u/Go_JasonWaterfalls here, Reddit’s VP of Community. So, we’ve all had a… time on Reddit lately. And I’m here to recognize it, acknowledge that our relationship has been tested, and begin the “now what?” conversation.
Moderators are a vital part of Reddit. You are leaders and stewards of your communities. You are also not a monolith; mods have a diverse set of needs to support the purpose of each community you foster. Our role is facilitation; to enable all of you with a platform you can rely on, and with the tools and resources you need to cultivate thriving communities. Tens of thousands of mods engage daily on Reddit and, in order to enable all of you, we need consistent, inclusive, and direct connection with you. Here are some ways to connect with us.
Weekly Mod Feedback Sessions
We will (virtually) host small groups of mods each week to discuss the needs of users, mods, admins, and communities (including how subreddits are, and should be, governed). Sessions will be weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays July-October, and continue into the future as valuable. We will summarize and share notes inside the company as well as in r/modnews. Please fill out this form if you are interested.
Reddit Mod Council and Partner Communities
These are ongoing programs between admins and mods to provide feedback, guidance, transparency, and insight into Reddit’s future. We typically hold weekly calls and share notes with all members of those private communities. Learn more about the Partner Community program here, or apply (or nominate a co-mod) to join Reddit Mod Council here.
Accessibility Feedback Group
This group of users, mods, and admins will meet monthly to review and provide feedback on Reddit’s accessibility accommodations and tools. Our next meeting will be in August; please submit this interest form to participate.
Mod Events
In addition to our online Mod Summits, we’re resuming Mod Roadshows and picking up where we ended in 2022, meeting mods in Austin, Delhi, London, Paris, São Paulo, and Toronto. We’re planning the following locations for 2023 and want to know where else you think we should go. Please fill this out to be notified when dates are confirmed and/or to suggest a stop on our tour:
<pre style="background-color:#ffffff;">
<span style="color:#323232;">August: Seattle
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">September: Chicago
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">October: Bangalore, Birmingham (UK), Chennai, Delhi, Hamburg, London, Mumbai, Pune, São Paulo, Washington DC
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">November: Lyon, Paris, San Francisco
</span><span style="color:#323232;">
</span><span style="color:#323232;">December: Denver
</span>
Lastly, I look forward to hosting you all at our (online) Global Mod Summit, which will be on Dec 2, 2023.
I don’t have an ending to this post, really. Hopefully this post is a beginning.
Honestly at this point any mod left on reddit who thinks things can improve is fucking delusional. I don’t even feel bad for them. Most mods opened their subs back up after 48 hours or when they were threatened with replacement from the admins. The entire “protest” was a fucking joke. I think we should just let anyone left on Reddit circle jerk each other and concentrate on building out Lemmy. Fuck Reddit.
So I don’t think the protest was fruitless. Sure the 48 hours blackout or whatever it was (I don’t remember) may have been dumb, but that’s how I wound up here.
Angry, I started a community for carnivorous plants, a weird niche thing I loved reddit for. Posted a side bar talking about how it was a placeholder, forgot about it, and lo and behold, people started posting.
I don’t think any of that would have happened without the blackout. The power mods might have had delusions that the protest would even things out and then things would return to normal, but I think the protests opened up peoples view to the fact it doesn’t need to be the way it is, and it wasn’t always that way.
I’m also a member of an old school kind of forum around a specific kind of car that always beat the pants of the comparable subreddit.
That’s a really well written point of view. Thank you for that. Yea I think Lemmy and the fediverse have a lot of potential, however it’s definitely still growing. So far I like it. It feels simple and quiet. There are no ads. The layout is pretty decent. Some of the mobile apps like Jerboa on Android is also surprisingly very good.
Thanks! and agree. I’d be happy with more content but but all my reddit subs were niche things. I went out of my way to get rid of the “dopamine drip” memems and what not. Funnily enough I’ve left those on here for now because it’s not endless they way it was at reddit.
I used RIF on mobile and RES at my desk (plus a bunch of ad blockers). So I didn’t have to deal with the noise but absolutely it is nice when the layout is about the end user and not pushing for attention.
I think they’ve realised that they can do pretty much whatever they want, and the majority of their user-base will just vacantly scroll through cat videos and adverts all day long regardless.
I love how some commenters are so great with words and feelings. Just when you think someone has explained perfectly how we feel, another person says something else which explains another aspect of our feelings, making it even more perfect how we feel. And so on.
I wonder if they’re just testing the waters to see if the sentiment has changed at all. They’ll probably keep posting similar at regular intervals to verify that the backlash is subsiding.
I think it’s less a change in sentiment and more if they’ve driven away all but the “true believers”. I know the sub I modded lost almost all their long time active mods and are down to the bottom of barrel with a few exceptions (whom all don’t seem long for the sub either at least at the time of my exit).
They used to not even be combined. You had separate up and down vote counters. The they combined them, and you could go negative and even get a cross it it was controversial.
Back in my day, they did have negative values. I want to say the EA Star Wars Battlefront fiasco was about the time they switched to hiding how very hated a post/comment is.
Actually not always. I remember the good ol’ days of early Reddit where you could have astronomically negative votes on posts. Back in the simpler times when r/f7u12 and rAdviceAnimals ruled. It was only a feel years ago when they changed how upvotes and downvotes worked
But this is not an atrocity. This is a bad attempt at PR that would have been done by any employee because they would have been told. I don’t have anything against a PR person, just the Reddit corporate leadership
I’ve known companies where a VP title doesn’t mean much of anything. At the end of the day, he takes orders from the CEO and the board. What do you expect him to do?
The only thing that would make people happy would be reversing the changes. Is he gonna come out and say “hey everybody, I’ve unilaterally made the decision to go against the board and reverse the changes”
They would just delete the post and fire him.
Or would he say “yes we are a very bad company and our CEO did bad things. I’m very sorry but this is the best I can do”
He’s getting a sit down and is lucky if he doesn’t get fired.
There’s literally nothing he can say that will a) stay in line with his job title and b) alleviate the concerns of the users
Also “just taking orders” is a valid defense for many many many transgressions. It only really breaks down when we start going into crimes against humanity / war crimes like at the Nuremberg Trials. And I don’t know about you, but a private company exercising their God given right to fuck their consumers is a bit different than mass genocide.
Having said all that, and on a tangent. What would you do? You’re a Nazi soldier. You’re not a zealot, just the average Joe Schmoe who joined the army because of a long family history. You think of yourself as a good and tolerant person and don’t really like the Nazis but you go along with it because you rather like breathing.
Your commanding officer gives you a gun and tells you to shoot a Jew in the head. If you refuse, you get sent to prison for insubordination or maybe just get shot in the head right on the spot.
What do you do? If you kill the Jew, you end up getting tried for war crimes after the war and boom you’re getting executed anyway.
Really the best thing to do is shoot yourself in the head because you’re busted either way. That’s the position people like the VP are in. There’s nothing you can do. I don’t blame him the slightest- he’s doing his job. Blame the people giving the orders.
As VP he most likely stands to get a decent payout from the IPO.
It’s easy to think of Reddit as a dictatorship where everyone is deathly afraid of big bad spez, but the reality is that these types of corporate structures are usually completely rotten at the top.
Let me put it another way: do you think if spez were to be run over by a bus tomorrow, anything would change?
I’ll ignore your comments about the Nazis before we Goodwin this thread, but dude, what an awful comparison.
Ok maybe I went a little overboard on the comparison - I spent some time reading about the Nuremberg trials because of your comment and how lots of people used the “my superiors ordered me to” as a defense
My point mainly is - regardless if VP agrees with it or not. He probably does agree with it otherwise he wouldn’t be VP.
The point is he can’t really contradict the board’s decision regardless. Yes I agree it’s not spez by himself. They’re setting him up to take the fall just like they did with Pao back in the day.
I’m just saying - VP is just doing his job. He likely doesn’t have much influence, at least on this topic. Spez publicly put his foot down and that’s that. Can’t contradict at this point.
And I understand “I’m just taking orders” isn’t always a defense, we also must consider that this is totally legal and unethical for them to do. I don’t agree with it - which is why I got off reddit. But it’s their private platform so they’re well within their rights
Tldr: hate on the board and people who steer the ship imo
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