r/steam (maliciously) complies with the call to open again

The subreddit r/steam, about the digital game storefront, received as many other subreddits a notice to open the community again, or else the mods would be replaced by those who abide.

The mods followed suit posting the following automod message under every new post:

As ya'll likely know, we've been dark to support the blackout against reddit's antagonistic behavior towards its own userbase. The admins sent us a message today saying we must open or get removed, so here we are.

For those of you browsing this subreddit on non-official apps (Reddit is Fun, Apollo, Sync, Boost, etc), they will break on July 1st due to reddit's new policies. We're opening back up but will leave permanent stickies in the subreddit and threads to keep folks in the know.

Our Discord [contains link to https://discord.gg/steam] server is active, don't forget to check it out.

Good luck and god speed.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

On visit, you quickly notice there is a community wide effort to focus on the literal topic of the given name and post about vapors, steam trains, and kitchen appliances. While posts about the gaming platform get downvoted.

LinkOpensChest_wav,

This blackout has really shown which subs have actual in-touch moderators, and which ones are just the admins' puppy dogs

A while ago, I had a comment auto-removed on WPT and got a message it was because my account was "not in good standing." When I messaged the WPT mods, they explained that they were test piloting a new tool the admins plan to use. For example, if you have a throwaway email address, no email address, or are connecting via VPN, you may be "not in good standing."

With things like that on the horizon, even if they roll back on what they're doing now, we're still not likely to have a very good time on that site.

I can't blame the mods who are trying to make change through protest (and who may not even be aware of the "not in good standing" BS), but I don't plan to stick around, and I don't foresee a very bright future for reddit at all.

cokedragon,

When did this happen? During the blackout? You say "a while ago" and I'm just curious.

LinkOpensChest_wav,

This happened 3 weeks ago, just before things really started to get ugly on reddit

onepinksheep,
onepinksheep avatar

Ah. So basically China's Social Credit system, but for Reddit.

Spirou,

Finally putting all that karma to good use.

Serdan,

https://merics.org/en/comment/chinas-social-credit-score-untangling-myth-reality

Often, the SoCS is merely invoked as a metaphor: either to depict some technological threat at home or to portray a techno-dystopian China.

This is symptomatic of a tendency to see China not as a real place with real people, but as an abstract “negative opposite” of “us”.

e8d79,

Interesting article, but according to it there where some pilot studies that tried to penalize citizens based on their social score. So I don't think the meme is entirely wrong.

minimar,

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/f1e58203-f7d5-40b7-865b-474a1a604581.png

melonplant,

It's important to identify these arbitrary lines in the sand, thanks.

zalack,
zalack avatar

To try and be charitable to the WPT mods: that sub is a magnet for bots and bad actors. All those measures sound like a shotgun approach to combating spam to me.

I really don't envy having to moderate a large politically oriented sub like that. I imagine it burns you out fast to being open and fair-minded in how you approach moderation due to the sheer avalanche of bullshit you're confronted with cleaning up.

LinkOpensChest_wav,

I do understand that point of view, but the fact that they're piloting a really invasive tool on behalf of the admins and subsequently refused to go black -- these make me feel far less charitable

Nepenthe,
Nepenthe avatar

Combating bots by banning anyone without an email is understandable and seems doable for the near future, but like it would mostly be a hiccup for the people churning them out.

Google ignores any periods in an email address, so if you want to sign up with the same email all you have to do is fill it with differently-placed periods. What are they gonna do? Ban everyone who shares your name from having a reddit? Ban Gmail? If they did, there's still the plus trick that isn't specific to gmail

TechnoBabble,

The plus and period thing isn't difficult to filter out in their email check.

But I do agree that requiring emails is a non-issue for spammers.

I mean, look at any other platform that requires email, and they're all covered in spam.

QuestioningEspecialy,
QuestioningEspecialy avatar

A while ago, I had a comment auto-removed on WPT and got a message it was because my account was "not in good standing." When I messaged the WPT mods, they explained that they were test piloting a new tool the admins plan to use.

I'mma need some sauce for dat pasta. That's too wild to not post screenshots.

LinkOpensChest_wav,

https://i.imgur.com/U79L2kV.jpg

There ya be

Synthaxx,
Synthaxx avatar

That reddithelp link clickable.

QuestioningEspecialy,
QuestioningEspecialy avatar

@LinkOpensChest_wav
And the AutoModerator notification link: https://i.imgur.com/7Yzm2IS.jpg

Thanks. Shit's deliciously wrong.

edit: But you know what... having recently watched The Blackenning (2023)... it honestly feels very... White.

LinkOpensChest_wav,

Thanks. I should have done that myself.

LilBagOfBunnies,

The mods of r/NBA continued using the sub during the blackout and discussed the NBA finals and Denver's parade.

LinkOpensChest_wav,

The moral fortitude of most pro sports fans is abysmally low, so that tracks with my expectations

quortez,
quortez avatar

I can't imagine a website so anti-CCP it utterly internalized the social credit meme (despite it being somewhat more nuanced in reality, I still don't approve of it, just learned it gets exaggerated in the west) would take well to an invisible 'reputation system' that demands data collection and punishes privacy actions.

The vibes continue to deteriorate.

Cynosure,

Honesty I think the big political subs are incredibly bot infested. Political content is an amazing way to make people mad and get them to spend more time on a platform, increasing engagement and letting reddit deliver more ads. It's not like it would be the first time they used bots to drive engagement and make communities look bigger.

TWeaK,

Don't forget that for many years reddit was the home of the most inciteful Donald Trump propaganda platform with r/t_d.

goat,

and dont forget reddit is also the home of the most inciteful Chinese propaganda platform with /r/sino

LinkOpensChest_wav,

The whole site is bot infested! Especially the large subs, but I've personally had scambots pop into my posts even on smaller subreddits.

People who say they won't leave reddit because "there's no good alternative" really have their head in the sand about how bad it really is. Nearly every alternative I've seen suggested is at least better than reddit (except for the really far-right ones like voat).

enragedchowder,

Pretty much any big sub is totally unusable. The only reason to be on Reddit is for the niche hobby subs

jeremy_sylvis,
@jeremy_sylvis@midwest.social avatar

Can confirm. You don't need to go far to find dog-piling groupthink ruining discussion.

SgtAStrawberry,

And unfortunately, those are the ones most difficult to find alternatives for.

Reoru,

I absolutely resonate with both your comments, it's the best function reddit served imo. The big mainstream subs were just content factories to create posts to doomscroll through.

linearchaos,
@linearchaos@lemmy.world avatar

Worse than bots. Active foreign influencers.

Cynosure,

The bot problem is probably domestic. Reddit has much more to gain from artificially driving engagement than any "foreign adversary".

ramennoodle,

why not both?

Gradually_Adjusting,
@Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world avatar

What a great idea. Just use an algorithm to ban any unprofitable user. Can't lose!

HawlSera,

That explains why I got banned a while back and was told I violeted the TOS, but the crime they listed (Abusing the report button) was neither in the TOS nor something I actually did.

Gradually_Adjusting,
@Gradually_Adjusting@lemmy.world avatar

Speaking of segues, I didn’t realize I’d been on lemmy for ten months already. Huh, look at that!

jaydev,
@jaydev@lemmy.world avatar

Loving this age of anti-Reddit malicious compliance creating content for Lemmy!

Orez66,

It's a great way to kickstart this place! I found my way to malicious compliance solely because I wanted to see what the subreddits were getting up to without opening the official reddit app.

Mishmash2000,
@Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz avatar

This is terrible! I went to /r/steam to learn about steamed hams but they were clearly grilled! I'm not even sure they were hams?!? 1 star, would not visit again!!

jago,

Sounds like that disappointment has you pretty steamed.

Mishmash2000,
@Mishmash2000@lemmy.nz avatar

I was really gassed to finally learn more about steamed hams but I was left fuming!

Faresh,

Reminds me of what lemmy did to !redpill and !flatearth (the top posts on this one), but with a different goal.

Dogbane,

People can complain all they want about reddit, as long as it's on reddit, reddit is fine with it. People do the same about twitter, youtube, facebook all the time and it doesn't hurt shareholders.

jaydev,
@jaydev@lemmy.world avatar

Well, it does certainly generate more content for us :) and I imagine the exodus will continue as the month goes on and after the 30th.

fsk,

I was surprised that r/godot didn't turn into a discussion devoted to Samuel Beckett.

Landrin201,
@Landrin201@lemmy.ml avatar

I wish some of these subs would stand their ground and make the admin replace them. That would cause the admin seven bigger headaches down the line, because a lot of the mods they impose would likely not be as good, not be as committed, and would be less strict in moderation, leading to a big pain for advertisers who suddenly would see lots of content next to their ads that is very not good.

limeaide,

I kinda like the idea of no moderation at all

Quiet quitting the mod position lol

FlashMobOfOne,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

This is the way.

Hypersapien,

Reddit is trying to go to war with the kind of people responsible for Boaty McBoatface and they think they're going to win.

PitzNR,

I want that sentence on a t-shirt!

Fihn,

Reddit execs don't care when people post like this. They aren't browsing the sub, all they see is user engagement is back up and that's a win. They can sell that to advertisers as a win. If you showed them the page they'd think it's weird but they probably wouldn't know it have ever been any different.

The only win to be had with the sub re-opening is to post nothing at all.

nexguy,
@nexguy@lemmy.world avatar

Hardly anyone is going to spend hours browsing pictures of steam and engaging with it vs actual content so this certainly is not great for reddit.

underisk,
@underisk@lemmy.ml avatar

Yeah but that's not what they're doing. They're doing a contrarian circlejerk that'll get boring after a few days or until the next thing happens with the steam platform that they all want to talk about. There's already a highly upvoted post there about the UI update.

Quinnel,

If the mods are true to their word they should be deleting anything related to the steam gaming platform because now its a sub about steam engines

underisk,
@underisk@lemmy.ml avatar

Did the mods actually make any kind of decree like that, though? It sounds like they're just doing an easily ignored automod message on every post and letting the users do as they will. The post i mentioned has 7k upvotes right now and its a been up for at least one full day. https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/14bww9f/about_this_weeks_update/

Quinnel,

Honestly I have no idea, you could totally be right

GhostCowboy76,

The best way for the Reddit community to fight back is to leave to another community. In order for that to happen the Fediverse options have to keep growing and improving, like they are, so that people leaving feel comfortable knowing they have a good option. Reddit will be dead in 6 months.

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world avatar

I agree, although it can't hurt to also accelerate that process by making it unbearable for scabs and normies to use the site. It also helps by setting a precedent for any future centralized social sites (like squabbles) who may try to profit off their users or go to war with the internet. Maybe it might even make them open to the idea of federation (probably not but at the very least it'll make them leery of doing stuff like Reddit, unless they're just blatantly stupid like Huffman is).

root,
@root@lemmy.world avatar

From an ad revenue point of view, does this matter? Posts/ views/ clicks are all the same to them, no?

SomethingBurger,

People will eventually stop visiting if a subreddit no longer contains content that is interesting for them.

steakryepig,

I don't understand the rationale behind admins compelling mods to reopen the subreddits. Aren't subreddits meant to be created and managed by the Reddit community? Shouldn't it be the community's decision to either close it or continue running them?

Protegee9850,

There will be scabs eager to volunteer their time as moderators - at least for now - solely for the perceived power.

Draconic_NEO,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world avatar

At least until the spambot onslaught begins and they start to find it incredibly difficult if not impossible to keep up with the endless flow of spam due to their lack of assistance tools and beneficial third party apps.

Protegee9850,

Absolutely.

AustralianSimon,
@AustralianSimon@lemmy.world avatar

This is how I am protesting. For all my subs, we have switched off all our moderation tools.

withersailor,

Worse than scabs. Brown nosers.

https://www.wiktionary.org/wiki/brown_noser

Hypersapien,

Subreddits being controlled by the mods and community is just reddit's public face. Behind closed doors, the reddit admins see themselves as the masters.

CmdrShepard,

It seems more like they just want to give mods the illusion that they can make executive decisions about the subs they run so that they'll work for free to Reddit's benefit.

JuxtaposedJaguar,

A few days ago, Reddit said that they "supported communities' decision to go private" (or something like that). Now that communities actually did it, they're backtracking.

Badass_panda,

The rationale is: profit. Ultimately reddit relies on users for content, and they're hoping if the remove the organisers of the strike (the mods) and replace them with scabs, that the users will stop striking.

d_bradr,

Epic sub bouta get pretty poetic. Wonder if we can pull it off with other subs. Trees being about trees, Rimjob Steve being about a man named Steve who makes vehicle rims, Piracy with actual pirates, Cats vs tech being about cats actively destroying pieces of technology etc

Fluba,

Rimjob Steve? Am I missing out or should I just not dive into that rabbit hole?

d_bradr,

Rimjob Steve is about situations like a guy named PeeIsSquirt giving you financial advice

RedWizard,
@RedWizard@lemmygrad.ml avatar

It's actually amusing. It's a sub for capturing genuine, or thoughtful, or informative replies from people with nearly pornographic names, like RimJobSteve.

Fluba,

Interesting. Fingers crossed we get something like that in the fediverse.

A_Very_Big_Fan,

You can make it happen! Unlike on Reddit, any user can make as many communities as you want afaik

RedstoneRelic,

Reddits got limitations on the number of subs you can make?

KingYoloHD,

Wait

Cats vs tech is not about cats destroying Tech??????

d_bradr,

From what little I've seen it's about cats being amazed or freaked out by tech

raptore39,

This one confused me as well

Chocrates,

Trouble is there is both trees and marijuanaenthusiasts subs so that would kinda cancel each other out

d_bradr,

As if marijuanaenthusiasts is filled with enthusiasts and not just stoners. There's a big difference between a gourmand and somebody who just loves eating

Chocrates,

Not sure if I am missing the joke but that sub is about trees, the tall woody plants that give you shade and not the kind that get you high.

DarthRedLeader, (edited )

I think these malicious compliance subreddit responses are as fun as the next person, but honest question: doesn't this work out in Reddit's favor? They don't care what's posted as long as content is being generated and traffic being driven to their site, right?

Nightingale,

The "funny" (mocking) content will get stale.

andobando,

It depends on what happens next. Short term there definitely isn't any harm. Longer term if the content stays as is it gets stale and dies. On the other hand if the people keep finding creative ways of posting content in this "new" format it seems like it breathes life into the site*___*

Furbag,

Not really. The traffic they're getting from it is unsustainable and any would-be investor who is paying attention will notice this. This is really more a tactic to shatter the narrative that the mods do not represent the will of the general user and they are forcing the protests onto them.

DarthRedLeader,

I don't know why I keep forgetting about the upcoming IPO, but the point about investors is definitely a good one. I do agree that whatever happens, this is a huge signal that Reddit admins have fallen out of favor with their userbase, which is certainly not tenable for functional company.

Honestly, I'd be shocked if Huffman is still CEO in 6 months.

overzeetop,
@overzeetop@lemmy.world avatar

I pray he stays and has an Ozymandias future.

chris,

Would they? I'd assume they're getting most of their info from spaz, who will just point to the dip and then "see, number go up."

scutiger,

IPO's are risky for the investor. If the company is overvalued before the IPO, a huge chunk of money invested disappears almost immediately as the stock drops. So the big investors will be doing their research before putting their money in.

Aurix,

There is the nuance to it. The subscribers did not sign up for this initially. Therefore they will have to build a new community up which certainly won't have as many subscribers for a very long time and none of the post history.

At the same time posts actually asking about the Steam platform get downvoted heavily and thus dissuade further interaction.

Effectively the sub becomes useless, just the same as if it had stayed closed. It will drop in engagement in the long term.

The John Oliver memes attract more mainstream attention and clearly signal to investors the platform is not healthy, irrespective of the traffic it causes.

With more and more subreddits joining in on this, the All page gets flooded with shitposts annoying everyone. Those who stay certainly won't want to deal with this all the time and unsubscribe.

Of course group dynamics are unpredictable at times, but reddit is certainly more in turmoil than whatever traffic.

DarthRedLeader, (edited )

Thanks, I was missing that point of view but I see what you mean.

I guess the way I see it is that, right now, people are enthusiastically joining in, which is still driving a sense of community. I guess I'm not as convinced that, long term, people will be driven to make new communities. I feel like the more likely scenario is that people will grow bored and go back to their normal, everyday posting.

Edit: I do agree the invester point is definitely one I didn't consider and is definitely a huge factor to all of this. Of course, it goes without saying that it at least signals the turmoil at Reddit and brings more attention to it. Not all press is good press in this case.

Whatever happens, I fully intend to sit back and enjoy watching the drama unfold.

orclev,

I feel like the more likely scenario is that people will grow bored and go back to their normal, everyday posting.

I think it's more likely people will get bored and just stop going to reddit. Right now the ones taking part in the protest are the creators and hard core users, while the casual users either aren't taking part or are just not using reddit right now.

Longer term this will destroy reddit on google searches ruining one of the major drivers of traffic.

In the short term it's a question of if the casual users get tired first and stop going to reddit, or the hard core users get bored of trolling spez. If the former happens first then reddits non-troll traffic dies off and when the hard core users get bored and leave and then there will be almost nobody left.

Ultimately in order for the protesters to win they don't need to permanently destroy reddit, just to effectively shut it down for the next 6 months or so as literally this entire thing, both the changes reddit instituted and the backlash, is about the IPO. Spez was looking to pump the value quickly so he could cash out and so he went with some incredibly aggressive and anti-user policies that he hoped would generate a massive revenue spike and look good to investors. Instead the users are giving spez a boot to the teeth and reminding him that he has nothing without them.

Chailles, (edited )
@Chailles@lemmy.world avatar

Not to mention that the argument that moderators are acting in bad faith against what the users want isn't really holding up if a rather decent chunk of active users are in favor of doing this.

JDtheGeek,

THIS!

ramennoodle,

i truly thought going to a different site would at least mean no more 'this!' comments :(

ramennoodle,

r/pics held a poll and their users CHOSE the john oliver memes. other subs are doing something similar, giving 'go back to normal' as an option because otherwise the admins might just remove them anyway for not giving users a real choice.

FizzlePopBerryTwist,

Uh

c/steam ?

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