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.
"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."
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."
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
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 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.
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.
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 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.
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!"
They'd rather gargle reddit balls and complain about the taste than to lose their mod status. Nothing else to it. Let them gargle, they have the platform they deserve.
As much as it would be amazing to move everyone over, reddit communities represent years of cultivation and community organizing. Trying to rebuild that again isn't an easy task, and it shouldn't have to be done at all. This site should belong to the people who put in all the unpaid volunteer hours, not money-grubbing shareholders and CEOs. I can see why some people are so reluctant to abandon the community efforts they have worked diligently on for years. That being said I hope they all decide to ditch reddit and come over here as well.
This community filters comments from anyone who isn’t a mod of an active community with more than 50 subscribers. [...]
Yep, you're right. It should be disclosed on the sidebar. We won't do it right now for obvious reasons, but will have this updated before the next post.
So we're witnessing a thread of angry mods being angry, OP is cherry picking comments and still can't manage to listen to them.
Also many of the people complaining that their posts are being filtered are mods of communities larger than 50 users, one person pointed out that they mod two subs of more than 500,000 people.
So they lied while acting pretentious, again. To the surprise of no one.
Hey ChatGPT, write me a tone deaf, mealy mouthed, corporate doublespeak screed that completely ignores everything that’s happened for the last month. Be sure and add lots of bullshit about how we will now “listen to mods” and have useless meetings every month.
write me a tone deaf, mealy mouthed, corporate doublespeak screed that completely ignores everything that’s happened for the last month. Be sure and add lots of bullshit about how we will now “listen to mods” and have useless meetings every month.
LMAO I literally fed your prompt into ChatGPT adding only last month WITH REDDIT and the result is...well I'll let you decide for yourself:
Dear Valued Members of our Community,
We hope this message finds you well. As a corporation committed to fostering a vibrant and inclusive online community, we must acknowledge that the last month has been filled with important developments. We understand that you may have concerns and feedback about recent events, and we would like to assure you that we are dedicated to addressing them in a meaningful manner.
Our commitment to transparency and openness remains unwavering, and we are fully aware of the importance of listening to the voices of our valued moderators. We recognize their invaluable contributions to our platform and are eager to collaborate with them more closely moving forward. To that end, we are excited to announce that we will be implementing monthly meetings where we can engage in productive conversations and work towards mutually beneficial solutions.
These meetings will serve as a unique opportunity to foster a culture of continuous improvement. We believe that by providing a forum for discussion, we can collectively identify challenges and collaboratively explore ways to enhance our community experience. Your feedback is integral to our growth, and these sessions will enable us to listen to your concerns and ideas actively.
At our core, we remain committed to upholding the principles that have made us a beloved community. The spirit of openness, diversity, and respect are cornerstones of our platform, and we intend to reinforce them further through the establishment of task forces, committees, and subcommittees dedicated to addressing specific issues.
We understand that recent events may have raised questions about our corporate values and practices. We are keenly aware that the phrase "tone deaf" has been used in recent conversations, and we genuinely want to acknowledge your concerns. As we move forward, we are committed to learning and growing as a platform, acknowledging where we have fallen short, and working diligently to improve our processes.
Your trust is paramount to us, and we appreciate your continued support as we strive to create a positive and enriching experience for all members of our community. We firmly believe that together, we can build a stronger, more empathetic, and more inclusive environment.
Thank you for your understanding and patience during this time. We value your feedback and look forward to the journey ahead as we make our community even better, together.
You know what the best part is? ChatGPT doesn't know about the reddit thing, because it's training data is 2021 and earlier. This is as bland as the actual message and it was written without knowledge of the problem at all.
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.
Honestly I moved over here a couple months ago and haven't had the urge to look back. I love this place.
Out of curiosity I read that post and top comments. That place just smells tainted now. If that post is on tenth accurate I feel bad for anyone that feels the need to stay and be part of that drama.
The fediverse has felt just so much more comfortable and safe. I hope it stays this way.
It's far better than reddit is but real discussions still aren't allowed to happen. Before 2016 or so I was still subscribed to /politics because while we didn't always agree, we could at least discuss. Then in 2016 everyone got TDS and became a fragile child, unable to handle adult topics without banning or reporting. Wrongthink became a reality. And it's very much a reality here at lemmy.world and other large fediverse instances.
I only go back for the 2 or 3 very niche communities there, although honestly if feels like even those have dropped in content. I haven't even logged in, just browse once a week or so. Lemmy is 100% of my toilet time now.
Hey Mr Manager, [email protected] here, some dude on Lemmy. So, we’ve all had a... time away from Reddit lately. And I’m here to recognize it, acknowledge that our relationship has been idk fine I guess, and begin the “hey man how's it going?” conversation.
Not trying to be rude but what part specifically rubbed you in the wrong way? I can see it came off as a little formal but nothing that struck out to me.
Also, that "we have had...a time" line is just disingenuous as hell. That's younger-millenial colloquial, and the social context for it only works when there isn't a power imbalance. This guy's a VP at the company that's been kicking people around: he doesn't get to take that tone.
I guess some people react to it and other don't. I'm not trying to be rude either - I just mean that the language that you call "formal" comes off as extreamly disconnected from the community to some of us.
Reddit should be grateful for moderators working for free to moderate their site, and the way they talk to these moderators is absolutely fascinating. I can only assume it comes from living your life around corporate bullshit to the degree that it becomes normal to you.
Normal human decency, friendliness, sense of humor, compassion... Reddit leadership doesn't have these qualities. Corporate bullshit is a term for when you fake these emotions to reach a strategic goal, such as trying to make people work in the same direction even when it's not in their interest to do so.
It’s specifically the “I’m here to recognize it and acknowledge it and talk about it” part followed up by no recognizing, acknowledging, or talking about anything substantial.
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
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.
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.
Why any moderator is still giving that website their time I have no idea. Is it just an addiction at this point? Just leave, the reddit owners actively mock you and despise you.
Some of us have built real communities over there, full of people we know and like. Those places have lasted years, and it's like Cheers.
I do not fault people for wanting to keep that alive. And no, moving hundreds or thousands of people to a new platform isn't feasible, especially when some features like private communities don't yet exist.
you don't need to move hundreds of thousands of people to a new platform, you just need to move the people you know and like.
I'm super old, I've been around on the internet since the early days. we always did this, we always moved. reddit was a place we moved to once, Now i left that behind because it's shit, its falling apart and its run by pricks. But it's okay because you just move to the next thing. the idea of dying on a sinking ship for the addiction of not changing something is really quite new.
In addition, it's not like that community is going to vanish if some people move and some don't. you just don't have to prop up reddits bloated crappy website by actively supporting it with moderation.
They nuked almost all my accounts the other day. I talked a bunch of shit on the direction they are going and missing Aaron's leadership. I walked away and here I am. One account I never log in on and with only 3 posts, perma banned. It was obviously targeted...
I just logged in on my NSFW account and lo and behold it has been permanently banned haha. Literally zero comments on it. It wasn't banned when I deleted my main account after having made comments having a go at reddit and the admins and the current situation, so they're clearly a bit butthurt and retaliated by .....banning my account that never actually does anything other than lurk.....which you can still do while permanently suspended lol. Funny that the ban message says
Your accounts are now permanently suspended due to multiple, repeated violations of Reddit's content policy.
They did the same to me, I was the top moderator and creator of Animalsbeingderps and Amsterdaments, and had 10-11 years of almost daily content and discussions, I was in general quite outspoken about conservatism and racism on reddit, and the IRL cultures that breed these types of mentalities. I was also pretty active on vaporents which was in nono territory for a while. First all of my alt accounts were permabanned, then the first time I made a comment on lemmy against reddit's actions with this account, my main account was also permabanned. Bloody priceless.
Derps was one of my favorites! I was outspoken on the admin team and racism but to be transparent I am Conservative in a Libertarian scope. You do you, just don't infringe. So we are opposite of the scope both getting massively banned, maybe we have more in common than we think? Still suck to put in that much time and get the raw end.
NIIIIICE, monkey wrench in the system! I have alts I don't use to keep my NSFW subs up. I just have to get creative they don't find the connection. It kills me cause none of them are HC, mostly fetish models I to an interest in...
If you're going to run a poll to decide the future of this sub, you should have the poll be off-reddit and linked here. They've edited comments in the past, what makes you think they wouldn't edit poll results to favor them?
I assume they've been browser fingerprinting for a long time since they banned 8+ accounts, including ones I haven't logged in to for like 4 years (I created a new account every time one hits ~10k karma for privacy)
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.
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.
Completely ignored any questions or comments about PR or the conduct of reddit staff. Answered all of 7 questions, probably plants.
This seems to be their modus operandi for visible communication... Answer a few pre-baked questions to make things look nice for the press. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, it's still a dumpster fire full of tires, oil, and gasoline. One dude is telling all the onlookers to stay calm, while everyone else is throwing wood, paper, water, etc on it to "try" to put it out.
No one should participate in a single meeting until they fire Steve Huffman. They cannot begin to mend the shit relationship they created unless they apologize for his bullshit…and that apology won’t mean anything if he still works there.
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.
Fucking eh. So good to see some honest reddit mods keeping the admins honest. The reddit wide bans for frivolous reasons would be a good improvement too. They went ban-happy for a while there
Feels like they need them for unpaid work, but also don't want to give them too much power. A pretty interested conundrum. Glad I'm not spending effort maintaining a subreddit given how thankless the job is 🤯
The CEO decided to flex and disregard massive blowback at an unpopular change. He marginalized his dissenters in interviews, saying shit that implied the dissenters were childish and their impotent tantrum will run out of steam.
For the CEO of the biggest internet social platform, he has no fucking idea how volatile the internet temperament is. You don't just poke the bear and walk away unscathed.
I know I love making time on a busy work day to volunteer for a large company that doesn't respect my efforts. Maybe they'll send me a sticker or something.
The only thing u/spez cares about it $$$. It’s not about the communities as a whole anymore. I understand server space isn’t exactly cheap, never has been, but Reddit, unlike Lemmy, is all about profit. There is no way that the ridiculous amount he wants for the api use age is sustainable for anybody that is trying to make Reddit useable for the masses. They just realized they weren’t getting any ad revenue from the apps that he couldn’t convince to show them. When I left reddit every other post was an ad
Reddit's not just interested in server costs now, though, they need to extract the maximum profit out of all their content. (We may have created the content, but they own it now).
Their main beef with the 3rd party apps seems to be that they were profitable while Reddit itself wasn't. But those apps did one thing, and did it well. Reddit is super bloated and out of touch.
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 can't. Not without removing the part that makes reddit worthwhile, which are small dedicated communities.
Sure, an AI can moderate shit like /pics /politics /funny /gaming. Those are basically just garbage article/repost feeds anyway.
Can an AI moderate say... buildapcsales? Where you need a human moderator to verify if the deal is valid, add additional info to the flair and mark deals as expired? Technically yes, but it would require a specially trained AI, that knows how to scrape particular websites and avoid detection, which is not a great look for reddit and is also a ton of work.
What about a TV show subreddit? There has been instances where episodes were leaked, and the moderators had to protect the community from spoilers. Can an AI do it? Again, if it's manually trained on this new data it could. But are reddit employees going to illegally download leaked episodes to feed the to the algorithm?
At that point, you'd be spending more time and money on babysitting each AI than if you just moderated manually.
I think Reddit leadership has lost sight of what makes them worth visiting and is trying to simplify everything to become another Instagram/Tiktok.
Give it two years and it’ll be barely recognizable with this leadership, at which point another leader will be brought in to try to return it back to what it was but it will be too late.
I can see it as a complementary kind of modding system, where it looks for specifically spammy content and auto filters it out for review. The points you bring up are valid and will be very hard for an AI to replace.
More realistically ruined the parts of the internet that those with money were able to create or buy. Large swaths of the internet (especially now with the fediverse) are decentralized or decentralizing so one rich assholes decisions has less of an impact on overall use and enjoyment of platforms.
"We're gonna listen to your complaints. We're not actually gonna do anything about them, but we will listen to them. Oh, and please don't record our meetings so that when the bad press about these meetings comes out and we lie about them, there won't be proof of us lying this time kthxbye!"
If they had recognised what they had done to piss people off, this post would've done quite alot. If they had said that they fucked up when making the API changes and wanted mods to come help rebuild the API, that alone would've done an impressive amount to lower peoples nerves. They wouldn't have even needed to have acted on the advise. Instead they take zero blame, which imo only pisses more people off.
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:
August: Seattle
September: Chicago
October: Bangalore, Birmingham (UK), Chennai, Delhi, Hamburg, London, Mumbai, Pune, São Paulo, Washington DC
November: Lyon, Paris, San Francisco
December: Denver
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.
I thought of writing a reply over there and maybe they'd get something out of it, but i think anything said will fall on deaf ears. It would have been short and maybe been more for my benefit then theirs by getting some feelings out (edit: Can of worms opened & were off...).
I joined up on Reddit to interact with some nerds, i thought they were funny. It really helped me get through some trying times, especially watching "The game" and looking forward to its daily updates. Im sad it didnt finish. After the subs mod asked for more mods, i put my hand up and helped out for a bit with another new mod. This mod who asked was effectively running the place.
The active, long time mod sought to gain the top mod position as there were other mods who were doing tens of actions a month while they and the new mods were doing thousands. Reddit knocked the request back saying they counted as active. It was things like approving posts that didnt need to be approved and unstickying posts.
Without going into intermod drama, the active long time mod left and i followed shortly after. I had been spending many hours in the sub, getting rid of spam etc and something hit one day after the ad-free time from a platinum i was gifted ran out and i started seeing ads. I felt that Reddit giving active mods a free premium was the least they could do. I was seeing how much time i spend in the app and had other things to do.
I think Reddit has lost something, it feels different and likely the 3rd party apps have lead to a lot of key contributors leaving. After that kicked off I started putting one foot out the door over there and now i'd say ive got two out. I might stilll drop in sometime, but by will to create has completely gone. And I'm annoyed how r/blind was treated.
I wont be participating in place although i did for place 22 and found it fun. I will be curious about the results though and if someone goes to place extra pixels again. I know they are pushing for an IPO and think it will end up different to however anyone envisaged it happening in January.
I'm happy with Lemmy and this instance and will try my best to be a good participant here in recognition of donated server time and it being run as a hobby. Thanks lemmy.world admins for running and hosting and being open and honest about policies and events.