They Owe it All To Clean Living
March 21, 2024 6:36 AM Subscribe
Kevin Roose writes in today's NYT about how content moderation made Reddit what it is today - a successful IPO "Today, Reddit is a gem of the internet, and a trusted source of news and entertainment for millions of people. It’s one of the last big platforms that feel unmistakably human — messy and rough around the edges, sure, but a place where real people gather to talk about real things, unmediated by algorithms and largely free of mindless engagement bait. "
No, really. Just ignore the porn, and everything is great. Really.
That unpaid work is why I find this Reddit IPO very outrageous.
We here at MetaFilter are struggling to figure out how to balance paid moderation and achieving NPO status because paying people who are doing work for you is important. But Reddit is going public on the backs of volunteer labor in a way that smacks vaguely of slave labor only it's voluntary so it's okay?
I like the fact that Reddit exists, but it should not be a public company. it should be a public utility.
posted by hippybear at 7:02 AM on March 21 [69 favorites]
We here at MetaFilter are struggling to figure out how to balance paid moderation and achieving NPO status because paying people who are doing work for you is important. But Reddit is going public on the backs of volunteer labor in a way that smacks vaguely of slave labor only it's voluntary so it's okay?
I like the fact that Reddit exists, but it should not be a public company. it should be a public utility.
posted by hippybear at 7:02 AM on March 21 [69 favorites]
So many posts on /r/AskHistorians are deleted almost immediately it always surprises me when an interesting question is asked, upvoted lots, and then there's nothing to look at. Spitballing, speculation not allowed. The result is good, cited info. But it's also a great reminder of how much out there, even in well intentioned spaces, is humble opinion that just sounds plausible.
posted by bendybendy at 7:04 AM on March 21 [17 favorites]
posted by bendybendy at 7:04 AM on March 21 [17 favorites]
As an ex-redditor I did not read TFA but the pull quote leaves me cold. Because, first off, what was already said about the volunteer labor that is being monetized here. And second, because of the enshittification (strictly speaking) that's been going on over there for the last few years. And third, because of the technical inferiority of the platform, which is what makes so much of that volunteer labor necessary.
Also @bendybendy,
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:15 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
Also @bendybendy,
how much out there, even in well intentioned spaces, isI've seen a lot of not so humble opinion DBA objective fact on reddit. Humility is not typically a feature of this kind of opinionating.humbleopinion that just sounds plausible
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:15 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
Is Reddit really anything besides monetized Usenet? Why does free stuff get marginalized and abandoned in favor of tools that are usually worse and makes somebody unethical amounts of money?
posted by rikschell at 7:20 AM on March 21 [47 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 7:20 AM on March 21 [47 favorites]
reddit is a digital labor camp
posted by MonsieurPEB at 7:20 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
posted by MonsieurPEB at 7:20 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
They pay u/spez a lot of money and sell user content to AI companies. "Unmistakeably human", indeed.
BTW I deleted my account and I don't have any remorse about doing it.
posted by tommasz at 7:22 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
BTW I deleted my account and I don't have any remorse about doing it.
posted by tommasz at 7:22 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
Please tell us how Reddit moderation is like "slave labor" or a "labor camp". Looking in particular for the parts about being forced, or imprisoned, or your children being born as chattel to be part of the moderator caste.
Surely no one here would diminish the actual awful abuses of slavery or labor camps by using those terms as synonyms for "unpaid labor"?
posted by Nelson at 7:28 AM on March 21 [56 favorites]
Surely no one here would diminish the actual awful abuses of slavery or labor camps by using those terms as synonyms for "unpaid labor"?
posted by Nelson at 7:28 AM on March 21 [56 favorites]
Afaik no one is being forced to moderate Reddit. It sucks that some people get to reap real profits from the volunteer labor of others. But churches do it all the time. It’s marginally better than 4chan and it hasn’t been banned in eight states. But I miss when the internet was mostly free stuff.
posted by rikschell at 7:29 AM on March 21 [6 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 7:29 AM on March 21 [6 favorites]
Metafilter: It should be a public utility
posted by otherchaz at 7:31 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]
posted by otherchaz at 7:31 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]
Yeah, I don't think we should compare Reddit moderation to slave labor, but it definitely is odious that a small number of people are going to (ostensibly) get rich off the backs of volunteer labor.
Then again, I don't really understand why volunteer moderation is legal; you cannot really volunteer for a for-profit entity, at least in the United States.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:45 AM on March 21 [6 favorites]
Then again, I don't really understand why volunteer moderation is legal; you cannot really volunteer for a for-profit entity, at least in the United States.
posted by rhymedirective at 7:45 AM on March 21 [6 favorites]
Mod note: Quick mod note based on a few flags: Please remember to be considerate and respectful (per the Guidelines) and choose your words carefully. On that same note, consider not getting too hung up on the word choice that others have already used in the thread (ie 'slave' and 'labor' may not have been the best choices, but let's move on from that instead of arguing about the meaning of those words)
Instead, read the article, which is a gift link, and talk about the subject, aka, how content moderation helped improve Reddit overall.
No comments have been removed, this is just a note.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:52 AM on March 21 [15 favorites]
Instead, read the article, which is a gift link, and talk about the subject, aka, how content moderation helped improve Reddit overall.
No comments have been removed, this is just a note.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:52 AM on March 21 [15 favorites]
you cannot really volunteer for a for-profit entity, at least in the United States.
Well, there are unpaid internships.
posted by grubi at 7:52 AM on March 21 [21 favorites]
Well, there are unpaid internships.
posted by grubi at 7:52 AM on March 21 [21 favorites]
It'd be interesting to hear from some volunteer moderators why they do it. My guess is for the smaller communities it's because they like the community and want to help shape it. I think the company exploits that community spirit. I would rather see moderators compensated.
Roose's article only talks about this tangentially but the revolt last year mostly failed. It was nasty for a couple of months but many moderators eventually gave in, others quit entirely and Reddit just replaced them (by force, in some cases.) It was an ugly struggle reminiscent a bit of American union-busting strikes in the early 20th. But the company prevailed and won and here they are going public. The site today basically works juts as well as it did a year ago although I wince every time I see some well-linked old post that's been deleted though.
Also worth noting that revolt wasn't about moderators getting paid. It was mostly complaining about the moderation tools and policies, particularly API restrictions that shut down third party clients and moderator tools. The stuff I read from mods was being mad that they weren't being respected, or supported. But they weren't demanding wages.
An actual moderator strike, for wages, would be a very interesting thing to see. I have no idea if it would succeed.
posted by Nelson at 7:54 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]
Roose's article only talks about this tangentially but the revolt last year mostly failed. It was nasty for a couple of months but many moderators eventually gave in, others quit entirely and Reddit just replaced them (by force, in some cases.) It was an ugly struggle reminiscent a bit of American union-busting strikes in the early 20th. But the company prevailed and won and here they are going public. The site today basically works juts as well as it did a year ago although I wince every time I see some well-linked old post that's been deleted though.
Also worth noting that revolt wasn't about moderators getting paid. It was mostly complaining about the moderation tools and policies, particularly API restrictions that shut down third party clients and moderator tools. The stuff I read from mods was being mad that they weren't being respected, or supported. But they weren't demanding wages.
An actual moderator strike, for wages, would be a very interesting thing to see. I have no idea if it would succeed.
posted by Nelson at 7:54 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]
Reddit is good at one thing, which is having a large community of people who can tolerate the interface, same as many, many other sites.
Their ongoing success will come, if it does, despite their efforts at monetization. They recently had a big blow-up over API access, and are doing some other shady things like trying to force you to turn notifications on for their official app if you want to see if somebody responded to your post. These are monetization efforts, and when they are noticed, they piss users off.
Other signs of their difficulties in adding value beyond the original format of the platform for users:
-frequent updates/sunsets on rewards/trophy/user flair things that users can spend money on. You don't re-do this system every year or two because it's working how you want and how the users want it to.
-half-baked chat functions
-the worst recommendation algorithm i've ever seen in the wild. I am subscribed to three regional subreddits, for the region I live in--my city subreddit, the state subreddit, and the state politics subreddit. So what posts does the algo think I should see, to further generate my engagement with the site? They show me posts from other regional subreddits. Why do I care about if this Philly bar owner pays his employees correctly? What makes anyone think the shenanigans in Bowling Green interest me? Yet every single day, that's what the algo decides, of all the things I've subscribed to, that it can get its teeth into and recommend similar subreddits and content, and it's so dumb.
posted by turntraitor at 7:54 AM on March 21 [11 favorites]
Their ongoing success will come, if it does, despite their efforts at monetization. They recently had a big blow-up over API access, and are doing some other shady things like trying to force you to turn notifications on for their official app if you want to see if somebody responded to your post. These are monetization efforts, and when they are noticed, they piss users off.
Other signs of their difficulties in adding value beyond the original format of the platform for users:
-frequent updates/sunsets on rewards/trophy/user flair things that users can spend money on. You don't re-do this system every year or two because it's working how you want and how the users want it to.
-half-baked chat functions
-the worst recommendation algorithm i've ever seen in the wild. I am subscribed to three regional subreddits, for the region I live in--my city subreddit, the state subreddit, and the state politics subreddit. So what posts does the algo think I should see, to further generate my engagement with the site? They show me posts from other regional subreddits. Why do I care about if this Philly bar owner pays his employees correctly? What makes anyone think the shenanigans in Bowling Green interest me? Yet every single day, that's what the algo decides, of all the things I've subscribed to, that it can get its teeth into and recommend similar subreddits and content, and it's so dumb.
posted by turntraitor at 7:54 AM on March 21 [11 favorites]
Well, there are unpaid internships.
Yep, hence the "really".
posted by rhymedirective at 7:59 AM on March 21
Yep, hence the "really".
posted by rhymedirective at 7:59 AM on March 21
Pre-IPO "clean up" is all well and good, but I predict clouds of defensive diahrrea post-IPO.
posted by swift at 8:07 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
posted by swift at 8:07 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
Reddit's better than Usenet because, at least on the subs I read, there's less spam. I haven't been on usenet in over a decade, but I doubt that it's gotten any better.
The other site I frequent, RPGNet also uses volunteer mods, and actually just got sold from one company to another. The impression I've gotten is that the mods do it for the community they've built over the past couple of decades. A couple of issues is that historically, the site hasn't made enough money to pay the mods. The administrator draws a salary, but I'm not sure if anyone else does. Also, the moderators live all over the world. Dealing with employment and tax laws laws all over the globe is a nonstarter for many small companies.
posted by Spike Glee at 8:08 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
The other site I frequent, RPGNet also uses volunteer mods, and actually just got sold from one company to another. The impression I've gotten is that the mods do it for the community they've built over the past couple of decades. A couple of issues is that historically, the site hasn't made enough money to pay the mods. The administrator draws a salary, but I'm not sure if anyone else does. Also, the moderators live all over the world. Dealing with employment and tax laws laws all over the globe is a nonstarter for many small companies.
posted by Spike Glee at 8:08 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
Then again, I don't really understand why volunteer moderation is legal; you cannot really volunteer for a for-profit entity, at least in the United States.
If reddit charged for setting up a subreddit would you object? They are providing hosting, software, a name-brand domain and a level of paid moderation and support. It makes sense to me that this is a service some groups might find useful and worth some money.
Instead they give you a place to set up a forum for free. You can basically do as much or as little moderating as you want to keep the forum running. Paid employees may shut you down if your forum becomes especially bad, but it's pretty laissez-faire. But because they provide it for free now some people's intuition is that they should get paid for accepting the free service.
The real life equivalent would be something like a privately owned "public space" that says you can use it for parties, recitals, soccer games, etc., rent-free, but they sell advertising and run a concessions stand. Or something like a book club that meets at a local cafe. So other people make a profit off of your "work" organizing.
I've helped run volunteer groups. It absolutely can feel like you've been sucked into something and are obligated to keep doing it long after the joy of "giving back to the community" has faded. But the solution is still to stop doing it and see if anyone else steps up.
posted by mark k at 8:09 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
If reddit charged for setting up a subreddit would you object? They are providing hosting, software, a name-brand domain and a level of paid moderation and support. It makes sense to me that this is a service some groups might find useful and worth some money.
Instead they give you a place to set up a forum for free. You can basically do as much or as little moderating as you want to keep the forum running. Paid employees may shut you down if your forum becomes especially bad, but it's pretty laissez-faire. But because they provide it for free now some people's intuition is that they should get paid for accepting the free service.
The real life equivalent would be something like a privately owned "public space" that says you can use it for parties, recitals, soccer games, etc., rent-free, but they sell advertising and run a concessions stand. Or something like a book club that meets at a local cafe. So other people make a profit off of your "work" organizing.
I've helped run volunteer groups. It absolutely can feel like you've been sucked into something and are obligated to keep doing it long after the joy of "giving back to the community" has faded. But the solution is still to stop doing it and see if anyone else steps up.
posted by mark k at 8:09 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
A couple of issues is that historically, the site hasn't made enough money to pay the mods.
I was just listening to the latest Morning Brew Daily podcast and they were talking about Reddit's IPO and mentioned that the site has 73 million users, but is unprofitable.
Took me back to the early days of the internet, when micro-transactions were touted as the future. Looking at those numbers from Reddit, I wonder where it all went wrong. Why can't a site with tens of millions of users come up with some way to pay for people whose work helps the site? I'm not saying it would be easy to do, but it is one of the most interesting questions in all of this, IMO.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:15 AM on March 21 [13 favorites]
I was just listening to the latest Morning Brew Daily podcast and they were talking about Reddit's IPO and mentioned that the site has 73 million users, but is unprofitable.
Took me back to the early days of the internet, when micro-transactions were touted as the future. Looking at those numbers from Reddit, I wonder where it all went wrong. Why can't a site with tens of millions of users come up with some way to pay for people whose work helps the site? I'm not saying it would be easy to do, but it is one of the most interesting questions in all of this, IMO.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:15 AM on March 21 [13 favorites]
Paying Reddit mods is a difficult proposition, because for some subs it would literally be a full time job for multiple people, and for others it’s gig work that takes less than 5 hours a week. It doesn’t make sense (to me) for mods of the big subs to be paid on gig work terms, or for mods of small subs to be paid on staff/hourly terms. And I don’t know if it suits the platform to have generic mods assigned to oversee niche communities.
I think a strength of the platform is that individual communities can be self-shaping and governing. Sometimes the mods create rules and guidelines which informs what kind of users join them to discuss the topic, and sometimes communities are democratic(ish) about the rules/guidelines/content, and people step up to enforce them.
In the communities I still visit (crafting- and fandom-related, mostly) since I had to remove Apollo from my phone, it’s a mix of both. And it’s nice that people who are familiar with the topics are the ones overseeing the content.
Another issue to consider is that sometimes mods *are* being paid. I primarily see this with indie games, but the company will have staffers create and moderate a subreddit about their game.
posted by itesser at 8:22 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
I think a strength of the platform is that individual communities can be self-shaping and governing. Sometimes the mods create rules and guidelines which informs what kind of users join them to discuss the topic, and sometimes communities are democratic(ish) about the rules/guidelines/content, and people step up to enforce them.
In the communities I still visit (crafting- and fandom-related, mostly) since I had to remove Apollo from my phone, it’s a mix of both. And it’s nice that people who are familiar with the topics are the ones overseeing the content.
Another issue to consider is that sometimes mods *are* being paid. I primarily see this with indie games, but the company will have staffers create and moderate a subreddit about their game.
posted by itesser at 8:22 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
>Why can't a site with tens of millions of users come up with some way to pay for people whose work helps the site?
Ultimately I think this boils down to a question of what older forms or places are sites like Reddit replacing? Usenet worked because it was government subsidized. It works now because people just generally pay to access it.
But what did Usenet, forums, bulletin boards, and ultimately reddit replace? A place that probably had either an official or unofficial member roster, maybe a newsletter your yearly membership fee went to, a beer cooler in the corner of the member's club that you dropped a nickel into a jar when you went for a fresh one.
So, there's tons of advantages to that old model that we've lost--all the social cues and informal social knowledge about who knows their shit and who just bloviates, all that context can be difficult to build up on the internet, but it also removes the fundamental aspect of who is ultimately responsible for the place we gather around this shared interest? It removes that from the interest-based community, and places the onus onto a CFO.
posted by turntraitor at 8:23 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
Ultimately I think this boils down to a question of what older forms or places are sites like Reddit replacing? Usenet worked because it was government subsidized. It works now because people just generally pay to access it.
But what did Usenet, forums, bulletin boards, and ultimately reddit replace? A place that probably had either an official or unofficial member roster, maybe a newsletter your yearly membership fee went to, a beer cooler in the corner of the member's club that you dropped a nickel into a jar when you went for a fresh one.
So, there's tons of advantages to that old model that we've lost--all the social cues and informal social knowledge about who knows their shit and who just bloviates, all that context can be difficult to build up on the internet, but it also removes the fundamental aspect of who is ultimately responsible for the place we gather around this shared interest? It removes that from the interest-based community, and places the onus onto a CFO.
posted by turntraitor at 8:23 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
To Brandon Blatcher's question about Reddit finances, I think it's interesting Reddit has never had traditional Internet ads. They could make a killing with Google AdSense or the like. Instead they have their own terrible Reddit ads product, by all accounts ad revenue is very small for them. I assume a decision was made early that the easy Internet ad placements wouldn't work well with Reddit's community. They are growing their own ad product, now in a newly deceptive format, maybe that will work out to be significant revenue for them. One-off AI licensing deals sure won't.
I think paying mods isn't as complicated as itesser makes out. Pay a full time wage to professional moderators for the big subreddits. Have some sort of smaller hourly / per post payment for folks moderating small subreddits where it's just a part time gig. The problem for Reddit is they have to be willing to spend that money. Also paying moderators empowers them and gives them more formal status. Reddit has consistently treated its moderators poorly all along, I think to avoid them having too much power. It seems to be working for them, it's just gross.
As for moderators of gaming reddits getting paid by the game companies; that is absolutely a thing and not just for indie games. A lot of subreddits for major games are moderated mostly or entirely by people paid by the gaming company. Who then shape the discussion to remove critical posts. Total conflict of interest and often not disclosed properly. Sometimes you see second subreddits for big games that are moderated independently just to work around the corporate censorship.
posted by Nelson at 8:30 AM on March 21 [6 favorites]
I think paying mods isn't as complicated as itesser makes out. Pay a full time wage to professional moderators for the big subreddits. Have some sort of smaller hourly / per post payment for folks moderating small subreddits where it's just a part time gig. The problem for Reddit is they have to be willing to spend that money. Also paying moderators empowers them and gives them more formal status. Reddit has consistently treated its moderators poorly all along, I think to avoid them having too much power. It seems to be working for them, it's just gross.
As for moderators of gaming reddits getting paid by the game companies; that is absolutely a thing and not just for indie games. A lot of subreddits for major games are moderated mostly or entirely by people paid by the gaming company. Who then shape the discussion to remove critical posts. Total conflict of interest and often not disclosed properly. Sometimes you see second subreddits for big games that are moderated independently just to work around the corporate censorship.
posted by Nelson at 8:30 AM on March 21 [6 favorites]
Yeah, I don't think we should compare Reddit moderation to slave labor, but it definitely is odious that a small number of people are going to (ostensibly) get rich off the backs of volunteer labor.
Not to let Reddit of the hook, but Facebook, TikTok, X, and other social media sites are getting rich off people creating free content for them to use. The AI companies are getting rich (maybe someday) by stealing said content. It's a much bigger problem than just Reddit.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:33 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]
Not to let Reddit of the hook, but Facebook, TikTok, X, and other social media sites are getting rich off people creating free content for them to use. The AI companies are getting rich (maybe someday) by stealing said content. It's a much bigger problem than just Reddit.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:33 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]
you cannot really volunteer for a for-profit entity, at least in the United States.
Of course you can. It is completely legal? Maybe not, but does anyone care? Also no.
"Voluntold" is the common euphemism. The mega corp I work for regularly asks employees and their family members to volunteer for major sporting events to do various activities, including what should be paid outreach for our products but other stuff too, like ferrying VIP guests and handing out programs.
I actually find the Metafilter drama about volunteers to be refreshingly honest and earnest.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:36 AM on March 21 [5 favorites]
Of course you can. It is completely legal? Maybe not, but does anyone care? Also no.
"Voluntold" is the common euphemism. The mega corp I work for regularly asks employees and their family members to volunteer for major sporting events to do various activities, including what should be paid outreach for our products but other stuff too, like ferrying VIP guests and handing out programs.
I actually find the Metafilter drama about volunteers to be refreshingly honest and earnest.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:36 AM on March 21 [5 favorites]
StackOverflow is another site with a lot of volunteer moderation happening... I think it's more reasonable in that context, where permissible questions and answers are (relatively) narrowly-defined. Metafilter, in contrast, has wide-ranging topics and a more-coherent community, which I think warrants paying our moderators.
With Reddit... I think the aforementioned enshittification is what really gets me. If a public resource is created with a mix of paid and volunteer labor, that's fine. If the paid people (or worse: the investors) have absolute authority to wreck the whole thing regardless of the desires of every other stakeholder, that is not fine.
posted by McBearclaw at 8:36 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
With Reddit... I think the aforementioned enshittification is what really gets me. If a public resource is created with a mix of paid and volunteer labor, that's fine. If the paid people (or worse: the investors) have absolute authority to wreck the whole thing regardless of the desires of every other stakeholder, that is not fine.
posted by McBearclaw at 8:36 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
This is a bizarro world article. Reddit is what I point to when I want to point at an example of an absolute cesspool. I stopped using reddit almost a year ago and my daily life has only improved. No longer getting angry, ignorant, bigoted comments every couple hours from different dipshit redditors. I don't care that there are occasional gems of discussion or small pockets for niche hobbies because I don't feel like mucking around a mountain of human shit looking for bits of corn.
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:45 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 8:45 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
This is just typical capitalist rent seeking behavior. Find needed work people are already doing for the benefit of their communities and figure out how to monetize the product of their labor.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:54 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
posted by The Manwich Horror at 8:54 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
By the statistics I see, the sub I founded is in the top 3-5% on the site by membership. I've been moderating online spaces since the 90s and my philosophy is that a well-moderated space with a clear philosophy tends to lead to more discussion at more depth. Oh, and don't give in to rules lawyers. That's what attracted me to MetaFilter over 20 years ago. I think the size and ongoing nature of the sub I help run is a testament to that as it's quite a bit larger than most comparable ones.
While I have borrowed quite a lot from MetaFilter over the years, I also think the philosophy has been taken too far over the last decade or so. There's no new blood and I think it has made the front page kind of stale. It's still a daily stop for me and I still put in my monthly subscription, but the system seems to borrow elements from NYC community boards, suburban HOAs, DSA sub-committees, and sci-fi parodies of anarcho-syndicalist communes, and not always the best elements.
While I think the MetaFilter system warrants actual paid jobs, I don't want to get paid a salary for this work on reddit. It's something I do because I enjoy fostering community and building a community around the topic I set up the sub for. Reddit did give us the option to get in on the IPO ahead of time, and I picked up some shares, though I think a small outright stock grant would have been preferable. What I would really like is something like YouTube's Partner Program, where the mods of a sub can get a share of the ad revenue.
It can be a lot of work and sometimes for almost no reward beyond knowing the community is going well. Over the years I've been harassed, stalked, doxxed, had someone find out where I work and call there and say all sorts of untrue things about me. It's actually kept me from going to meetups anymore. But I still truck along because I get told often enough how much people enjoy the community I started. In the end that's reward-enough for me.
posted by Captaintripps at 8:59 AM on March 21 [30 favorites]
While I have borrowed quite a lot from MetaFilter over the years, I also think the philosophy has been taken too far over the last decade or so. There's no new blood and I think it has made the front page kind of stale. It's still a daily stop for me and I still put in my monthly subscription, but the system seems to borrow elements from NYC community boards, suburban HOAs, DSA sub-committees, and sci-fi parodies of anarcho-syndicalist communes, and not always the best elements.
While I think the MetaFilter system warrants actual paid jobs, I don't want to get paid a salary for this work on reddit. It's something I do because I enjoy fostering community and building a community around the topic I set up the sub for. Reddit did give us the option to get in on the IPO ahead of time, and I picked up some shares, though I think a small outright stock grant would have been preferable. What I would really like is something like YouTube's Partner Program, where the mods of a sub can get a share of the ad revenue.
It can be a lot of work and sometimes for almost no reward beyond knowing the community is going well. Over the years I've been harassed, stalked, doxxed, had someone find out where I work and call there and say all sorts of untrue things about me. It's actually kept me from going to meetups anymore. But I still truck along because I get told often enough how much people enjoy the community I started. In the end that's reward-enough for me.
posted by Captaintripps at 8:59 AM on March 21 [30 favorites]
Thanks for sharing your moderation experience, Captaintripps! I'm sorry you can't go to meetups, that's awful. I'm glad (and a little surprised) you still find the experience overall rewarding enough to do it.
Some other subreddits I've liked. r/AskGaybrosOver30, the closest to a general-purpose gay subreddit I enjoy (albeit men only, and entirely cis-men from what I've seen). A great example of a moderator team making a place good. There's a similar /r/AskGaybros which is awful because whoever runs that doesn't care what offensive garbage people post.
The other is r/gayyoungold, for people interested in intergenerational relationships. (Again mostly cis-male, although some trans-women too.) That's a relatively niche interest, and a stigmatized one at that. About half the posts are junk (but not awful) and half are really sincere stories of people sharing their lives or experiences discovering their unusual tastes. The moderation here must be tough; much of the junk looks like catfishing to me and people sometimes test the strict over-18 policy.
It's worth noting that both of these subreddits has one specific moderator who's quite visible and occasionally writes posts setting the tone for the forum. They are very good at what they do, creating a community.
posted by Nelson at 9:04 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
Some other subreddits I've liked. r/AskGaybrosOver30, the closest to a general-purpose gay subreddit I enjoy (albeit men only, and entirely cis-men from what I've seen). A great example of a moderator team making a place good. There's a similar /r/AskGaybros which is awful because whoever runs that doesn't care what offensive garbage people post.
The other is r/gayyoungold, for people interested in intergenerational relationships. (Again mostly cis-male, although some trans-women too.) That's a relatively niche interest, and a stigmatized one at that. About half the posts are junk (but not awful) and half are really sincere stories of people sharing their lives or experiences discovering their unusual tastes. The moderation here must be tough; much of the junk looks like catfishing to me and people sometimes test the strict over-18 policy.
It's worth noting that both of these subreddits has one specific moderator who's quite visible and occasionally writes posts setting the tone for the forum. They are very good at what they do, creating a community.
posted by Nelson at 9:04 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
It'd be interesting to hear from some volunteer moderators why they do it.
I participate in an all-volunteer dev group for an OSS video game. The relevant subreddit is one of the more activate places that people talk about the game, and it has been moderated by devs for a while, so I joined maybe 5 years ago to help out. Here's why I still do it:
posted by advil at 9:07 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
I participate in an all-volunteer dev group for an OSS video game. The relevant subreddit is one of the more activate places that people talk about the game, and it has been moderated by devs for a while, so I joined maybe 5 years ago to help out. Here's why I still do it:
- Many of the other moderators faded or became inactive over time (fair)
- No one else on the devteam is interested in joining because reddit sucks and community management can be fairly unfun (fair)
- After the mod protests I created a discourse forum so that we'd have our own space (we used to have a phpbb but the server admin stopped supporting it) and this is still going + working fine. But, people still default to reddit, so the sub is quite a bit more active.
- The larger community has right wing trolls with actual histories of taking over video game subs who would jump at the chance if the sub were unmoderated.
- After the mod protests I tried to find community volunteers to join the subreddit mod team so I could step down. One of them was fine, the other (who seemed fine up until this point) stealth-unbanned one of the aforementioned trolls and caused a whole bunch of drama. I haven't yet tried again.
posted by advil at 9:07 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
I founded a subreddit that now has 35000 subscribers. I posted daily content for a year, but mostly stopped after I saw someone link to it from somewhere and say 'most of the content there has already appeared here, but...' Then the reddit 'revolt' happened last summer, it left a bad taste in my mouth, and I have stepped away from the forum except for the occasional visit to remove the spam that appears twice a week.
I was offered IPO shares and passed; the downside seemed considerable and the upside potential seems mostly based on meme-stock status.
Reddit was a cesspool for a long time. It has been significantly cleaned up since 10 years ago. I used to think it was worthless. After about the tenth time I saw some teenager escape an abusive situation from parents or partner due to helpful advice, I changed my mind.
I blocked it on my phone for several months; turned off the block after i realized that reading the news was MORE upsetting than reading stupid relationship subs.
posted by bq at 9:15 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]
I was offered IPO shares and passed; the downside seemed considerable and the upside potential seems mostly based on meme-stock status.
Reddit was a cesspool for a long time. It has been significantly cleaned up since 10 years ago. I used to think it was worthless. After about the tenth time I saw some teenager escape an abusive situation from parents or partner due to helpful advice, I changed my mind.
I blocked it on my phone for several months; turned off the block after i realized that reading the news was MORE upsetting than reading stupid relationship subs.
posted by bq at 9:15 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]
I’m somewhat surprised Reddit went IPO with all the porn subs (more or less) intact.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:46 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
posted by Thorzdad at 9:46 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
Yeah, Reddit is a lot like a commercialized Usenet, but one that has replaced overwhelming shit tons of spam with a sprinkling of sponsored posts. If we can get Usenet back to usable somehow please tell me and sign me up!
I thought briefly of getting into the IPO through their offer, but then I remembered I hate tech stocks/meme stocks, so no for me.
The general Reddit advice is to avoid awfulness by avoiding large topic and large membership subs. Recall it was also very easy to find really vile and offensive crap all over Usenet in the 90s too. I read stuff like /r/pixelart, /r/kites, /r/($small_indie_game), and there just isn't too much bad stuff there. But when I lived in Austin and read /r/Austin, it was full of assholes and racists of all stripes. So I don't do that type of sub anymore. Shout out to /r/synthesizers for being decently big (373k) and absolutely intolerant of bullshit. Seen lots of stuff deleted there with the explanation like "synthesizer history is trans history, if you say anything even remotely questionable about trans people we will ban you". Same for misogyny, racism, etc. Even run-of-the-mill internet dickishness is looked down upon and can get you deleted, much like here. So they are my go-to example of what's good about Reddit (and far better than anything comparable on FB or even topic-based fora like (ugh) Muff Wiggler and Gearslutz (E: lol I see now they changed in 2021 to Gearspace and Mod Wiggler—too little too late, asshats).
Another thing Reddit has that nobody else does: the enormous reach and user base that enables even ultra-niche topics to have a community. My friend has a child with a very rare cancer, and the only place anyone is able to share their experiences with this is on reddit. Sure, some overlap with general cancer groups, but she said it was really valuable to her to talk to people who knew about the exact thing.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:48 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]
I thought briefly of getting into the IPO through their offer, but then I remembered I hate tech stocks/meme stocks, so no for me.
The general Reddit advice is to avoid awfulness by avoiding large topic and large membership subs. Recall it was also very easy to find really vile and offensive crap all over Usenet in the 90s too. I read stuff like /r/pixelart, /r/kites, /r/($small_indie_game), and there just isn't too much bad stuff there. But when I lived in Austin and read /r/Austin, it was full of assholes and racists of all stripes. So I don't do that type of sub anymore. Shout out to /r/synthesizers for being decently big (373k) and absolutely intolerant of bullshit. Seen lots of stuff deleted there with the explanation like "synthesizer history is trans history, if you say anything even remotely questionable about trans people we will ban you". Same for misogyny, racism, etc. Even run-of-the-mill internet dickishness is looked down upon and can get you deleted, much like here. So they are my go-to example of what's good about Reddit (and far better than anything comparable on FB or even topic-based fora like (ugh) Muff Wiggler and Gearslutz (E: lol I see now they changed in 2021 to Gearspace and Mod Wiggler—too little too late, asshats).
Another thing Reddit has that nobody else does: the enormous reach and user base that enables even ultra-niche topics to have a community. My friend has a child with a very rare cancer, and the only place anyone is able to share their experiences with this is on reddit. Sure, some overlap with general cancer groups, but she said it was really valuable to her to talk to people who knew about the exact thing.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:48 AM on March 21 [7 favorites]
That unpaid work is why I find this Reddit IPO very outrageous.
Look, if we're not doing unpaid work so that billionaires can make more billions, is it really America? What? Which billionaires? Why it's a family of your old faves!
posted by The Bellman at 9:53 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]
Look, if we're not doing unpaid work so that billionaires can make more billions, is it really America? What? Which billionaires? Why it's a family of your old faves!
The Newhouse family, the media dynasty that controls Condé Nast through its holding company, Advance Publications, is set to reap a windfall of roughly $1.4 billion on Thursday when the social site Reddit is listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Condé Nast acquired Reddit for a mere $10 million in 2006, later spinning it out into a stand-alone company.- NYT: Condé Nast’s Owners Set to Reap a $1.4 Billion Windfall From Reddit
posted by The Bellman at 9:53 AM on March 21 [8 favorites]
GoblinHoney: . No longer getting angry, ignorant, bigoted comments every couple hours from different dipshit redditors.
In one of the few subreddits I follow (r/Brooklyn or r/Park Slope, can’t remember which atm), a seasonal package delivery driver (who hasn’t lived in Brooklyn long by his own admission) posted huge threads about his run-ins with a tow truck driver in Park Slope, that ended twice with his ass getting kicked. Any attempt by commenters to advise against escalating confrontations with a mobbed-up tow truck goon were downvoted to oblivion, presumably by other transplants or people who never actually set foot in Brooklyn. People from here know better and show respect.
At some point, you just let the dipshits wallow in their dipshittery and move on.
posted by dr_dank at 10:02 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
In one of the few subreddits I follow (r/Brooklyn or r/Park Slope, can’t remember which atm), a seasonal package delivery driver (who hasn’t lived in Brooklyn long by his own admission) posted huge threads about his run-ins with a tow truck driver in Park Slope, that ended twice with his ass getting kicked. Any attempt by commenters to advise against escalating confrontations with a mobbed-up tow truck goon were downvoted to oblivion, presumably by other transplants or people who never actually set foot in Brooklyn. People from here know better and show respect.
At some point, you just let the dipshits wallow in their dipshittery and move on.
posted by dr_dank at 10:02 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
I am just now thinking that I originally joined Reddit as a link aggregator when the Digg redesign hit, but over time my usage of Reddit has become pretty much entirely confined to onsite discussion posts. I don't know if this is a good change or a bad change, I just know it's certainly a change. I'm just not really subscribed to many subreddits that are really focused on "here are hot links on this subject" any more.
My ~15 years of answering questions on /r/adobeillustrator got me a nice paycheck recently when they asked me to be involved in the initial rounds of their paid avatar program. It's had a hilariously fast enshittification curve but it let me slack off a lot for a while, so that's been nice.
I also run a Mastodon and the recent waves of spam in the Fediverse have me thinking about how the dream of the Internet as a beautiful utopia of wholesome many-to-many communication fails again and again when you get to questions like "who's paying for the servers" and "who's keeping people from being assholes and by whose standards" and "what happens when someone abuses free services". There's a sweet spot for every Internet community between "too small to have anything interesting going on" and "too big to moderate" and Reddit is an interesting set of compromises that used to work pretty well as long as you're okay with your carefully-curated set of subscriptions sharing a platform with /r/the_donald, with your moderation being largely unpaid volunteers, and as long as old.reddit.com keeps working - new reddit is such a hideous pile of half-assed engagement-farming tactics.
posted by egypturnash at 10:24 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
My ~15 years of answering questions on /r/adobeillustrator got me a nice paycheck recently when they asked me to be involved in the initial rounds of their paid avatar program. It's had a hilariously fast enshittification curve but it let me slack off a lot for a while, so that's been nice.
I also run a Mastodon and the recent waves of spam in the Fediverse have me thinking about how the dream of the Internet as a beautiful utopia of wholesome many-to-many communication fails again and again when you get to questions like "who's paying for the servers" and "who's keeping people from being assholes and by whose standards" and "what happens when someone abuses free services". There's a sweet spot for every Internet community between "too small to have anything interesting going on" and "too big to moderate" and Reddit is an interesting set of compromises that used to work pretty well as long as you're okay with your carefully-curated set of subscriptions sharing a platform with /r/the_donald, with your moderation being largely unpaid volunteers, and as long as old.reddit.com keeps working - new reddit is such a hideous pile of half-assed engagement-farming tactics.
posted by egypturnash at 10:24 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
Ha, advil, I've seen you here and in the sub you mention, but never really equated the two!
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:42 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:42 AM on March 21 [4 favorites]
Ed Zitron on bsky:
How do you leave out the fact that Reddit got this big by raising a ton of money and turning it into an insanely unprofitable companyposted by General Malaise at 11:20 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]
Also how to do you leave out when Reddit threatened to remove mods who wouldnt toe the company line? Very weird piece! Very weird indeed!!!
I think paying mods isn't as complicated as itesser makes out. Pay a full time wage to professional moderators for the big subreddits. Have some sort of smaller hourly / per post payment for folks moderating small subreddits where it's just a part time gig.
I think the problem with this is that moderation needs just don't have anything like a linear relationship with community size, and pegging them to each other would risk rendering any even moderately contentious subreddit de facto unusable or unmoderatable unless it grew larger than the size threshold that qualified for full-time paid moderation. A subreddit that's subject to bad-faith actors, bots, brigading, and other manipulation (things which are pretty much baked into Reddit's culture at this point) is going to require an outsized level of moderation. Unless unpaid mods were still willing to prop up the per-post/hourly mods under the new "paying mods" scheme, the community would become toxic and unusable. And then you're right back to unpaid mods.
I'm a member of a subreddit for a blue midwestern city that lost some mods during the 2023 protests, and its political threads are now routinely, heavily manipulated by bots/suspicious accounts and brigadiers from conservative subreddits. (This isn't just suspicion, it's backed up by the user overlap analysis from https://subredditstats.com/; its top similar subreddits by user overlap include communities like r/asktrumpsupporters, r/progun, r/protectandserve, etc.) If Reddit were your only window into our city's political landscape, you'd probably come to the conclusion that it was nearly solid red, because contrary opinions are downvoted into oblivion.
posted by pullayup at 11:30 AM on March 21 [5 favorites]
I think the problem with this is that moderation needs just don't have anything like a linear relationship with community size, and pegging them to each other would risk rendering any even moderately contentious subreddit de facto unusable or unmoderatable unless it grew larger than the size threshold that qualified for full-time paid moderation. A subreddit that's subject to bad-faith actors, bots, brigading, and other manipulation (things which are pretty much baked into Reddit's culture at this point) is going to require an outsized level of moderation. Unless unpaid mods were still willing to prop up the per-post/hourly mods under the new "paying mods" scheme, the community would become toxic and unusable. And then you're right back to unpaid mods.
I'm a member of a subreddit for a blue midwestern city that lost some mods during the 2023 protests, and its political threads are now routinely, heavily manipulated by bots/suspicious accounts and brigadiers from conservative subreddits. (This isn't just suspicion, it's backed up by the user overlap analysis from https://subredditstats.com/; its top similar subreddits by user overlap include communities like r/asktrumpsupporters, r/progun, r/protectandserve, etc.) If Reddit were your only window into our city's political landscape, you'd probably come to the conclusion that it was nearly solid red, because contrary opinions are downvoted into oblivion.
posted by pullayup at 11:30 AM on March 21 [5 favorites]
Huh, I've avoided reddit pretty much always, because every story I ever heard about it was about the cesspit it had become (particularly after allowing "subreddits").
Heck, Neil Cicierega even told us to Never Go On Reddit!
When did it get good, so I can work out how many years I might have missed out on?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:48 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
Heck, Neil Cicierega even told us to Never Go On Reddit!
When did it get good, so I can work out how many years I might have missed out on?
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 11:48 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
What makes anyone think the shenanigans in Bowling Green interest me?
Sounds like someone's forgotten about the Bowling Green Massacre.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:55 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]
Sounds like someone's forgotten about the Bowling Green Massacre.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:55 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]
@rum-soaked space hobo it has always been a mixed bag. There are subs that talk about handwriting and fountain pens and tea and the discussions tend to be civil. Though rwars sometimes erupt in r/tea. Then there are other spaces that exist mostly for shitposting and those can be pretty toxic.
I was mostly on r/tea at the end but I gave up on it because there's just too much engagement with people who don't really bring anything to the discussions but also seem unclued about when to shut up.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 1:00 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]
I was mostly on r/tea at the end but I gave up on it because there's just too much engagement with people who don't really bring anything to the discussions but also seem unclued about when to shut up.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 1:00 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]
Reddit is/was useful, and while I haven't logged in or used it since API gouge day, I found old.reddit.com combined with FF and UBO a very acceptable way to use the site. Just wear gumboots to wade through the dreck that can't be avoided.
Reddit as a public utility - would be nice if there were no 'owner'. But there is and they provide the platform and have T&Cs that allow them to do whatever they want. Add the engine of greed that society is founded on and it's not surprising that this happens. They've tried various ways to monetize the site and this is just a continuation of that effort.
There's always been a deliberate effort to game reddit for commercial benefit. Fake comments and posts, bullshit subreddits, etc. SEO destroyed Google search, and now we'll have reddit et al used to game and render useless the wonderful new LLM toys that everyone is on about.
My guess is that reddit will morph into something uglier. old.reddit will disappear if it hasn't already, and you will need to provide fingerprints and a detailed family history to join. But it will hobble on. Just another tool to degrade the LLM internet. Likely the users won't be aware of that some of what came before wasn't that bad.
posted by w.fugawe at 1:11 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]
Reddit as a public utility - would be nice if there were no 'owner'. But there is and they provide the platform and have T&Cs that allow them to do whatever they want. Add the engine of greed that society is founded on and it's not surprising that this happens. They've tried various ways to monetize the site and this is just a continuation of that effort.
There's always been a deliberate effort to game reddit for commercial benefit. Fake comments and posts, bullshit subreddits, etc. SEO destroyed Google search, and now we'll have reddit et al used to game and render useless the wonderful new LLM toys that everyone is on about.
My guess is that reddit will morph into something uglier. old.reddit will disappear if it hasn't already, and you will need to provide fingerprints and a detailed family history to join. But it will hobble on. Just another tool to degrade the LLM internet. Likely the users won't be aware of that some of what came before wasn't that bad.
posted by w.fugawe at 1:11 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]
Any attempt by commenters to advise against escalating confrontations with a mobbed-up tow truck goon were downvoted to oblivion, presumably by other transplants or people who never actually set foot in Brooklyn.
Much of the advice on Reddit comes from teens with zero life experience and drama-lovers of all ages. When you take advice from Reddit, you get Reddit advice. (Don't get too smug, MetaFilter, have you seen Ask lately? Better argument against therapy than the Scientologists were ever able to make.)
Anyway, r/Brooklyn is great, loved the Court Street Bagel drama, and I find the "Are there fireworks?" posts genuinely useful.
Unfortunately, the bot problem is out of control on Reddit, and if it weren't for my need to know if there are fireworks or not, I would close my account.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:13 PM on March 21 [7 favorites]
Much of the advice on Reddit comes from teens with zero life experience and drama-lovers of all ages. When you take advice from Reddit, you get Reddit advice. (Don't get too smug, MetaFilter, have you seen Ask lately? Better argument against therapy than the Scientologists were ever able to make.)
Anyway, r/Brooklyn is great, loved the Court Street Bagel drama, and I find the "Are there fireworks?" posts genuinely useful.
Unfortunately, the bot problem is out of control on Reddit, and if it weren't for my need to know if there are fireworks or not, I would close my account.
posted by betweenthebars at 2:13 PM on March 21 [7 favorites]
I came for the cats, and stayed for the empathy.
But seriously, there's been a real uptick in obvious Putinbots spamming everything and sowing right-wing discourse, and very little if anything is being done about it. The quality of the discourse has taken a real dip.
And there really are a shit-ton of Dumb Teens. The science fiction subreddits are heavily caked with people touting Badly Written Crap With "Cool" Ideas (Blindsight and Hyperion chief among these) over and over again, and the reaction is super hostile when you point out that there's way, way better SF out there. The D&D subreddits are similar, in that there's apparently only one way to play the game, as a Combat Simulator where you have a Character Build usually based on some dumb rules exploit, and get ready for downvotes if you say you prefer to play a character with flaws.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 2:31 PM on March 21
But seriously, there's been a real uptick in obvious Putinbots spamming everything and sowing right-wing discourse, and very little if anything is being done about it. The quality of the discourse has taken a real dip.
And there really are a shit-ton of Dumb Teens. The science fiction subreddits are heavily caked with people touting Badly Written Crap With "Cool" Ideas (Blindsight and Hyperion chief among these) over and over again, and the reaction is super hostile when you point out that there's way, way better SF out there. The D&D subreddits are similar, in that there's apparently only one way to play the game, as a Combat Simulator where you have a Character Build usually based on some dumb rules exploit, and get ready for downvotes if you say you prefer to play a character with flaws.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 2:31 PM on March 21
Saw this article waking up early this morning and have been waiting all day for this thread.
Despite deleting my longest tenured reddit accounts and blocking the site on my phone, I still wind up on reddit a few times a week when trying to answer a DIY or music question. I'm sure Reddit will continue because... somehow Facebook and Nextdoor have continued on long after losing any relevance to my life. But the idea of starting a community, or opting to mod a community on Reddit, in its current form, feels like choosing to learn Carbon for developing MacOSX apps in 2011. The owners have all but told you they don't give a damn about you.
It would be terrible mission creep, but I somewhat wish Wikipedia would spin off a Reddit clone, or some utility project that centralized hosting forums and posting communities. Although not immune from problems, it seems like one of the few web organizations that has succeeding in maintaining a non-profit organization that benefits from centralization of servers and network effect.
posted by midmarch snowman at 2:50 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]
Despite deleting my longest tenured reddit accounts and blocking the site on my phone, I still wind up on reddit a few times a week when trying to answer a DIY or music question. I'm sure Reddit will continue because... somehow Facebook and Nextdoor have continued on long after losing any relevance to my life. But the idea of starting a community, or opting to mod a community on Reddit, in its current form, feels like choosing to learn Carbon for developing MacOSX apps in 2011. The owners have all but told you they don't give a damn about you.
It would be terrible mission creep, but I somewhat wish Wikipedia would spin off a Reddit clone, or some utility project that centralized hosting forums and posting communities. Although not immune from problems, it seems like one of the few web organizations that has succeeding in maintaining a non-profit organization that benefits from centralization of servers and network effect.
posted by midmarch snowman at 2:50 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]
Captaintripps, as a longtime member of the subreddit you mod-- at least one of them-- thanks for your service. It is a really good community space and has fostered some great IRL connections.
posted by hovey at 3:14 PM on March 21 [4 favorites]
posted by hovey at 3:14 PM on March 21 [4 favorites]
Blindsight and Hyperion
If Blindsight and Hyperion are the worst things the teens are reading I'm surprised and actually kind of relieved
posted by pullayup at 3:59 PM on March 21 [7 favorites]
If Blindsight and Hyperion are the worst things the teens are reading I'm surprised and actually kind of relieved
posted by pullayup at 3:59 PM on March 21 [7 favorites]
Moderating reddit is closer to singing karaoke than it is to slavery.
posted by Wood at 4:21 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]
posted by Wood at 4:21 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]
So many posts on /r/AskHistorians are deleted almost immediately it always surprises me when an interesting question is asked, upvoted lots, and then there's nothing to look at. Spitballing, speculation not allowed. The result is good, cited info. But it's also a great reminder of how much out there, even in well intentioned spaces, is humble opinion that just sounds plausible.
As someone who regularly posts (accepted) answers on r/askhistorians, it's been eye-opening to realize how difficult it is to offer meaningful information. Not that difficult in fact, but it requires forgetting presuppositions and looking for actual sources, which takes time. Most of what we think we know is basically half-remembered, regurgitated stuff, mixed with uneducated guesses. The shelf-life of informational crap is amazing. The mods of r/AskHistorians do a wonderful job but the price to pay is the elimination of most of the answers, because they're basically worthless.
posted by elgilito at 4:22 PM on March 21 [4 favorites]
As someone who regularly posts (accepted) answers on r/askhistorians, it's been eye-opening to realize how difficult it is to offer meaningful information. Not that difficult in fact, but it requires forgetting presuppositions and looking for actual sources, which takes time. Most of what we think we know is basically half-remembered, regurgitated stuff, mixed with uneducated guesses. The shelf-life of informational crap is amazing. The mods of r/AskHistorians do a wonderful job but the price to pay is the elimination of most of the answers, because they're basically worthless.
posted by elgilito at 4:22 PM on March 21 [4 favorites]
If Blindsight and Hyperion are the worst things the teens are reading I'm surprised and actually kind of relieved
Blindsight got Hugo, Nebula and Locus nominations, and Hyperion won the Hugo. I can fully understand having Opinions on them, but Badly Written Crap being one of them might need a bit more supporting evidence.
posted by Sparx at 5:10 PM on March 21 [4 favorites]
Blindsight got Hugo, Nebula and Locus nominations, and Hyperion won the Hugo. I can fully understand having Opinions on them, but Badly Written Crap being one of them might need a bit more supporting evidence.
posted by Sparx at 5:10 PM on March 21 [4 favorites]
When did it get good
If you're ever traveling to or moving to a new city, the subreddits for that city will almost always be a treasure trove of exceptionally useful information, which will usually answer all of your questions without the need to ask them. Reddit's been a fantastic resource for me in that regard for a while.
The site owners will continue to make it more obnoxious to use, though, for sure. The stupidity of killing third-party apps that mods found essential to their unpaid jobs, and the complete lack of concern with accessibility for folks with disabilities, linger as terrible signs for the future. We'll see how long it takes them to drive more big chunks of their audience away.
posted by mediareport at 6:11 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]
If you're ever traveling to or moving to a new city, the subreddits for that city will almost always be a treasure trove of exceptionally useful information, which will usually answer all of your questions without the need to ask them. Reddit's been a fantastic resource for me in that regard for a while.
The site owners will continue to make it more obnoxious to use, though, for sure. The stupidity of killing third-party apps that mods found essential to their unpaid jobs, and the complete lack of concern with accessibility for folks with disabilities, linger as terrible signs for the future. We'll see how long it takes them to drive more big chunks of their audience away.
posted by mediareport at 6:11 PM on March 21 [1 favorite]
Captaintripps, as a longtime member of the subreddit you mod-- at least one of them-- thanks for your service. It is a really good community space and has fostered some great IRL connections.
I very much appreciate hearing that from someone who frequents here, too. You made my day!
posted by Captaintripps at 6:19 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]
I very much appreciate hearing that from someone who frequents here, too. You made my day!
posted by Captaintripps at 6:19 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]
First they came for the Craigslist personal ads, and I did not speak out, because they were the Craigslist personal ads, come on.
Then they came for Twitter, and I did not speak out because it was fucking Twitter, duh.
Then they came for TikTok, and good fucking riddance, I'll tell you.
Now they're coming for Reddit, and oh well.
I'm sure it'll be fine.
posted by MrVisible at 6:41 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]
Then they came for Twitter, and I did not speak out because it was fucking Twitter, duh.
Then they came for TikTok, and good fucking riddance, I'll tell you.
Now they're coming for Reddit, and oh well.
I'm sure it'll be fine.
posted by MrVisible at 6:41 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]
-the worst recommendation algorithm i've ever seen in the wild. I am subscribed to three regional subreddits, for the region I live in--my city subreddit, the state subreddit, and the state politics subreddit. So what posts does the algo think I should see, to further generate my engagement with the site? They show me posts from other regional subreddits. Why do I care about if this Philly bar owner pays his employees correctly? What makes anyone think the shenanigans in Bowling Green interest me? Yet every single day, that's what the algo decides, of all the things I've subscribed to, that it can get its teeth into and recommend similar subreddits and content, and it's so dumb.Oh no, the recommendation algorithm works just fine. It's picking up on racist right-wing brigaders who join a bunch of local subreddits to vote manipulate and flood it with posts about
I fundamentally do not like the model where votes determine visibility and there is no barrier to entry. Call me elitist, but keeping people who don't value their participation at even a flat $5 does a lot to keep riff-raff out. As a general rule, the smaller, more focused communities are much better than the large, default ones because of the people they attract.
posted by ndr at 8:06 PM on March 21 [3 favorites]
I understand where the hate comes from as Metafilter has based their business model on paid moderation. First, Reddit definitely has paid moderators. But do posters here get paid? People who answer questions? I look at unpaid mods as the same way people do cars and coffee meetups. It is a hobby.
What makes Reddit popular is that it provides spaces that have can just be created away as noted upthread. Local subreddits are generally great replacements for newspapers or how people used them not necessarily long form journalism. Not great but it works. On Reddit if a mod annoys you or gets power hungry you simply start a new subreddit. No one requires mods to put in time. As others have noted a lot of Reddit is self policing. Are people flagging considered mods here? They are in a way.
The point being that with capitalism is there’s no good answer.
posted by geoff. at 12:18 AM on March 22 [2 favorites]
What makes Reddit popular is that it provides spaces that have can just be created away as noted upthread. Local subreddits are generally great replacements for newspapers or how people used them not necessarily long form journalism. Not great but it works. On Reddit if a mod annoys you or gets power hungry you simply start a new subreddit. No one requires mods to put in time. As others have noted a lot of Reddit is self policing. Are people flagging considered mods here? They are in a way.
The point being that with capitalism is there’s no good answer.
posted by geoff. at 12:18 AM on March 22 [2 favorites]
It looks to me like how the iMDB began, only messier and more public. At least with the vampires that took over iMBD it was a clean "So long, suckers, and thanks for all the fish." one and done.
posted by Chitownfats at 6:50 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]
posted by Chitownfats at 6:50 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]
> Blindsight got Hugo, Nebula and Locus nominations, and Hyperion won the Hugo. I can fully understand having Opinions on them, but Badly Written Crap being one of them might need a bit more supporting evidence.
I never read Hyperion, but Blindsight is perhaps a difficult book, for people who have not previously looked very deeply into what consciousness is, or how perception works. I knew enough about the background to not be thrown, but I suspect I'm in the 90th %-ile of readers with relevant knowledge.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:34 AM on March 22
I never read Hyperion, but Blindsight is perhaps a difficult book, for people who have not previously looked very deeply into what consciousness is, or how perception works. I knew enough about the background to not be thrown, but I suspect I'm in the 90th %-ile of readers with relevant knowledge.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 8:34 AM on March 22
a difficult book, for people who have not previously looked very deeply into what consciousness is, or how perception works
IMO this is what made it good as hard sci-fi. I'm not sure I enjoyed reading it, exactly, and I'm not sure I agreed with everything Watts was trying to say (at least to the extent I understood it), but it made me think about things I hadn't previously thought a lot about and maybe even changed the way I think about some of those things a little bit. Watts in general seems to be somewhere between extremely pessimistic and outright nihilistic about humanity (or, in the case of Blindsight, about consciousness in general) and I get that's going to be offputting for people who like their sci-fi to be hopeful and humanistic. I can also see how he would have a lot of appeal for edgy teens with not-great opinions. But I can't always be the crank who is like jUst rEaD mOre uRsUlA k LeGuIn.
posted by pullayup at 10:12 AM on March 22
IMO this is what made it good as hard sci-fi. I'm not sure I enjoyed reading it, exactly, and I'm not sure I agreed with everything Watts was trying to say (at least to the extent I understood it), but it made me think about things I hadn't previously thought a lot about and maybe even changed the way I think about some of those things a little bit. Watts in general seems to be somewhere between extremely pessimistic and outright nihilistic about humanity (or, in the case of Blindsight, about consciousness in general) and I get that's going to be offputting for people who like their sci-fi to be hopeful and humanistic. I can also see how he would have a lot of appeal for edgy teens with not-great opinions. But I can't always be the crank who is like jUst rEaD mOre uRsUlA k LeGuIn.
posted by pullayup at 10:12 AM on March 22
At least with the vampires that took over iMBD it was a clean "So long, suckers, and thanks for all the fish." one and done.
Yeah, this is going to be a slower process over the next year or so, the current bad setup getting worse with more (and more intrusive) ads, more selling of personal info, fewer needed updates, even less communication and more top-down decisions with no notice, etc. We've seen this many times before.
posted by mediareport at 10:14 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]
Yeah, this is going to be a slower process over the next year or so, the current bad setup getting worse with more (and more intrusive) ads, more selling of personal info, fewer needed updates, even less communication and more top-down decisions with no notice, etc. We've seen this many times before.
posted by mediareport at 10:14 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]
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Shout out to my favorite Reddit, /r/GirlGamers. The gaming subreddits are mostly still awful; not so much overt misogyny on most of them, but still lots of gamers being awful about vidya. This subreddit is good.
GirlGamers is very tightly moderated and has a mostly positive and supportive discussion. Lots of interesting posts about gender dynamics in games like Baldur's Gate 3. Also lots of venting about "why are guys so awful in online games" that's a good mix of group support and interesting insights. And yes, they are explicitly inclusive of all girls and women, trans or cis.
It's a good example of what a well moderated subreddit can do. I can only imagine how much unpaid work it is for the team that runs it.
posted by Nelson at 6:44 AM on March 21 [17 favorites]