They're currently gathering subreddits for an indefinite blackout: https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/148ks6u/indefinite_blackout_next_steps_polling_your/
this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2023
18 points (95.0% liked)
13516 readers
1 users here now
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Thank you for linking this. Glad to see so many subs continuing indefinitely.
Did you see the comment about r/adviceanimals and r/Tumblr have been forced public by Reddit?
Edit: Anecdotal comment states r/Tumblr had all of its mods leave and was forced public.
In which Reddit will eject the mods and turn them back on
Ejecting the current mods, is kinda like going nuclear. It will damage the trust Redditors have in a subreddit. However, should Reddit do that, then I would imagine they will do that on a larger subreddit and a consequence of that, that news will spread like wildfire. That in turn will, most likely, cause moderator walkouts.
I know current Reddit management is acting like they are stupid. That doesn't mean that they are THAT stupid.
But that's just my 2cts.
Edit: grammar be hard yo.
Apparently they've already done it. Can't remember the sub, but they kicked a mod, made it public for a couple hours, then switched it back off. I'm assuming it'll be one of the 48 hour ones instead of the permanent ones now.
I found the subreddit on which it happened. It was /r/AdviceAnimals. Apprently /u/LegWeed got ejected. But apparently there is some SubReddit drama from that.
Sources
https://lemmy.ml/post/1250165
https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/147eaw3/rsubredditdrama_is_in_restricted_mode_for_the/jo0eoqw/?context=3
There was apparently a situation on AdviceAnimals where all the mods agreed on a blackout but one. That mod was low ranked in the mod chain. Suddenly this mod became head mod of the sub... funny how administration works?
I really appreciate how reasonable (IMO) the demands are in the stickied comment in that thread.
Honestly it would be a good business move to accept those terms exactly as presented in that stickied comment. Nothing unreasonable is being suggested there.
Those comments though, wow. There are a whole lot of people who don't understand anything about this and blame the mods and app developers. And we're all over here on Lemmy instead of correcting them.
That's the problem with leaving out of protest. The predominant voices on Reddit will be the ones who don't leave. It will become the popular opinion that Reddit is in the right. We can't control that. We just have to know that we are doing what's right for us and move on to better things
It's amazing what subreddits exist that I had no idea about. I don't know if humanity will ever recover from this loss.
Feels like everything will be over soon and it's going on like before.
This is why scheduling it ahead of time to last for 48 hours was a monumentally stupid idea.
If workers form a union and they go on a strike, and they told the boss they're striking for 2 days, The boss can just wait it out and get back to whatever they were doing before after the strike.
This is essentially a content creators strike from Reddit, telling the admins that everything will be back to normal in 2 days gives them the opportunity to wait it out without having to cave to any of the demands.
I really enjoyed this community so far and watching it grow immensely over the past 24 hours or so, and it kind of feels depressing that most of the people are just going to leave and go back to Reddit tomorrow.
I think another major miscalculation is there was no alternatives agreed on by consensus. For example, if they had said to everyone "go to Lemmy", "go to discord" etc. Now there's no alternative to a lot of subreddits, people will just wait it out and go back to the subreddits when they go back, or if they're indefinitely suspended they'll just make new subreddits.
I second this, and it has been bugging me since people started talking about the blackout. I think the big issue is that the people organizing the 48hr blackout are the mods. These are the people that have invested the most into reddit, and they dont want to give up that investment into their subreddits. They don't want to leave reddit, and giving people an agreed upon alternative would be permanently fracturing their little fiefdom. They want to make a statement, and then for things to go back to the way they were, hoping that their tiny act of defiance makes a difference. The migration has to be led by users, but the issue of fractured lemmy communities is going to be hard to navigate unless lemmy introduces a way for communities to link together.
They’ll be back here again in 2-ish weeks when Apollo and RIF are done.
And when mlem and other apps start rolling out for Lemmy, we’ll start seeing shifts. Apps that have proper accessibility, a clean UI, lack advertising and don’t eat data. And they give you the same Reddit experience without Reddit’s predatory business strategy.
When the blackouts stop, a lot of users will be able to search for Reddit alternatives and will find Lemmy… through Reddit.
I mod a sub with 65K users or so, I plan to go dark indefinitely. Also considering Read-Only with a sticky redirecting here. I know I’m not the only mod.
The Digg > Reddit migration wasn’t overnight. It was fast, though.
load more comments
(4 replies)
The 2 day window might at least show that there's a definite interest to join a protest from a wide array of the community. I see it as a warning, meaning if the changes aren't being reversed, there's going to be a lot more communities going dark forever then there is now.
It's only a bad idea if you think you could win concessions with an indefinite strike.
Reddit might get a bunch of subs back tomorrow, but the admin were always going to reopen the good names via reddit request anyway.
And the mods and users aren't likely to go back to happily posting and working for free on a platform that's turned. Communities will be planning organized migrations, and a lot of people here who came because of the strike will discover they like it better here actually.
Maybe I am being pessimistic, but asking volunteer reddit mods to drop tools for more than 48h during such an interesting time for the platform is feeling about as realistic as asking your alcoholic uncle to stay sober at a wedding reception with an open bar. Can they really stay away?
While I don't think this was anyone's plan, I think setting it for two days was brilliant by accident. It was short enough (and long enough) that spez dismissed it and pissed people off even more.
It would have been much harder to rally subs to turn off permanently immediately. By doing this, you ease everyone into the idea that this is an indefinite blackout.
The next step will be Reddit admins forcibly taking control of subs that stay blacked out too long for their liking, which will drive even more momentum to stand up to them.
I think this was actually just about the only way for them to completely fuck Reddit over. At this point, spez will need to be fired and the changes rolled back or Reddit has zero chance of a meaningful recovery.
Not to mention this will likely damage their attempt at an IPO later this year. Advertisers and potential stock owners won't want to deal with a company who can't "control" its users. It's too volatile. Stockholders want their revenue to always increase, but even potential for something like this after Reddit potentially goes public would cause Reddit's stock to go down.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I'm considering the blackout to be like massive natural disasters: most leave, some stay behind, some people come back periodically but it's never the same.
I think the biggest impact is if we all delete our accounts, comments and content. Leaving half of Reddit threads filled with [removed] comments and dead Links.
After my first full day of Lemmy and Mastodon, I'm just about ready to delete my reddit account.
Problem I'm finding is not enough content on lemmy.
Yes but that's essentially a chicken and egg thing.
I want more content too, but for more content we need more users, but we need content to draw in users.
So, I can only control myself, but my plan is to:
-
Post more than I did on reddit. Post, not comment. Not even OC, just linking articles, ask topics, etc
-
vote more liberally than I would have on reddit. Not indiscriminately, but less stingy. Certainly if I'm responding to you I should be up voting you, in the original spirit of the up vote button
Yes, I have multiple accounts, some of which are over a decade old. I am getting ready to delete all my old accounts in the next day or so, but I will keep one of my newer accounts as a backup incase they back down.
I feel reddit corp still dgaf and when the majority of subreddits are back then the blackouts will be but a memory..
For me personally - I gaf, so I deleted my 12YO reddit account, wiped my comments and now going to be a lemmy & mastodon main.
I think that the fediverse will continue to grow nicely, especially as existing reddit apps start to point to lemmy as a backend. Also places like tildes.net will grow nicely too with things like the fact the reddit is fun app dev has stated he's building an app for it.
They'll no doubt survive, but Reddit really fucked their monopoly with how this was handled.
How can one get an invite for tiĺdes.net ?
I have 5 invites, I want to save one for my bro but if you, or any other peeps want one - PM me :)
I went there and noticed I already had an account - apparently I tried it in 2018 and completely forgot about it. Based on the date, it was a reaction to spez's "valuable discussion" comment.
The Reddit blackout got me to delete my 12 1/2 year old account. Then I jumped into Lemmy to give it a try and I really like the potential. Spez has made a bad error in judgement basically to fill his wallet. The platform was built by a community and should be owned by that same community.
Did the same for my 2 accounts, 8 and 12 years old. Really hope spez will regret his decision but I’m not very hopeful.
I just saw this, highlighting my own
"In an internal memo sent Monday afternoon to Reddit staff, CEO Steve Huffman addressed the recent blowback directed at the company, telling employees to block out the “noise” and that the ongoing blackout of thousands of subreddits will eventually pass."
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/13/23759559/reddit-internal-memo-api-pricing-changes-steve-huffman
It's so nice of Stevie boy to refer to his userbase as "noise". Proof of how little he values the people who use his corner of the internet. Hopefully this wording of his will show how little he thinks of everyone.
Good point, I do wonder what % of userbase are in support of these protest and what % don't care? Seems like ~100k has joined these fediverse alternatives out of reddit's 50,000,000 daily active users 0.2% if my tired maths hasn't failed me.
Not that I want the same userbase as reddit, far from it...
My 50pence is that what reddit has fucked up is their monopoly on where these communities reside.
What really matters is the mods and users that submit quality content. A million lurkers don't really contribute.
+1... I'd wager that a significant portion of that 0.2% (if indeed the number) is the most active / dedicated reddit users (power users). It's the mods, active posters, etc that are creating and fostering content on the whole site. The rest of the lurkers won't stay if there's nothing engaging being posted or if the subs are an unmodded mess.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Most everyone who left will return. Some thousands of users will actually leave Reddit permanently—but they will be replaced by users who have never used a third-party app, don't care about privacy or accessibility or anything but memes and boobs and endless scrolling.
I wish them no ill will, but I no longer wish to be in their company.
If it turns out like that, I'll be permanently leaving Reddit behind. But for now, there is still just so much good content and good community there, so for me it all depends on the quality subreddits thriving or not. I have 14 years of history there, it's much harder for me to burn my bridges with Reddit than it was with Twitter or Facebook. I'm kind of hoping Reddit switches tack and finds a way to run a sustainable business without becoming an ad-driven hellhole, but for now it seems like they don't really care about their most valuable users, the moderators. I fear we'll be seeing a steady decline in quality subreddits in favor of whatever brings in the most ad money. Pretty sure that won't be /r/askHistorians or its ilk. The IPO is a bad omen, imho. It means revenue and profit will never be enough, and they will be chasing money forever.
My question is- why not start moving some of that content to Lemmy? If users who have contributed value to reddit replicated that content over to Lemmy, it seems like that would be fertilizer to the soil. I know it's not reasonable to expect it to be done all at once, but if the few thousands just chipped away at moving even some of their best picks over the next few months, I think that would help with the growth on Lemmy. (Unfortunately, my contributions would be more akin to manure...)
Why not go back and encourage your favorite subreddits to make the jump to similar communities over here? Lemme just needs continued infusion of content and a little time.
Even after the blackout, it can't be like before. Many will not use the official app. Many have already deleted their accounts. Reddit might survive, but sith the new Api and ads model, it will be soulless...
For me it’s very easy, because I only use Apollo, that is reddit for me. I can’t stand the official app, homepage. If Apollo’s gone, I might still end up on old.reddit through google search when looking for something, but that’s it.
For me, reddit was Infinity. I am gone from there forever now.
Just checked and a bunch of the defaults are front-paging the same modpost about reddit killing third party apps. So it's still ongoing in some capacity.
Yup, I think it will go back to how it was. But some people have found a much nicer place than reddit and will stick around. :)
Pretty much. Reddit is too big, and even these big subs going dark is only a drop in the bucket for what reddit is at this point. There's too much traffic on too many small subs, not even talking about all the porn subs still bustling with activity. The only thing people can do is move somewhere else and not get sucked back in.
view more: next ›