Splinter the community, I'm going to stay with the people who went through the mess of setting up a new place that isn't beholden to Reddit. It may be forever smaller, but of the 600,000 subscribers, how many of them contribute?
this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2023
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Star Trek
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It may be forever smaller
I would honestly consider this a feature, not a bug.
eh, it is what it is, and i'd say not really either. For now, probably nearly everyone that's staying here is probably a contributing member, but if we continue building and promoting this community, then it will get to a sizeable number of lurkers. As long as we don't attract bad actors, or bad actors are dealt with swiftly, it's all good.
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Most social media runs by the 90/9/1 rule. 90% of users lurk, 9% of users post, 1% of users produce content.
I'm hoping that this house cleaning changes those numbers up some.
I know that a lot of people are afraid to post. They may not believe that they have anything interesting to say. And they may not trust their ability to write coherently. Some of you folks are intimidatingly good at writing insightful posts and making it understandable to everybody.
Maybe with a smaller community we can encourage more people to take part and, paradoxically, become more diverse.
I'd also like to encourage everybody to attempt to post something interesting. A pet theory. A reinterpretation of a scene. It doesn't really matter. You can only get better by doing and we all benefit from new ideas. Don't be afraid to sound like a fool. It's kinda my default state and I'm still here.
I’d also like to encourage everybody to attempt to post something interesting. A pet theory. A reinterpretation of a scene. It doesn’t really matter. You can only get better by doing and we all benefit from new ideas. Don’t be afraid to sound like a fool. It’s kinda my default state and I’m still here.
How about we post some of our favorite quotes from the series? Here's some of mine :p
“Use the force, Kirk.”
“Help me, Spock. You’re my only hope.”
“Beam me up, Skywalker!”
“This isn’t the Data you’re looking for. Move along.”
“To boldly go where no Jedi has gone before”
“You’ve never heard of the Enterprise? … It’s the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.”
“Set sabers to stun!”
Wasn't there a thread on r/startrek today about them deciding to reopen? I was surprised by how many users were pretty angry about it having been closed, tbh. I felt really good about the decision to close, even before I joined Lemmy.
I don't know. I haven't been back since the day the move was announced. So if they have decided to reopen, be it old mods or not, all the power to them. I don't care any more.
The impression I got was that some mods have left and/because the remaining mods have decided to reopen. Honestly the thread was a bit depressing, lots of "it's their platform, they can do what they like" and "who cares, it doesn't affect me". :/
You can safely scratch the "because" - those of us who left were leaving either way. There's no drama there.
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Ironically, it actually doesn't affect me either, since 9 times out of ten, I use/used Reddit on desktop, my phone being, well a goddamn phone and an Ersatz-Kindle.
I do normally use RiF on my phone -- but yeah, mostly I am using my PC. For me it is mostly the principle also. Especially the way it seems likely to affect blind and visually impaired users, but also even just the overreach and disregard of the userbase who creates any value the site has. :/
Honestly, for me it's not so much what they did, but rather how they went about it. To clarify, them wanting people to use the official app is fair enough, but instead of market economy, i.e. providing the superior product, they went gilded age capitalism and try to hulk smash the competition, and that's just not on for me.
I agree, although also I think their official app is unpleasant to use on purpose, because it's designed to put ads in front of users, not to actually allow users to see content.
Having used the app exactly once several years ago, I can't speak to that, but I can see that...
That's cos the ones who wanted to leave are here lol
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They are probably currently interviewing Paramount employees for the mod position.
That's probably a good guess. Either that or trying to sell it to them somehow.
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The "sacking" of the current moderator volunteers that I've seen in some news articles this morning leads me to the next step, which is if a moderator can be tossed, that's a chilling effect for the next moderator and then, all the people who remain subscribed to that subreddit. I don't know if that will actually happen this way, it will at least be a fascinating exploration to see how this all unfolds. Someone on Mastodon mentioned that Reddit makes no content of their own, it's all volunteers, the public, and their 3rd-party toolset. That they are burning all of it and maintaining that everything will be fine in the end. Smells a lot like bravado and big-talk.
I think this is a important take - as far as users are concerned Reddit merely hosts the content and the community, but as far as Reddit is concerned it owns the content and wants to monetise the community.
The problem for Reddit is the moderation is done by users who do it for free, mostly because they love their communities and want to keep them going. Those people are not easy to replace - plenty of communities shut because no one wanted to moderate them, and plenty of users just aren't interested. So if they lose the moderators, there is a small pool of people to replace them and many of those may not be motivated in the same way. There will also be bad actors amongst those untested moderators.
Lose the moderators, and the communities fall apart as bad content, rule breaking and negative behaviour takes hold. The "content" becomes lost and the value of what reddit things it owns falls massively. An archive of old reddit comments is actually not worth much - sure people google things and find answers on Reddit - but it's the current active users and daily content that draws people in.
I think Reddit is doomed as it is failing to understand it's own business and what made the site successful.
Yup. An opinion writer in the Washington Post had a weird analogy yesterday, but it works — Reddit’s business model is almost the same as a thrift store’s. People donate stuff (clothes and furniture to Goodwill, analysis and humor to Reddit). Volunteers sort through it and throw out the bad stuff (volunteers at Goodwill, moderators at Reddit). And the business sells it (Reddit has one extra step here in that it sells ads, so it uses the donated-and-sorted stuff to build an audience to sell).
If the donators and the sorters walk, what do they have to sell?
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I read a pretty great write up on Mother Jones about the inevitable enshittification of reddit. Seems like all social media sites are doomed to turn into hot garbage eventually.
Oh, reddit will survive, it'll just be even shittier than before. And maybe it'll bounce back to somewhere close to what it was, but in the meantime, there's now a growing viable alternative.
My recommendation for anyone who decides to visit reddit adopt a comment signature promoting startrek.website along with a link to a new user tutorial and a quick explanation of why we left. Keep picking them off and make our existence common knowledge over there.
This is a completely empty threat. Do you think Reddit is capable of replacing the whole moderation teams of 5000+ subreddits in a couple weeks? NO they aren't. Which is exactly why /u/jailbaitlover i mean /u/spez is trying to get singular mods to cross the line so they can boot the rest and put all the moderation on their new scab.
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As much as I support the protest and no longer want to use Reddit, people with that opinion are probably a small minority. If people want to stay on Reddit despite everything, that's up to them in the end. Reddit won't be the same, and some subs will be a shadow of their former selves when they lose the mods, but people are allowed to stay if they want.
It seems to me mods should be resigning and moving elsewhere if they want to. Reddit is not going to change tack. By all means do everything to let them know how shitty they've been (delete your account and all posts if you want). But also let people try to take over and keep things going if that's what they want.
Federated social media is the future (I hope). Unless the community controls the platform, similar problems will keep happening.
This is pretty much what I think as well. I migrated to here mostly because I think that the root and core of the Community has done the same, and r/startek was one of the few places where you could still talk Star Trek without unreasonable whining.
r/startrek would've been a shitshow (like many other sci-fi/fantasy subs) without the amazing job the mods do. I hope this community can grow and be as good, if not better, as r/startrek.
Reminds me of when I got banned from a Star Wars forum for saying that I liked some aspects of the prequels ('twas long ago) and not hating on them and Lucas enough.
EDIT: That being said, for me, r/startrek was more about the community, and the spirit, core of it has moved here, then so be it. If reddit is little more than a knowledgebase/thing I come across when googling STObuilds or something then that's also fine.
I think it won't be overnight, but there's probably a sea change coming where more and more people are getting fed up with gigantic centralized platforms and all the manipulation and trolling that the companies operating them are all too happy to let go on. I seriously doubt the mods are going to get their way on Reddit, but I suspect it's going to get even less worth visiting from here on out.
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"If people want to stay on Reddit despite everything, that’s up to them in the end. Reddit won’t be the same, and some subs will be a shadow of their former selves when they lose the mods, but people are allowed to stay if they want."
This is my belief, too. Only you took about 900 fewer words than me to state it, heh.
This here is my new Star Trek home, and I'm liking it. I think wanting new mods, especially those that toe the reddit company line, is a "be careful what you wish for" situation. I don't even want to know what sort of things I never had to see because of moderation. I think moderating is hard work and a labor of love. I've quit r/startrek, and I don't wish them ill. Their future is their own. My Star Trek community future is here. LLAP.
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They do that, and r/startrek dies. It'll be a hellscape and nobody will want to go there anymore.
There'll always be people who thrive in that sort of environment. Very recently someone said he was going to block me because I didn't agree with him on how PIC S3 is 'stupid fan pandering and NotTrueTrek' and instead asked what he would suggest as an alternative if in charge. I.e. some people are in it for the ranting and internet fighting.
Yes sadly that is very true. I was the original top mod for /r/StarTrek (I quit last year) and eventually realized I had to make our rules distinguish between "debate" and "arguing", between "constructive" and "un-constructive" speech. It's a difficult line to walk, but if a space makes room for arguing and low-effort bickering like that, it has a way of taking over every topic. Ultimately moderators have to tell people "It's OK to have an opinion but you need to express it constructively and explain why you hold it if you wish to participate".
Same goes for mindless cheerleading too honestly, though it's not quite as toxic. But left unchecked, internet fandoms have a way of dividing into ideological camps with purity standards. I encouraged my mods to maintain a "house party" atmosphere. Let people do their thing, get silly, have drunken debates, etc. But if you see someone acting inappropriately or making it not fun for someone else, time to put on your party host hat and ask them to leave. "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here".
Open it back up and change the rules to only allow pictures of starships, encourage discussion's over here.
I'm loving the malicious compliance arch
All pictures, videos, and discussion must have John Oliver in them somewhere.
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It looks like it is (not surprisingly) already starting to be considered. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/06/15/reddit-threatens-to-remove-subreddit-moderators/
They should open the Trek subreddits and post only sexy pictures of Neelix.
hey um, /r/startrek is reopen now lol
Yes, some mods deleted their accounts and came here permanently, but evidently the remaining mods decided to reopen. This was not expected, but not much we can do about it now.
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