We Need to Talk About Reddit

[gabrielrock19]

If you've used Reddit from 2020+ onwards you'll have had the unpleasant sensation of having at least one of your posts or comments removed by a local moderator in the last few months. No questions asked, no given reason, just a default "Sorry" message and perhaps a permanent ban.

 

Right now, says IGN, a massive protest is taking place due to Reddit's decision of charging the API's and profiting off their use. Many local moderators (read: unpaid volunteers) have "declared war" on the admins by setting theirs subs private. This has severely reduced site traffic since many of these subs have dozens of millions of subscribers.

 

Now spez is counterattacking by saying the site will change its moderator removal policy, supposedly making it more democratic by introducing a vote removal.

 

What do you think of this mess? Do you mostly agree with the CEO or the protesters?

 

Personally I subscribe to neither. Both the admins and the mods have made the site more toxic in their own way; it would seem Reddit's paid staff is fighting its unpaid staff while the users are caught in the crossfire. About 58% of reddit is modded by power trippers (or, as some were saying, hallway janitors) while the company's representatives (admins and other staff) exploit that situation so their social network is modded for free.

 

Nexus staff and its strict system of rules are far from perfect but when compared side-by-side to reddit's voluntary totalitarianism they seem like heaven on earth. At least the employed staff here has clear, precise rules to obey when moderating content and you can appeal their decisions if necessary. And about the community, people seem more level-headed in general.

 

On Reddit most only read the title if you're lucky, and there'll always be someone in the comments trying to pose as better than their peers when they have literally nothing to add beyond an empty statement or a common sense rule. Let's not even speak of the sub moderators who feel they are entitled to a moral superiority within their private virtual space. You'll find better communities to post and interact with if they have 10k followers or luckily 100k. Run away from the biggest ones (10m+) if you enjoy challenging common sense or discussing anything philosophical (even a game's discussion might turn analytical or philosophical!).

 

Literally at any time at any moment your baby soft "rule violation" can be targeted by a power tripping moderator. And then you're banned often for having a different opinion than theirs.

 

While the admins and higher official staff at Reddit.com revel in the destruction they helped shape, not exactly popular protests emerge to boycott their corporate-capitalist decision.

 

You can check how a large userbase from reddit itself is reacting to all of this by clicking here.

Edited June 17, 2023 by gabrielrock19

[HeyYou]

I have always likened Reddit to the Mos Isley of the internet...... :D

[gabrielrock19]

It's been difficult to even post something trivial there. Idiocracy reigns while power trippers target you at their whim.

 

I've been trying to create something different there. It's a subreddit that discusses the western canon in general, having arts, classical music and literature as main topics of discussion. Currently there's three original opinion articles I've written as well as several others credited and taken from famous newspapers.

 

It has no rules other than the mandatory site-wide policy.

 

I'll leave the link below in case you or anyone else here wants to check it out:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/westerncanon/

[Pagafyr]

I closed my account at Reddit years ago. I continue to wait for the actual deletion of the acct. Which is just sitting there. Same goes with Facebook. They just don't seem to care if we want it deleted or not.

 

I discovered that Deleting accounts is not done because the massive amount of peoples posts are too many for the few people who actually did the tech work years ago.

 

Poor Mr. Zuckerberg just doesn't have the manpower he can designate to a group for just deleting peoples accounts anymore than Reddit, Twitter, ICQ, and such. Their committed to finding ways to make more money, not slice off the dead accounts. I think if they did deleted the dead accounts they would probably end up exposing the fact they do not actually have enough downline to sell their products to buying customers to back up their sales and tax records.

 

The one thing I did learn is; if I don't have a certain number of actual customers, and sales people in the pyramid type setups that fail most times then not, means no business without a lot of people in selling the products called the downline. Without their names on documents I won't get the backing from banks or other businesses so I can start a business of my own.

[FloodTheWaves]

Reddit makes me sad - because it could actually be really good... it could be.

 

It's like a game/movie you really wanted to like - but just couldn't.

I've tried to use it more - but mostly don't use it that much for a few reasons.

 

But first - let me say this....

There are not just good mods out there, there are some awesome guys/girls doing this unpaid work!

There are also some subreddits which are not toxic and useless at all... just not enough.

 

 

Ok - back to why Reddit sucks.

 

The self fulfilling auto sorting of the 'Best/Hottest/Most Popular' replies within a thread - seriously?

 

The OCD fame hounds who literally live online to always make sure they are the first to post the second it goes live.

So obviously - the sooner you post and/or the more outlandish/mean your post is - the more you are floated to the top.

 

This also leads to the most irrelevant, wrong, and completely unnecessary negative/attack posts as the very first reply.

 

That sets the tone for the other trolls to chime in and as soon as you get that 1st negative post - you know your thread is already dead as it will be utterly useless - and all that noise will just scare away anyone who could have been useful/interesting!.

 

It's like putting everything in a bucket - spinning it, and all the crap floats to the top - but no one sees anything below the surface because there is so much scum.

So any useful info will be buried on page 15.... and likely never seen.

 

 

 

Trolls and the whole negative/attacking tone of Reddit in general is the other equally bad problem.

I've seen that kind of crap ruin what were totally awesome sites to the point where I had to give up on going back.

 

And yes - Mods are quite often the biggest trolls - too many who mod for modding sake - for literally no reason - just to get a fix.

And yeah - I've had so many modded where I know they only read half the title and modded straight away.

 

It's obvious when this happens when they give some reason that makes no sense if you read the actual post.

 

So many of those mods are like security guards who weren't good enough to be cops - just thugs with an inferiority complex and a plastic badge that means nothing irl.

 

Oh and did I forget the idiotic autosort where you cannot set it to sort from Old to New (like a normal person would do) - can't set it as default - and even if you manually set it - it resets in no time... on every single page you open!

 

I've never seen a forum work soo incredibly hard to essentially make you leave and never return.

 

The worst thing of all is this... they have infected damn near every other forum online and more of these sites will die as a result or be next to useless because of the tone and behaviour of its troll users and mods. Reddit is one of the biggest forums - and when people use it - it teaches them to become/behave just as badly as everyone else they see on there....

 

In that way - it's a diseased entity which needs to be quarantined and purged to protect everyone else.

Edited June 21, 2023 by FloodTheWaves