On Sat, 17 Jun 2023 08:35:54 -0700 (PDT), Justisaur
<
justisaur@gmail.com> wrote:
On Saturday, June 17, 2023 at 7:31:23?AM UTC-7, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
Not that I really expect any, but if you've fled Reddit following its
CEO's meltdown and are looking for a new community where you can hang
your, welcome!
Reddit is - or was? - in some ways the modern-day successor to Usenet;
a thread-based forum of global scale divided into separate discussion
groups by topic. And like Usenet once was, it had become a vital
informational resource for the web at large, often containing answers
to questions that could be found nowhere else. Its best groups were
communities unto themselves, with their own mores and customs, and
recognizable personalities.
It also allowed people to post pictures (and other media), which -
being a text-focused person - I've always considered anathema - but
can understand the appeal to others.
More to the point, though, Reddit also operated under the umbrella of
a single corporation, which Usenet never did. This allowed Reddit to
grow and thrive, but also left it vulnerable to the whims of its
owners. Usenet, a more federated network, although vulnerable in other
ways, is much harder to kill.
As I said, I doubt we'll see many refugees from the Reddit-wars. Given
how easily distracted most people are, most users of the website won't
bother to follow up on threats to leave, and of the few that actually
do, the handful that migrate back to Usenet will probably overlook
this tiny newsgroup.
But if any do happen to make their way here, hey, hi! Yeah, it's true;
Usenet isn't dead yet, and I'd like to think it still has some -
albeit diminished - value. So,to quote Decker Caine, "Stay a while,
and listen." Maybe you'll find something worth hanging around for.
As someone who does use Reddit, too much so in the last couple
years, there was a dip for a day or so but that seems mostly over.
There was some compromise with the issue the protest is over which
brought some people back. They also went heavy handed and started
reopening and assigning new mods and ownership to more active
groups.
I'm somewhat surprised /r/pcgaming isn't back yet. That's the one
that mostly closely resembles here in content, though I come here
first before going there.
This also highlights why Usenet is better. We're still here after
countless predecessors to Reddit fell by the wayside. Sure, a shadow
of it's former self, but you can read any conversation all the way back
from 1995, 28 years ago, and indeed even post follow-ups to them (bug
or feature, you decide.) I'd also say the quality of posts here is >significantly better.
To those not in the know, Reddit decided to start charging what
many call an insane amount to use it's APIs, about 200x what
Instagram charges. This was previously free. The API allows 3rd
party apps to access Reddit. Most third party app publishers have
said it's unaffordable, and they'll be closing down. The big issue is
that most unpaid mods use one of the 3rd party apps to do some
automatic moderation (stuff like removing posts for profanity etc.)
Reddit has since changed to allowing api for moderation to be
free again, though I'm not sure how they'll know.
The unpaid mods bit is important. AS much as I love Usenet, spam and
trolls were a problem Usenet never really solved; the only reason it
isn't a constant problem now** is because it's too small to bother
with. Reddit was only successful because its mods kept things sane in
their subreddits. Now, some people say this is only because the mods
are power-hungry assholes (and in some cases that is probably true),
but it takes a LOT of work to moderate a group***. As much as Reddit
is dependent on its users for the content it hosts, it is even more
dependent on its moderators. And those moderators - none of whom are
paid for their efforts - are dependent on third-party apps to do their
job, because Reddit never bothered to build out the necessary
infrastructure themselves.
So by raising the price on the third-party apps - likely in hopes of
pumping up the company in a forthcoming IPO - the owners of Reddit
just shat on all of its mods. Worse, when the mods (and users) dared
to protest, they were belittled. Mods were even threatened with being
forcibly replaced if they didn't reopen their subreddits(even though
the subreddits that shuttered themselves did so with the approval of
the majority of its users, and not just at the whim of a single mod).
It shows a total disdain for the people who create/maintain the
content that makes Reddit worth visiting.
Unfortunately, most people are too easily distracted and its likely
most people who are genuinely upset will quietly accept the new status
quo rather than uproot themselves. Still, several large subreddits
still remain closed, and the real test will be on July 1st, when the
new API license comes into effect. If some sort of compromise hasn't
been reached, that's when all the current third-party apps will cease
to function (the new licensing fees are egregiously high). Without
those tools, the mods won't be able to do their job, and the quality
of the site will likely decline.
A lot of this pain is self-inflicted by Reddit. Had they built up
better tools themselves, mods wouldn't be so dependent on third-party
apps. Had they allowed advertising to pass through to the third-party
apps, Reddit wouldn't be so cashed strapped.*** Had they not been so
greedy with their licensing fees and given more than a thirty-day
warning to the app developers, alternatives could have been created.
And they should have never been so tone-deaf as to public ally declare
a revolt of your most valuable users is nothing more than 'noise' that
can be ignored.
This - as much as I value Reddit (even if I am not a regular) - I
can't help but wonder if maybe it's a good thing if the whole thing
collapses if this is the attitude Reddit takes towards its users.
But in the meantime, there's always Usenet.
-----------------------------
** knocking on wood
*** example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/hentai/comments/147lwr6/behind_the_scenes_of_a_nsfw_subreddit/
**** Not hiring 1500 new employs probably would have helped a lot too
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)