Keep up the good work r/pics, this last one had me wondering if you were actually r/maliciouscompliance !
Here’s the text of the open letter:
As promised, here’s what the r/PICS moderators would like to say to Reddit’s administrators:
Forging A Return to Productive Conversation
To All Whom It May Concern:
For fifteen years, r/Pics has been one of Reddit’s most-popular communities. That time hasn’t been without its difficulties, but for the most part, we’ve all gotten along (with each other and with administrators). Members of our team fondly remember Moderator Roadshows, visits to Reddit’s headquarters, Reddit Secret Santa, April Fools’ Day events, regional meetups, and many more uplifting moments. We’ve watched this platform grow by leaps and bounds, and although we haven’t been completely happy about every change that we’ve witnessed, we’ve always done our best to work with Reddit at finding ways to adapt, compromise, and move forward.
This process has occasionally been preceded by some exceptionally public debate, however.
On June 12th, 2023, r/Pics joined thousands of other subreddits in protesting the planned changes to Reddit’s API; changes which – despite being immediately evident to only a minority of Redditors – threatened to worsen the site for everyone. By June 16th, 2023, that demonstration had evolved to represent a wider (and growing) array of concerns, many of which arose in response to Reddit’s statements to journalists. Today (June 26th, 2023), we are hopeful that users and administrators alike can make a return to the productive dialogue that has served us in the past.
We acknowledge that Reddit has placed itself in a situation that makes adjusting its current API roadmap impossible.
However, we have the following requests:
Commit to exploring ways by which third-party applications can make an affordable return.
Commit to providing moderation tools and accessibility options (on Old Reddit, New Reddit, and mobile platforms) which match or exceed the functionality and utility of third-party applications.
Commit to prioritizing a significant reduction in spam, misinformation, bigotry, and illegal content on Reddit.
Guarantee that any future developments which may impact moderators, contributors, or stakeholders will be announced no less than one fiscal quarter before they are scheduled to go into effect.
Work together with longstanding moderators to establish a reasonable roadmap and deadline for accomplishing all of the above.
Affirm that efforts meant to keep Reddit accountable to its commitments and deadlines will hereafter not be met with insults, threats, removals, or hostility.
Publicly affirm all of the above by way of updating Reddit’s User Agreement and Reddit’s Moderator Code of Conduct to include reasonable expectations and requirements for administrators’ behavior.
Implement and fill a senior-level role (with decision-making and policy-shaping power) of "Moderator Advocate" at Reddit, with a required qualification for the position being robust experience as a volunteer Reddit moderator.
Reddit is unique amongst social-media sites in that its lifeblood – its multitude of moderators and contributors – consists entirely of volunteers. We populate and curate the platform’s many communities, thereby providing a welcoming and engaging environment for all of its visitors. We receive little in the way of thanks for these efforts, but we frequently endure abuse, threats, attacks, and exposure to truly reprehensible media. Historically, we have trusted that Reddit’s administrators have the best interests of the platform and its users (be they moderators, contributors, participants, or lurkers) at heart; that while Reddit may be a for-profit company, it nonetheless recognizes and appreciates the value that Redditors provide.
That trust has been all but entirely eroded… but we hope that together, we can begin to rebuild it.
In simplest terms, Reddit, we implore you: Remember the human.
We look forward to your response by Thursday, June 29th, 2023.
There’s also just one other thing.
that “one other thing” is a hyperlink to a picture of multiple John Olivers standing behind a sign reading “We Demand To Be Taken Seriously”.
My take: the letter does a good job of stating the grievances and position of the moderators and should be referenced in future articles about the Reddit protests. And, although it’s well-written and well-intentioned, it’s not going to work because Reddit hasn’t been dealing in good faith so why would they start now?
Reddit will mistakenly take this letter as a sign of weakness and not perceive it as what it truly is: a final attempt at communication/reconciliation before walking out. The best likely response would be Reddit making some mealymouthed promises that will never be kept. It’s more likely, however, that Reddit will either do nothing at all or do something new that’s hostile and foolish. And it’s highly likely that the moderators realize all of this, but figure there’s nothing to be lost by giving it one last try.
Yep, I’m with you on that. Unfortunately, I think the /r/pics mods are somewhat replaceable. That’s not to say they don’t do a good job - they definitely do, and I’ve got nothing but good things to say about how they’ve handled this last month. But it’s a catch-all subreddit without any real sense of community, culture or curation. A new mod team could be brought on and, after a short acclimatisation period, I think the subreddit would probably feel the same as ever.
There are definitely other subreddits that will suffer much more if they have their mod teams replaced because the mods really curate the content - setting posting rules, banning certain topics, removing things that don’t fit the culture of the subreddit and that aren’t at a high enough quality, etc. Replacement mods simply wouldn’t do it in the same way.
The fact that the biggest subreddits are like /r/pics - catch-all subs with somewhat replaceable mod teams - makes it very easy for Reddit to treat this as being less serious than it is for them. Yes, the big subreddits with the most subscribers and the most traffic are catch-all subreddits with somewhat replaceable mod teams, but those aren’t why people stay on Reddit. People stay for the curated subreddits, the special-interest subreddits, the niche subreddits. And those are the ones that are far harder to find replacement mod teams for, let alone ones that continue to keep the subs going as they were before.
How Reddit handles this open letter will be quite interesting. There’s nothing unreasonable about this letter and its requests. Like you said, if Reddit can address it satisfactorily, there’s still a chance things can be smoothed over between Reddit and moderators; a lot of mods don’t want to leave the site, after all, and are looking for an excuse to stay - that’s why there are still open letters being posted rather than everyone just resigning as moderators right away. But if Reddit doesn’t address it, and address it well, I think, because it’s so well-written, well-intentioned and reasonable, it will reflect terribly on Reddit and could easily be seen as the final straw by a lot of mods.
The mods of r/pics are absolute queens and kings. Bravo.
I look forward to r/pics being taken over by more “admin-friendly” moderators after this. This is a situation where they accept what Reddit is going to do; or they should leave. Either they want to lead a community on Reddit, as it stands today with the corporate situation and the need for aggressive profit in anticipation of the IPO, or they should leave. Because the way I’ve been reading the messaging is pretty clear; this is an existential situation for Reddit, that’s why Spez has to push so hard. Either they start generating profit, lots of it, now, and go public soon so the investors can cash out, or the lights get turned off.
You don’t have to stay there. Leave if you’re unhappy. Ignore the platform completely if you disagree with what the company is doing. Because the platform is the way the company nominally makes money. Investors and customers expect money to be made and exceed costs. Unless the mods of r/pics have a plan to make the company more profitable (adding C-levels is definitely not that, BTW), that doesn’t involve the jamming the API costs, reducing overall users (and thus server loads), and pushing more users to interact with the advertising, leave or accept the situation as it is.
The record so far is that without a mod crossing lines the sub just stays restricted. Effectively shutdown.
You may look forward to it but I doubt it will happen.
I hope reddit enjoys the loss of traffic after they shut down this sub. I know I will.
Then more people who understand and acknowledge where the company stands right now, and where the platform stands in relation to that, need to “cross lines” in redditrequest. Either that, or more people need to accept that Reddit as a whole will probably be gone in a few months.
So reddit had basically broken the unwritten agreement it had with the community - the ones who gave it content that made it valuable as a company.
If they can’t survive without dishonouring that agreement then maybe it’s not such a bad thing if they don’t survive.
yeah still throw in a fuck shit for good measure. kind of sus how the red words are all square as shit if you ask me
I don’t get why people are clinging to the idea that reddit will suddenly give a fuck. They are unprofessional, rude, liars. It doesn’t matter if they bend down and kiss your ass with a million false promises. They won’t follow through.
Look at what happened to interestingasfuck, they are approaching a week with no mods and completely locked down. You can easily make reddit implode themselves with their hubris of mods being easily replaceable. They have shown that is not true. Y’all will be removed anyway before the IPO, they won’t risk this again. So hurry up and let them implode before they have time to figure out an alternative before the IPO
Reddit does give a fuck, though. If they didn’t give fucks, they wouldn’t be trying to fuck with the protests (eg, by forcing subs open or removing mods). Whether or not Reddit would actually do any of the things protestors want is a different question, but clearly the protests do at least hurt Reddit and Reddit would dearly like them to stop.
I agree, I meant don’t give a fuck as in suddenly change their mind about the API changes. They give a lot of fucks about making everyone bend to their whim. They give so many fucks they will willingly shut down subreddits themselves
The protest was working and they should keep it going
what I don’t get is why someone would go out of their way to try and convince somebody else that a protest is meaningless while the protest is going on. why would you take time to convince others to stop, what is there even to gain from that? only reddit would want that. if the protest was truly meaningless you wouldn’t have to argue against at all. clearly the protest have an effect on you and on reddit.
