To all the folks saying that reddit couldn’t replace the mods, that it was too big an effort, that they couldn’t run a big sub all by themselves, I have only one thing to say to you.
You were right.
I’m sure users will step forward if they care. Otherwise, it’s just a campaign optimization at work. Limit the breadth of organic content to deepen the brand-friendly content and push more paid media into the feed.
I’m sure users will step forward if they care.
This is the part I didn’t quite get. Like I am sure that there were users who requested this sub in r/redditrequest after r/TIHI became unmoderated.
For some reason I don’t understand, these requests did not pan out and it ended up getting shut down instead.
At the very least, users stepping forward doesn’t seem to be enough on its own.
If I had to guess, there are too many users who would become appointed as moderators, then just shut down the subreddit again. The admins need time to filter through the applications to find the genuine bootlickers.
From the one time I tried requesting a sub there, they don’t just let someone have a sub if they ask and it’d be banned otherwise, they probably won’t give it to you if you don’t have mod experience for example (the reason I didn’t get the niche sub I was trying to revive, which is reasonable enough), or if they feel that what experience you do have isn’t enough that you’d likely be able to handle the particular sub. TIHI is a big sub, so they’d not just be looking for any random volunteer, it’d have to be someone experienced with moderating sizable subs, probably. And those people are, well, exactly the kind of people angry with reddit right now.
Admin realized that despite all the applications, there were:
- People requesting the subreddit so they could continue the protests.
- People requesting the subreddit so they could give it back to the original mods.
- People requesting the subreddit so they could own it.
- People requesting the subreddit because they have strong feelings about “moderation” and want to /worldpolitics it.
- Absolutely no one who wanted to just do what the old mods did.
From what I could see, there no actual good-faith requests from people who genuinely cared about /TIHI and wanted to moderate it well and diligently. And like, who’s surprised? It’s a huge subreddit without a concrete community core, it’s more of a content category. I don’t think anyone except the mods cared about the community itself, because there barely was one.
That’s the same issue they’re running into with the other large subs. They’re too huge and too general and everyone is just another face in the crowd, so there are very few people who care about that specific space in the way that makes for good volunteer moderators - in most cases, when those people existed for those communities, they were already recruited into the old mod team.
And all the people who want to mod are either activists for the protest, the sort of power-hungry weirdos that end up as powermods, but who showed up to Reddit too late, or somebody with an axe to grind about moderation in general seeing an opportunity in the massive unmoderated subreddit.
Thing is, people stay on Facebook because their friends and family are on Facebook. Reddit is far more anonymous and therefore has far less inertia.
Yes they most definitely will…but increasingly such things likely will not happen on the Reddit platform, moving forward. There are actual reasons that the mods left - e.g. to moderate a sub of millions of subscribers takes effort, which needs tools to make that happen - and those reasons still exist.
Im halfway tempted to start claiming demodded subs and filling them up with instructions on how to move to their kbin/lemmy alternatives.
If they kick me out and ban me I won’t find out cause I don’t go into reddit no more.
Edit: of course they would never give the subreddits to me, but I find the idea really funny
Thanks, I love it.
TIHI was a fairly large sub, with almost multimilion level of subscribers. If reddit wanted to increase traffic and get more eyes on ads, they’re doing quite a terrible job of it so far.
Reddit’s stance has just been so bizarre.
So they want people to pay to not see ads? They literally sell that as a product, Reddit Premium. Why not tie API access to premium subscriptions? It’s not even unprecedented; Spotify does this.
If they had come out of the gate with that being the change, I would probably have paid for Reddit premium. Now though, not a chance.
At this point, it’s not about what is logical or sensible. Huffman would rather burn the place down than admit he was wrong.
What I still don’t get is why all these apps had to have a single api account for all users.
It does not make sense to me why the API charge have to be calculated by total traffic of all users of an app either. I’ve decided to think it is just an excuse to get rid of third party apps until convinced otherwise.
It’s not about the ads. It’s about the telemetry you can get on user behavior from a mobile app. Reddit wants to leverage that as part of its ad sales package.
I totally would have bought reddit premium if they said “this is what you need if you wanna use third party apps” before they did all this terrible management. I don’t have issues with paying for things I use. I mostly use kbin and donated $20 to it because I wanted to support such an alternative (but figured I’d try out Lemmy for a bit, especially because I got a bit tired of a few missing things I know Lemmy already has).
Once you have enough of it to live a comfortable life, money just becomes about power. So, what we have is some spoiled rich asshole who is used to having influence and power being shown that most of that was a gift. That gift has been recinded, and so the only control he has left is money.
He’s spending some of Reddit’s current and future earnings on stepping on necks. Because that’s what the cash was going to be used for, in one way or another, anyway.
TIHI stood for Thanks, I Hate It. I never browsed but figure it was a meme sub on things to dislike.
It was more than a sub to meme on things you/to dislike, it was more like Oh Gosh Why Would This Exist Thanks I Hate It!
Have you ever imagined a bird with teeth? What about a gif of a needle going into an eye? Or maybe a nice chocolate milkshake in a butt-oriented sex toy.
Why do these things exist? Thanks, I hate it.
I thought they would just take over or replace the mod list. Guess I was wrong
Fucking dumb to force them to reopen and then when mods say fuckit ban the sub. This is some bad parenting.
But I thought millions of people depended on the communities involved and that’s why they had to reopen.
Doesn’t banning the community just fully go against their stated reasoning?
Like most things that frustrate me, it seems logic has flown out the window in this situation. At least from Reddit’s perspective. I cannot fathom how they could mess this up so badly. Could you imagine if they would have given 12 months notice and piped API access behind Reddit Premium of some sort? They would have raked in the money.
And who are they going to have take over mod responsibilities (for free) in all of these communities at once? This is why mods need to call their bluff and force them to try to replace them.
Saw someone complaining about the protest in a thread where the top mod was offering up the sub to whoever wanted it. I suggested they (person complaining) go ahead and step up and ask to be a mod. They replied something like, “I don’t wanna be an E-jannie…[blah blah].”
These people assume that there’s plenty of other people who will step-up and take over. We’ll see I guess.
I personally never browsed TIHI. It was always one of those where linking it was more of a meme than actually browsing it in my mind. Similar to how a lot of people would comment “/r/unexpectedjohnmulaney” but very few people were actually subbed to /r/unexpectedjohnmulaney. Because who the heck wants a bunch of pictures of comments referencing John Mulaney jokes in their feed? It’s the old “subreddits as hashtags” bit.
All that being said, it sucks because I know TIHI actually had more of a community than most “hashtaggy” subreddits. My understanding is it was a bit like a blend of ATBGE, MildlyInfuriating, CursedImages, or DIWhy.
Reddit is killing real communities, and killing their own history in the process. All those comments throughout the ages linking “/r/TIHI” now link to a dead sub. As much as I may have found those comments annoying, there were people out there who would click that link and go browse or maybe even subscribe to TIHI as a result of those comments.
The thing about TIHI, interestingasfuck, SLPT are that they regularly made r/all. Content hitting the front page means views for Reddit. So it’s less about the sub’s specific userbase, and more that those “main” subs have broad user appeal that brings people to Reddit in the first place.
And currently they’re all shuttered. Which means less content on r/all, which decreases the general audience appeal of Reddit.
Quality management 👍