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No apologies as Reddit halfheartedly tries to repair ties with moderators (arstechnica.com)

submitted 11 months ago by trashhalo@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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Reddit is reaching out to moderators after tensions rose over recent policy changes and API pricing. A Reddit admin acknowledged the strained relationship and outlined new weekly feedback sessions and other outreach efforts to repair ties. However, moderators remain skeptical of Reddit's efforts given mixed results from past initiatives. Many mods feel Reddit has been unwilling to make meaningful changes to address their concerns like more accessible API pricing or exemption for accessibility apps. After a tumultuous few months, moderators have very low expectations that Reddit's latest efforts will result in real changes.

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[-] prole@beehaw.org 31 points 11 months ago

Then why are they even still there? It's like they're so addicted to the small amount of irrelevant "power" they get from the position and they just can't give it up.

[-] Kichae@kbin.social 73 points 11 months ago

I get that the tin pot dictator narrative is popular wrt subreddit mods, but it really isn't a useful model for understanding people's behaviour.

Fear of change, denial of loss, and sunk cost are all much more powerful tools for understanding.

[-] otter@lemmy.ca 20 points 11 months ago

Yea I'm trying to get a few Lemmy communities running but I'm planning to leave the mod teams once they get going and more experienced people join. A few seem ready for that already

I don't think the vast majority of mods are in it for the power lol

[-] Hegar@kbin.social 16 points 11 months ago

Plus there are plenty of subs that strongly benefit from the population size or promence of reddit - very niche interests, smaller city or town subs, etc.

And there are some subs where the archive of past material is a huge drawcard - for example AskHistorians which is almost certainly the best single reason for reddit existing and the best modded sub I know of.

[-] catcarlson@beehaw.org 10 points 11 months ago

Absolutely. When I was on Reddit, all the subreddits I joined were very niche: cities, fandoms, parody subs, and the like. The main reason I found them was because I could think of something and go "it's Reddit, there's a subreddit for anything".

That's pretty powerful when you're trying to build a community, since you can skip the "we exist" and "look here to find us" parts of the pitch and spend time and effort on the community itself instead.

Lemmy/KBin just doesn't have that appeal yet. Pretty much all the subs here, while by no means bad, are very "general-interest", and the interface to find them is clunky, especially if they aren't on your home server.

[-] Hegar@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago

you can skip the “we exist” and “look here to find us” parts of the pitch and spend time and effort on the community itself instead.

Thank you for stating that so clearly!

[-] Kichae@kbin.social 6 points 11 months ago

This is also why many communities have failed to launch on migrating off of Twitter. They don't have a ready-made, prepped, and universally agreed upon landing site, and intersectionality of communities prevents them from actually finding one, so they're all individually faced with the prospect of leaving their online communities and starting over, or staying put.

I sit on the periphery of most of my interest groups. I'm a loosely bound valence member, and many of my interests are also just well represented here in the Fediverse, so setting up shop here just wasn't an issue. But for people who are more tightly bound, it's going to feel like there are overwhelming barriers to leaving.

[-] prole@beehaw.org 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Right, so you were a mod and you don't like people calling out your behavior. Got it.

This ain't a "narrative," it's my (and many many others') personal experience with every mod that I'd encountered on that site.

[-] Kichae@kbin.social 10 points 11 months ago

I have never been a moderator, and your anecdote is not data. Your personal experience with a few people with toxic attitudes cannot be generalized, and the context of those experiences is vastly different from what's currently being observed and discussed.

I get that you're bitter that some stranger on the internet told you to stop doing something they didn't like, and had the power to make you, but that doesn't mean anything to anybody else.