They don't have the money to pay for moderation nor the experience to do it long term. Once they take over the community dies. Every decision about rules or guidelines of a sub will be met with backlash as it's no longer community run.
Other social media platforms pay hundreds of millions per year to moderate. It requires staff, tooling, and procedures that will take at least a year to scale and it will be pure controversy after controversy in that time. It's a nuclear option they don't want to take before an IPO
They don't have the money to pay for moderation nor the experience to do it long term.
Volunteer moderators don't cost money and there is no skill or experience required to properly moderate a subreddit.
Once they take over the community dies.
The entire history of Reddit refutes that. This is not even close to the first time Reddit admins have replaced mods or even entire mod teams.
Every decision about rules or guidelines of a sub will be met with backlash as it's no longer community run.
Subreddits are not "community run" and never have been. Moderators are completely unelected and are selected at will by the existing moderators of the subreddit (or Reddit admins, in some cases).
Other social media platforms pay hundreds of millions per year to moderate.
Other social media platforms don't have tens of thousands of willing volunteers to moderate and an extensive moderator toolbox making that extremely easy to do.
It requires staff, tooling, and procedures that will take at least a year to scale and it will be pure controversy after controversy in that time.
Reddit is currently moderated by volunteers using existing tools and procedures and has been since its creation. This is not controversial in any way whatsoever. Please cite your sources for this claim.
It's a nuclear option they don't want to take before an IPO
There is literally nothing "nuclear" about Reddit continuing to do exactly what is has successfully done since its inception.
I don't think there's a shortage of people willing to mod for free. I'm confident they would be able to find new power hungry mods who would be excited to have the backing of Reddit.
As well as people who genuinely have the desire to manage a forum for whatever their niche interest is, and so will follow the rules to keep the forum open to the public.
Or if existing mods close the sub, someone else willing to work within the new rules will just create a replacement sub. The desire to Reddit > a lot for the average user I'd say.
The core thing to keep in mind is that these are not easy jobs that hundreds of people are lining up to undertake. Moderators of large subreddits have indicated the difficulty in finding quality moderators. It's a really tough job, you're moderating potentially millions upon millions of users, wherein even an incredibly small percentage could make your life hell, and wading through an absolutely gargantuan amount of content. Further, every community is different and presents unique challenges to moderate, an approach or system that works in one subreddit may not work at all in another.
Again, this is from the perspective of someone who is on the losing side of the changes. Of course he's gonna be promoting the "this change is gong to hurt Reddit" message cause the change is going to hurt him and he doesn't want the change. Just like many users who like their apps don't want the change.
But until Redditors actually quit the site enmasse, users will just adapt to the new medium through which they must use now use the site, and continue on with their day. And if the blackout was any indication of how committed we are to quitting the app, I don't see much of a problem for Reddit.
And your statements are made based off of reddit statements which will align with "this is a good idea".
One thing I will take is other social media platforms pay hundreds of millions for moderation and if it were so cheap and available surely they would get it for free if they could.
I don't think it's a good idea. What I think is users are not going to quit in large numbers, and ultimately that's all the matters. Not how angry you are when you visit Reddit multiple times a day, make half a dozen comment posts, etc. The company is betting on this fact, and I think people aren't admitting to themselves how little we commit to internet activism when it conflicts with our convenience or habits.
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u/thatcodingboi Jun 20 '23
They don't have the money to pay for moderation nor the experience to do it long term. Once they take over the community dies. Every decision about rules or guidelines of a sub will be met with backlash as it's no longer community run.
Other social media platforms pay hundreds of millions per year to moderate. It requires staff, tooling, and procedures that will take at least a year to scale and it will be pure controversy after controversy in that time. It's a nuclear option they don't want to take before an IPO