Reddit is making sitewide protests basically impossible

I quit as the top mod of /r/StarTrek in 2021 in protest against Reddit’s platforming of vaccine disinformation subreddits. Then in 2023 during the API protest, myself and several of the remaining mods (including mods from /r/Risa and /r/DaystromInstitute) started StarTrek.website.

The consensus I’ve seen on Lemmy has been largely “we don’t need to spread the word about our open platforms because Reddit will do something stupid again and there will be another protest and Lemmy will be promoted there”. So I hope we can take this as a lesson that we can’t rely on platforms being shitty in order to switch society over to open standards. We need to do our best to make Lemmy/Mbin/Piefed good as well as known.

brucethemoose,

I feel like all the niches I visit Reddit for are being enshittified.

Small ones are floundering, apparently due to being deprioritized by the engagement algorithms according to mods I’ve talked to? And even worse, a lot of discussion is moving to Discords and X.

Big ones are getting more karma farm style posts. I know people have always complained about this, but its never felt this bad in fandoms for shows and such.

hitmyspot,

I can’t comment with authority as I dont go there any more, but wouldn’t part of the reason be that many of the quality posters have left and its more spambots and karma farmers and worse mods than before? You can’t enshittify a platform and not expect it to get Whittier for users.

I’m surprised peopke are moving to x. Even public facing tweets from company’s that use x are blocked behind a log in.

brucethemoose,

The movement to X isn’t universal, it’s more of a “last resort” where a few communities flounder.

jonesy,

This seems like the kind of change you would make before announcing another bigger change that you expect will attract significant uproar from the users.

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

Grimace

gravitas_deficiency,

https://media1.giphy.com/media/26ybx3bcbK5gY2QWQ/giphy.gif

Zagorath,
@Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

Yeah the going theory seems to be the death of classic Reddit.

StillPaisleyCat,
@StillPaisleyCat@startrek.website avatar

Thanks for the heads up.

I can see that there might be a need to ensure some consultation in a sub, such as a notice period. Especially so for users that might wish to delete their post and comment history before a sub goes NSFW or private, but this is just another step.

As if being an early adopter in selling all their content to train LLMs wasn’t enough to justify avoiding the place.

anas,

Sitewide protests are still possible: Just stop modding.

Corgana,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

I like this lol that’s actually what I proposed to do with /r/StarTrek back in '21 but was outvoted

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