I should begin by mentioning that I am (was) a moderator of three subreddits: one large subreddit, one NSFW subreddit and a medical-related subreddit. After u/spez’s calamitous AMA, I joined Lemmy and haven’t looked back. I am really enjoying the Lemmy/KBin vibe. It is very much an alpha (almost beta) product and the ad free, corporate free, decentralized nature of the fediverse has a thrill of its own.
Over the past couple of months, Reddit has done everything it can to show its moderators that they are low-value and easily replaceable. They’ve done this by removing technical tools, killing off third party applications, crippling API changes and jaw-droppingly bad public relations. Heavily used products like /r/toolbox are no longer being actively developed. When Reddit API implements a breaking, non-backwards compatible change, that tool will also die.
Yet the moderators of Reddit continue to moderate. They stay and help Reddit build Reddit. They continue to work for free; to allow Reddit to make money off of their work despite being abused. When I see things like the comment section on this post, I no longer feel sorry for the Reddit moderators still on the site. I see them as a sad, sorry group who cling to the false hope of a corporate turnaround. They could leave Reddit. They should leave Reddit.
These moderators are in an abusive relationship with Reddit, Inc. I might understand the argument, “we built this community, we can’t just abandon it”. But would you give the same advice to someone else in an abusive relationship? I get that the analogy between the mods and the corp is an imperfect one, yet it is similar enough to be valid, in my opinion.
Moderating is really hard. It is hard and thankless and never-ending. Finding good moderators who can handle the marathon nature of the gig is incredibly difficult. If Reddit moderators were to delete their moderating bots, downgrade their automod “code” and dial back their modding efforts to 5 min/week or less, it would materially hurt Reddit as a product.
The sunk-cost fallacy is a real thing. If the Reddit mods understood this, they’d take their talents elsewhere. But as long as they continue to help Reddit build Reddit, one shouldn’t feel sorry for them.
They could leave. I did and I’ve never been happier.
Spez’s comment on moderators showed the world he’s not a tiny bit better than Marck “They trust me, dumbfucks!” Zuckerberg.
Yet so many people willingfully trust him with their most personal sensitive information until it’s too late.
https://www.insider.com/nebraska-teen-sentenced-jail-abortion-police-facebook-2023-7
Even with that, you still don’t see FB users running away from the private data collection and resell platform.
It will be very hard for some moderators to leave because they put so much work in reddit, and leaving would force them to admit they were used by someone who despised them the whole time, and there is no hope he would ever change.
It’s similar to women who can’t leave their violent companion: they want to believe in something that does not exist, and will stretch their perception of reality to avoid admitting they’re wrong.
I do not despise the moderators who won’t leave. I pity them.
With all that said, this remind me I wanted to permanently delete my reddit’s account. I won’t contribute to a BS “users” numbers…
If you are ok with going scorched earth, download one of those programs that lets you replace the content of all of your comments with either gibberish or a pre-defined message saying why you did it and left first. I only deleted mine and I wish I did that but too late now.
Ah, too late! I deleted it right after writing my comment. I missed that opportunity.
Part of me hopes the raw number of users will drop at least a bit, that would be terrible for the valuation of the company…
But the other part of me has already moved on. Lemmy is fine, I don’t really need to look back.
This analysis really fucking sucks lmao. Abuse also includes controlling access to structures of dependency (housing, food, money, social webs, children), so a lot of time in the immediate term and often long term it is a MUCH better value proposition to stay with abusers in the hope that they change.
Idk this is so victim blamey and misunderstanding.
Well, we’re talking about 2 different things here:
1.Does the victim in an abusive reationship ackowledge it is abusive. You’d be surprised how many victims don’t. And that does not make them a tiny bit “less” victims.
2.Once the victim acknowledges the abusive situation, how much support is offered to help the victim, and yes, very often, the answer is close to peanuts, and that’s quite a shame. But that’s a whole different issue.