hey everyone. if you want to post links or discuss the Reddit blackout today, please localize it to this thread in order to keep things tidy! Thanks!
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Was going to send someone at work an interesting article which was linked from Reddit but the subreddit was shutdown. I hate that reddit is doing this, and I hope more subs shut down permanently for protest so that reddit can’t just “wait it out”, but man is it inconvenient as hell.
useful link: wired - How to Download Your Reddit Data
Does that include your saved posts? That’s what I’m worried about losing the most.
Oh shit. I need that including saved posts. There’s a bunch of stuff in there that’s super useful
I’ve been a lot more active on Beehaw over the past few days than on Reddit. Tried to get into Kbin but the servers have been remarkably unstable and I don’t like the fact that you can only view 25 comments at once.
I think a lot of subreddits will fold. Your typical reddit moderator is hungry for power and having that power taken away from them is probably more terrifying to them than losing Apollo/RIF/BaconReader/Sync/Relay.
I think a lot of subreddits will fold. Your typical reddit moderator is hungry for power and having that power taken away from them is probably more terrifying to them than losing Apollo/RIF/BaconReader/Sync/Relay.
Then let them stay in their Reddit fiefdoms and far away from the Fediverse.
Just found out that that mod changed their mind and decided to go dark anyway, and was promptly removed by Reddit. Well, I guess they *did* see it coming!There’s an extent to which I get it. You think by staying you’ll protect your users from worse abuse and that by playing ball you’ll make things more tolerable. But at the end of the day, Reddit is not a prison. Everyone is free to leave at any time. If someone wants their sub to protest they should do it. If they’re scared reddit will take over the sub entirely, let them. Reddit will run out of people to act as mods real fast if everyone who wants to protest can, and that will also degrade the user experience. Let’s lead our communities how we want and if reddit makes decisions that bleed users, let them
You think by staying you’ll protect your users from worse abuse and that by playing ball you’ll make things more tolerable.
When in the ugly, violent history of humankind has that ever worked?
Yeah I didn’t explicitly want to get into that since I was being long winded already and I was on my phone, but yes. 100%. Creating safe spaces requires very specific activities, and working with people who prevent you from doing those activities in order to keep things from getting any worse is not a winning play
So far the event went as expected. Reddit seems to be back and will continue to live on. It’s really unfortunate. I was hoping that this event could the the catalyst to break the monopoly. A 2-day protest just doesn’t cut it. And while I was keeping an eye on it a couple of really big subs were still “discussing” whether they’d got dark or not. If subs go dark one by one it just doesn’t have the same effect as a concerted, well organised simultaneous blackout. Without a fixed time.
With that much impact all combined subs could have made a difference. But they botched it.
A lake doesn’t empty in a day even after the dam bursts. This will take time, but they lost a sizeable chunk of their mods and content creators, the users follow the content they like. Lemmy has grown to a point now where it is starting to get noticed and the press around reddit continues to get worse. Stay here, keep making content, keep telling others how to join. This can happen.
Meh - maybe Reddit will live on, maybe it’ll die. It’s immaterial and worrying about it is a waste of energy. What we need to concentrate on is keeping the forward momentum going and making Lemmy into a truly viable alternative. The rest will follow.
Yeah. Reddit was never going to magically die overnight. If it dies, it’s going to be a long and slow process. But that process starts with with some number of us jumping ship and focusing on bringing alternatives like Lemmy to life.
It may never really “die”. Digg still exists, MySpace still exists, aol still exists. It will just slowly wither, the user base will get worse and worse, and its value as a resource will diminish. It’s not about reddit anymore, its about getting good people to come here.
Plus, communities like these need quantity as much as quality to thrive. Each wave of Reddit expats makes this place better and more attractive to the next one, rinse and repeat. There’ll be another exodus when the TPAs officially die, most likely bigger than this one since it’ll hit in a more personal way. And then there’ll be more after that, because we both know Reddit isn’t gonna stop digging its own grave anytime soon.
Lol I’m posting on both here and Reddit. I’m kind of enjoying the drama even though I don’t have a strong opinion about the API controversy personally.
That’s so funny. I deleted my app - what’s happening on the other side?
It was business as usual on some of the subreddits I post on a lot (e.g., /r/credibledefense, /r/historywhatif). Those never shut down. But other ones where they re-opened, there’s a bit of debate going on about whether or not to stay shut down or not. At least on the subs I visit and post on, most people are in favor of keeping the subs open.
r/dankmemes commentators are all whining about the mods powertripping and how the protest is only hurting users and what right they have to destroy the experience for everyone 😂
I accidentally posted this outside the megathread — reposting here to help make life easier for the mods:
https://mods.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/16693988535309
Reddit attempting to offer free API usage for moderator tools (but not 3rd Party Apps)
This is now going to end up costing them more money cause they’ll have to police the usage of thier api with all these exceptions lol
Well not necessarily, you just give the mod tools a different api to use. It’d be simple, but you’d still be restricting some stuff for api tools
They’ve now added that “non-commercial” qualifier to accessibility apps and mod tools. So they’re totally cool with 3rd parties adding value to their platform. As long as all of the revenue resulting from that unpaid work goes straight to Reddit.
I like how they state the following:
As of July 1, 2023, we are increasing the API limits for our free API usage from 60 to 100 Queries Per Minute for those using OAuth authentication.
They’re making it sound like they’re increasing the rate limit, whereas they’re actually changing it from 60 queries per user per application per minute to 100 queries per application per minute. So if you had a 3rd party app with 1000 users, you’d have 60 queries each minute for every single user, now all those 1000 users will have to share 100 queries each minute (so that’d be 1 query per user every 10 minutes), unless the app developer is willing to pay up.
Still holding strong and staying here. Might as well get it over with though, as once RIF is dead, I wouldn’t be browsing reddit anyway.
Stayed off Reddit completely for the last 2 days but checked back in in a couple of the smaller subs I browse today. But I have found I am checking back in here on Lemmy more even now that all the Reddit subs I usually post in are back open. This really feels like a viable alternative to me.
I’ve also stayed off reddit so far, but doing so taught me something. I’m definitely addicted to scrolling reddit on my phone. The number of times I just opened reddit on reflex and then caught myself and killed the app was insane. Even if there’s a miracle and reddit changes their ways, this is something I should probably address.
Hi welcome. Have fun with it! It’s new, it’s exciting. It’s less developed but that just leaves tons of room for growth and polish! Reddit was over saturated and stagnant. Embrace the relatively empty pond!
I put the Lemmy web app shortcut where my Rif app used to be on my phone, so my muscle memory from always opening up rif has me going to lemmy instead. I’ve barely been looking at reddit at all and really enjoying seeing these lemmy communities grow. Once rif is gone I don’t plan to use reddit at all (aside from the occasional specific Google search for “specific question reddit”) and I don’t think I’ll miss it.
I decided to jump before I was pushed and bin off Apollo the weekend before the strikes started. This place existing made that jump a lot easier I think!
I imagine the devs have stats on uninstalls - I wonder what they show.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall at Reddit HQ right now in general!
@mobyduck648 @Deebster Who cares what Reddit thinks anymore. IF they do bring back third-party apps I will use Reddit, Mastodon and lemmy regardless. Reddit messed up big time
I had the official Reddit app because there was one function that it could do that my 3P couldn’t. But I decided the hell with it and uninstalled it yesterday. I assume I’m not the only one.
And meanwhile, I can’t say that I’m holding strong. I still have no desire to go back to Reddit. No strength is required!
I tried the official app a few times before the api announcement and can’t stand it. I’m supporting the blackout and if RIF dies, I will be done with reddit for good. I will miss the mass amount of knowledge.
Looking at the tracker comments seem to reaching parity with posts again, as they were pre-blackout. For the two days of the protest 67% of subs were private, yet posts hardly deviated from the norm - and comments only slightly below. Is the implication that people in subs that didn’t join in like r/news etc just posted/commented that much more in a show of support ha ha ha, or is this a de facto admission that much of the site’s traffic is just bots? Are investors down with that? I haven’t seen this actually hashed out in discussions much.
I think a more realistic implication is that big chunk of reddit content is bots and propagandists.
There is so much bots who repost on reddit it’s a nightmare…
I was wondering about how much of reddit activity is bots. Are bot posts/comments possible with lemmy?
Probably, but it wouldn’t be as easy since each instance has different design, admission criteria, and access to other instances. A bot would have to be based on a given instance, so a botnest instance could be cordoned off. If it becomes a bigger issue, each instance may have their own way of dealing with it so the bot would have to be capable of not only negotiating the above obstacles but also how to get around a variety of different ant-bot measures.
Yes, there’s nothing stopping someone from creating bot accounts on Lemmy and pretty much every other Fediverse platform. Even if APIs are restricted, they can just parse HTML instead (though that’s a bigger pain in the ass). This is an area where the decentralized nature of the Fediverse works in our favor, though, as it inherently limits reach and discoverability (thus minimizing the benefits of doing this). For example, Mastodon’s flagship instance (mastodon.social) had a spambot problem not too long ago, so what happened is when other instances noticed this spam wave, they limited/defederated with mastodon.social and the problem was solved on their end. The host instance can temporarily close off sign-ups to prevent new accounts from being made. Every other instance can control federation to effectively quarantine the spam problem.
It’s impossible to tell how much of the posts are bots but if you look at the default subreddits I’d say that it’s definitely noticable.
Reddit is a popular grey marketing area - be it shilling products or political propaganda. Lemmy/Federation hasn’t reached enough mass for this to be a real problem yet but it’ll happen eventually and Lemmy is an easy target right now. I used to work in bot detection area and modern, well made bots (the ones you should worry about) are essentially indisguishable from real users but script kiddies can be an issue too.
The only real way to fight bots is to reduce the incentive which is more of a cultural thing - people have to call out shills and a more transparent platform definitely helps.
Sorry for the rant but I think bots/spam will play a big role if federation ever reaches the point where there’s enough eye-balls for shilling to be valuable.
I dunno, there’s a particular instance here in the fediverse that seems like an alt-right bot operation. I don’t want to mention it directly to avoid the ire of said community, but once you find it your Head might explode.
I’m certain lemmygrad is a propaganda operation by China or Russia. Well at least I want to believe that people aren’t that toxic and ignorant willingly.
Good perspectives, I totally agree it’ll be a big challenge here as the fediverse gets bigger. Mastodon’s already had a couple of waves of spam - Brian Krebs had a good article a few weeks ago
There has to be a way to limit these accounts. Perhaps ban accounts with inhumane levels of activity? If possible, this would be awesome. I think that’s what makes a platform for me - interacting with real humans on topics of mutual interest. It would be such a bonus to have a feed not dominated by bot reposts and inevitable drivel.
Behavior analysis is definitely a popular way to handle this but it’s very difficult and resource intensive. Major issue is false positives as users are hard to predict in flexible environments like forums - is this person interested in all Honda posts as they are researching their new car purchase or they’re shilling for Honda?
It’s tough.
Can anyone tell me what the “196” community is? If I sort my feed by All, it gives me a ton of memes from there but I can’t tell what it is.
The joke is “you have to post something when you visit the subreddit” so the content there is just all over the place, but there are a bunch of in-jokes that spawned (was they always do in situations like that).
Left wing queer safe shitposting
It began on reddit as the general sub for the college dorm #196 at some university, one thing lead to another, and now it’s a meme sub which exists everywhere.
Just got a big blue headline on old.reddit.com, trying to negotiate their way out of the modtool API debacle. Anyone know the request rate of modtools? I can’t imagine a 60->100 query per minute increase is substantial
Especially because that’s basically a lie. The free tier right now is 60 requests per minute, per client, per user. The new free tier is 100 requests per minute per client. If for example you develop a bot or tool and you’d like to give others access to use for their own purposes. You’re now sharing those 100 requests per minute with everyone else using it.
I also really hate this.
Literally freeloading of the work of developers for their mod tooling.
How incredibly tone deaf can one be.
Crying that 3rd party apps make money and the time of “freeloading” is over only to try to literally freeload on the applications of 3rd parties.
Reddit can still and again just fudge off.
Somehow I doubt anything is gonna come of the blackout.
If things get concerning the admins will step in and replace mods with plants. No real winning at all
If they replace protesting mods then the communities can just overload the new mods until they restrict the sub (again). The real problem is people giving up (which just so aligns with what reddit wants). Personally, that’s the reason why I’m leaving because apparently a lot of people genuinely thought that a 2-day blackout would cut it. Yeah, right.
The thing with this is that it will take a HUGE amount of money to do this, unless you’re suggesting they’ll replace them with new unpaid moderators that are pro-being abused for free labor.
If that’s the case, the quality of those subreddits will tank fast because there’s no way they’ll replace the existing mods with ones as motivated or as experienced as the ones already there.
As much as people love to mock Subreddit Moderators, there’s a definite learned skill to doing it well and keeping a community thriving. That’s not going to be something easily replaced.
I really don’t think it would be THAT hard to find unpaid scabs, people like power, no matter how small
But that’s the problem. It’s easy to find people who will abuse their mod position. It’s harder to find people who will use their mod powers fairly. If the mods in a subreddit - who use their powers fairly to help foster the community - are replaced by power seeking mods who just want to force their views on everyone, then the community will suffer. People will leave and the subreddit will slowly degrade.
So Reddit could definitely replace all the protesting mods with power seeking folks. Reddit will even see a short term gain with the subreddits opened again. However, it will just reinforce people’s negative views of mods and will hasten Reddit’s decline.
No to mention subs like r/AskHistorians has mods that are actually historians. You can’t just replace them and have the sub maintain it’s quality.
personally it’s a little hard for me to believe that reddit admins are hellbent on making sure things are quality seeing how they’re acting right now. :p
Is the community really big enough to necessitate a mega thread?
Though this community is not extra-dextra-large, there’s still a lot of posts and comments about Reddit - so much so that before we started doing the megathreads, it was clogging up the local feed and preventing people from seeing other posts. Even in general, because !technology is such a big community on Beehaw, subscribing to it drowns out a lot of the other content we have.
That makes sense. Thank you for sharing.
I went ahead and posted a goodbye message on my Reddit profile, linking to my Lemmy and Mastodon profiles.
Now we’ll see if the Reddit admins have the audacity to ban me for “spam” over a single post on my own profile.
This is my first day on beehaw, and I’m planning to shift as much of what I previously did on reddit to this platform or others. Hopefully that will allow me to abandon reddit completely. I’m looking forward to learning more about this place and seeing how it develops.
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Didn’t reddit piss off a lot of the German users by making fake subs filled with poorly translated bots?
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Do you have any insights as to why I have german posts appeared in my reddit front page when I have none of the german subreddits subscribed?
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