@caseynewton Tons of popular 3rd party apps (Reddit is Fun, Baconreader, etc) as well as basically all major bot integrations, and ingestion systems like NetNewsWire
A big part as well is moderation tooling. The (volunteer) moderation teams rely on a lot of 3rd party systems to do their work, which Reddit is just casting aside while still expecting them to maintain those communities
@dbreunig a lot of it has to do with the available tooling on mobile apps for moderators not being good in the main app.
(I'm mid boss fight at the moment, but I saw earlier the toolbox dev say that the reddit changes and whatnot has them concerned about what the future looks like, but also have seen them say its not immediately impacted. apologies for the brevity. Boss fight.)
@endeavorance Yes, that is what I linked to. They are not impacted and impacting them would be very hard, because they are a browser plugin just manipulating HTML/CSS/JS. It's not an API.
Do you know of some features of 3rd party apps that mods consider essential? (And I'll wait for the conclusion of boss fight.)
@dbreunig late reply. Banging my head against high difficulty content when tired is a bad idea.
ANYWAY, yeah the dev of that plugin has commented a few different sentiments in a handful of threads. I saw a different one to the one you linked but I think we're on the same page.
A cursory scan of more replies to the top of the post thread shows a good few references and resources, I'd point to there for helpful info as there's infographics by people much more deep into it than I am.
@caseynewton I'll see if I can find good direct sources. Look into a11y-focused apps too!
Some of it is that moderators use 3rd party apps which have better innate mod management UIs for working on the go. The official Reddit app is just leagues behind on mobile support for mods.
Extensions like toolbox [1] are on thin ice, as they use the API but reuse the existing session, so not immediately dying. The Toolbox dev has expressed concern about the future there.
[1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/moderator-toolbox-for-red/jhjpjhhkcbkmgdkahnckfboefnkgghpo
The big one is probably Pushshift https://github.com/pushshift/api. Though reddit might still make pushshift available to verified mods. This quote explains some use cases:
"Many moderators have shared their concerns about the potential loss of pushshift emphasizing its importance for their moderation tools, subreddit analysis, and overall management of large communities. One moderator, for instance, mentioned the invaluable ability to access comprehensive historical lists of submissions for their subreddit, crucial for training Automoderator filters. Another expressed concerns about the potential increase in spam content, and the impact on the quality of the platform due to losing access to Pushshift, which powers general moderation bots like BotDefense and repost detection bots. "
https://www.reddit.com/r/pushshift/comments/135tdl2/a_response_from_pushshift_a_call_for/
@caseynewton @endeavorance For an overview of the whole thing (focused mostly on the 3P apps)
Casey Newton
endeavorance 🕊️
Drew Breunig
Gerakion