alyaza [they/she]Megathread for Reddit Blackouts and News - Day 3
Swimmerman96There are over 6000 subreddits that still aren't public. Like looks like Reddit is over waiting for them to come back online. https://famichiki.jp/@Tsutsuku/110537730270070245
pbjammThis was a predicted outcome, at least for the larger subreddits. Expect to hear much more of this in the coming couple of days.
Gods of the Internet, with this offering I ask you to summon Cerf, Torvalds, and Stallman so that they may witness this curse. By the spirits of my ancestors I curse Reddit. Let its profits wither. Let its networks crack. Let it see its legions of users disperse. Gods of the Inferno, I offer to you its networks, its mouthpiece, its servers, its "free" speech, its hands, its liver, its black heart, its stomach. Gods of the Inferno, let me see Reddit suffer deeply, and I will rejoice and sacrifice to you.
darius_drakeMan that prayer was fkng funny xD, specially mentioning Torvalds and Stallman is a gigachad move
Shamelessly borrowed from HBO series "ROME"
Servilia of the Junii
Servilia is the mother of Brutus and sometime lover of Julius Caesar. A Roman aristocrat of noble birth, Servilia is a proud woman who concerns herself with the dignity, social standing, and longevity of her family. However, she is also internally fragile, and any offense committed against her can become a source of bitterness. She holds many grudges, particularly against the Julii family, and will go to any length to fulfill her longing for revenge. Servilia is devoted to Caesar as he rises to
The CuuuuubeStallman is a horrible terrible no good very bad person.
https://rms-open-letter.github.io/
KwakigraI visited Reddit for the first time in two days and had a thought that has occurred to me constantly for years, "I hate this site." It's still the same alienating crap and it will never change. I glanced over my home page, made a comment about the fediverse being a better alternative in a blackout thread for one of my subs that came back, and popped back here.
My first day off Reddit, I had severe withdrawal. I kept trying to launch Boost (my third party Reddit app of choice) despite not really wanting to. Thankfully, a focus app I installed for just this reason stopped me. I eventually moved the app shortcut and put Jerboa in its place so that muscle memory took me to Lemmy instead.
By the second day, the withdrawal wasn't as bad. I did miss some things, but I was starting to realize how little I really cared about much of it.
By now, Lemmy has replaced about 40% of my Reddit usage. Another 50% I've deemed not important enough to replace. I now have only one subreddit that I really miss. I've found a Lemmy alternative, but of course Reddit has a bigger community.
That one remaining subreddit is still dark. (I tried to see how many subscribers it had and saw it was still dark. I wasn't going to read any posts if it had gone back online.) If it comes back, I might stick around there, but I'll also stay on Lemmy and will push this as a Reddit replacement. (I think Jerboa and Lemmy have some rough edges that need to be improved upon before they can truly be a replacement, but they are surprisingly close.)
breadsmasherI just uninstalled Apollo to stop any chance of accidentally going to reddit.
Speaking of Jerboa, I installed it, but it opens to lemmy.ml and I can't figure out how to change it to beehaw.
It's disappointing to see some of the larger subreddits going public with a 'what's the point?' tone. Most are staying private, but some aren't. As if Reddit doesn't exist solely because of its user generated content. If enough subs permanently shut down they'll have to reconsider their API position.
I decided to write a message to subreddits I've been lurking for years via messaging the mods saying how vitally important it is for subreddits to protest right now, at this critical time, before it's too late. I've politely implored them to continue the protest saying how these API changes with have a long-lasting, permanent impact on Reddit as a platform for the worse.
I'd suggest you guys come up with your own letter template and message the mods of those subreddits in polite form. It'd be great if we can convince these exceptions to go private again. I also understand some moderators may be afraid Reddit will just replace them with mods willing to reopen the sub, so I added a section saying it they're treated like that, Reddit don't deserve their time and maybe they should consider rebuilding elsewhere if that happens. Its their prime chance to stand up for the right thing right now for the future of Reddit.
I used Reddark to determine which subreddits to contact. I'd say only contact hobbyist ones such as sports rather than more politically-inclined ones like Ukraine that have a fair reason to stay open. Also some subreddits have made poll posts asking their users if they should go private like Gaming and NotTheOnion, so please don't message those ones.
GadgeteerZAWhat the big subreddits don't realise is, on Fediverse many of their subreddits have not yet been recreated. If they don't do it, someone else will and then they come in as just contributors. So may be in their interests to actually establish a presence, and gauge how much take-up they get.
May be they already realize it, meaning, they saw all the popular communities already created here, and would much rather stay there as mods.
I think so too but I don't see why they wouldn't want to come on the fediverse nonetheless. They can participate but not as mods. Once they build a reputation on the fediverse then of course they could apply for mod.
jayI agree with everything you’ve said and that it is disappointing. I do think there is merit in continuing to protest and send a message.
However, I don’t think there’s anything that can move the Reddit leadership team back. Because even if they went back on this API issue, the continued process of the degradation of reddit as a service has been a long term thing. It seems to me that the Fidelity downgrade of their evaluation has pushed them even further down this path.
I truly am done with them. Even if they come back from all this, what’s left there? Somebody else pointed out that over the year, generally interactions became more unfriendly on reddit, spam and changes to the algorithm increasingly pushed away from the platform we all loved.
I see this situation and how it was so exacerbated by Spez and the leaderships absolute failure as a blessing. There’s a lot of alternative ways to spend time on the internet, to connect and learn. Beehaw has been really good to me the last couple days, I am excited for a future here and ready to not contribute toward the mess that reddit has become anymore.
I'm excited to see how these new platforms flourish too. Even if Reddit do eventually concede and they drop their API pricing, the writing is on the wall. They've shown how little they care about the community that uses their platform. I'll likely be leaving Reddit permanently, but I want to know I've at least done everything in my power as a long-time user to protest their awful decisions.
It's become increasingly clear that Steve and his cronies are desperately trying to get Reddit to its IPO with value intact so they can cash out and leave someone else holding the bag. As I've said elsewhere, I wouldn't be surprised if he and others end up shorting Reddit.
I was wondering if I should delete all or leave some of my posts, but seeing subs I subscribed to come back was what made me decide to just wipe everything. Can't do anything about the mods or what other users do, so felt like deleting stuff was the one tiny bit of control I had over the situation. Which itself is nothing, but at least it's something.
flick_my_beanYou can request your data under EU's new GDPR law https://www.reddit.com/settings/data-request
They have to send you all your personal data. Once you have your data, you can they use a tool to delete all your data and wipe your comments before you deleted your account. Like Chrome/Edge extension RedditZapper.
Note that it might take a while though, so if anyone wants to get this done before the 30th (so you can use API-based tools to wipe comments), request it ASAP.
I requested...maybe two weeks or so ago? And it only came through today. So get to it y'all
I used Power Delete Suite to overwrite my comments and posts via API, it includes an option to export everything from your account to a CSV before it takes any destructive actions, and it's super easy to use.
I was cool seeing years of comments get wiped. I could see why some people would purge their history every year even before the reddit controversy. It's cleansing in a way.
Advertisers are starting to take notice, it seems. Gotta keep the blackout running longer to hit em in their pocketbooks - 2 days they can weather out, indefinite dark they cannot. It's what I've been saying from the beginning, a protest with a clearly defined end date has no teeth.
ValenI've heard about Reddit removing a mod from a popular subreddit, then turning the subreddit public (sorry, don't have the reference). They can always stop the blackout by force. But once they do that, those mods will have definite incentive to start the communities in the fediverse.
I think it was r/AdviceAnimals
It was. How does one link to another post on Lemmy?
ReMikeAbleAlso r/tumblr
It was done because the head mod (who barely contributed anything) showed up out of the blue and decided to enroll the sub into the protest. The rest of the mod team was not in agreement with it.
I think the best thing that protesting redditors can do now (if they haven't already) is delete all of their content on the platform. Not before backing it up to post on Lemmy, of course.
Check out PowerDeleteSuite, a Chrome* plugin that can edit/delete posts in a user's history. https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite
Just follow the install instructions on the page and let it rip. You can act on or exempt specific subs, act on age, exempt by status, etc. It will also export deleted and modified comments to a CSV for your own use.
I nuked my accounts, editing all comments to "This comment has been deleted in protest of the Reddit API changes of June 2023. Consider visiting Lemmy.world or Kbin.social for an alternative news source."
I'll probably go back in on the 29th or 30th and delete everything before closing the accounts.
- worked on Chromium for me. Never had success with Firefox, and I don't touch Edge.
ArkoSammy12Sad to see that many people in the larger subreddits don't care about any of this. I guess it's fine; I guess you don't truly know what you have until you loose it.
LockelyThe site is being astroturfed by bots as well. So many FirstWordSecondWordBunchaNumbers comments that are all exactly the same trying to pin this on the mods.
Reddit has been caught astroturfing their site before, multiple times. It's just not been reported on because it usually doesn't happen in English, or happened when the site was small and young.
There are entire alternate language versions of big subreddits filled with nothing but reposts of popular old posts run through a translator. Comments section and all.
SubredditSimulator was fun as an experiment but it's clear they'll artificially prop their engagement and I really hope advertisers catch on. If you're a journalist in tech reading this, you've got a hell of a story to break about a top ten website fluffing up its stats for an illicit IPO grab.
What do you mean by mentioning SubredditSimulator here? Wasn't that a GPT experiment made by a random user or was there something more nefarious at play that I completely missed?
Art [he/him] 🌈Haven't you noticed the amount of bots stealing comments and reposting them elsewhere in a post?
It's one of the reasons I had been trying to leave reddit for months. You never knew if a bot was replying to you.
deephurtingThere's another sub with GPT in the title, r/subGPT or something. The subreddit simulator always amused me, it was blatantly artificial - the content on this new one made me queasy, it was precisely the kind of one note jibber jabber we'd skim past constantly.
SubredditSimulator was a fun experiment by a random user with increasingly improving realism, training ChatGPT on real comments.
It also showed Reddit Inc you can fake engagement and community interaction with bots, which are now astroturfing the fuck out of the site.
Dang, I never thought about that. It makes complete sense though
jherazobAccording to reddark, there were more than 7K subs closed this morning, right now there's a bit above 6300, with many opening as we speak. We'll see.
I am fascinated by how the experience of other people can be completely different from mine, alien even. We can look at the same situation and come up with exactly opposite conclusions. I keep trying to put myself in the shoes of the other, figure out how they think. The behavior of u/spez is abhorent to me, but here's how I would imagine he thinks about the community list of demands:
Bringing the API pricing down to the point ads/subscriptions could realistically cover the costs.
The costs are reasonable and down to earth! We've been extremely generous. Our prices are in line with industry standards. The app devs are greedy and do not want to pay. In fact they are so greedy they are choosing to shut down and go out of business rather than pay their fair share! Also some apps are ahem inefficient. Those devs could stay profitable if they just code their apps better.
Reddit gives the apps time to make whatever adjustments are necessary
The apps had plenty of time. We've been perfectly transparent. The API changes were announced months in advance. The first bills do not arrive until months from now in August, and are not due for another month after that. The apps have enough time if they are serious about working with us.
Rate limits would need to be per user+appkey, not just per key.
Rate limits are for the free tier. The paid tier is a flat fee per 1000 API calls without rate limit.
Commitment to adding features to the API; image uploads/chat/notifications.
We are always working on new and exciting features! We have so many mod tools in the pipeline. All the hottest features will appear in our native app first, which is where we can best ensure everything stays compatible. Have you tried using that?
Lack of communication. Why were disabled communities not contacted to gauge the impact of these API changes?
We are always in communication with our communities! We've been discussing these API changes for months, collecting community input, and interacting with our users in AMAs!
You say you've offered exemptions for "non-commercial" and "accessibility apps." Despite r/blind's best efforts, you have not stated how they are selected.
We communicate with developers on an app-by-app basis. We have already confirmed the inclusion of two accessibility apps! We support accessibility for blind people!
Parity in access to NSFW content
Cannot be done for lawyercat reasons.
Now that we have addressed all of the listed community concerns, we are looking forward to welcoming all of you back to reddit!
</AH mode>
P.S. the fact that u/spez specifically stated that "old.reddit.com isn’t going anywhere" confirms in my mind that old.reddit will be gone within 9 months. Screenshot this.
Once old Reddit goes leaving is not a matter of choice for me.
Man, I read your word vomit like 4 times, I believe you are right about all of it.
I read all of the apps threads about why they're quitting on the 30th, for Apolo which has already charged its users he would have to foot the costs the whole time until the next subscription re-up for many/most of his users, and we're supposed to believe the reddit guys?
For others, even the ones that want to make it work with added subscriptions, the lack of full reddit access via the API makes one wonder, what's the point of even trying?
Reddit has been an awful site for nearly 20 years, the only thing that made it usable was third party apps.
I'm not sure I'm going to miss it, I hated it before 3PA, and I'm willing to hate it again now.
The only thing I'm going to miss is world news updates and stuff that is here, the volume is basically muted in comparison.
Cannot be done for lawyercat reasons.
I can't say for sure, but I suspect they are trying to push nsfw in-house for the sake of monetizing it. Nsfw drives quite a bit of traffic, and with the falling out of Imgur, Reddit itself has become the primary host. They just can't state their intentions publicly because Reddit has a bit of problem with non-consensual material.
Right! I was trying to model u/spez as sincere, but with views so diametrically opposed to mine as to sound insane. "Lawyercats" was an actual reason he has cited previously. I agree that the much more likelier explanation is that reddit execs are lying out their ass and are simply deliberately killing of 3rd party apps to make their IPO look better somehow, and using the fuck-you pricing as a convenient excuse. The execs must have been drinking their own start-up cool-aid, having forgotten that the real value of reddit is not in them but in the community. u/spez keeps calling it HIS data that 3rd party apps are profiting off, when it is really OUR data. Or maybe they are aware, but are expecting that they can bend the community to their will regardless.
TranceReductionIt's disappointing seeing people cave so quickly when under the slightest inconvenience. It doesn't matter for me, though - I'm not going back. If anything, this has helped me realize the unhealthy relationship I had with Reddit and was a good way to break that.
To new and better things.
I deleted my Reddit account on 6/12 and they just simply didn't process it. Losers
Communisthttps://github.com/andrewbanchich/shreddit
This should help!
aardthis has helped me realize the unhealthy relationship I had with Reddit and was a good way to break that
Exactly, now that I have an unhealthy relationship with Lemmy I can't put effort into the one with Reddit.
PascalPistachiosSame. Replacing doom scrolling on Reddit with posting on beehaw.
raesynI started reading Reddit (and now Lemmy) through RSS feeds because I was exhausted from the constant scrolling. I think that's really helped me cut back on my link-aggregator of choice. The RSS feeds here could use some TLC though -- the feeds smoosh the title and url together and if there is any sort of post text, it's not much to go on.
What RSS feed application are you using? I’m thinking of doing the same. Just pulling in everything from multiple sources into one interface
ddnomadI use https://reeder.app/ with https://feedly.com account. Checks all the boxes between being able to access my RSS feed on any device (as Feedly has a website) and have it great user experience on my phone / laptop.
LeighWell, give young people some credit, though. Mostly they're the ones that have been closing their subs and migrating here and working to develop FOSS software like Lemmy. I say this as someone in my late 30s.
TheRtRevKaiserI'm probably going to delete my account or at least cut back drastically on my usage, but I'm currently the only active mod for a small fan sub for an old fantasy book series. I don't really want to leave that sub unmoderated but I'll have to find another user willing to take on mod duties before I feel alright abandoning Reddit altogether.
patchymooseYeah, the niche subreddits are what I really hate to leave behind. I could care less about leaving r/politics, r/AskReddit, etc. But I'll miss r/EtrianOdyssey (niche video game series).
But we'll just have to create these communities on Lemmy. I'm in it for the long haul.
PenguinCoderonly active mod for a small fan sub
That attachment is what they (Reddit) are counting on. It's your community, not Reddits; and they don't care. But you do... while admirable in itself, its being used against you.
I don't disagree with you, but I still feel a certain responsibility to that community. I'd like to start divesting myself of that responsibility, but it'll take time if I don't want to just abandon it.
How about you make a lemmy community or a kbin magazine and officially migrate your subreddit there?
I've considered it, but honestly I'm kind of tired of it lol. It's an older series and so all of the arguments/discussions are just kind of retread endlessly, and I'm not as into it as I used to be. Also there are discussions about making a tv show and I wouldn't mind being as far away as possible once that kicks into high gear. I saw what r/WoT was like when that show came out and I don't want any part of moderating that crap.
Ah, makes sense.
JaymesRSWhich series? My guess is Riftwar based on that description, but I’m curious if you’re open to sharing.
Not Riftwar, although I did love those books and even had a rogue on Ultima Online named "Jimmy the Hand".
It's a series called "The Chronicles of Amber" by Roger Zelazny. Great series but not without its flaws and never super huge in the public consciousness.