Mods react as Reddit kicks some of them out again: “This will break the site”
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These mods have ignored the previous waves of people leaving reddit. They were aware of this and have been warned but chose to stay
wrote last edited by [email protected]its the admins and spez instituiting these changes, reddit was doomed the moment it went public. the mods were too complacent.
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I've been off Reddit totally since 2023, so part of my understanding may be out of date, but before that I was on for many years and watched how powermods became powermods.
Thus this situation is very unusual. Reddit never did anything about the powermod situation before, but now, suddenly, it's a big deal. For years (over a decade, at least) users have been screaming about the worst abuses on the site being from powermods, and time after time Reddit bent over backwards to not only avoid doing anything about it, but seemed to grasp every opportunity to enhance the problem any way they could, shutting down complaints rather than the power trippin' bastards that were regularly creating the problems.
Note that powermods very frequently mod the largest subs, which is how they became powermods to start with: modding a sub that got big and then being invited to help mod new subs that then also grew in popularity.
For myself, I don't think anyone would give two shits if "powermods" only had an aggregate total of 500 users each, but very frequently they have millions, even tens of millions. Looking at the largest subs on the site and the powermods on those subs, and how many of those powemods are crossovers on equally dominant subs, you see the same core group of powermods across all the top sites, give or take a few individually here and there.
Strangely, this is the group Reddit is now disbanding.
Another thing to consider is how many powermods went on to become admins over the years. At least a handful: I don't know the exact number anymore but it's non-zero. Powermods who are admins are especially useful to Reddit, because they ensure that the c-suite has direct control over some of the largest subs without ever appearing to do so.
All this is to say that the powermod situation has been mutually beneficial to Reddit admin for ages, which is why they never changed it or even really acknowledged it.
But now, for the first time since 2005, Reddit powermods are suddenly a problem. So what's changed? Cui bono?
My guess is that Reddit admin is about to a) yank the entire site to the hard right by removing pretty much all effective human moderation and thus preventing powermods from being able to stand in their way across the largest subs (some of which we've already seen and the article addresses), and/or b) introduce some other vile change or policy that is certain to piss off EVERYONE, including every non-bot mod on the site, to the point that admin expects a general revolt even among the powermods and need to dilute the individual power of mods in advance.
One very hypothetical change that could do the trick is Reddit forcing mods, including powermods, to quietly engage in collecting evidence of and reporting users and content that admin would like to sell to the current US admin, for example: intel which Reddit is well situated to provide and for which the current administration has already been calling in the wake of a certain recent death. What if Reddit decides to go all in with the present political trajectory, looking for political power as well as the payout they're usually in it for, and in so doing force mods to comply or lose their subs? It's not like Reddit hasn't already done it for less.
Again, these are just my own musings. But whatever the reason, Reddit admin calling it quits with the powermods suggests something much larger than just another light rehabbing of Reddit power structures.
they allowed 92 mods to control over 500+subs, im betting these are mostly the subs that have alot of traffic and controversy(mainly discussion based subs, plus news and politics and any subclones of these subs)
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Seems okay, Reddit should eliminate the powermods
i wouldnt be surprised if reddit just have AI managing these subs in the future.
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Reddit is basically state controlled.
wrote last edited by [email protected]since spez is inlove with how musk is running things, he wants it to be facebook/twitter clone, where people just browse the site without logging in, and exposing them to tons of ads. Im surprised reddit hasnt increased the frequency of ads on the site.
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I'm surprised that Reddit has any active users, personally. It's just so... Fake now.
Sadly the few subs I frequented are still active and more useful than their Lemmy counterparts.
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It's interesting to see the site treat it's unpaid workers more and more like low level employees. I guess capitalists just can't help themselves.
and allowing AI to train thier models. Reddits /GOOGLE and lesser extent openai is stuck at the hip.
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The mods under discussion are the ones that mod more than FIVE large communities. if those people haven't figured out a way to make that a paying gig, then they're doing it wrong.
some mods are admins themselves, and some only care about POWER so not so much about money. and then theres the propaganda subs, like r/conservatives(well known to be backed by russia)
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At the risk of agreeing with Reddit:
Under new rules rolling out over the coming months, a small number of users will be required to leave some of their moderator posts so that they aren’t moderating more than five subreddits with 100,000 monthly visitors.
That sounds perfectly reasonable. Reddit has a massive powermod problem.
reddit might want AI to control some of the subs, dont you think?
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Yes, but they are also doing this to deleverage their mods and consolidate censorship power with corporate
wrote last edited by [email protected]admins actually are the one that hold all the power on the site, mods are the plebs that have to play ball. admins are only 2nd in power to spez. they are the ones behind the aggressive somewhat indiscriminate shadowbans and purges. its only a matter of time before they drop the mask and increasing more right leaning content.
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True, but Reddit let this problem fester for a long time.
What's interesting to me here regarding this, is Reddits current preparation timescale. This isn't going to be enforced until March 31st, 2026. This tells me that Reddit would have been unprepared for a complete mass-walkout of community moderators during the 2023 Reddit API strikes. A large chunk of Reddit during that period was genuinely inaccessible. But after a few token gestures and a few examples made of some especially rebellious mod-teams, most of the striking moderators returned.
A huge opportunity was missed by people running major communities to functionally degrade Reddit in at least the medium-term as a website. You can't just hastily promote random people to replace moderators Reddit is either forced to remove or who leave voluntarily. The average person is likely too lazy, too arbitrary and too corrupt to effectively oversee communities of notable sizes.
wrote last edited by [email protected]actually, thier purges since the election was too effective, and removed so much users and mods by banning them. plus the shadowbans have dramatically increased, because they made the filters to sensitive to "potential bots/spammers).
50/50 irl users/bots. at least right now, its reddit is filled with charlie kirk propaganda(negative and positive), with a little hint of luigi. -
I was on one of those “especially rebellious mod-teams”. We were even interviewed by Ars Technica about it all at the time.
On advice of a majority of our users, we took our sub offline and kept it that way until Reddit booted us as mods. Honestly, this was the outcome I was expecting — hell, I was pretty open about goading them into it. What was the alternative — to cave to the platform that was abusing us so I could keep working for them for free?
That’s the part I didn’t understand about my fellow mods from other subs. Many of them caved pretty quickly. Their identities seemed to be so tied up in being a Reddit mod that they couldn’t let it go, even though the relationship was obviously very unequal. Too many other people stood up after witnessing the mod abuse to take over from those who got the boot, just asking for the Reddit boot to be applied to their necks instead.
Well, I wish all the mods the kind of treatment they forgave/ignored the last time around.
at least you wernt like that anti-work mod that went ON FOX, that actually drew negative attention to the site.
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There's a saying in my language that fits this situation perfectly: "Tja."
"Ja mai"
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The quality of reddit took a massive hit after the strike and never recovered.
it took another one from the series of purges this year too. i think the purges did alot more damage than reddit is letting on. since they were doing it for months on end, i was seeing a real decrease in users posting, and mostly it was replaced by bot posting.
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Not really. The powermods arent bringing anything unique moderation except a network that allows them to control content for a specific audience. This is not about enforcing subreddit rules its about subreddit mods pushing an agenda across their subs and pushing sponsored posts outsides reddits ad program.
Its overall a good thing but the powermods will be replaced with reddit admins doing the ame
wrote last edited by [email protected]it allows them to institute changes ordered by the admins more effectively, complicitly. hard to do it if 500+ subs had thier own mod team, instead of just 92.
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One the one hand I can understand the issue that one person wielding mod power in many subs is a problem, especially if that mod is prone to abuse of the mod position.
On the other hand, some subs, especially smaller ones, might go modless.
What I would have done differently is that I would not align this rule on the number of subs alone. The size of a sub should also be a factor, as well as overall number of mods in those groups. A good solution would be not as easy as what they propose.
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There's a saying in my language that fits this situation perfectly: "Tja."
In my language we also have a saying: "nyeeerrrrrrr"
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It limits mods to 5 subs with over 100,000 monthly visits it seems reasonable to limit the mods reach they all have back deals going on to push agendas and ads it's pretty fucked.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Yeah, I thought it actually may be a rare Reddit W for 2 minutes, until I saw reddit admins will grant exceptions. So likely, mods that push reddits agendas will stay while the uncooperative ones will have to go.
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One the one hand I can understand the issue that one person wielding mod power in many subs is a problem, especially if that mod is prone to abuse of the mod position.
On the other hand, some subs, especially smaller ones, might go modless.
What I would have done differently is that I would not align this rule on the number of subs alone. The size of a sub should also be a factor, as well as overall number of mods in those groups. A good solution would be not as easy as what they propose.
Honestly just get rid of the mods.
These days some AI bot instructed on the sub rules would probably do a much better job. Nd not be a power hungry bitch
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Funny to hear from the new mods that replaced their predecessors during the protest. Now it's their turn to be replaced
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One the one hand I can understand the issue that one person wielding mod power in many subs is a problem, especially if that mod is prone to abuse of the mod position.
On the other hand, some subs, especially smaller ones, might go modless.
What I would have done differently is that I would not align this rule on the number of subs alone. The size of a sub should also be a factor, as well as overall number of mods in those groups. A good solution would be not as easy as what they propose.
moderating more than five subreddits with 100,000 monthly visitors.
I mean, that's clearly a rule that considers size of sub a factor, so, um, what?
