Mods react as Reddit kicks some of them out again: “This will break the site”
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Given Reddit's past unreasonableness, I wouldn't be surprised if this otherwise reasonable explanation has an alternative motive.
The motive is these mods hold a decent amount of power on the platform that they wish to reduce. They don’t want a repeat of the API protests.
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What's the second logo?
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Speaking as a former top 1%er redditor... figuring out how to do it and being willing to do it are two completely different things.
Life would be so much easier if I lacked basic human ethics.
"Man, I wish I didn't have a moral compass. I would have so much stuff!" - my brother after another coworker was fired for getting caught stealing.
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Given Reddit's past unreasonableness, I wouldn't be surprised if this otherwise reasonable explanation has an alternative motive.
Gotta boost user numbers.
Or obscure them considering not letting people see sub count only daily/weekly activities
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Yes, I expressed outrage at a disgusting state sanctioned murder in Iraq and suggested the invaders perpetrating these horror deserve to see the same kind of violence in their own cities.
Permaban of the entire website forever. I could easily evade the ban but, this was also when the API trouble and the "reddit is fun" app stopped working.
The writing was on the wall, duck that place and everyone in it. I won't be taken hostage anymore.I never looked back and I'm glad I did, I was wasting so much of my precious time in that ducking disgusting dump. I hope Lemmy doesn't Septemberify for a long time. I really hope steps are taken to prevent centralization and owner dominance of Lemmy before it becomes reddit with extra steps
Lenny doesn't really work like that. It's not just one site.
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What's the second logo?
The outer right one? This is lemmy. A link aggregator like reddit
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We all presume that being the mod of several large reddit communities doesn't include the possibility of sidehustle financial benefits.
Yet, humans are innovators of corruption! And I can only assume that any multi-mega-subreddit moderator has worked out something to make what is obviously a full time job worth their time.
I heard mods of big subreddits can get basically sponsored by big companies and go to events. Half the pc gaming subreddits have what are basically ad posts pinned by the mods.
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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.
The problem with powermod isn't that they exist, though. Moderation of a large sub is still done by volunteers that have had to hack solutions together because they don't get a lot of support from Reddit. It helps Reddit to have experienced mods overseeing several subs because they bring with them experience on how to handle high profile and large scale moderation efforts. They are a technical talent pool that Reddit relies upon a lot.
The problem is that Reddit has shitty mod governance. It still uses rank by add date and offers no ability for users to kick a mod out except for TOS faults. Reddit doesn't want to fix mod governance issues because it creates a legitimate mod power structure and Reddit doesn't want to give that much power to users, including mods.
That said, Reddit's shitty mod governance was copied directly to Lemmy.
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The problem with powermod isn't that they exist, though. Moderation of a large sub is still done by volunteers that have had to hack solutions together because they don't get a lot of support from Reddit. It helps Reddit to have experienced mods overseeing several subs because they bring with them experience on how to handle high profile and large scale moderation efforts. They are a technical talent pool that Reddit relies upon a lot.
The problem is that Reddit has shitty mod governance. It still uses rank by add date and offers no ability for users to kick a mod out except for TOS faults. Reddit doesn't want to fix mod governance issues because it creates a legitimate mod power structure and Reddit doesn't want to give that much power to users, including mods.
That said, Reddit's shitty mod governance was copied directly to Lemmy.
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
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What's the second logo?
First picture I found on Google for each because I'm lazy but there they are with pictures attached.
Piefed
Lemmy
Mastodon
Pixelfed
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Literally another attempt to appear legit by putting in place an easily circumventable rule.
So first they don't even check if mods are using alt accounts to moderate other subs but even if they do force it, it's so easy to click a button on your VPN and you are free to be anyone you want according to "Reddit Corps Super Advanced Security System."
Reddit can ban users across vpn with their automated system. Its even easier if they have tasked someone to look into doing it. I doubt people are taking enough steps to prevent the browser fingerprinting that gives them a unique signature.
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Seems okay, Reddit should eliminate the powermods
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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.
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.
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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
The powermods arent bringing anything unique moderation except a network that allows them to control content for a specific audience.
It depends who. There are some that build tools and procedures for handling large forums. They may also share best practices across different subs.
As for controlling content, it isn't like a corporation or political group can't create 20 accounts and take over subs. That's already happened on Reddit.
Its overall a good thing but the powermods will be replaced with reddit admins doing the ame
Or sock puppet accounts. Banning the current set of mods without a plan on who replaces them doesn't fix the problem.
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*ulterior
*exterior
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Gotta boost user numbers.
Or obscure them considering not letting people see sub count only daily/weekly activities
That's it. It's the illusion of fairness and it takes away reddit jannies' ability to show off their powermod status, and that's the only incentive they have not to use sockpuppets for every sub they mod.
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Lenny doesn't really work like that. It's not just one site.
Look, without agglomeration there is already a strong bias for any topic to have just "one big community" on "one big server" like lemmy.ml. Because why would anyone post anywhere else than the one community with the most users.
That's the same reason everyone is on facebook and reddit. This is a fatal flaw of Lemmy. Just because there are many servers that doesn't resolve the problem of centralization if everyone posts in the same community of the same big server.
And no one will manually subscribe to 1500 "books" communities with 5 user each, even if they existed. The solution is a single view that sees all "books" community by default.
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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.
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The best way to leave reddit is to get permabanned.
I feel like I went through withdrawals, took like a month to get over it, now I rarely use reddit, not missing anything, just thought I was, I guess I do miss reddit from like 2015, but it was getting worse every year, one of my last posts months before my permaban was asking for alternatives. (It's how I found lemmmy lol)
Reddit is also at a point where everything has been asked and is asked again weekly, i don't really need to post/comment anything myself and my votes mean nothing because of the volume. Most of my comments would get lost in a void.
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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.
Yeah. I mean, I remembered seeing someone named awkwardturtle on there and they moderated like some 30+ subreddits? That's ridiculous.
Users like that should not have that much power.