[olalonde]

> appointing new mods and starting the sub back up

That's what I'd do. Most subreddit mods are easily replaceable. And in many subreddits, the people who are mods aren't necessarily the best suited for the job. They often got there through luck, bootlicking, etc. It isn't a meritocracy.

[Gigachad]

For any one sub, sure. But there is no way reddit can replace the majority of mods.

Most companies have to pay for moderators, reddit has gotten them for free for a long time. If they piss off all those free mods, it’s gonna cost them an unimaginable amount of money.

[bosse]

While it's true that some subreddit mods might not be the most qualified for the job, and may be in it for the ego boost or as a perception of entitlement, it's also important to remember that being a mod is not exactly a glamorous position - for many it has been a thankless janitorial role that involved dealing with spam and abuse on a continuous basis, with a very limited toolset available from Reddit to do this. The third party apps were the ones to introduce features that made the mod tasks much easier to handle efficiently. The official Reddit app got these capabilities much later.

If Reddit wants to force open protesting subreddits and find a way to recruit new mods to more than 7000 subreddits, then I assume this is within their right, it's their site after all.

[treis]

Most of the major subs are modded by people who get paid by advertisers and other promoters to astroturf support for whatever. It's not hard to replace them.

[jeltz]

You base that on exactly what? If anything this wide spread shutdown indicates that that is not the case.

[Eisenstein]

The major subs are not the reason reddit is so popular.

[davidgerard]

spoken like someone who has clearly never done mod work

[olalonde]

I think you misinterpreted my comment. What I was attempting to convey is that the mods on Reddit are easily replaceable, not because good mods are easy to replace, but because Reddit mods are generally not good mods. I wouldn't make the same comment about HN mods for example, or of the few subs that do have good mods (but from my experience, they are a minority).