[yanderekko]

>The front page material does look startlingly less 'interesting' than it does normally.

Yeah, it's all a bunch of repetitive protest posts.

The self-aggrandizement of activists saying "we represent the actual value-generating members of this site and we are angry" borders on delusion. Sadly, powerusers/mods that are still participating are also being subjected to various forms of harassment, which could fuel a false perception of consensus.

[tyg13]

> The self-aggrandizement of activists saying "we represent the actual value-generating members of this site and we are angry" borders on delusion.

If that's the case, then where's all the content from users who aren't angry? Why is the front page filled with protest posts? If it's just self-aggrandizing delusion from a small subset of activists like you seem to be claiming, then surely there must be plenty of other users to generate content.

[yanderekko]

The delusion is not in thinking that there's some impact, but in thinking that you as an activist can speak for the collective voice of value-generating users of the site. There are plenty of other users generating content. Eventually when the topic gets stale the protest posts will fall off the front page. Barring more dramatic PR missteps from Reddit, in a week there will be no noticeable difference in the site experience to the average user.

The idea that only a special class of users can be motivated to take whatever Twitter screenshots or political ragebait articles and crosspost them to Reddit is laughable.

[tyg13]

> The idea that only a special class of users can be motivated to take whatever Twitter screenshots or political ragebait articles and crosspost them to Reddit is laughable.

The vast majority of Reddit users (myself included, if I'm being fair) are just there to lurk. If you actually pay attention to who's posting the majority of those screenshots, it will generally be the same set of dedicated users. You might be deluded into thinking this isn't the case, but I assure you, beyond a small 1% of users, there is very little valuable content being generated.

Beyond that, there is an even smaller and even more special class of users who are understandably pissed off: Moderators, who absolutely do real work that generates value. These people are the most pissed off. Call them activists if you like, but this response honestly sounds like whining to me. If you don't want these people using their power to control the front page, why don't you go start your own subreddit? Then you can enjoy the pleasure of doing hours of unpaid work just so other people can go look at your stupid screenshots (or whatever valueless content you apparently think Reddit is good for.)

[yanderekko]

>If you actually pay attention to who's posting the majority of those screenshots, it will generally be the same set of dedicated users.

I guarantee you that someone, somewhere on Reddit will always post the latest ragebait piece on Elon Musk and have it upvoted for the front page. Indeed, as I type this the top post on Reddit is a tweet screenshot calling Trump a psychopath - truly a work of such creative genius that only a Reddit poweruser could hope to accomplish it. But perhaps the marginal platform value of being the first mover and having a botnet to ensure that you, the sophisticated poweruser, receive the glory you deserve in this winner-take-all process is in fact quite minimal.

>If you don't want these people using their power to control the front page, why don't you go start your own subreddit?

Or maybe the moderators can build their own platform rather than "whining". I think the platform would be much better off is moderators were on a much tighter leash, rather than the admins letting moderators basically be minimally-constrained petty tyrants ruling their fiefs, with rare exceptions.

[tyg13]

It's clear to me that you're either not a long-term user of the site, or one of those users who consumes only low-value content, which has never been the true value of reddit and in my opinion has continued to destroy the value of the website. Reddit's value is not vested in image macros or other low-effort memes; its value derives from its communities, and their power to enable in-depth discussion in almost every conceivable variety, in a way that no other social media platform has achieved. These are the reason people append "reddit" to the end of almost any Google search to get a (relatively) unbiased opinion.

All I can say is: if you think the value of reddit -- what draws and has continued to draw users to the site for years -- is low-effort screenshots and memes that could be posted on almost any image-hosting site -- you are wrong. Go ask 9GAG and FunnyJunk how that plays out in creating a social media platform.

> I think the platform would be much better off is moderators were on a much tighter leash

I think they'd have to -- you know -- actually pay them, if they wanted to exert some level of control. At this point, the only draw to being a reddit mod is caring about influencing a community in a particular manner; I don't see any particular interest in doing unpaid work for people who are clearly ungrateful and ignorant to how much work it really entails. But I shouldn't be surprised that the entitlement here is real.

[yanderekko]

>It's clear to me that you're either not a long-term user of the site, or one of those users who consumes only low-value content, which has never been the true value of reddit and in my opinion has continued to destroy the value of the website. Reddit's value is not vested in image macros or other low-effort memes; its value derives from its communities, and their power to enable in-depth discussion in almost every conceivable variety, in a way that no other social media platform has achieved.

Well, this discussion was talking about the front page of Reddit, which is largely dominated by image macros and other low-effort memes, and basically looks the same today as any other day just with more posts about the protest or just attack spez.

There are communities that are still open, eg. /r/AskReddit. Have they devolved into 4chan with these fabled powerusers deciding to Go Galt? As far as I can tell, not yet. But perhaps I'm not among the Chosen who are qualified to make this discernment.

>I think they'd have to -- you know -- actually pay them, if they wanted to exert some level of control.

I doubt it. I don't think mods being able to pin their own political screeds to posts or to ensure that only they can generate content or any other number of deleterious behaviors is an essential non-pecuniary benefit that keeps the equilibrium wage at zero (claims of "entitlement" could be lobbed just as lazily at the mods as they could at me and/or Reddit.) But hey, maybe I'm wrong - at the least, Reddit should explore in that direction and see what happens.