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by SonicScrub 1107 days ago
> other than the mods being free labor for Reddit

Is this not the answer to your question? Reddit can't afford to pay people to do this job. They rely on impassioned people to volunteer.
2 comments
LeifCarrotson 1107 days ago
Impassioned people with domain experience, in many cases.

/r/videos, sure, that's got its own culture, history, known reposts, moderation style needs, etc. It will take some work to for a group of communications majors to figure out how to moderate it.

But /r/PLC, where I hung out frequently? You need reasonably intelligent electrical engineers to discern spammy press releases from interesting news! We don't work cheap, except when we work for free. Elite athletics, weird hobby niches, professional forums, on and on...Reddit's long tail, where much of the value was, relies on domain experts who were also good communicators. Those are hard people to find.

Stackexchange, love it or hate it, has the same thing going. Are you going to hire a pilot to mod the aviation stack, or a post-doc to moderate mathematics?

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Ekaros 1106 days ago
Should voting by itself sort the good and bad content? So if the community knows things naturally the spam should fall down and good content be on top?
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tomstockmail 1107 days ago
And they're not doing it, so they will be replaced. There's always someone willing to step up.
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SonicScrub 1107 days ago
Is that the case? Wouldn't the mods by definition be the most passionate people about reddit, and therefore the sort of people who would most likely be upset about the recent changes? And therefore anyone who would potentially do the job of mod likely to also be upset by the changes?

If was working for Reddit I wouldn't take the assumption that these people can be easily replaced for granted.

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tomstockmail 1107 days ago
>And therefore anyone who would potentially do the job of mod likely to also be upset by the changes?

Not if they get a chance to be in charge. Also many don't actually care about the changes despite what the mod blackout is asking people.

>If was working for Reddit I wouldn't take the assumption that these people can be easily replaced for granted.

Well this posts article tone makes it sound like they expect the mods to get bored. Which most will. And like I said, they are replaceable.

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