[lewisflude]

Key paragraphs

> If there are mods here who are willing to work towards reopening this community, we are willing to work with you to process a Top Mod Removal request or reorder the mod team to achieve this goal if mods higher up the list are hindering reopening. We would handle this request and any retaliation attempts here in this modmail chain immediately.

> Our goal is to work with the existing mod team to find a path forward and make sure your subreddit is made available for the community which makes its home here. If you are not able or willing to reopen and maintain the community, please let us know.

[p4bl0]

Classic attempt to break a strike. Would mods be employee, this would be illegal (at least in France). This shows how Reddit the company think how the people who work for them for free on Reddit the platform and make its value.

[mulletbum]

Mods don't work for Reddit. They volunteer for Reddit moderation. Much like you can volunteer to be the leader of the DND club at a local hobby shop. They are not an employee. People who don't like what Reddit is doing should stop showing up. Mods who don't like it should stop moderating. It's as simple as that, if enough people agree, Reddit will be no more.

I will bet Reddit will be just fine.

[bbor]

> Would mods be employee

Also breaking out “nothing they’re doing is illegal!!” isn’t exactly the slam dunk many seem to think it is, IMO.

[KeplerBoy]

Of course there are within their rights from a legal pov. Doesn't change the fact that it's a terrible, outright hostile move.

[goatlover]

It was hostile by mods to close a sub like r/nba the day after the finals, and hostile to close an important sub like r/science. A poll with a small fraction of the users that was only up for a few hours and potentially brigaded doesn't mean the majority of actual users wanted those subs to close.

[Timon3]

How would the poll have to be done to convince you it's what the majority of actual users want?

[goatlover]

Open for a couple days in advance and only for members of that sub. The indefinite one should have opened up for a new vote. Maybe r/nba could have provided a link to an alternative sub for discussing the nba finals on Monday.

[PepperdineG]

>Mods don't work for Reddit. They volunteer for Reddit moderation. Much like you can volunteer to be the leader of the DND club at a local hobby shop. They are not an employee.

DND has no control over people doing DND at a local hobby shop, but if Reddit gets directly involved in hiring and firing and other such management of free labor then it is setting up to be viewed as an employer. There are many differences between an unaffiliated 3rd party club and direct corporate involvement in personnel management where the more Reddit tries to manage its free labor, the more it runs the risk of running afoul of FLSA. Under labor law there is a difference in working for free for a non-profit, government, etc versus a for-profit entity where they are not the same when it comes to providing free labor and FLSA rights cannot be waived away.

[mulletbum]

They aren't firing mods, they are telling the mods they can't come in the store anymore, they are free to look through the window.

[jimcsharp]

I'd love to see a poison mod take up their offer then and start the ball rolling on asserting some rights.

[mmcgaha]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AOL_Community_Leader_Program

[faangsticle]

They work for reddit for free. You can work for someone without an employment contract or official relationship.

[visarga]

> Much like you can volunteer to be the leader of the DND club at a local hobby shop.

A DND club with an IPO?

[jonathankoren]

The club isn't IPOing. The real estate investment trust that hosts the DND club is. Ironically the REIT's main appeal to investors is that it's popular with DND clubs.

[slg]

My mind immediately went to strike-breaking too. This isn't quite the same as they are targeting a volunteer group that has shown no interest to form a union, but this is so obviously a play out of the union busting handbook. Divide the group, make it seem like only a few select leaders want whatever they are negotiating over, and offering to elevate cooperative people into positions of power if they are willing to participate in a coup.

[bbor]

Is it not a real strike if the volunteers provide labor? A question for the philosophers, and in the coming years/decades, the lawyers.

In the us it is the national labor relations board, after all! Not employement relations

[slaymaker1907]

I think it’s something different than a strike and should thus not have any legal protections. Strikes are fair in some sense because workers aren’t being paid during that time (or at the very most by the union coffers) which goes up against the company’s ability to weather the lost revenue during the strike.

In this case, mods can keep subreddits dark without any cost to themselves because they aren’t being paid by Reddit. It’d be like if library volunteers protested by closing the library and stopping any new volunteers from entering by installing a lock on the door. OFC the library is within their rights to break the lock to let other volunteers in.

[bbor]

Mmmm I have an issue with the specifics of that metaphor applying to Reddit, but in general, people volunteer because volunteering brings them some non-monetary benefit, so I see it as basically the same dynamic. Of course you can’t lock the doors, just like you can’t physically obstruct/harm scabs.

In the near future when AGI eliminates scarcity (2025?) this will have to be litigated!

[AdamJacobMuller]

The analogy appears fitting at first glance, but it's crucial to note that the moderators in question aren't simply choosing to abstain from their duties—they're actively hindering others who might wish to take up those responsibilities.

I may not be an expert in French law, yet an analogy that comes to mind would be envisioning workers of a grocery store who've decided to go on strike. But rather than merely expressing their refusal to work, they also opt to seal the store's doors, blocking customers from entering.

Of course, customers might find the current situation unfavorable due to the absence of employees (think of barren shelves, paralleling communities overpopulated with off-topic discussions). Management, too, would likely find the situation objectionable due to a lack of employees to ensure transactions are being made legally (equivalent to the absence of moderators who uphold site rules, a scenario potentially hazardous to Reddit). Even though management might be compelled to shut down the store under these circumstances, it's essential to remember that closure remains a management prerogative, not a decision for the striking workers.

[amatecha]

> they're actively hindering others who might wish to take up those responsibilities.

Isn't that literally exactly what a strike is? No one crosses the picket line if a sufficient majority agreed to undertake the strike?

[AdamJacobMuller]

Again, not an expert on French law, but in the US you can just hire someone else to do the job in the case of most strikes. pejoratively called scabs.

[progval]

It's illegal for employers to hire fixed-term employees in this case: https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F34

However, they can have volunteers fill the position: https://www.editions-tissot.fr/droit-travail/jurisprudence-s...

[AdamJacobMuller]

Interesting that it’s the case that they can have volunteers in french law given the context of reddit volunteers.

[x86x87]

If this was France the mods would already be building a guillotine

[visarga]

That's how The Reign of Terror was invented.

[wil421]

How does that work for online French Forums or other internet platforms that are community based? What about old school BBSes?

[lm28469]

A strike is very well defined, a "volunteer moderator strike" doesn't constitute a strike from a legal perspective

[wil421]

>Would mods be an employee.

I took this as mods would be considered employees in France. After a second read, it looks like they meant something different.

[hombre_fatal]

Kinda crazy how a lower mod can request a higher mod's removal. Pretty unhealthy precedent for a community where mods are already power hungry lunatics and your most obsessed power hungry mod who spends all day needlessly moderating the subreddit can appeal to reddit with "look how much more active I am than him; he barely does anything! So, gimme the subreddit pls."

[Ekaros]

If the higher up mods clearly don't want to run the show anymore it is natural, just and right to rely those who do.

[faangsticle]

They are still running the show. Making your subreddit private is, or at least used to be, a perfectly legitimate way of running things. Remember, reddit added that feature to their website.

[bitshiftfaced]

Yeah I have a feeling that that feature may be going away after this all blows over.

[faangsticle]

There's still automod that you can use to just delete everything the moment it appears.

[ahahahahah]

> mods are already power hungry lunatics and your most obsessed power hungry mod

I mean, here you are just describing the mods that are holding these subreddits hostage. It seems appropriate for reddit to return these to the community in the case where the obsessed power hungry mod's behavior goes against what the community wants.

[bbor]

Have there been any subreddits that voted to open instead of stay closed? All the ones I’ve heard about were in favor of maintaining the protest

[slaymaker1907]

r/NewOrleans and r/SaltLakeCity voted to end it. There has also been rampant brigading from the pro-blackout side (see r/magicTCG, in addition to a Twitch stream brigade users on r/freemagic talked about voting in the poll despite being banned from r/magicTCG). I’m curious how r/FanFiction will go since they’re doing much more robust polling with karma requirements to stop brigades.

[BryantD]

There’s been brigading from both sides, it’s just more noticeable when it’s an outcome you personally disagree with. I’m having to remind myself that just because a) my subreddit has someone who’s never posted there vehemently arguing to stay open and b) staying open is winning the poll, that doesn’t mean it’s a brigade.

(There would be more people voting if it was a brigade, so I’m pretty sure it’s not. But emotionally it bugs me.)

[BryantD]

I run a thousand member subreddit that is probably going to vote to stay open. Insignificant but it’s a data point.

[atty]

Holding them hostage? The reddits I’ve been a part of voted to be closed.

[PrimeMcFly]

Normally it's only possible when the top mod has been inactive for a long time.

[jayd16]

I guess the trick would be to flood Reddit with requests from allied mods that will keep the sub closed anyway. Presumably Reddit doesn't have the bandwidth to really vet these requests.

[teeray]

This is the way. Especially if the action can be more unpredictable than simply taking the subreddit private. Maybe remove all new posts or something.

If you can turn all of the subreddits into tens of thousands of problem children for Reddit that they can’t fix with automation, they will be unable to cope.

[themaninthedark]

It sounds to me like there are Top Mods who want to continue the boycott, with others who don't and that Reddit is looking at giving the other mods a path forward.

One of the things I have noticed is that the boycott is not from the users but from the mods of the community. Even if the community had a vote, if you want to boycott fine but they are forcing others to go along with with them.

So either they are not the majority or they feel that the community has such little willpower to continue the boycott that they must force them to take part.

[Maxion]

Huh? All subreddits that have ran votes, the community has been in majority favor of closing.

[intothemild]

I voted on a few of those, so these were real, and the outcome was overwhelmingly voting for blackout.

I think the larger issue is now the blackout is still continuing the addicts are needing their fix.

[themaninthedark]

I saw posts in threads here saying that some sub-reddits didn't have votes.

And the vote or not does not adress my point about forcing users who don't want to participate to have to.

If the majority of the users wanted to boycott, then if they don't go to Reddit.com, simple as that.

[p_j_w]

>And the vote or not does not adress my point about forcing users who don't want to participate to have to.

They're always free to go start their own subreddits.

[mardifoufs]

The same is true for the mods. Mods don't own subreddits, the community does. If they want to close down communities that aren't theirs, why not just quit Reddit? They are free to stop moderating.

[pseudalopex]

> Mods don't own subreddits, the community does.

Reddit's practices until now said the opposite.

[PrimeMcFly]

Not what I've seen at all, which is why many subs are reopened with stickied posts saying it's what their communities wanted.

[s1artibartfast]

I think it is a weird subject for popular vote to begin with.

Every individual already had the option to post or not post, moderate or not moderate. The vote only impacted those who wanted to remain active.

[hackinthebochs]

Very likely non-representative due to sampling bias and brigading.

[ummonk]

r/pics had 56,000 votes. That would be quite a lot of brigading... https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/14b2a6q/poll_decide_o...

[pseudalopex]

Prove it.

[hackinthebochs]

That's not how it works. If you want to claim some poll as evidence of user sentiment, you have to prove that it is representative.

[pseudalopex]

Do you claim all polls are brigaded until disproven? Or those you don't like?

[slaymaker1907]

I guess r/SaltLakeCity and r/NewOrleans don’t exist.

[ahahahahah]

That is (1) not true and (2) meaningless given most of those polls were brigaded by a small set of vocal whiny users voting in subreddits they aren't even involved in (3) even given both if those, I doubt you can find a poll for a large subreddit that shows even 10% of users supporting a blackout.

[spicymapotofu]

So, can you show how most polls were brigaded?

[slaymaker1907]

r/freemagic users who were banned from r/magicTCG talked about voting in the r/magicTCG poll. Apparently, mods of r/tennis posted in a Discord asking people to come help and vote to support the blackout as well. A lot of polls were mentioned in r/ModCoord which biases strongly in favor of the blackout. There’s much more incentive to brigade on the blackout side since users who don’t care about the subs in question lose nothing by those subs going private.

[ahahahahah]

Eh, I gave you the clear out under #3 where you could show that these blackouts were really the will of the people. You haven't done that, if your strongest argument is about "oh, prove there was brigading", I think we're at the point where, at best for you, any polls are basically just meaningless (if they were meaningful you could use them under point #3 to refute me).

[burnished]

The communities I frequent voted for the blackout and voted again on whether to make it permanent

[jonathankoren]

First labor strike, huh?

Ask yourself, who told you that was true? The strikers? Or the guy with the vested interest in breaking the strike and desperate to find anyone -- literally anyone -- to cross the line?

[s1artibartfast]

Strikes can't stop people from crossing the line and becoming scabs. I think that sets this situation apart in an interesting way.

Subs didn't vote on if they wanted to keep posting/moderating. They essentially voted on if dissidents or the minority can keep posting/moderating

[jonathankoren]

They voted on making their subs private.

Everything you wrote is a gross misrepresentation of the stituation.

[s1artibartfast]

I think it perfectly accurate but maybe I'm missing something.

If I want to participate in a protest by not creating content, I don't need a vote or moderator permission to do so. I can just do it.

Going private means that people who want to post can't.

In terms of a strike, it wasn't some people walking out. It was a vote to walk out and then prevent everyone else who wants to work from doing so

[themaninthedark]

If the mods want to go on strike it's not a problem. What I am talking about is that the mods decided to drag the users into their issue.

I don't even use Reddit that often, I see that there is a vocal contingent that is telling me how Reddit is ruining Reddit.

If the company wants to kill their community, that is their prerogative. If it kills their company, that is what happens.

[bbor]

It sounds like that to you because they’re implying that, without evidence. Worth evaluating the biases of the sources here :)

[jayd16]

You'd end up with unmoderated subs if the mods just went on strike.

[themaninthedark]

And that would then be Reddit's problem would it not?

[jayd16]

Possibly much more harmful to the users.