Unpopular opinion here:
But don't. Maybe rewrite your last 6 months of comments, but as an archive Reddit still has value in over a decade of helpful answers to Googles. From a historical perspective, I think tearing that apart could be a mistake.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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Reddit Migration
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I completely understand and respect your opinion, but I just disagree on a personal level - and I think there is a very valid compromise to still achieve this, by redirection. It would obviously suck a lot for people who just want to find information, so they can still get it. Just take them away from reddit
Like most of us probably, I exclusively used reddit for finding information about literally anything. Google search algorithm is straight hot garbage it's embarrassing lol
If we want other non-corporate owned thread-like platforms to be successful and for reddit to "not get away with this" I personally think this has to be done. Otherwise it's just still a free database of information that we as the users provided for free, and reddit will continue to profit off of. It's my personal stance on it, but I think it's not right, and I believe the extreme majority of people either won't or won't know how to use reddit as a search engine without giving them profits
My solution is to rewrite all of my comments, but for anything that I provided a solution for (or guide), I will redirect them to the same information, but not on reddit. For example, I wrote a full blown returning player guide (like 18 pages) for the game Vindictus, so I'm moving it to google docs. I will inform the discord, in addition to linking the google doc on the reddit OP, and possibly also reference a Lemmy post, give insightful information, etc
Most of my comments though are just discussions though, not many fixes or solutions. So that's what I'm planning on doing
I honestly don't think more than about 30 upvotes worth of my 70,000 comment karma are anything actually useful. Most of it is acerbic takes on current events and the shitty Reddit in-jokes I post reflexively at exactly the right time.
But future Reddit visitors won't know that. I plan to edit them to sound like they were about to say something really advicey, super handy to read, then mid-sentence "...[this comment has been deleted because the user moved to kbin]."
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This is exactly what I did. I saved a copy of all my content (well PDS nuked some of it and didn't save it properly, but I got what's left).
I used automated tools but I left a message on how to reach out to me at my new hangout on each one. I think it shouldn't be too hard to find the answer from there - and if it is, well hey, I'm open to answering a question or a few.
My content will be made available again, just not on reddit. reddit won't get to profit from ads using my content. Folks on reddit will have to come here (or find me elsewhere) to get that info - so i'll slowly redirect em from reddit to places like the fediverse.
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What we need is a community here of 'solved by Google threads'. If we find a solution to a problem online, say a tech fix. We can post it here, title is the Google search, body is a link to the answer, a pasted excerpt or screenshot of the answer that solved the issue.
"LetMeGoogleThatForYou"
Exactly, it is not even a "free" database you are paying in ad impressions to line the pockets of the likes of spez...at least when I work for my boss and.tramsfer my IP I get some money back for putting the CEO into his next yacht.....when I give that ip to Reddit I expect some respect not a kick in the face and told to lick the shit off
Perhaps you could compromise and just edit the comments so that your message is blaringly obvious, while retaining the content below for those in need of it? I guess it's nothing significant regardless, with the current destruction of history going on in Reddit, with the blackouts and all that.
I like the idea to add a link to the true answer on the fediverse. Those searching reddit will still find the answer but hopefully this will result in fewer ad views for reddit.
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people found information for hundreds of years before reddit and will for hundreds of years after.
Reddit was just the de-facto source of general information for a long time. It was like the StackOverflow of general information. I think, maybe 50% of the non-programming answers I found on Google to obscure problems were on Reddit. Like there was this random issue I was having the the Valve Index headset that made its audio driver not start until I restarted the headset like 3 times, and then there was this random comment, packed full of great information, deep in a chain of comments, suggesting I change a registry value in Windows. Since then, I have never had the issue, and it's saved me tens of hours. I know Reddit can be replaced, but its loss will be felt.
Agreed completely. But this what we need to achieve. That sense of loss, so the casual browser starts looking elsewhere.
I don't. I think this incident showed the dangers relying so much on a single failure point, and sometimes to move forward you have to do the equivalent of burning all your ships.
Also a good point. Maybe archive previous reddit content in multiple places, like the internet archive as well as on the fediverse. Interesting thought..
Using archive.org is something I've done a lot for Reddit links through out the years, since I'd come across deleted comments and usually someone would capture the page with archive.org.
I've used archive.org to take snap shots useful information of reddit myself, since I knew information could just disappear. Now some searchable database of archived pages would be great instead of needing specific links.
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Remember though that in this process, you are helping reddit make money. Folks using google to find those answers on reddit will view it on reddit and feed their ads traffic.
If you can accept that, then i'm cool with it too. After all, it is your content.
But a lot of us, we still want to have this archive up. Just not on reddit itself. Some folks archive the reddit posts on the internet archive or ghost archive. So google searches will still find the answer, but will direct folks to some other side and reddit won't get the views.
Reddit redesign is all made to try and trap people who enter it without an account. It doesn't expand all the way down so leads you searching for the answer, and then has bunch of recommended posts and threads trying to get people to do one more click to not leave the site. Also pop up to install the app on mobile which has bunch of permissions to extract more data to resell. Reddit is becoming Facebook, so continuing to fuel the value of it doesn't seem like a good idea for the long term if Reddit does become a juggernaut.
After all, people laughed when Facebook's phone flopped. Now they got stuff like WhatsApp that some countries can't go without.
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OP didn’t tear that apart; Steve Huffman did.
as an archive Reddit still has value
That's exactly why I removed it, as Spez describes my content as his content and is determined to make money off it for himself at my own expense.
People with questions can ask them again. Maybe they will even ask here.
We are of one mind!
You can also rewrite it and then link the answer to lemmy/kbin thread. That's what I'm going to do once I have some free time.
We should start a community here of 'internet Solves' where the Title is the Question and the answer is served up as a link of the original thread and a paste/screenshot of the answer.
Maybe not screenshots since the text isn't selectable or searchable.
I'm having a really hard time deciding but I'm leaning towards agreeing with you on leaving my history up for posterity.
I am, however, also leaning towards trying to use power delete suite to append all my comments with a message encouraging migration to the fediverse.
Can you do that with PDS? I didn't know that it supported that.
Someone else had a similar question not too long ago - see https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/83362/Is-there-a-bulk-Reddit-edit-tool-that-DOESN-T-overwrite
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I would suggest any answers that you solved be deleted and reposted on Lemmy/kbin. We could build up our own useful database while removing our old stuff from Diggit.
I wrote up two handy guides for my favorite subreddit. I ended up making a magazine for that community on Kbin, so I posted my guides there and replaced the originals with direct links to those. Members are low on the magazine since migration isn’t easy, but I’ve decided to populate the magazine with guides and information I personally ended up needing during my time on that subreddit and other tips stuff I’ve picked up from YouTube videos. That way, if anyone ends up in that magazine for some reason, they might keep coming back.
This is the way.
Before I deleted my reddit account I was mainly active in mental health subs. I spend years giving advice, sharing my experiences, guiding people into seeking help, so I decided not to delete any of my comments. There is a lot of information in my comments on how to reach out to certain places for help or how to best handle certain situations and I do not know what people might have saved for later use. I personally think helping people who suffer from the same mental health problems I do is more important than deleting all my comments.
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[This comment was deleted in response to Reddit’s June 2023 API changes. Consider migrating to Kbin or Lemmy.]
That would communicate the same message with way, way fewer words.
Monetize this, u/spez.
I like it. Short and to the point.
I was just permanently banned from /r/damnthatsinteresting (which currently does not have any mods) for a 4-month old comment I edited with PDS.
It sounds like they very much don’t like that we are doing this :)
My edit read a lot like the first post here, but I didn’t mention the fediverse at all. I did say that I used Power Delete Suite, though.
No swearing, nothing like that.
It had around 150 upvotes at the time of edit.
That sub (and many others) have odd rules right now as a part of the protest. Some have gone as far as making everyone a moderator.
This likely has nothing to do with reddit inc directly.
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I just went with
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I would recommend sending people to the all-kbin-instances landing at https://kbin.fediverse.observer/list rather than sending them directly to kbin.social, which seems to be causing issues for Ernest due to crowding. The nature of the fediverse is that we should be spreading out.
I automatically replaced my many years of comments with long strings of randomly-selected words, then deleted them.
This way, if they do bulk-restore deleted comments, they'll have swallowed a poison-pill since my comments will actually be harmful rather than helpful to the LLM learning Spez wants to profit from.
I just wrote:
"this comment was deleted in protest of Reddit API policy changes"
I was bored, so I pulled the most recent 50 comments, fed them into a Markov chain generator, and asked for a new response for every comment I edited. Then I aimed the Power Delete Suite at it, because I am of the opinion that I don't want my data to appear on Reddit. For me, "Fuck you, I'm out," is a far more powerful message than anything I could say about corporate greed.
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I'm inviting people to Lemmy/kbin with this rn
but when I do delete it after Sync for Lemmy is out, I'll replace them with
Reddit has killed off third party apps and most bots along with their moderation tools, functionality, and accessibility features that allowed people with blindness and other disabilities to take part in discussions on the platform. All so they could show more ads in their non-functional app.
Consider moving to Lemmy/kbin, two better and compatible alternatives to reddit (picture explains how) that many subs and users have moved to: sub.rehab
Reddit Sync's dev has turned the app into Sync for Lemmy (Android) instead, and Memmy for Lemmy (iOS) is heavily inspired by Apollo.
You only need one account on any Lemmy or kbin server/instance to access everything; doesn't matter which because they're all connected. Lemmy.world, Lemm.ee, vlemmy.net, kbin.social, fedia.io are all great for example.
Deleted most of my comments but ones that reddit restored and the ones I haven't deleted have been replaced with chatgpt rephrasing so the comments is still relevant but LLM would hate it.
I said this:
"This user moved to the Fediverse after nearly 10 years on the site due to the proposed API changes Reddit announced in early June 2023."
u/spez
My comment was even longer and wordier than yours. Feel free to make it more concise - but in your place I would just use what you've written without any further revision.
Can I ask what tools people are using to mass edit their Reddit comments?
I describe exactly what I did and used in my two articles - https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/65260/PSA-Here-s-exactly-what-to-do-if-you-hit-the and https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/59451/Finally-Managed-to-erase-all-1477-of-my-comments
The original author of that script posted it here - https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/16226/Wrote-a-script-to-edit-all-my-posts
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