Damn it. I already made my Revenge of The Sith Emperor's speech joke on another post... oh well. I don't have much of a snarky comment to make, this depressing and frustrating situation really speaks for itself, doesn't it?
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Article says 3500 subs participated... More than double that did, hell more than that are still down right now.
I've noticed that a lot of articles have been underselling the protests.
And I don't see a single thing about it on r/all. Or anything related to the blackouts.
CEO and admin making wildly unpopular decision that users almost unanimously went against complaining about how undemocratic his website is. Is he really this unaware?
In spez's interview with the Verge, he hyperfocused on the fact that locked communities whose "we're locking" posts were comment-disabled would have had a lot of dissent in the comments if the mods had been brave enough to leave them enabled. Completely ignoring, of course, the fact that the upvote ratios told a story of massively overwhelming support.
How does the literal CEO not realize that a comment section with a fair number of dissenters in a highly-upvoted post is just rabble-rousing and don't actually represent a majority? Like, in a scenario where you have 20k upvotes, 1k downvotes, and a comment section where a few hundred people are pissed off and arguing, spez is presenting that as a dissenting majority. What?
What are the odds he gets a rude awakening when he gives this power to the users and they vote in favor of keeping the mod teams in place? (That would imply some awareness of how his site works, though.)
In spez's interview with the Verge, he hyperfocused on the fact that locked communities whose "we're locking" posts were comment-disabled would have had a lot of dissent in the comments if the mods had been brave enough to leave them enabled. Completely ignoring, of course, the fact that the upvote ratios told a story of massively overwhelming support.
I think what was even more infuriating was his insistence on validating even the smallest dissent against sub locking as justifying overruling the mods and community, while the entire mess was caused by his refusal to engage in good faith with dissent against his company's decision.
Dissent against mods he also disagrees with is sacred and needs protecting. Dissent against himself and Reddit Inc is meaningless noise that he both doesn't care about and is actively working to silence and prohibit.
It really feels like he's speedrunning killing reddit. I'm not even mad, it's impressive 🍿
That kid is in over his head here. He was "hired" as CEO after Ellen Pao's high heels poked through the glass floor, despite him having no education or experience in leadership of that level. There was no one else willing to pick it up at that time. He was like "ok, I'll do it" (as per his own introduction) and users were like "ok, he was there from the start, maybe he understands us. He's one of use, he also can't iron a shirt."
I'm all for letting the common man take control, but this is clearly a guy who thinks he's the next tech-jesus or something, just because the userbase grew out of Facebook.
The actions he's doing now only confirms that he's trying to get his payout and then let it rot. He is just like you and me. Get a check, go home. No visionary ideal, not virtues. Yeah well, at least I have some integrity.
I wouldn't trust him to operate a broomstick let alone a billion dollar company.
Reddit is over with.
I think that the Pao plot arc always planned on bringing Spez back.
Reddit - especially then - had a sort of reverence for the OG founders and discussion would often model them as the "real" redditors and people who really understood the community, changes since they sold were blamed on corporate interests and people were forever complaining that "shit like this wouldn't happen if ..." various founders or original staff were still around. I think it was always misplaced, but it was the culture at the time.
So Pao was brought in as a scapegoat - she was going to make wildly unpopular changes, take the heat, take a dive, and be replaced. She'd get a fat bag, an absolutely glowing reference on her CV, and a huge jump in her career - then Reddit would bring in the popular original founder that redditors liked and respected, and everyone would feel optimistic again. The changes would remain, the community would feel like they'd got their pound of flesh, that they had been appeased, and the site could get back on track.
Don't get me wrong, he's been a hack all along, he's been willing to sell his values to the highest bidder pretty much all along.
And now Spez is playing the same role. He's taking the face position and eating the heat over a bunch of shitty corporate boardroom decisions - that he definitely was party to - in order to inflate the IPO valuation and his cut of the cash. They're going to try and make it look profitable enough and healthy enough that someone else takes the hot potato and then make for the goddamn hills once they're not bagholding anymore.
It's amusing to see the manchild spez melting down because he can't get his way. 😹
@AllonzeeLV at this point mods who are staying on Reddit are just prisoners waiting to get castrated
If you're a politician or a business owner, you are accountable to your constituents. So a politician needs to be elected, and a business owner can be fired by its shareholders
This comparison is so stupid; is spez gonna send me an ID or something? Will I need to hand Reddit my birth certificate or anything in order to keep using it and sign a contract with them or something? Where is that contract gonna be registered?
Anyone would be able to look for any place where there is a vote, then join the community, vote whatever they want and then casually walk away. Or you could follow all subreddits or a bunch of them that you want to influence (say any pro-ukrainian ones). Then you'd cast a vote to whoever you'd like and walk away.
It's so ridiculous!