Hopefully I’m posting this in the right place, but I see Reddit developments as Tech news right now.

Wanted to share a website that is tracking Subreddits that have/will be going dark. It even has a sound notification for when they change their status.

Edit: Adding the stream https://www.twitch.tv/reddark_247

Double Edit: Data visualization https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/

  • followthewhiterabbit@beehaw.org
    1·
    2 years ago

    Just flipped the switch (so to speak) on a couple subs I moderate, and the largest (just shy of 1m users) will be going dark in a few hours.

    What surprised me most is how well the members are took it. To be fair the subs I moderated are typically quite tech-minded, so everyone is quite in-the-know with what is happening and why.

    It makes me furious that a site built and maintained by the users is being exploited at the users’ expense.

    I hope Reddit bleeds money from this silly line they drew in the sand.

    • RedPander@lemmy.rogers-net.comOP
      0·
      2 years ago

      I’m curious if you directed the users of those subs to any particular alternative?

      I mean, apparently they are already bleeding money, but I doubt that these changes are going to do much to help in that regard.

      • followthewhiterabbit@beehaw.org
        0·
        2 years ago

        On two we presented the options abailable (Lemmy, Mastodon, Usnet and so on), on the biggest we didn’t do that. It was a last-minute announcement, so didn’t really have the time (also too many cooks with different recipes, so to speak).

        I’m sure it won’t matter in the long run, but should we not try? A giant company runs on advertising. And the time we stop users interacting and engaging with these ads can only be a good thing.

        As I’m writing this, 4,669 of 6,934 subs have gone dark.

        Its beautiful to see.

    • blindsight@beehaw.org
      0·
      2 years ago

      I know some subreddits are just locking new submissions, not going private. Does this tool track that, or exclusively those that go private?

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        0·
        2 years ago

        I’m going to guess just private, because automatically assessing how a sub is being moderated would be very hard.

      • TechnologyClassroom@partizle.com
        0·
        2 years ago

        It must track only the ones that are private. It doesn’t show Explain Like I’m Five as green. They said they would leave a stickied post that is informative about the protest and block all new submissions.

      • that_one_guy@beehaw.org
        0·
        2 years ago

        This makes a lot of sense. I was curious about this too, but didn’t want to give reddit any traffic during the protest by checking out any of the subs to see what’s going on.

  • crank@beehaw.org
    0·
    2 years ago

    Is there a way to see what subs re dark out of the actual total? This looks like it is what % are dark compared to what % are restricted?

    In other words I confused what the n is on all of these

      • crank@beehaw.org
        0·
        2 years ago

        I think you have a wider display than I do as I only have 2 columns. ;)

        This one?

        So I am guessing this is representing each subreddit as 1 not matter the size? Is it counting all subreddits that exist or the top 1500 (by whatever metric)?

  • BeardedGuy@beehaw.org
    0·
    2 years ago

    Man, it’s so satisfying to watch all of these subreddits switch to green. I really wish more of them committed to an indefinite shutdown though.

    • nottheengineer@feddit.de
      0·
      2 years ago

      I know of some that decided to discuss that after the initial 2 day blackout. My guess is that at least a few of the big ones will shut down permanently.

    • Uncreative_name@beehaw.org
      0·
      2 years ago

      How will I know, without jumping onto the game thread, that the refs are terrible, and that both teams are being simultaneously helped and hindered by each and every call for/against them?

  • copacetic@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    2 years ago

    My Reddit frontpage only contains a few minor subs still which are probably without an active moderator and some „going dark“ announcements. Very noticeable.

    • charlytune@mander.xyz
      0·
      2 years ago

      I just had a quick look on the front page on mobile browser, not logged in, and the top 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ‘hot’ posts are about the blackout, and the ‘top’ post is a thank you from the Apollo app creator.

      (This is my first attempt at uploading a pic on here so 🤞)

    • Bluejay@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I saw that too - hopefully the changes will show in the next “up” cycle. Apparently the bots are out to play as well.

    • TexMexBazooka@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      My partner is a casual reddit user; the experience change was immediately apparent. She got bored and switched to facebook because all of the niche communities that the larger subreddits repost from went silent.

      • BlackCoffee@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        This should be bumped.

        The smaller/niche communities is what made Reddit interesting.

        When those eventually decide to pack and the only vibrant communities are the meme subreddits etc then you would probably see a drop in usage.

      • s_s@lemmy.oneEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        My GF is also a pretty casual reddit user and she was pretty pissed about her favorite subs being closed.

    • setsneedtofeed@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I’ve continued to tell people: This won’t kill Reddit in the sense of outright turning it into a ghost town. If your only goal is to make Reddit collapse overnight, you’re going to be disappointed. The quality content that many people here enjoy is not what makes up the frontpage of r/all or what a huge amount of passive users consume. Reddit has more than enough low quality trash to backfill the frontpage and keep users occupied.

      Anybody migrating should focus on porting quality content. Let reddut live long and be a dumping ground.

      • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        It’s more about reaching a tipping point where adding a new user to something else (fingers crossed for Fediverse) makes it a palatable alternative for more than one redditor. The network effect is a thing, so it exists, and if enough people get kicked off of an app they like it’s not impossible to hit.

      • strainedl0ve@beehaw.orgEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        I see this less as a damage to Reddit, and more as an opportunity to diversify, make people aware of the threat of centralised corporate-run platforms, and to build the federated internet alternatives a bit more, to give them momentum.

    • Square Singer@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, I was negatively surprised as well. Almost 60% of all big SFW subreddits closed, and still only a small percentage less posts and comments.

      • fresh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        2 years ago

        I’m guessing (hoping) the difference at peak will be larger. All we can do now is wait and see, unfortunately.

    • nottheengineer@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      The large subs and front page just consist of bots reposting the same old content. The bots are easy to tell apart from real people just by eye, so I’m sure that reddit either has no problem with that or that they made these bots themselves to hide the fact that actual users are becoming less and less.