We toggled to 18+ and sort of let nature take its course by only enforcing TOS. I say “we” but in reality I was the only active mod on either sub, so I do feel bad for getting awkwardtheturtle banned by association (lol). After the fact got the "It’s not ok to show people NSFW content when they don’t want to see it.
Mods should not make malicious changes to their communities, such as allowing rule-violating behavior or encouraging the submission of sexually explicit (18+) content in previously safe-for-work spaces."
This is my first post, also fuck Spez
Is there actually a particular rule against turning SFW subs into NSFW subs?
Or is Reddit just desperately trying to interpret their rules in whatever way they desire because they’re panicking at losing revenue?
I don’t think there are any moderator rules at all. Reddit is just doing anything they can get away with, which is what corporations do anyway.
I am a bit surprised at how slipshod they are about it though, I’d have expected them to hammer out an action plan and then trigger it all in the same hour, but we’re getting this slow trickle of changes which suggests that they don’t have a plan at all, but are just sort of flailing.
It doesn’t surprise me that they’re incompetent.
There’s a prevalent misconception that the most deserving become successful, rich, powerful. That those running the world’s largest companies are especially talented, intelligent and hardworking. I suspect this is also why for a long time people assumed people like Boris Johnson, Putin or Musk were geniuses or especially talented.
It’s an example of the Just World Hypothesis. A religiously inspired cognitive bias that leads people to think that people get what they deserve, that you reap what you sow, that what goes around comes around. It’s comforting to think that by being a good person, acting a certain way, and doing your best, you can prevent bad things happening to you. Of course, life doesn’t always work that way.
The reality is that life is often unfair. Very talented, intelligent and hardworking people end up dead in a ditch. Utterly average people end up running billion dollar companies or even entire countries.
To quote Jean-Luc Picard: “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life”.
The opposite is also true. It is possible to get exceptionally far in life, with a bit of luck, nepotism, and by being a tool.
TLDR: Steve Huffman will almost certainly continue to bungle this spectacularly. He will then be rewarded millions when reddit IPOs, millions for an entirely misjudged ‘effort’ that literally amounts to worse than nothing at all. That’s just how the world works.
That was apparent when they initially announced the exorbitant API charges with essentially zero notice.
They clearly just never realized that what made Reddit valuable was the mods not the servers
Maybe the real reddit was the mods we made along the way
No, and historically it’s been the admins’ stance that it’s up to the mods to determine what is an acceptable level within the sub. They’re absolutely just making up the shit as they go and trying to retroactively justify their impulsive actions after the fact.
What I don’t get is this:
Previously, reddit admins could distance themselves from what the moderators were doing.
You know plausible deniability. “We allow our users to post stuff, users moderate themselves. Oopsiedoodle. We allowed users to post pictures of underage girls on reddit for years, time to fire the volunteer mod responsible.”
Obviously, anyone who’s been on reddit for a while, knows that’s bullshit. Reddit’s perfectly happy to profit off questionable and outright illegal content. But the admins had that excuse.
But now they’re literally and openly forcing subreddits like /r/piracy to re-open.
This strikes me as legally questionable. They’re not just tolerating or even condoning some of the more questionable content, they’re now actively promoting it.
Ad dollars. They’re losing money with the nsfw content because the ads can’t be shown next to porn. They still get plausible deniability with r/piracy.
I don’t understand how they get plausible deniablity with r/piracy if they kick out the existing mods and then run it themselves.
But maybe that’s why they’re leaving the subs restricted and unmodded. Can’t be blamed for running the sub if you don’t actually run anything i guess.
Reddit’s own guidance on the topic says the presence of profanity could cause a post or a sub to be NSFW.
A moderator toggling their sub NSFW due to the presence of profanity would be fully in line with their own guidance, and I’m pretty sure r/shittylifeprotips had a little profanity. (Hint: it’s in the name.)
Reddit is just desperately trying to interpret their rules in whatever way they desire because they’re panicking at losing revenue.
Second option.
This appears to be a new thing, in the past flipping the status didn’t invite any response from the admins.