For those who don’t know, retrogaming on Reddit was a labour of love, there is a multireddit, m/retrogamingnetwork that networks over 60 subreddits under one banner giving the audience, banner, and reach of a big subreddit to some very small and niche spaces.
I bopped onto the main subreddit to grab their discord link for https://sub.rehab/ and was amazed to see the sub open. There’s a stickied post from “your new head mod” - they’ve made some changes already, ones that would stir debate if the userbase was still there to know about it: Reveddit Link
To quote the post opener:
First of all, you all know me probably at this point, but I’m Chalupacabra. We’re in the process of readjusting the mod team, so it’s not fully set up yet, but I’m your new head mod. It’s a process that’s been in the works for a bit now, I’m sure you’ve probably noticed some of the changes the team and I have put together to try to mix things up a bit based on what y’all told us you were interested in seeing.
And if there’s any doubts as to what the community “were interested in seeing” we had voted 88% in favour of a total blackout.
On the one hand I’m glad I don’t have anything to miss on reddit anymore, I’m not interested in being part of communities run by people more interested in themselves than anyone else, but it’s sad to see something that should have died peacefully be zombified instead.
This bodes well for the quality of many subs: I’m sure turncoat figureheads will provide quality moderation. /s
Nah, it’s a democracy. Hi! I’m that mod in question. Man we protested for the users, that’s why all of that happened in the first place. I’m also the mod that started the discussion with the community about blacking out, and if the option was to either get a few people mad by having my hand forced by spez or seeing the place turn into kotaku in action? I’ll take the heat, I’m fine with that. I’d do it again.
My concern first and foremost is the people, I’m fucking PISSED at what spez pulled (and made that VERY clear in our return post) but he forced our hand. If they hand the place off to some of the random mods reddit has in their pocket for this kind of situation or anyone that requests it, it could fuck up the community. I’m literally a mod because I care about that not happening. And that didn’t change just because spez is a dickhead.
I’d prefer to see us migrate elsewhere. Until that happens I’m gonna do my best to make the sub the best environment possible for what we do. If that makes me a turncoat, I’ll own it, because this ain’t about my ego dude. It’s about the users. And I’m damn sure not being paid to do it.
It might be time to start thinking about the future and what happens the next time reddit tries to pull something like this because this is definitely not the last time. If what spez was saying is true he’s going to drastically cut down the moderators powers in the future, letting users take over subs more easily and also probably removing the option to put subreddits to private or readonly modes. The user experience on the site is going to go down and next time you want to protest you will not be as successful as this time.
What I’m trying to say is, if you want to protect your community it might not be a bad idea to have a backup plan anyway and get people ready for it. The longer you depend on reddits good will the harder it will be to move eventually. It can’t be done over night but it has to start somewhere. My 2 cents.
Just wanted to say that folks like you give me faith in the mods who are staying behind.
There are a ton of very smart people in the community. I think a retro gaming instance would be awesome! Getting it setup and slowly pointing people to it would do wonders, maybe reach out to the mods that moved all of /r/startrek? They might offer some insights.
100% agree with this.
Thanks for caring, I’d love to see the whole sub migrating elsewhere. Preferably kbin or lemmy.