> They really shot the communities in the foot by not giving them any notice or support.
Reddit's major liability (and yet, one of its strengths) is the devolvement of responsibility to moderators. Without their volunteer work, the site couldn't have grown as big as it has. But mods have the power to utterly trash the site through collective action.
The admins have spent years saying that moderators are responsible for the content and direction of a subreddit. I wonder whether they'll keep that line now that moderators of several key subreddits have effectively gone rogue.
This is actually a much bigger threat to Reddit than the recent revolt over the banning of /r/fatpeoplehate and other subreddits.
I feel like it was a situation where the few are in power because the huddled masses don't know that they can actually revolt. The admins have been neglecting tools and moderators for quite a while, and you can see a trend over the last ~3 months of more and more general unhappiness with the site. The admins didn't think the moderators would realize it, but they did. They found a peaceful protest that the reddit admins absolutely have to address, either by fixing things, or by abandoning all credibility and removing the mods from their subreddits.
Reddit's major liability (and yet, one of its strengths) is the devolvement of responsibility to moderators. Without their volunteer work, the site couldn't have grown as big as it has. But mods have the power to utterly trash the site through collective action.
The admins have spent years saying that moderators are responsible for the content and direction of a subreddit. I wonder whether they'll keep that line now that moderators of several key subreddits have effectively gone rogue.
This is actually a much bigger threat to Reddit than the recent revolt over the banning of /r/fatpeoplehate and other subreddits.