[Mod Post] The Future of IAmA

People underestimate just how much work goes into keeping a place like this tidy. They might not always agree with how it's run, but I think they'll miss it when it's gone.

All good things, I guess.

I have been an active user here for over 15 years. The level of effort mods especially those on high profile subs like AMA put in is mind boggling, I wish you all were scaling back even further than you are. But I understand it’s a delicate balance: pull back too much and compromise integrity too greatly, and they are more likely to just replace you with other mods.

Let's say they do.

Is there an endless supply of people out there who want to responsibly moderate a subreddit?

You're going to end up with the Internet Research Agency and shills/bots/wumao running subreddits. No one else would want to do it.

There really isn't unfortunately. It's not like we don't actively recruit for moderators regularly. It takes hundreds of applications to find 4-5 solid mods, then a few months to train them, then half of them give up before the end of 6 months. Repeat every 6 months since there's always people leaving due to burnout.

I liked the IAMAs 10 years ago rather than today's IAMAs. It was just regular people with interesting jobs. Who the fuck knew a vacuum cleaner expert would be so interesting?

Regular people with interesting jobs still do great AMAs all the time! Unfortunately the reddit algorithm doesn't do a great job of surfacing them to frontpages anymore, but if you scroll through the subreddit you should still be able to see some good ones.

Does this mean that anyone can host an AMA without verification?

No, we still ask that people follow our rules about what topics are allowed. As moderators, we won't be checking proof closely on every post ourselves like we used to, but if users report something as rule-breaking we'll still take it down.

This is really how all mods should be responding to Reddit's changes. Just do the bare minimum going forward.

If Reddit wants to maintain its value it's going to have to make some concessions.

I respect the mods who are actively protesting and wish them success. I just don't think it will work.

Didn't reddit used to have someone on their payroll that did a few of those listed activities? Was it Victoria?

Victoria did a lot of it, and more recently they had another staff member who helped out a ton with AMAs. Unfortunately they were in the latest round of layoffs a few weeks ago.

Thank you all so much for what you've done. Your passion and dedication to what this sub brings is abundantly clear, so this must have been an extremely difficult decision. Hopefully Reddit sees that when all of your volunteer work falls into their lap. Hopefully 🤞

Unfortunately I doubt they'll care. The fact that our words from 8 years ago still ring just as true today says something about their culture and how it hasn't changed at all.

This isn't a protest to get them to change their behavior, because we don't think they're capable of changing. This is just us adapting and saying we won't do certain things that benefit them anymore.

hey, don't you love how AMA is a registered trademark of reddit despite them putting 0 effort into the management of them and reaping all the rewards

Oh yes love that.

:-(

<3

Why even bother removing anything? Just stop moderating.

Some subreddits have tried this, but I'd prefer not to get removed entirely.

This is actually a very reasonable way to “protest”. Better than the other mods that hold subreddits “hostage”. All the points listed are exactly what made this specific sub more interesting (and by default reddit as well). Now there is a chance it will lose that interesting aspect without the extra work the mods used to put in for free. No more free publicity for reddit on other parts of the internet.

It's not a protest - we're not expecting change. Just simple cause and effect - we're no longer interested in the additional work when the admins constantly make it harder.

I actually think this particular sub is important enough that reddit should invest in some full time employee(s) to work just on this sub to do the things the mods have been doing.

Not doing so would be a terrible business decision.

Reddit has previously employed people to interface with our team and help with the work. They've all been laid off.

I remember the whole Victoria saga, they didn't bring in anyone after that?

Never in the same role, but they did have someone who helped coordinate AMAs. She was laid off a few weeks ago.

Ehh- does this effectively mean this sub is going back to what it used to be - before the PR machines got a hold of it? Where we got janitors and bakers and people with multiple body parts doing ama's and got to really find interesting things out vs just movie promoting spam?

Not really. Those have still been happening. The big shift you noticed was when reddit removed the default-subreddit system. Previously, that system dumped even small posts from this subreddit and others onto the front page, where they could get attention and go viral and become those fun ones you remember. Without the default system, small scale posts here are competing with thousands of other subreddits and typically get lost - only big celebrities that people have heard of have a chance to front-page.

I mean...

This isn't much different from a high profile inactivity which would give them the excuse to do mod elections.

I mean, hey, stand by your principles, just as long as you know what to expect

We'll still actively moderate the subreddit, enforce rules, etc, just like any other actively moderated subreddit. We're just going to stop with the extras.

Fucking burn it all down if you ask me.

Stop moderating. No auto mods. Let anyone post anything all over the website and see how the admins deal with that clusterfuck.

It's been tried and the admins just remove the mods and bring in people who will do the bare minimum. So we're going to save them that step and do the minimum.

Given how many contractors they just laid off, maybe they don’t have the money to pay folks for the incredible work y’all have done.

Must have spent it all on coding NFTs and a broken video player no one asked for.

Frankly if reddit admins are telling you specifically how to do your job then you mods need to unionize and lawyer up because its not volunteer work anymore, its unpaid labor.

If reddit admins tell you that you have to moderate subs in a specific way ("you must only allow IAMA posts in the IAMA sub and you must verify their identity" for example) then they are "determining how you work" and therefore are employers, especially since they run reddit as a for profit institution.

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/how-to-guides/pages/volunteer-or-employee.aspx

If reddit admins want to claim certain subs as "theirs" and demand mods moderate them exactly how they want then they need to start paying you as employees and stop pretending you are volunteers.

Reddit admins are not telling us how to moderate beyond basic mod code of conduct expectations, which we'll still work hard to meet.

If that changes, your information is certainly relevant.

Why don’t you just get new mods willing to do what you feel whatever work is necessary that you don’t want to do anymore? You’re saying you don’t want to do it anymore and nobody else can, either.

We'll be recruiting new mods soon and if we can find any with the technical skills and willingness to take on this kind of project we'll absolutely let them do so.