Thousands of moderators overseeing the site’s subreddits are on strike. It’s a wrinkle in Reddit’s plan to go public, and a sign that plan is premature, columnist Anita Ramaswamy writes.
Thousands of moderators overseeing the site’s subreddits are on strike. It’s a wrinkle in Reddit’s plan to go public, and a sign that plan is premature, columnist Anita Ramaswamy writes.
I see this going very badly almost as soon as it’s implemented.
While I understand your concern, I’m not sure I agree. Investors have an incentive to make their investment profitable. Therefore, if they have to maintain a level of effort for an investment, they’ll do everything to make it grow. That means they’ll work to widen the community without making it too broad for advertising, work on building in organic advertising, etc… Having given it thought for six hours, I really do believe that keeping mods and investors in alignment will be important. It’s the reason why the fediverse tends to work; those who have the financial investment are the moderation team.
Keeping the interests of mods and investors in alignment is important. However, if people can buy their way into a moderator position, particularly if they get to choose the community they mod, it would be extremely easy for bad actors to take over communities, such as those that promote political activism, or offer support for marginalized groups.
A much better option would be to only offer investment to moderators who have been active for a period of time / gained a level of trust with their community.