r/Haskell is going dark

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#62

As mentioned, theres no such thing for people who want to use the platform. People who dont want to engage should just leave Reddit. Dont hold the rest of us hostage. Telling people to make their own subreddit is basically telling people this is a scummy power move meant to divert attention to alternative platforms like this one, and not a means to spread awareness.

One way or another the haskell subreddit will be coming back. As one can already see, patience is already wearing thin for escalating without prior consent.

People want to spread awareness, not cut themselves from information that they have built as a community.

3 Likes
#63

There was prior consent for the blackout, as evidenced above.

In general, no place on the internet which is not owned by the community itself will last. The owners of reddit could just take over all r/s and delete all previous content.

Summary: blame should not be placed on r/haskell mods but on Reddit leadership

3 Likes
#64

Anyone else feeling the pain of reddit not being read-only? I keep doing google searches for haskell-related things, and the top result is invariably on reddit.

I don’t particularly care for reddit, but it was the place to get information about Haskell (as a lurker). Discourse always seemed kind of dead to me, and discord/irc/etc were always too noisy.

8 Likes
#65

Even as a proponent of this strike, I wish we had the read-only access to the sub so that each author can backup their posts/comments.

2 Likes
#66

And in another different note, /r/haskell does not feel like a community to me at all. Reddit is a link aggregator where semi-anonymous people sometimes discuss stuff. Reddit (I guess intentionally) places very little focus on the actual people involved and a lot more focus about “the content”.

Really? I used the sub for 10 years - back when I first learned Haskell. I definitely recognized plenty of names over the years. In the same way you would on a forum. People I’d have conversations with over the years. It was totally a community imo.

4 Likes
#67

I’d say the strike is not well executed. The moderators should be leading the discussion about alternatives and already have prototypes set up.

Make clear signals that this is not a joke and show the community we’re ready to move.

Right now it’s just chaos.

7 Likes
#68

Does anyone have statistics on how Reddit is doing now that various key communities have gone on strike? It’s interesting and all, but a strike is intended to force management action, such as lower hours, better working conditions, better pay, etc, or in this context, the reversion of monetizing API changes.

If the strike is not working and is just a bunch of communities blowing themselves up, it’s more an exodus than a strike.

In which case, this is effectively just /r/haskell deciding to abandon the site, except with no full replacement for /r/haskell.

Part of the problem is, if you’re looking at the poll, first, you end up getting the most active and engaged users participating in the poll, but there can easily also be a silent majority who you can’t see, and whose vote there isn’t “no to a strike” but rather “no to Haskell”.

But what’s done is done, the best possible resolution we can wish for is for Reddit to relent and take away the reason for the strike.

1 Like
#69

Thought I’d circle back around to this and say that google becomes less useless if you add -site:reddit.com to the end of your search. Still shame to see a treasure trove of knowledge go, though, even if I’m otherwise unimpressed by reddit in general.

1 Like
#70

I’ve started the Haskell - kbin.social magazine (like a subreddit) over at kbin. Please join if you are looking for Reddit alternatives! It is quite lonely at the moment.

By the way, @taylorfausak, I’ve copied the sidebar from /r/haskell. I hope you don’t mind. If you do, let me know and I will replace it with some original text of my own.

3 Likes
#71

I think that the goal of the subreddit should be to facilitate discussion and proliferate Haskell.

I don’t think that reddit’s changes affect the goals of the subreddit as I see them. They do however affect the mods personally. Letting the mods protest short-term seems fair to me since they work so hard.

But doing that for a prolonged period is shirking what I see as a responsibility to uphold the community and knowledge that exists on the subreddit.

3 Likes
#72

For a long time Reddit has been alienating parts of the community. For example code block formatting does not work via the API and old Reddit. That was annoying but not a deal breaker. This new change to API pricing is one that will really just cut off a part of our community from the discussion (those who use third party clients to access Reddit). I don’t think that is in line with the goal of facilitating discussion and proliferating Haskell.

7 Likes
#73

To everyone who wants this mod-strike to end:

  • do you know of any moderators of thriving subreddits who are satisfied with (using) the official Reddit app?

  • if so, how many?

1 Like
#74

Why is it about the mods and not about us, who wants to access the knowledge in the sub?

#75

Read their open letter:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/13xh1e7/an_open_letter_on_the_state_of_affairs_regarding/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

2 Likes
#76

The information on the subreddit has been available for archival for years up to this point, moderated for free by volunteers. Those volunteers have invested in the community by doing largely thankless work to keep the signal to noise ratio in your favor. Reddit has signaled that they are uninterested in the human element of the labor power they have been exploiting, and are implementing classic strikebreaking tactics (astroturfing, scabs, threats, etc.) to attempt to weaken resolve and frame this action as a tantrum rather than a usual and expected result of the exploited becoming conscious of the terms of their exploitation.

Reddit acted, labor reacted, and as ever collaborators like yourself are out here carrying water for the CEO as if he’s gonna write you a check for services rendered.

If you want a hand in how a community gets managed, put in the work.

6 Likes
#77

What I see are some confused or irritated users. It is nothing unexpected, and nothing unexplainable using a pinch of good faith.

2 Likes
#78

Buying corporate propaganda means one has been misled, not that one is freed of all agency in enacting the corrosive behavior that propaganda is meant to foster. It is important to recognize what parties actually hold the preponderance of power in these situations and challenge individuals who aim to obscure this relationship.

1 Like
#79

I’m just checking here again as /r/haskell is one of the few subreddits I frequent which hasn’t still reopened, but let me take this opportunity to address that open letter from /r/modcoord that was posted earlier:

  • charging price having a prohibitive cost: they can and should charge whatever they want. In any other situation, e.g., you go to a restaurant or a store… and you come across something whose price you think is too high you just leave, you don’t boycott or cause a scene in such a way that you impact other people trying to eat, shop, etc.
  • lack of moderation tools: most likely they are ridiculously low in Reddit’s priority list because neither do they bring in additional revenue nor reduce existing expenses. That is frustrating, but if you need lots of powertools to keep up, something is fundamentally wrong: either you’re moderating more subreddits than you can handle, or the volume of posts is too much, or whatever.
  • concerns about NSFW content: even if their reasoning isn’t valid, they are free to add any restrictions, however absurd (let’s say they want to restrict posts where you use the word “amazing”, that’d be ridiculous right? but still within their rights)

The only point I may agree is regarding communication, however, I still don’t understand why mods decided to punish reddit by taking the subreddits private, when they could have just left the platform immediately and forever.

If the subreddit doesn’t reopen I’ll need to evaluate on an ongoing basis whether using discourse is worth it or if being in Libera’s #haskell is good enough.

1 Like
#80

I’d say that some moderators have managed to convince themselves that they are not being hypocritical when they:

  • confiscate contents contributed by users in good faith over a power bargain with Reddit; even though
  • they would never have allowed such a power bargain in favour of a goal they didn’t agree with.

Good old “the-end-justifies-the-means” move to attach the Haskell cart to the bandwagon.

1 Like
#81

In this case, the staff of this restaurant or store are unpaid, and currently engaged in a temporary work stoppage in protest of the owner’s decision to raise the price of using their website, which same website those unpaid staff use to maintain good order at the store. The unpaid staff do not have the means to pay for such functionality, and their jobs will become difficult enough that they will be unable to maintain good order without some concessions from the owner.

6 Likes