dredmorbius, 10 months ago

The Reddit story goes deeper, and drags in Ycombinator and its popular news aggregator Hacker News

My submission earlier today about Reddit seeking to seize my personal subreddit of going on ten years drew 405 votes and 299 comments, but ranked 42nd on the archive page https://news.ycombinator.com/front?day=2023-06-22&p=2, well below posts with far fewer votes and/or comments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36434885

I've inquired as to whether that was due to flags or HN moderator actions (automated or manual).

But ...

... HN's chief moderator dang had commented earlier today that Reddit content is now penalised, and has been since "a while ago": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36435312

I note that this conflicts with, and contradicts, a comment from a week ago reiterating HN's policy of moderating less not more on stories concerning YC companies, specifically noting that this was despite the somewhat distant-in-time and tenuous present relationship between YC and Reddit.

And that comment appears to be the first HN's mod team bothered mention the fact, as an HN site search reveals:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36366909

The fact is that Reddit are an Internet juggernaut, that they are going explicitly against prior commitments, promises, and policies (both sitewide and in my case specifically communicated to me three years ago by a Reddit admin ggAlex: https://web.archive.org/web/20230612102634/https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/dt527o/no_this_subreddit_is_not_fully_dead_yet_but/f6vj489/

This war-against-its-power-users has made international headlines.

HN plays a de facto role of customer-support-of-last-resort, which dang has specifically acknowledged:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20customer-support-of-last-resort&sort=byPopularity&type=comment

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34320816

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34941474.

And yes, that can be repetitive and annoying and repetitively annoying ... but ... it is often one of the only viable venues for those who are disempowered to be heard.

Or, in /u/toxlab's case, the dead: https://web.archive.org/web/20230612102634/https://old.reddit.com/r/TalesFromRetail/comments/5a2xj3/everett_redditor_utoxlab_of_rtalesbytoxlab_passed/

HN's present Reddit policy both amplifies an existing power discrepancy (that of Reddit members against the company) and puts HN's own credibility at risk.

HN cannot simultaneously claim to:

• moderate YC companies less,
• impose a penalty for submissions concerning a specific YC company, and ]- fail to disclose the existence of that penalty at all.

I'm well aware of the jump in Reddit-related traffic, and have commented at length on it (per my wont): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36435319

The fact that HN have now put their thumb on the scale without notifying either submitters or the general readership concerns me greatly.

How about HN:

• De-thumbs that scale
• Clearly and prominently disclose the fact of the penalty, and the dates at which it was applied and lifted.
• Applies a case-by-case assessment based on new significant information.
• Provides a mechanism for aggregating similar classes of stories. E.g., the tens to hundreds of thousands of small and/or personal subreddits which Reddit are now acting to seize control of.

Hacker News's own credibility is very much at risk here and that itself is a serious concern to the site.

(Communicated to HN's mod team via email, toot here adapted slightly.)

#Reddit #HackerNew #HN #RedditStrike #RedditBlackout #ycombinator