I thought
this NYT analysis of how Reddit went from "toxic space" to an incredibly successful IPO this week was very interesting on the topic of content moderation. I'm gifting the article so that everyone can access without a subscription.
A short synopsis of the three steps highlighted in the article (all of these are quotes from the article; my commentary is in brackets):
1. First, the company took aim at bad spaces, rather than bad individuals or bad posts. [Note that this might be akin to this forum getting rid of the PSF.]
2. The second good decision Reddit made, when it came to content moderation, was to empower an army of volunteer moderators, rather than trying to do it all itself. [Suggested here previously.]
3. Finally, Reddit policed behavior rather than morality, and it did so without worrying too much about being seen as capricious or biased. ... Reddit focused on getting rid of users who were making things worse for other users, regardless of their politics. [I think this has been the theory here, too, to the extent any one is "gotten rid of," but many disagree and think there is "bias." Also I feel like this one is a little contradictory to #1, but it's all explained better in the full article]
Thank you. That's super interesting and helpful. I've recently developed relationships with some Reddit moderators and will talk with them on this article as I'd love to hear their perspective on it too.
It's interesting as it's my understanding they've always had a ton of volunteer moderators. Both when it was ugly and now that it seems to be much better. I'd like to learn more about the changes there.
I've always wondered why you didn't go with more volunteer mods. You've got some long standing trustworthy folks here. It could alleviate some of the burden of moderating the boards yourself.
I might be wrong, but I always assumed the lack of board features, like being able to post photos and stuff like that, was because it requires more moderating which doesn't make business sense. But with volunteer mods, seems to me you can have all the nice shiny things
Thanks
@Scoresman as that's a fair question. We’ve had volunteer moderators in the past, and that was mostly disastrous. Especially when using an actual screen name as I know some forums do. I understand it seems to work in other forums but I'm just saying in my personal experience, it was a disaster for us.
We stopped after someone threatened the moderator using his screen name. They were able to find out who he was and where he worked. Then contacted his employer and threatened him there at his real job because the poster felt the board was not fairly moderated. That was a while back.
I said way back then I didn’t want to put our people into that
Everyone knows moderating is a thankless job. But I’m not sure most really understand the full picture. It’s one thing for people to message me, they'd like to “slit my throat” or warn me I better hope “I don't leave my children unattended” or message me asking if “trying to recommend a good taxidermist” replying to the news my mother had died. All unfortunately real things that have happened here.
I understand that’s part of the job for me and one I have accepted. But I don’t feel good asking others to do that.
I think the big thing I worry about is whether it’s ugly stuff on the forums, misunderstanding my intent when I write something (again, my fault), or just private messages that go poorly and are misunderstood; there’s overall just a ton of negative from the forum for me.
And absolutely, there are also of course good things. And please don’t take this as a request for people to mention good things. I know there are positives from the forum. This isn't a cry for compliments.
I’m just saying for me personally, and specifically on days like yesterday and today, the forums, publicly and privately are way more negative than positive for me.
And yes, while still on the negative side, that balance is better for me after eliminating the political forum. But that clearly was not sustainable.
For sure, they’re a significant loss financially. A forum of this size is fairly expensive to host where the speed will be good and the platform reliable. We have always passed up on trying to make any money from the forum to offset the loss with advertisements on the forum, as I know that would be another unpopular thing we do. I’ve never felt I had the energy to fight that battle as I know the user experience is better without ads and we try to make the experience as good as we can.
I know for a fact a few people buy a subscription each year just because of the forums. But I also know for a fact we lose paying customers every year, because they were for some reason, unhappy with their experience on the forums.
The financial plus and minus there probably cancel each other out. So it really just becomes the loss is the financial expense to host them, plus the mental or whatever we want to call it cost and negatives for me.
Again, I know that sounds like whining and fishing for compliments, and that’s not what I mean at all. I know there are plenty of folks who think we do a good job here. I’m just trying to be clear and explain my position on it.