What’s going on Between Reddit and Reddit Moderators

the staff of the Ridgewood blog

Ridgewood NJ, Reddit site’s volunteer moderators have been in open rebellion for weeks at fees the company has imposed on apps that are popular with Reddit moderators and users causing some of these apps to permanently shut down . Moderators claim Reddit’s recent changes to API pricing threaten to destroy user access to a huge variety of quality-of-life features exclusive to apps like Apollo, Narwhal and Reddit is Fun.

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Moderators of many Reddit communities are pledging to keep their subreddits private or restricted indefinitely. The majority of subreddits were to resume on Wednesday, but a thread on the r/ModCoord subreddit indicates that a growing number will continue the protest. Not all subreddits will be able to go dark indefinitely for various reasons. More than 8,400 subreddits have gone dark. Reddit briefly crashed on Monday due to the protest.

This weekend, things escalated when the unpaid folks behind Reddit’s signature Ask Me Anything sessions—where users can ask actors, celebrities and others anything they like—said they would permanently scale back the work they do.

Reddit’s r/IAmA moderators have also announced that they will no longer perform many of the tasks that made the subreddit special, including active solicitation of celebrities or high-profile individuals to do interviews. r/IAmA helped popularize the social media platform. The subreddit allows users to interview anyone. There have been appearances by several notable public figures in the past. Its mods say that they are fed up with Reddit due to its history of disregarding users and moderators

All of which raises a question: Why is a company that generates hundreds of millions in revenue annually relying on volunteers for key editorial tasks? The reality at least in theory is , “Bringing in ideas from analogous fields turns out to be a potential source of radical innovation. When you’re working on a problem and you pool insights from analogous areas, you’re likely to get significantly greater novelty in the proposed solutions, for two reasons: People versed in analogous fields can draw on different pools of knowledge, and they’re not mentally constrained by existing, “known” solutions to the problem in the target field. The greater the distance between the problem and the analogous field, the greater the novelty of the solutions.”  (https://hbr.org/2014/11/sometimes-the-best-ideas-come-from-outside-your-industry)

Northwestern studies :”The social networking platform Reddit relies on volunteer moderators to prevent the site from being overrun by problematic content—including hate speech—and ensure that it remains appealing for users. Though uncompensated, this labor is highly valuable to the company: According to a pair of new studies led by Northwestern University computer scientists, it’s worth at minimum $3.4 million per year, which is equivalent to 2.8% of Reddit’s 2019 revenue.”

The Reddit platform is based on Crowdsourcing, similar to the Ridgewood blog . Crowdsourcing is a process of obtaining ideas, services, or contributions from a large group of people, typically through an open call or invitation. It involves leveraging the collective intelligence, skills, and resources of a diverse crowd to solve problems, generate ideas, or complete tasks. The term “crowdsourcing” was coined by Jeff Howe in 2006 and gained popularity with the rise of the internet and digital platforms. It harnesses the power of the crowd’s collective knowledge, expertise, and creativity to achieve a specific goal.

However, crowdsourcing does have its limitations and challenges.  It depends on the honesty of the commentators, which in the post truth , fake news era  commentators are more agenda driven.  Other problems include ensuring quality control, managing intellectual property rights, addressing ethical concerns, and maintaining motivation and participation from contributors.

And like managing “free speech” there is a fine line to walk to keep a balance . The main problem for many crowdsourcing sites has been that open honest dialogue often devolves into partisan rhetoric with undisclosed agendas propelling commentary.

The Reddit platform problem is that Reddit avoided paying moderators by claiming the communities belonged to the volunteer moderators. Now moderators are asking if they’re now explicitly claiming the subs belong to Reddit through their action of removing moderators for participating in the Reddit Blackout, while still claiming under Section 8 of the User Agreement that “You agree that when you receive reports related to a subreddit you moderate, you will take appropriate action, which may include removing content that violates policy and/or promptly escalating to Reddit for review;”, doesn’t that make moderators into unpaid employees instead of volunteers?