r/emulation • u/LocutusOfBorges • Jun 17 '23
Meta /r/emulation going forward: Mod statement
Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote and contribute to our consultation thread on the blackout protests - it was invaluable in our deciding what to do with the situation.
There's been a great deal of disagreement within the mod team as to what we should do - particularly among the core active mods. We all continue to support the principle of protesting against the changes being made to reddit - /u/Reverend_Sins has decided to step down (link to their resignation message), and other staff have been considering the same.
The conclusion we've ended up at following lengthy discussion over the past few days is that we're going to reopen the subreddit, with the following points in mind:
Subreddit change: publicising related communities
We're very aware that there's a lot of desire among the userbase to move on from reddit generally, many of whom find it intolerable to remain on a platform dominated by an admin team seemingly unconcerned with the best interests of the communities that built the site into the state it's in today. Our main concern here's helping meet people's needs without blowing the place up for the people who want to stay - nobody here owns the community, and if we can help people on their way to somewhere they'll be happier, it only seems decent that we do so. The primary change we're going to introduce is off-site links/related communities - links to similar communities off-site who cover the same kind of topic as us, positioned at the top of the sidebar on both old.reddit and new.reddit, and, at least initially, publicised via pinned threads. These sites won't generally be run by us - I'm hoping to publicise a few old-style forums alongside sites like Lemmy/kbin/raddle/assorted Discord servers/etc.
The hope is that this will help people who want to spread away from reddit to find sites and communities that will fit what they want, without burning this place as a platform for people to have available - this is, honestly, the best case I can make for our reopening beyond the obvious point that we shouldn't keep on inconveniencing people indefinitely.
If the subreddit were to be handed over to a randomly chosen new set of moderators, I'd personally wish them the best of luck (the prospect of our resigning en masse through staying private for a few more days was discussed at length - which would have resulted in this outcome) - but we couldn't necessarily rely on their being willing to help provide other communities the boost to growth/sustained passive membership flow that this might provide them with. To us, the benefits of helping the community decentralise in a more resilient way is probably worth wincing through an action like this.
We still intend to carry on running /r/emulation as normal, beyond that - it's still a platform that a lot of people want to use to share and discuss news about the field, and for developers to share projects that they've made. I don't anticipate that changing in the immediate future - and while that's the case, we'll do our best to keep the lights on, however severe our misgivings about the direction things are taking.
If you would like to suggest a community link to add to the sidebar, please feel free to post it in a comment in this thread, or, ideally, send us a modmail message with details. We can't guarantee that we'll add every single one proposed (basic/gentle quality control will apply), but we'll try to be as inclusive as we can.
Browsing Reddit on mobile
For those of you who wish to continue using Reddit, and continue using Reddit on mobile, we encourage you to browse in a way that does not reward Reddit for this decision. On iOS, we recommend Sink it for Reddit, a Safari extention that removes most nagging/anti-user features from reddit's website. On Android, one option to use Firefox and install the uBlock Origin plugin to remove ads. We welcome alternatives in the comments.
I appreciate that this decision is a bit difficult - the option of staying in restricted mode for a substantial period longer was discussed as a compromise solution, but it's hard to see that achieving all that much of worth beyond inconveniencing the people who use this subreddit, while still carrying the same risks of our being removed and immediately replaced with people who wouldn't want to facilitate people finding their way to off-site spaces if they want to. Some /r/emulation mods help moderate other subreddits which have decided that they're going to continue to stay private - I wish them the very best of luck, and continue to hope for a happier end to this affair than seems to be shaping up at the moment.
Discussion and feedback are completely welcome, as is our subreddit modmail if you'd like to get in touch privately.
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u/delroth Jun 17 '23 edited Jun 17 '23
Thanks to everyone who took the time to vote and contribute to our consultation thread on the blackout protests - it was invaluable in our deciding what to do with the situation.
And yet you completely ignored the results of the poll and went for a minority option.
To us, the benefits of helping the community decentralise in a more resilient way is probably worth wincing through an action like this.
You're not helping the community decentralize by keeping the status quo. In fact this will have pretty much the opposite outcome. It's fairly obvious that people will go where the critical mass is, and the centralized option on Reddit has the critical mass currently.
while still carrying the same risks of our being removed and immediately replaced with people who wouldn't want to facilitate people finding their way to off-site spaces if they want to
No balls. You're basically saying "oh they will actually do what they said they'll do" when in practice this would require a lot of time and effort for them to do to 3K+ subreddits, would be risky since at least some % of the sub takeovers would end up in communities imploding, etc. You're folding at the first sign of potential resistance from reddit, against the wish of most of the community.
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u/enderandrew42 Jun 17 '23
An alternate way to protest may be to keep the sub open and stop moderating. Reddit is talking about kicking out mods, and mods are going to lose access to some mod tools. This site runs on unpaid volunteers and they seem to be spiting them rather than appreciating them.
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u/LocutusOfBorges Jun 17 '23
This was considered, actually! It’d be a bit painful to watch - the subreddit would have been made effectively unusable within a day if it were to happen, as every bit of worthwhile content got buried beneath a flood of low-effort tech support questions and warez. The ratio of quality to cruft here is something like 30-50 dreadful, throwaway, often ALLCAPS posts from people asking for help finding ROMs/asking how to extract RAR archives/simple tech support queries to every one post that’s actually discussion-promoting.
I’m just not sure it would serve much purpose at this point - it would invite exactly the same response as sticking around in restricted mode would have, but with additional annoyance to the people who use the place. We’ve gone the route that r/Linux_Gaming has taken - if people would like to leave and set up alternative communities, it seems decent that we give them a bit of help in doing do.
There was also a large chunk of the userbase who seemed to want the subreddit to open again - that was always going to happen anyway if we’d stayed private or restricted, but at least this way doesn’t choke off our ability to offer a directory of alternative sites/communities. I’d also rather not be pointlessly rude to the people who actually want to remain here - a lot of people do care a fair bit about this site.
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Jun 17 '23
People wanted to protest but didn’t want the consequences of protesting. That’s about how this all went. If you aren’t willing to take losses along with the protest there was never a point in doing it in the first place.
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Jun 17 '23
Reddit forgets: Reddit got big cause Digg got shit.
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u/MameHaze Jun 17 '23 edited Jun 17 '23
Reddit got big by creating tons of fake accounts, and fake engagement to make the place look busy. Given the number of fake / bot follows I've had recently, I do wonder if they're doing the same again now.
The place has always been trash, but people seem to be attracted to trash, then those who know better end up having to follow/participate if they still want to be able to engage with users etc.
Of course most of the people saying 'shut it down' are the mindless KiwiFarm level drama kiddies, jumping on whatever the current pile-on bandwagon is because they want to see something die, but there are genuine reasons the site doesn't deserve to have any users at all.
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u/meantbent3 Jun 17 '23
Why ask the community what they want to do if you just flatout ignore them? Go private indefinitely like we, the community, voted for.
This post is just sad and frustrating, listen to your community.
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Jun 17 '23
No emulation will ever be as accurate as Paint "Spez" Hufferman's emulation of a jackass. It's just like the real thing! Even FPGA can't top it!
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u/BigheadSMZ Jun 17 '23
This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but personally I don't think shutting down the sub would have accomplished anything. The dude was never going to change his mind. This sub closes down, another "emulation" sub is opened by someone else. It probably won't be nearly as popular, it probably won't attract as many devs, but it will still exist and regular users who don't care about this increased cost for API access stuff will continue to post. Does it make a statement to close the sub? Sure, but that statement doesn't really mean jack when the CEO of the site doesn't value its users at all, other than to make him more $$$$, and is now resorting to banning mods and forcefully reopening subreddits to end the protest. In the end, reddit holds all the power when it comes to reddit. The only way to seize that power is for everyone to band together and leave permanently. And in today's fractured world, its almost delusional to think that's even possible, especially without a viable alternative.
Nothing short of a mass exodus to another site will accomplish anything. Closing subs is not the answer if they can just be forcibly reopened, new ones created, and new mods appointed. There will always be someone hungry for that "power" to be a mod who lacks the integrity to stand up to what reddit is doing now. And honestly, the situation sucks. I know people want to do what they can to battle the big corporations who feed off us. Leaving this place indefinitely is the only thing that can be done. Stop posting altogether. The consequence of this is without an agreed upon alternative that the majority can get on board with, it's going to leave the generalized emulation community fractured with no centralized place to discuss the hobby we all love. That's my take on things. Feel free to agree or disagree.
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u/Asinine_ Jun 17 '23
Disappointed I missed the poll and didn't get to vote to keep the subreddit privated. But looks like it didn't matter anyway. Why even have a poll...
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u/Reverend_Sins Jun 17 '23
I don't blame you guys for keeping the sub open. Its all such a shitty damned if you do damned if you don't situation. No matter what the decision you piss off half the sub and take all the blame.
All the weaselly corporate shills on new accounts couldn't be more obvious trying to stir up garbage.
Worse yet always having the specter of an absentee top mod looming overhead who could easily just kick everyone who actually put the work in off and take over. That recent mod addition didn't go unnoticed.
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u/SabrielKytori Jun 17 '23
The community voted to shut it down. If people want to look at posts they can put cache: in front of links from Google and they can still be viewed, so the knowledge isn't lost even if the sub is locked. I don't understand why you won't go with what the community decided and it's honestly completely disheartening.
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u/OmegaAtrocity Jun 17 '23
People will be mad (they would be mad no matter what) but I'm glad this sub isn't going to stay private indefinitely. This is one of those subs that is massively helpful in googling very specific issues. At the very least I'm glad that will always be an option.
This sub is not big enough to have the mod team removed and replaced unless they did it in a site wide kind of way. Reddit is not going to change their stance, all this would've accomplished is killing a plethora of useful archival information.
Just my 2 cents on the matter, I'm glad we're back up here.
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u/_gelon Jun 17 '23
On Android I use reddit-revanced, which has been working fine so far. It is a collection of patches for ad-blocking, coin-thing hidding and avatar unlocking. Just like any other revanced project.
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u/Sarspazzard Jun 17 '23
I still use Redited from github. It's not been updated in 6 months, but works perfectly to remove the ads on stock reddit. I've tried revanced to patch the newest reddit apk, but it's too buggy for my taste. I'm bummed about this whole situation.
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u/emuloso Jun 17 '23
Thanks for keeping the community. The platform is whatever - when people move over to another place then you can say fuck reddit - but now it's just a lose-lose scenario.
And please let it be another forum. Discord is garbage, even trash like facebook can be used without an account
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Jun 17 '23
Thanks we are looking at alternatives.
The federated site seem like a good idea but did not have enough time to mature before the onslaught.
We have a https://raddle.me/f/emulation but the mod tools are very very primitive.
A regular forum with a rss news feed seems like the best way to replace reddit but those either cost money to self host or still at the mercy of an admin.
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u/ClinicalAttack Jun 17 '23
I miss dedicated forums hosted on dedicated websites. It seems like there are less and less of them and everyone just moved to Reddit. Never put all your eggs in one basket!
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u/MrMcBonk Jun 17 '23
Let it be locked permanently. If they want to replace you with corporate bootlickers who do stupid shit for no money then let them. Let it turn into a cesspit of spam and wreckage. THAT will drive enough people away on it's own to build something better.
Anything less just continues to reward Reddit's parasitic C-suite who do nothing to generate anything of value or worth.
The majority of users supported locking down or at least restricting the entire subreddit. And yet you have chosen the option to please the minority of users in addition to buckling to the pressure of Spez's bullshit. Why bother holding the poll at ALL? It's disingenuous at best, malicious at worst.
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u/Jolly_Owl_8693 Jun 17 '23
Why'd you even have a poll if you weren't gonna listen to the votes? This is exactly why the admins are gonna let users vote y'all out of here
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u/LocutusOfBorges Jun 17 '23 edited Jun 17 '23
On a related note - I'd like to give it a few days for the dust to settle before actually opening applications (probably with a fresh pinned thread), but we'll be taking applications for new r/emulation mods in a few days' time - anyone interested in doing so should assume that they'll be running the subreddit on a business-as-usual basis for at least the short/medium term. I'd like to be sure that we have some decent replacement mods in place with actual roots in the community before we make any other big changes - it's been overdue for quite some time.
Qualities we'll be looking for in prospective mods are familiarity with/demonstrable care for the subject area, a history of participation on the subreddit, a vaguely thick skin, a sense of empathy for the developers and users who use this community, and an understanding that we should be helping people if they want to build off-site platforms.
Past moderation experience is a definite plus, but absolutely not required - we'll show you the ropes when you join, don't worry!