Reddit generates enough to continue being Reddit through the gold program.
What happened was Reddit got sold, and that large amount of money raised expectations about "making money", in particular, equating massive traffic to massive potential dollars.
Reddit would have been just fine, and would have seen few real financial issues had it not been burdened with providing a return for a rather large sale price.
Just because it can be sold, may not mean it should be.
There is an inherent conflict between users goals and how they derive value from a site like Reddit, and the builders who may or may not align with what attracted users in the first place.
It's a difficult problem, and one that Aaron spoke to a few times. The idea of sustainable community discussion was solid, and clearly resonant with a lot of people and probably the broadest demographics around.
Reddit appeals to everyone from teens on up. Kind of amazing.
It's current owners paid a price high enough to remove the sustainable discussion idea from the table, favoring a more monetized model.
That has had ripple effects. Not all good, though some are.
Today, Reddit has factions. The vast majority use Reddit casually, often on mobile. The basic app works, but not well.
There is a much harder core set, a good third or more, and I'm one of those, who just uses the old school browser interface, which works just fine on modern mobile.
This third contains many of the community minded people. There is growing angst over changes and a steady divergence in directions, leaving many who understand Reddit, and it's users well, in an increasingly rough place.
I don't see it ending well.
Frankly, someone is going to do the sustainable discussion thing again, and maybe get it right. Making gazillions won't be in the cards, but a very nice living will be.
Should that happen, whoever does it will own discussion big time.
The strength in users funding user discussion comes from the absence of that inherent conflict that always manifests when money gets too big and expectations fail to align with what users see as the real value.
Maybe people being the customers, in the sense of one another, not so much to deliver ADS, is worth exploring more. It won't be as sexy as something that sells, or that will IPO in a way that sets up founders for life, but it may well be the perfect place to deliver answers to some of the harder questions related to large group discussion dynamics.
I have been experimenting with the idea of not making a bunch of rules that define how shitty people can be to one another.
What is stated is being a good human is no risk. The more shitty someone is, the greater their costs and risks get.
Risks include bans, time outs and such.
Costs include various forms of enforced compliance being required to post.
Remedies for being a good human are basically a return to normal peer status.
In particular, a gradual escalation of cost to contribute long before a time out or ban happens, seems to signal to people. A lot more is recoverable.
I see others modeling these things, demonstrating deescalation, and in general trying to recover things before any admin type action is taken. I also see them mentoring newbies toward the safe positive. Her important as that kind of distributed person to person action does not require tools, and cannot be bought.
This very strongly suggests community norms can be used instead of explicit rules to manage things toward value and away from noise.
Ever notice how alphas looking to start shit have a keen interest in the rules? Of course! They want to know what they can get away with.
Take that away and their behavior does change.
A secondary part of all this involves evaluating risk reward for trolls and others making noise.
I'll not put it here, as my thoughts are incomplete and some work is in process, but I will say indirect means, including tools, automation, filters, rules are all indirect means, and do not address the risk reward inherent in causing grief.
I will also say we can't do much about the low risk inherent in just making an account to chat, but we can definitely impact the reward.
There are more ways to get at this than we see out there right now.
A classic example of how barriers to entry make an impact - take a look at the dwarf fortress forums around 2008-2010.
The game is arcane, and to grok the game you need to be willing to put in an unusual effort at the time.
The resulting main boards are pretty good, signal vs noise ratios are healthy.
----
The next major rule is that - general topics are bad. It allows people to farm tangential credibility, and anyone with an opinion can speak.
The worst offender are topics on religion(/identity) and politics.
If you allow pol on your forum, you are fighting a losing battle. Pol has the lowest barrier to entry, but actual Policy and Politics are managed by complicated facts and hidden information.
Politics affects everyone, and is designed to be associated with hot button topics.
This single handedly will poison and polarize your community.
----
Between these 2 rules, you can get enough positive starting runway to create a healthy community for a while. Eventually the community will grow old and degrade, but you will avoid a whole host of other problems.
I disagree with your first line of defense, but I do that on more general discussion.
You are on solid ground otherwise. :D
Norms, established members, and the concepts of owning our end of a discussion, as well as weighing what others say can do wonders for general fuckery.
First, and again, you are on solid ground with specific discussion topic focused communities.
Assuming a more general discussion, and or one where growth and or participation is desired, having strong norms in place immunizes the community against nefarious players.
When someone new shows up, the idea is to give them some rope. Let them self identify, and self select too.
When most of the community gets this, then the idea of raising both their cost and reducing their reward both pack a big punch.
You aren't wrong. What you put here does work, but it has a lot of friction, which may be undesirable.
See, a nefarious actor has a low risk and generally low cost to entry.
Why enter?
They also have a high reward potential, and it's that favorable ratio that consistently attracts them. Above someone mentions $10 as a barrier to entry.
$10 is cheap ass compared to the fun one can have! No joke. In my study of this, I've met many who would pay that easily.
If that friction, however high it needs to be, is desirable, fine. Raise the cost enough and the outcome will be a low noise, but also low churn, low growth community, generally speaking. A very compelling, but specific topic can alter that too.
Otherwise, the community, it's founders, moderators, others of status, influence, however that all is structured, only has control over the reward part, and they can have some control over the cost too.
See, the topic of discussion here is more general chatter. We have more focused things well on the way to being acceptable signal to noise. What we do t have is general community, say politics, or other broad topics in that same state.
It's that which I have focused on for a very long time. Personal interest.
Norms, and various discussion devices can deny nefarious actors joy, and can frankly make them regret their intent. At the same time, consistent calls to join the community, based on their own arguments framed in positive ways can work wonders.
One discussion norm is weighting of what one gets. When a clown calls you an ass, it's as laughable as it could be a basis for righteous indignation.
The vast majority of the time, righteous indignation is the response. "How dare you!" From there, the reward gets pretty good for the clown.
What happens when the response is laughable? One actually laughs, or does something basic like rate the shit?
I can tell you the reward on all that is much lower. When they realize that is a norm? Low joy, high pain potential, particularly when they figure out they really are seen as a clown, or ass.
All these things, and I'm leaving a lot out, as it would be a short book to model, get at reward.
Ask yourself, what does a reward look like?
Say it's attention, as another example.
Return that with endearment, and most often they will leave, or join and become a member with some genuine basis. They leave because the moment they are familiar, their behavior normalized, understood, it's boring. No fun. No joy.
They join, because they find out there really is a common basis and they didn't realize it. Often, an ask to join will actually work.
A few will just spew forth, and so raise their cost makes great sense.
Simple things, like say not allowing them 4 letter words, carry a very high, often funny cost that can always be removed on good behavior, expression of and demonstration of better intent.
The best is the community can see that, act accordingly and it's all public and largely transparent. Often, some members will step in to help. Often that works, amazingly, and when the basic norms behind it all are in place and solid.
Many other simple, subtle, always recoverable things can be used in tandem with strong community norms to inhibit noise, while promoting signal.
The best part about this kind of approach is it's well distributed. Model it to a few, they apply, model for a few more, and soon most active participants are largely immune.
An "infection" won't spread, and where it does, the cost tools are used to marginalize impact.
A lot really depends on community intent and whether friction to entry is desirable, or not.
The bigger problems cited here are most painful on general discussion, and most discussion is actually general.
Having more specifics out there is good, but not ultimately a solution for the general need and value humans find when they interact.
This is tribal. People seek tribes. A good tribe stands strong because it's members understand how to do that and why it matters.
An investment in those things can be very effective, and that was my point to make. The things you mention can also do that.
You aren't wrong. There are just cases where other ways may well deliver better results, or be better aligned to the community needs and goals.
> Ever notice how alphas looking to start shit have a keen interest in the rules? Of course! They want to know what they can get away with.
The problem is, rules are also a way for someone who was wronged to appeal. While it's a line that troublemakers want to thread to push boundaries, when rules are unwritten, communities often become a reflection of the will of the moderator rather than a community of diverse opinion. Codified rules are one of the steps we have to encourage diversity of thought, but of course there needs to be rule enforcement...
Unwritten rules have upsides too, though I rarely see them being a reflection of the moderation unless the moderation is being very heavy handed.
I've been in communities that were very pleasant and open about a lot of things where the only rule was, quote, "don't be a dick". I've also been in communities, that despite extensive rules that would make make fellows from my law course cry in joy and fully oriented towards left/liberal, were cesspools of hatred.
I think in both cases it's more a matter of what the moderation will do with what they have. "You reap what you sow" probably applies in some way.
When there are only unwritten rules, then people trying to circumvent them will, usually and to my experience, get caught and stopped by the moderation. The lack of written rules usually means they have leeway in what they do so they can easily plug holes.
On the other hand, with written rules it's also harder for moderation to abuse their rights.
Either way, there will always be this commitment, the community usually figures out what they need by themselves when the decision becomes necessary.
It's entirely possible to appeal sans a set of rules.
The appeals are rooted in norms, and the process is a dialog, kept recoverable, not a trial.
Explain to me how a set of rules isn't a formalized expression if the will of those who created them?
There is more to all of that, in particular, security and agency.
But, those details aside, norms operate much like rules, and are far more resonant, and community owned than rules alone are.
Finally, the organic and well distributed nature of norms tends to check varied and manipulative enforcement of rules. A primary example might be a flare up, vs nefarious intent to make noise and or cause grief.
Reddit generates enough to continue being Reddit through the gold program.
What happened was Reddit got sold, and that large amount of money raised expectations about "making money", in particular, equating massive traffic to massive potential dollars.
Reddit would have been just fine, and would have seen few real financial issues had it not been burdened with providing a return for a rather large sale price.
Just because it can be sold, may not mean it should be.
There is an inherent conflict between users goals and how they derive value from a site like Reddit, and the builders who may or may not align with what attracted users in the first place.
It's a difficult problem, and one that Aaron spoke to a few times. The idea of sustainable community discussion was solid, and clearly resonant with a lot of people and probably the broadest demographics around.
Reddit appeals to everyone from teens on up. Kind of amazing.
It's current owners paid a price high enough to remove the sustainable discussion idea from the table, favoring a more monetized model.
That has had ripple effects. Not all good, though some are.
Today, Reddit has factions. The vast majority use Reddit casually, often on mobile. The basic app works, but not well.
There is a much harder core set, a good third or more, and I'm one of those, who just uses the old school browser interface, which works just fine on modern mobile.
This third contains many of the community minded people. There is growing angst over changes and a steady divergence in directions, leaving many who understand Reddit, and it's users well, in an increasingly rough place.
I don't see it ending well.
Frankly, someone is going to do the sustainable discussion thing again, and maybe get it right. Making gazillions won't be in the cards, but a very nice living will be.
Should that happen, whoever does it will own discussion big time.
The strength in users funding user discussion comes from the absence of that inherent conflict that always manifests when money gets too big and expectations fail to align with what users see as the real value.
Maybe people being the customers, in the sense of one another, not so much to deliver ADS, is worth exploring more. It won't be as sexy as something that sells, or that will IPO in a way that sets up founders for life, but it may well be the perfect place to deliver answers to some of the harder questions related to large group discussion dynamics.
I have been experimenting with the idea of not making a bunch of rules that define how shitty people can be to one another.
What is stated is being a good human is no risk. The more shitty someone is, the greater their costs and risks get.
Risks include bans, time outs and such.
Costs include various forms of enforced compliance being required to post.
Remedies for being a good human are basically a return to normal peer status.
In particular, a gradual escalation of cost to contribute long before a time out or ban happens, seems to signal to people. A lot more is recoverable.
I see others modeling these things, demonstrating deescalation, and in general trying to recover things before any admin type action is taken. I also see them mentoring newbies toward the safe positive. Her important as that kind of distributed person to person action does not require tools, and cannot be bought.
This very strongly suggests community norms can be used instead of explicit rules to manage things toward value and away from noise.
Ever notice how alphas looking to start shit have a keen interest in the rules? Of course! They want to know what they can get away with.
Take that away and their behavior does change.
A secondary part of all this involves evaluating risk reward for trolls and others making noise.
I'll not put it here, as my thoughts are incomplete and some work is in process, but I will say indirect means, including tools, automation, filters, rules are all indirect means, and do not address the risk reward inherent in causing grief.
I will also say we can't do much about the low risk inherent in just making an account to chat, but we can definitely impact the reward.
There are more ways to get at this than we see out there right now.