It’s obvious that Reddit as a company has no respect for its users and less than that for the mods. It’s a thankless, difficult job that isn’t even a paid position. I think a lot of us have probably quit real jobs for less bs than Reddit has pulled.
So why stay? Why bother with protests and such when the company has made it clear they don’t value your work or your opinions? Why not just pull out en masse and let the place burn to the ground?
Eh, I quit.
15 year user of Reddit. I helped mod a very small sub, but didn’t do a whole lot mod-wise besides delete a few spam posts now and then when they popped up.
I don’t have any current plans to go back and be a part of those communities for the time being, which sucks because there were a few great (obscure) ones that I’m not sure will migrate or be replaced in the short term.
But the thing about Reddit is that it’s not a homogenous group of people. Sure, it fosters a lot of group think by amplifying the most popular opinion, but if a large chunk of people with one attitude leave, then loudest voices will be the next most popular opinion. Plus, there’s so many casual users now too. Most of my friends were like, “Huh? Something’s going on with Reddit?”
The whole thing feels similar to the whole Digg -> Reddit fiasco. Guess we’ll see how things shake out though.
If I were you I’d create the obscure ones and just post “looking for mods” at the top. Either the community remains dead and you delete it after a few months or another mod rolls up and you can pass it off to them.