Please consider voting to reopen Golang subreddit

[cpa...@gmail.com]

You can vote here

https://www.reddit.com/r/golang/comments/14fg8zz/remaining_closed/

I don't personally like the reddit api changes but want the Golang subreddit open.

Anyone can choose to stop reading it or posting to it. Opening it will not stop individuals from protesting.

[Axel Wagner]

On Thu, Jun 22, 2023 at 11:04 PM cpa...@gmail.com <cpa...@gmail.com> wrote:

Anyone can choose to stop reading it or posting to it. Opening it will not stop individuals from protesting.

I'm going to state the obvious: Given that closing it was an act of protest, opening it will certainly stop *some* individuals from protesting. And it so happens they are the ones most affected by the changes.

Personally, I find it kind of ludicrous, that mods even have to ask their communities for permission to protest - after all, protest *has* to be inconvenient to be effective. But it seems that if they don't, their protest will be silenced by the company. And even *when* they ask and get overwhelming backing from their communities, the company seems to end up doing that.

So, under those circumstances, I find it far more important to give mods the ammunition they need in their protest. Personally.

But, it's a poll. People can vote however they like, obviously. Just thought the counter-position also deserves some space in this thread.

[Jan Mercl]

On Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 7:01 AM 'Axel Wagner' via golang-nuts <golan...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> And even *when* they ask and get overwhelming backing from their communities, ...

Latest poll results on r/golang as of now:

https://www.google.com/search?q=define+overwhelming

[Axel Wagner]

There exists more than one subreddit.

[Axel Wagner]

Just for context, as not everyone seems to be aware: I was, in that sentence you quoted, referring to examples like this

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14eq8ip/the_entire_rmildlyinteresting_mod_team_has_just/

This demonstrates that even with overwhelming support from the community (and yes, in this example the modifier applies), the company overwrites those wishes to shut down protest. There are a couple of other subreddits with similar stories.

So I was making the case to *provide* overwhelming support for the mods of /r/golang, referring to precedent of other subreddits where that is happening. Not claiming that they already have it.

[Jan Mercl]

On Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 10:18 AM Axel Wagner
<axel.wa...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Just for context, as not everyone seems to be aware: I was, in that sentence you quoted, referring to examples like this
> https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14eq8ip/the_entire_rmildlyinteresting_mod_team_has_just/
> This demonstrates that even with overwhelming support from the community (and yes, in this example the modifier applies), the company overwrites those wishes to shut down protest. There are a couple of other subreddits with similar stories.
>
> So I was making the case to *provide* overwhelming support for the mods of /r/golang, referring to precedent of other subreddits where that is happening. Not claiming that they already have it.

Thanks for the added conext.

Anyone not liking Reddit is free to not visit the site. Anyone not
accepting the price for the API access is free to not buy it. It's
fine to vote by your visits and by your wallet. That's how the free
market works and it works well unless there's some monopoly. But
Reddit has no monopoly.

Protesters are free to protest. That's their respected right.
Protesters have no right to deny access to other users. That's my
right and I expect it to be equally respected.

PS: I'm paying $7/month to Reddit to have r/golang ad-free. May I ask
you for a refund? Thanks for your consideration.

[Axel Wagner]

/r/golang has no monopoly.

 

PS: I'm paying $7/month to Reddit to have r/golang ad-free. May I ask
you for a refund? Thanks for your consideration.

You may certainly ask *the company you are paying* for a refund.

 

[cpa...@gmail.com]

If 100 people are on a boat and 51 want to sink the boat is that fair to the 49 who want to live?

You’re taking a resource away from others.  

If someone wants to protest Walmart they don’t burn it down. 

[Axel Wagner]

On Sat, Jun 24, 2023 at 3:03 AM cpa...@gmail.com <cpa...@gmail.com> wrote:

If 100 people are on a boat and 51 want to sink the boat is that fair to the 49 who want to live?

This is not a life-or-death situation and such comparisons are almost universally unhelpful, as you literally do not have a choice in them.

You’re taking a resource away from others.  

If someone wants to protest Walmart they don’t burn it down. 

No one is burning down anything. But, again, protest has to be inconvenient. And contrary to the claims made by you and Jan, yes, it is actually completely normal (and legal, in most legislatures) for a protest to temporarily "take resources away from others". Roads get closed for protest marches all the time.

But really, what I miss most here is an argument about the actual subject matter. If you are frustrated about the subreddit being closed, you can direct that frustration at the moderators or you can direct it at Reddit. If they didn't implement their API changes, the protest would end, after all.

You seem to be taking it as a given that the moderators are the appropriate target of the frustration and that they should be automatically the one to give in. When Jan asked me - an unrelated party - to refund his Reddit fee, he could've just as well written to Reddit, telling them that he wants his money back because their insistence on overcharging for their API causes this protest and makes reddit less valuable to him. That would've likely done exactly as much to get his money back. But it would actually exert pressure on someone who has a hand in this issue - after all, threatening Reddit's bottom line is what this protest is all about. And given that his business relationship is with Reddit, that's the only party he actually has any real leverage with. So I'm really confused that someone would bend over backwards, logically speaking, to misdirect their frustration this way.

If you want to convince me, at least, that the protest is bad, you have to convince me that the API charges Reddit is implementing are good and justified and that the moderators are wrong to object to them. You won't convince me with arguments about the procedure.

Or to put it another way: In your metaphor, you are assuming that the moderators protesting are the ones who are trying to sink the boat. I'm not convinced of that. To me, they make a pretty convincing case that it's their actions which are trying to keep the boat afloat, by preserving third-party tools that are essential to reddit's operation and the voluntary labor of the moderators. And if the owner of a ship directs it to steer into an iceberg and the crew objects, I'd expect the passengers to back them in it, instead of complaining that they'll be late and how dare they obstruct *my* right to have the ship go wherever I want.

Anyways… as I said, this isn't actually such a dramatic situation. It's just a website being closed for a bit. And if the mods are open to a vote on whether or not to participate in the protest, that seems a perfectly serviceable process to me. People should feel free to vote on that poll however they like. I just wanted to provide some counterweight to the initial call to vote against the protest.

 

On Friday, June 23, 2023 at 4:37:20 AM UTC-4 Axel Wagner wrote:

On Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 10:29 AM Jan Mercl <0xj...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Jun 23, 2023 at 10:18 AM Axel Wagner
<axel.wa...@googlemail.com> wrote:

> Just for context, as not everyone seems to be aware: I was, in that sentence you quoted, referring to examples like this
> https://www.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/14eq8ip/the_entire_rmildlyinteresting_mod_team_has_just/
> This demonstrates that even with overwhelming support from the community (and yes, in this example the modifier applies), the company overwrites those wishes to shut down protest. There are a couple of other subreddits with similar stories.
>
> So I was making the case to *provide* overwhelming support for the mods of /r/golang, referring to precedent of other subreddits where that is happening. Not claiming that they already have it.

Thanks for the added conext.

Anyone not liking Reddit is free to not visit the site. Anyone not
accepting the price for the API access is free to not buy it. It's
fine to vote by your visits and by your wallet. That's how the free
market works and it works well unless there's some monopoly. But
Reddit has no monopoly.

Protesters are free to protest. That's their respected right.
Protesters have no right to deny access to other users. That's my
right and I expect it to be equally respected.

/r/golang has no monopoly.

 

PS: I'm paying $7/month to Reddit to have r/golang ad-free. May I ask
you for a refund? Thanks for your consideration.

You may certainly ask *the company you are paying* for a refund.

 

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[Amnon]

Sorry, but I have been away and missed the context.

What is the protest about?

What has redit changed?

Thanks

[Wojciech S. Czarnecki]

Dnia 2023-06-23, o godz. 23:50:32
Amnon <amn...@gmail.com> napisał(a):

> Sorry, but I have been away and missed the context.

> What is the protest about?

Reddit's decision to sink all good free tools that allow people (mods) to work several hours per day
keeping their communities free of propaganda and scams.

>
> What has redit changed?

APIs that were free to access by third parties will be priced as gold.

> Thanks
yw.

P.S.
It is worth mentioning that Reddit *has* a good reason to close APIs that are abused by A"I" businesses.
Just there is no will to make such changes robust, IMO, as it would cost. It seems to me that current Reddit's
brass has no faintest idea how many $millions monthly mod's work is worth.

--
Wojciech S. Czarnecki
<< ^oo^ >> OHIR-RIPE

[Robert Engels]

I’m fairly certain Reddit will license those tools for moderators use. That is not what they are trying to prevent.

> On Jun 24, 2023, at 8:39 AM, Wojciech S. Czarnecki <oh...@fairbe.org> wrote:
>
> Dnia 2023-06-23, o godz. 23:50:32

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[drc...@google.com]

Have you considered moving to another platform, either Lemmy or Kbin?

(He says, not having completed his own move of the benchmarking bot to botsin.space).

[Eltjon Metko]

Protests like this (temporary) never make sense, they only create inconvinience for users while reddit will just have to ride it out. See tens of others more important (for reddit) subredits who have already opened. So either open it or declare that it will be closed permanetly and moved somewhere else. (the result of this last one, again like in other subredits will be that Admins will override and reopen the space, removing all mods, the community will be splitted).   
This is a commercial dispute nothing more and everyone that acts like a crusader in this case is simply in a power trip. 

[Thomas Bushnell BSG]

I mean, this is mostly true, except that the protesters do have the right to administer the subreddit in the way they choose, as long as they are the admins.

As you said, if you don't like that, you are of course free to use a different site. But it seems a bit off-kilter to say "if you don't like it, vote with your feet", while complaining about the actions some other users of the site have taken, and not voting with your feet.

Thomas

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[drc...@google.com]

"Vote with YOUR feet, not MY feet".

[Axel Wagner]

On Mon, Jun 26, 2023 at 6:53 PM Eltjon Metko <eme...@gmail.com> wrote:

Protests like this (temporary) never make sense, they only create inconvinience for users while reddit will just have to ride it out.

Note that the common hypothesis is that there is a reason reddit is so urgently pushing through the API charges, why they are urgently trying to shut off the protest and why they are *particularly* urgent about shutting down the protest of setting subreddits to NSFW: That they consider doing an IPO in the near future. In that case, they can't really "ride it out". They are likely pretty heavily interested in looking good to investors *right now*.

 

This is a commercial dispute nothing more and everyone that acts like a crusader in this case is simply in a power trip. 

I find this a strange stance, given that most of the people actually participating in the protest are unpaid volunteers. So I don't see how that can be considered a "commercial dispute", to be honest.

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/golang-nuts/b45472ed-b150-4752-bc5b-7158e152dafan%40googlegroups.com.

[Eltjon Metko]

> I find this a strange stance, given that most of the people actually participating in the protest are unpaid volunteers. So I don't see how that can be considered a "commercial dispute", to be honest.

The commercial dispute is between Reddit and API Consumers. it has nothing to do with mods or the users. No-mater how certain you may be who is in the right and who is in the wrong, the most certain thing here is that there is great part of the commuinty who are being held hostage and used as tool for commercial disupute that has nothing to do with them or this subredit. To be clear I am not accusing the mods of Golang subredit for being in a powertrip (because initally it did not come from them) but other users who try to force their narrow worldview onto others. If this was an ethics issue, depnding on how clear it is there might be ground for protests, commercial disputes should never be ground for holding even a fraction of the users hostage. 

[Axel Wagner]

On Tue, Jun 27, 2023 at 12:10 AM Eltjon Metko <eme...@gmail.com> wrote:

The commercial dispute is between Reddit and API Consumers. it has nothing to do with mods or the users.

Then why are the mods and users protesting?

 

No-mater how certain you may be who is in the right and who is in the wrong, the most certain thing here is that there is great part of the commuinty who are being held hostage

The mods of /r/golang making their decision based on a vote. This hyperbole seems uncalled for.

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/golang-nuts/4f9951e1-93c5-4d3e-a56e-f1444a1896dbn%40googlegroups.com.

[Sebastien Binet]

On Tue Jun 27, 2023 at 00:09 CET, Eltjon Metko wrote:
> > I find this a strange stance, given that most of the people actually
> participating in the protest are unpaid volunteers. So I don't see how
> that
> can be considered a "commercial dispute", to be honest.
>
> The commercial dispute is between Reddit and API Consumers. it has
> nothing to do with mods or the users. No-mater how certain you may be
> who is in the right and who is in the wrong, the most certain thing here
> is that there is great part of the commuinty who are being held hostage
> and used as tool for commercial disupute that has nothing to do with
> them or this subredit. To be clear I am not accusing the mods of Golang
> subredit for being in a powertrip (because initally it did not come from
> them) but other users who try to force their narrow worldview onto
> others. If this was an ethics issue, depnding on how clear it is there
> might be ground for protests, commercial disputes should never be ground
> for holding even a fraction of the users hostage.

could we please not use this "holding hostage" expression to describe a
situation that has *nothing* to do (in intensity, dire consequences and
life threatening aspects) with a *real* hostage situation ?

I am sure in english there are many more fitting idioms to use for a
situation where people use their right to express their opinions in
whatever pacific modus operandi they chose to use.

[Personally, I see this as an opportunity to switch to a more
FOSS-friendly alternative: kbin, lemmy, you name it, as long as it
rhymes with fediverse.]

thanks,
-s

[Christoph Berger]

> Personally, I see this as an opportunity to switch to a more
> FOSS-friendly alternative: kbin, lemmy, you name it, as long as it
> rhymes with fediverse.

There is forum.golangbridge.org and maybe more, but the problem is, how to take 200k+ Gophers with you?

/r/golang is the largest Go community I know of, and its size makes it as vibrant as it is. Relocating this community as a whole is virtually impossible. You'd risk ending up with multiple, small, low-traffic communities. Join one, and you'll miss out. Join them all, and you'll see questions and information duplicated everywhere.

[Sebastien Binet]

On Tue Jun 27, 2023 at 16:54 CET, Christoph Berger wrote:
> > Personally, I see this as an opportunity to switch to a more
> > FOSS-friendly alternative: kbin, lemmy, you name it, as long as it
> > rhymes with fediverse.
>
> There is forum.golangbridge.org and maybe more, but the problem is, how
> to take 200k+ Gophers with you?
>
> /r/golang is the largest Go community I know of, and its size makes it
> as vibrant as it is. Relocating this community as a whole is virtually
> impossible. You'd risk ending up with multiple, small, low-traffic
> communities. Join one, and you'll miss out. Join them all, and you'll
> see questions and information duplicated everywhere.

Mamoths like these seem immortal and invicible until they are toppled.
(my little stone thrown at that Goliath is that nowadays I only consume
reddit via its RSS feed and rarely visit it.)

and with the ActivityPub protocol underlying the fediverse,
"fragmenting" the community isn't an issue per-se (as long as each
island abides to said protocol and allows "cross-posting")

-s