[dingledork69]

For example the /r/Netherlands subreddit is ran by trolls who are not from the Netherlands, and does not allow the usage of the Dutch language in the subreddit at all. Instead /r/theNetherlands is the proper subreddit.

The fact that reddit allows moderators to hide the modlist nowadays only makes things worse. You have absolutely no idea who is running things anymore.

[paulmd]

Powermods are a real problem with reddit. Letting whoever was the greasiest nerd in 2007 and registered some common word, phrase, or brand name as their personal domain (including in some cases, commercializing it for personal gain) is an obvious problem, and there is no mechanism whatsoever for removing them. The only option is to try and restart the community using another name instead - hence the proliferation of real_x or true_x subreddits. And you will never do anything about the newbies who just search "kleenex" and get the sub with the powermod instead of the true_kleenex one with the actual community.

you have some mods who are notionally in charge of dozens of subreddits - and reminder that one of those powermods was most likely Ghislane Maxwell lol. And at that point you have to be getting some financial or personal benefit from it, because at that point it's a job, you can't moderate a dozen major subreddits in your spare time. So you either make a deal with the brand, or you do it to shape public discourse, etc.

In some respects that's what's going on here too, is powermods see an actual threat to their power, and would rather take their subs dark and raise a pitchfork mob than go quietly. But something has to be done about it sooner or later.

It's this awkward compromise where powermods do a ton of unpaid work for reddit, but they also are not entirely a benevolent force either, there are a lot of them that are really shitty and are kind of namesquatting on important turf. But there's nothing that can be done about it without them all taking their subs private, and if you just eject them then you better have a system in place to replace them afterwards. And you better be ready to replace all of them because they'll all go dark in "solidarity". The usual problems of a coup, really.

The real answer is that you should use Lemmy and if there's two r/kleenex's then oh well, let search optimization direct people to the "good one" and the powermod can be king of the bad one. But Lemmy can't be commercialized for (pinky in mouth) one billion dollars! and SEO doesn't work properly inside a single domain like this, so this is the status quo.

I'm sure there's some lessons there for founders... if you are going to rely on unpaid labor you need to do the 4chan thing and make it clear they're janitors and not stakeholders in your platform, and hammer down any significant power-centers that start to form. Because at this point the reality is they are de-facto stakeholders, whether Reddit likes it or not.

The month before you sell the company is just the absolute wrong time to pick a big fight with your union. And I’m saying this as someone who is not a fan of this particular union.

[Semaphor]

> The fact that reddit allows moderators to hide the modlist

Luckily, only on the slow version of reddit.

[dingledork69]

It's hidden on the old version of reddit as well.