"I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead."

This is a long one, so I'm putting the TLDR up top:

TLDR

A blackout has been proposed for June 12-14 to protest the API changes and extreme cost.

The r/Python community seems very vocal about joining the blackout and I would like the r/Python community's input on this. Would you like to participate? How would you like to participate?

If we do join the blackout, there are two different ways to participate which we need: - Setting the subreddit to private (no engagement at all--including no ability to explain why our sub is private) - Turning off submissions (the community and posts are still viewable, but no new comments or posts)

Please offer your feedback here, this isn't my decision alone to make.

Background to the issue:

Reddit has been making changes.

Ahead of their IPO, they're trying to get their ducks in a row, but in trying to maximize their value to potential shareholders, they're cutting off massive avenues of value to moderators and users. * Reddit, without warning, cut off Pushshift's API access (The stated reason is no response--but given their pricing structure for 3rd party mobile apps, and the time frame Reddit gave third party apps, any response by pushshift would have almost certainly resulted in this same action) * Reddit is making a move to remove API access to third party apps and developers. It's no stretch that this move is motivated because after a number of years they're unable to compete in the mobile app space. So instead of 'git-ing gud' they're just shutting down competition. Apollo App Response, Rif Response * They said RES will experience 'minimal' impact and old Reddit will be preserved. In the words of the Toolbox devs, "[they are not impacted.] Yet (Toolbox is a great tool for moderation because moderating with Reddit's site tools alone is a pain), and similarly RES developers are not overly trusting. Similarly, the API once was safe * Reddit has laid off 5% of their staff

The above actions are presented with bias--because frankly I am biased and Reddit is presenting their reasoning with bias so please take both sides' explanations with a grain of salt. Or Crait's worth of salt. But I feel they are presented accurately enough for this post's purpose.

Why we care about these changes:

As a Moderator

There are a number of issues that a moderator has to deal with.

First and foremost, I volunteer to do this. Moderation can be a drain on my energy, and is a time sink. Losing efficiencies reduce my ability to moderate, and Reddit Inc is laughably behind.

• Reporting content as a moderator for admin review is an absolute pain, often a black box, there's at least three separate ways to report something instead of one consolidated form or three ways with parity across all three. The mechanisms have some overlap too. It's bad.
• Often the admin response is subpar. As a mod I get that, my responses are subpar as well, and often times purposefully subpar because you need to make a decision on some content and there's just only so much to go off of. But it's for the extreme cases that the subpar response becomes a problem, like when there's a clear botnet falsifying engagement, and I've highlighted 10 accounts in it, and highlighted the way to flag them, and only two of those get tagged as "actioned for ban evasion" and the other 8 are free to keep on posting. Identifying a botnet should be easy on the Reddit side, it's exhausting on mine. One of the ways to help flag this is groups like Pushshift, and loosing that means I either knowingly allow manipulation or I give up more volunteer time hunting manipulation down. (By the way the specific one I am being vague about was brought to my attention thanks to a user's report. If they didn't flag it I probably would have missed that botnet, small though it was, so I really appreciate those comments and reports).
• I cannot trust the admins. This isn't combative in nature, but it's because we have different goals. Often times they align, but sometimes our goals are at odds of each other. My goal is to try to make sure the communities I moderate are best able to thrive, and Reddit Inc's goals are to drive engagement and ad revenue. Usually, like when we get to do something fun like a great AMA, we get great community events and Reddit gets engagement and clicks. But long term, Reddit will always follow profit.

So these changes impact my workflow, and avenues to review and moderate content. And these are issues impacting our community. /r/Python is a great sub and great community. Compared to a lot of other subreddit we have relatively few issues.

Communities which are identity, political, or news in nature have to deal with so much more. There's a ton to manage, there's a ton of filtering for mental health and safety that is needed too. Reddit is getting there when it comes to a lot of features, but their implementation is slow. It's getting measurably faster as they restructure, but they're still catching up to third party apps.

As a reddit user/Python developer

APIs are important. They're a wonderful gateway to programming, they help webpages serve information in a more lightweight fashion when webscraping would be costly (if you just need an upvote count, it's smarter to just make a call for than, then making a call for every asset a webpage renders. This gets a user what they need and isn't a burden on the site they're engaging with). APIs as a result both act as a great learning mechanism and as a way to keep from burdening the site as a whole.

No third party apps as alternatives makes it easier for Reddit to harvest data without pushback. And it makes it harder for users to customize their experience. This can be exceptionally important when it comes to communities which cater to important segments of the population, but segments which are so small that a profit focused organization would otherwise ignore.

One of the more notable communities that these changes strongly impact is /r/blind, and there's an explanation of these changes and their impact here. It's very probable that these issues will be quickly addressed now that they're in the public eye. But the underlying reality is that third party apps had been able to cater to users and communities and the Reddit app, with Reddit's stewardship, has failed to address accessibility at this level.

The Blackout

On June 12th a blackout has been purposed.

Many communities are praticipating, and as this post points out we're curious if we should join. The blackout is either to cover a two day span, or last until demands are appropriately addressed. (this distinction is on a community basis, and will probably depend on how reddit responds)

There are different ways to perform it, either set the sub to private or lock the sub so no submissions can go through. Setting the sub to private prevents all engagement in the sub, but also means that presenting a message to users about what is going on isn't possible.

I think it makes sense to keep the sub up and visible but to freeze it so no new posts or comments go through, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.

The Admins Response to the blackout

Here is their reply

A rough TLDR (I'm omitting the NSFW changes because... They're not clear to me. Maybe that's my shortfall but I think they're very vague about those) 1) Reddit isn't changing their position at all. They're digging in their heels and 'clarifying' what they're doing. No decision is reversed. 2) bots using api for mod tools will be safe--if they break "[Reddit] will work with you to fix them. " 3) launching at future dates: mod features

On 2)--they basically told Apollo app to, "Figure it out themselves" https://www.reddit.com/r/redditdev/comments/13wsiks/api_update_enterprise_level_tier_for_large_scale/jmolrhn/?context=3 so forgive me if I don't find goodwill in that message.

On 3) So many of those updates exist already in third party apps. So many of them are only getting attention this long into the Reddit app's lifespan because mods are making a stink about not moderating through the Reddit app. So especially for the rollout date of Sept. portions--I don't really believe it'll be executed well. And I don't want the mobile app on my phone. It's big, slow, and harvests a lot of data.

And when that post went live Reddit was breaking again.

https://www.redditstatus.com/

Not really something that exudes confidence in their ability to make good product decisions.

Now being fair here, there absolutely has been a focus on improving modtools over this past year, but they're still wildly behind. It's.. uncomfortable to trust a site when they cut off the alternatives for profit. Once there's no competition there's no longer a reason to loose revenue on further developing these resources.

We were a part of the Reddit Talk platform development, and the admins we got to work with were lovely, and worked hard to greenlight the features moderators requested. A lot of those features were fleshing out the API so we could handle a Reddit Talk session in our workflows.

But after a while they shutdown Reddit Talk and that makes it difficult to trust long term product commitments from Reddit. Even if we get great admins who listen to feedback rolling out a product--they're not ultimately the ones who make the calls for the future.

The admin response to the threat of a blackout reaffirms their changes and makes a lot of future promises for moderation tools. They sound good but at best those features should have been here ages ago, and their presentation betrays a lack of focus or care for moderation tools until recently. That recent change is affirming to see, but looking at Reddit's track record it might just be a passing phase until the public eye is off of the company.

What does this mean to /r/Python

That is mostly my question to you.

There are some defined things:

• If we blackout, the sub turns off. No one can post or comment for a while, and we hope our added voice helps encourage Reddit to continue to allow third party apps.
• If we don't join the blackout, we can still hope but there's less weight behind it.

We don't normally join in on Reddit's protests. So this would be a new thing for our community--is this cause worth the loss in a few days of posts?

There is a post by another user asking this question and at present it is the second most upvoted submission in the past year. So there has been a lot of great talk already, but I need to ask this question here as well to be sure I'm listening to the community as a whole.

Should /r/Python join the June 12th Blackout?

If we do, should we completely go private, or should we prevent the commenting or posting in our community during that period so an explanation of what is going on is viewable?

Please give your feedback, I'm reading through both this and the original submission to keep an eye on things. Remember though, be respectful. We're a Python focused community, so in addition to the rules here in the sub, I hope you'll adhere to the PSF Code of Conduct. Be respectful to one another. Disagree with opinions, but be respectful of people.

And now for something completely different