Hopefully I’m posting this in the right place, but I see Reddit developments as Tech news right now.

Wanted to share a website that is tracking Subreddits that have/will be going dark. It even has a sound notification for when they change their status.

Edit: Adding the stream https://www.twitch.tv/reddark_247

Double Edit: Data visualization https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/

  • Bruno Finger@beehaw.org
    5·
    2 years ago

    It’s sad though I truly enjoyed Reddit like obviously many here, but also to be fair I’ve also felt like the quality of posts and comments overall degraded and the whole thing turned into a big meme factory where only funny images with text and tiktok reposts really were uploaded.

    The whole thing started going downhills as soon as the first tiktok reposts started flooding in to be fairly honest. Let’s please not let this happen much here, unless of course in dedicated communities for that because everything has a place.

    Also, this is my first ever post on Lemmy, hi 👋

    • Whooping_Seal@sh.itjust.works
      3·
      2 years ago

      I feel like this still depended on community. There was plenty of more niche hobby specific communities that were enjoyable. r/coffee comes to mind for me or something like r/fountain pens. I still enjoyed r/Analog although that had it’s own issues.

      • that_one_guy@beehaw.org
        2·
        2 years ago

        Yeah there are going to be quite a few TTRPG subreddits that I will miss. I really hope that the fediverse will be able to grow enough that niche interest pages can thrive here like they did over on reddit.

    • Grizzzlay@beehaw.org
      1·
      2 years ago

      I’m hoping that a great deal of mods out there will continue to stay dark if nothing changes. And I expect nothing from Reddit’s admin team to change. Just let the site devalue for the rest of the month to bots posting the same garbage over and over.

    • TexMexBazooka@lemm.eeEnglish
      4·
      2 years ago

      My partner is a casual reddit user; the experience change was immediately apparent. She got bored and switched to facebook because all of the niche communities that the larger subreddits repost from went silent.

      • s_s@lemmy.oneEnglish
        2·
        2 years ago

        My GF is also a pretty casual reddit user and she was pretty pissed about her favorite subs being closed.

      • BlackCoffee@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        This should be bumped.

        The smaller/niche communities is what made Reddit interesting.

        When those eventually decide to pack and the only vibrant communities are the meme subreddits etc then you would probably see a drop in usage.

    • nottheengineer@feddit.deEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      The large subs and front page just consist of bots reposting the same old content. The bots are easy to tell apart from real people just by eye, so I’m sure that reddit either has no problem with that or that they made these bots themselves to hide the fact that actual users are becoming less and less.

    • setsneedtofeed@beehaw.orgEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      I’ve continued to tell people: This won’t kill Reddit in the sense of outright turning it into a ghost town. If your only goal is to make Reddit collapse overnight, you’re going to be disappointed. The quality content that many people here enjoy is not what makes up the frontpage of r/all or what a huge amount of passive users consume. Reddit has more than enough low quality trash to backfill the frontpage and keep users occupied.

      Anybody migrating should focus on porting quality content. Let reddit live long and be a dumping ground.

      • strainedl0ve@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        I see this less as a damage to Reddit, and more as an opportunity to diversify, make people aware of the threat of centralised corporate-run platforms, and to build the federated internet alternatives a bit more, to give them momentum.

    • Bluejay@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      I saw that too - hopefully the changes will show in the next “up” cycle. Apparently the bots are out to play as well.

    • Square Singer@feddit.deEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      Yeah, I was negatively surprised as well. Almost 60% of all big SFW subreddits closed, and still only a small percentage less posts and comments.

      • fresh@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        I’m guessing (hoping) the difference at peak will be larger. All we can do now is wait and see, unfortunately.

  • followthewhiterabbit@beehaw.org
    2·
    2 years ago

    Just flipped the switch (so to speak) on a couple subs I moderate, and the largest (just shy of 1m users) will be going dark in a few hours.

    What surprised me most is how well the members are took it. To be fair the subs I moderated are typically quite tech-minded, so everyone is quite in-the-know with what is happening and why.

    It makes me furious that a site built and maintained by the users is being exploited at the users’ expense.

    I hope Reddit bleeds money from this silly line they drew in the sand.

    • RedPander@lemmy.rogers-net.comOP
      0·
      2 years ago

      I’m curious if you directed the users of those subs to any particular alternative?

      I mean, apparently they are already bleeding money, but I doubt that these changes are going to do much to help in that regard.

      • followthewhiterabbit@beehaw.org
        1·
        2 years ago

        On two we presented the options abailable (Lemmy, Mastodon, Usnet and so on), on the biggest we didn’t do that. It was a last-minute announcement, so didn’t really have the time (also too many cooks with different recipes, so to speak).

        I’m sure it won’t matter in the long run, but should we not try? A giant company runs on advertising. And the time we stop users interacting and engaging with these ads can only be a good thing.

        As I’m writing this, 4,669 of 6,934 subs have gone dark.

        Its beautiful to see.

    • PenguinTD@lemmy.ca
      2·
      2 years ago

      I will be paying attention to this the following couple days. I wonder how they are going to tell investor, lol.

        • PenguinTD@lemmy.ca
          1·
          2 years ago

          The site is broken atm, but yesterday when I check it it was about half way between the blackout and the normal volume. (might just because weekend people have more other stuff to do?)

          • bobs_monkey@lemmy.one
            1·
            2 years ago

            Yeah that’s possible. Quite frankly all of this is pretty moot for the time being, the real test is at the end of the month when the API changes take effect.

      • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
        1·
        2 years ago

        It dropped by about 2000 comments per minute and about 100-200 posts per minute. Assuming weekend peaks are about the same as weekday peaks that’s a pretty significant reduction of thousands of posts not posted and tens if not hundreds of thousands of comments never commented. That’s a fairly significant dent and could drop a stock price by a few percent, but certainly not a company killer.

        The long term question is if this exodus removes too many power users who drive engagement, not to mention the effects on moderation and how reddit replaces or recalls the users it alienated

  • BeardedGuy@beehaw.org
    1·
    2 years ago

    Man, it’s so satisfying to watch all of these subreddits switch to green. I really wish more of them committed to an indefinite shutdown though.

  • ioNabio@lemmy.world
    1·
    2 years ago

    I wish someone or a dev could make this list in these website and propose lemmy/kbin equivalents for us the redditors to join instead. On the other hands mods of those subreddits if they want they can make a community over these platforms.