this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2023
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Malicious Compliance

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People conforming to the letter, but not the spirit, of a request. For now, this includes text posts, images, videos and links. Please ensure that the “malicious compliance” aspect is apparent - if you’re making a text post, be sure to explain this part; if it’s an image/video/link, use the “Body” field to elaborate.

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Reddit: open /r/pics or else. Mods: OK but you didn't say how (archive.ph)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I honestly don't know if this is allowed here but I thought this is malicious compliance at its finest.

If you don't want to drive traffic there I'll repost what the mods posted below:

POLL: Decide on the future of /r/Pics!

Hello, /r/Pics subscribers!

Boy, what a whacky time we've all had lately, huh? Reddit decided to kill off third-party applications, a protest got planned (and possibly exploited by bad actors), the site showed up in the news, various communities started opening back up, others decided to stay inaccessible, and then the CEO of Reddit implied that a bunch of moderators would be removed from their positions!

Crazy, right?

Anyway, we – the so-called "landed gentry" – definitely want to comply with the wishes of the "royal court," and they've told us that we need to run the subreddit in the way that its members want. To that end, we figured that the only reasonable thing to do was directly ask how you'd like things to progress from here.

Which of the following should we do?

  1. Return to normal operations

  2. Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy To be clear, if people choose the second option, screen-grabs from videos will be allowed (provided that there aren't any visible logos, inserted graphics, or other digital elements present). You could – if you wanted to – look through episodes of Last Week Tonight on YouTube, find moments featuring John Oliver at his sexiest, then post images of those moments here.

It's entirely up to you! Whatever the /r/Pics community decides is best, we'll respect!

Vote, friends! Vote now!

(You can vote by upvoting either of the comments in the thread below.)

Voting has now closed.

Our final tally is as follows:

Return to normal operations: -2,329 votes

Only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy: 37,331 votes

It would seem that the community has spoken!

Henceforth, /r/Pics will only allow images of John Oliver looking sexy.

(Said images must adhere to all of the community's other rules, including those mandated by Reddit.)

Happy posting!

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (4 children)

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

r/debatereligion requires all posts to be in Latin, same spirit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

That's a classic reddit moment. There's such a good community on that website, it's tragic that reddit wants to use that against itself.

These kind of protest won't reduce the traffic on the platform though. They might even gain traction and increase it. If it's not linked to reduced ad revenue, I'm afraid it's counter-productive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

The people has spoken. I love democracy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

He will probably get wind of this and cover it on his show 🤣

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Now videos should do the same but with rick astly..."you know the rules and so do I"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

You know, if more subs do this, I might actually go back to reddit for a bit hahahaha

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

😄 I'd rather not give them the traffic

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Only if it shows John Oliver looking sexy while marrying a cabbage :-)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

And then people will go check it out.

Ironic engagement is still engagement.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I personally think the best "maliciouscompliance" act mods can do in the long term is to switch up all the subs.

So technology will be used for gardening, gardening will be used for android, android will be used for coffee, coffee used for pcgaming, etc. It'll make everything really confusing for new users and help slow their growth.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

No this all seems too clever by half and is just putting more eyes on Reddit. People are drawn to drama. If mods were serious, they’d delete or pull all of their custom plug ins and delete their accounts. Let Reddit have the subs. Unfortunately a huge number of mods won’t actually endanger their positions, which means Reddit corporate has the ultimate leverage in the end. Just go. I respect the mods who have left. If more of them did it would leave a true void.

Image being Reddit corporate and waking up tomorrow and 5000 subreddits were open but all the mods and their mods tools were gone. No big dramatic pranks or drama from the mods, just a classy exit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

i agree. this is kind of a temper tantrum coming from the mods that will result in more eyes on reddit... the only way to win, is to not play.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Ahh, the old /r/trees and /r/marijuanaenthusiasts switcheroo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Ahh, the old /r/worldnews and /r/anime_titties switcheroo.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Spez really should have read r/maliciouscompliance a bit before he bit off more than he could chew

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Now this is the definition of malicious compliance!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Love this from the mods.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

oh my god i love this. it would be a shame if all other subs followed suit...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Quite a few subs had polls today for how to run, one of them was r/showerthoughts voting on which days to be open and had a comment for each day for the next week for open and each day for the next week for closed and it was unanimous of (exactly equal numbers) all upvoted days closed and all downvoted days open.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Only having pictures of John Oliver is definitely an improvement over normal r/pic.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

archive.ph link for those who don't want to give reddit traffic.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

30,052,708 John Oliver Enthusiasts - Lolol

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I can’t see what they did, my browser says it can’t establish connection to the server. Sounds like reddit admins took whatever it was down?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

God dammit I guess I'll make an exception for /r/pics.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

hahaha that's brilliant

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Genius! I wish every other sub did this.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

that is really fkn funny

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

/r/apple could've only allowed discussions about fruit.

But instead they decided to return to normal operations - they're in the group of mods unreasonably afraid of losing their position as mods, which is honestly quite bizarre.

I understand building a community and wanting to keep at it (I moderated 3 large Brazilian subreddits) but at this point, you just want the title - because you've already lost control, trust, and quality.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Mods of anything to do with Apple should be in most support. Spez specifically came after the developer of the most popular iOS app.

I guess they don't care as long as they can still put that they moderate a popular Apple subreddit on their resume lol

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

/r/gifs currently is following suit! If you still have a reddit account go vote ASAP! (Also unsubscribe from all your "business as usual" subs as possible, immediately, if you can't delete your account immediately for whatever reason)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Took a peek and it doesn't look like there's any recent posts on /r/gifs ? Like, sort by new and everything other that 5 reddit is killing itself posts is at least 19 days old. What's up with that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

you probably were on /r/gif instead of /r/gifs

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It might be a problem on your end. I'm looking at sub and I see posts of John Oliver.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I see it too! This is the best form of protest ever.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Both are bad choices. When reddit says open /r/pics or else, you just delete /r/pics.

Reddit has NEVER been profitable. It's the classic:

  1. Takes a bunch of venture capital funding
  2. Builds a huge user base
  3. Get bought
  4. Parent company tries to figure out a way to make money off of you.
  5. When they can't, they try to spin you off and IPO you.
  6. You have your "oh shit" moment and realize you actually have to be profitable now.

This is the crap that caused the dot-com bubble in the late 90s.

Their current business model is unsustainable.

They're doing the API war out of sheer survival.

The sad part is, we all went along for the ride, using the service and filling it with useful information, never wondering if it was still going to be there a decade or two later.

Reddit wants to IPO. Having gone through the IPO process twice now with a company, I can tell you, the only thing that matters is money in the bank. The more money you have in the bank, the more you can charge for your IPO. When I worked at CompUSA back in the 90s, we didn't pay any of our creditors for something like 6 months before the IPO to swell the bank accounts. I remember the week before the IPO, we had almost nothing in the store, because we owed everyone money. 30 days after IPO, trucks came rolling in again with product.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They're doing the API war out of sheer survival.

That would be true if they made i fees reasonable or at least gave more time. This change caused mobile apps to shut down. The revenue from that is $0.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This change sucks. But, from what I read, Reddit have NEVER been profitable. If they were smart, they would modified the API so it included ads. I don't think Reddit is long for this world. Even if these protests were effective, reddit is eventually going away. They're too big to make a profit now.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When you say "NEVER been profitable" is there a reliable source for that or is it spez?

Hosting a link agregator is cheap, it is purely just text. Yes they now host images and videos, and I think they shouldn't do that if the cost is a problem, also they could always discontinue it.

Going back to the API. If they really need cash they could work with developers. They could reduce the fees and give 3 months heads up like they have been asked.

The whole spectacle didn't sound "we need money to survive", it sounded like "we could make more money from users by forcing them to switch to our crappy app, by shutting down 3rd party apps"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4477033-reddit-unprofitable-despite-growth

Nevertheless, like many IPOs, Reddit remains unprofitable. The question for investors is whether Reddit can achieve minimum viable economies of scale and achieve profitability. So far, there are no indications that this will happen.

There are few other sources that say reddit is unprofitale.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What I'm saying is that their core service doesn't cost much to run. They could have small team to run everything and would make a lot of money, but their goal is to make it a billion dollar business, when it is not.

BTW: I also find the article funny, on one bad it says they are seeking $15 billion valuation, then it says it doesn't generate money. So that creates a question, how come a company that doesn't generate a profit costs $15 billion?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That happens all the time with publicly traded companies. This is the reason why we had the dotcom bubble burst in the last 1990s.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wow, I totally forgot about CompUSA. I used to love going there as a kid, back when Apple had that underdog appeal. Now I'm a FOSS maxi (just don't look at my iPhone...).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

CompUSA was a shitty place to work.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't think this is a good idea. The point of the blackout is to hit Reddit where it hurts, by driving traffic down. This prank (partially) reverses the work of the blackout, by getting people back to the pics subreddit to post and see (John Oliver) pics. It turns the blackout into a joke. And I think is a step towards the community just moving on from the blackout without it actually having the long term effects that were intended.

I'm all for malicious compliance, but I think this is the wrong flavor of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Nah I disagree. Turning things less serious is not necessarily a bad thing. People will visit to check it out but long term it will get stale and die off.

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