this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023

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Technology

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Site to track Subreddit's as they go dark (reddark.untone.uk)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

49 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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/

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 👋

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

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.

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

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

"6236/7265 subreddits are currently dark."

85.83%

That's a pretty good response from the subs.

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

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

update for 2nd day of the blackout

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

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

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

I'd be curious to see an updated valuation

load more comments (2 replies)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year 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.

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

Reddit is deddit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah I'm getting a "You Broke Reddit" message when attempting to old.reddit.com. I didn't break reddit 'you' broke reddit lol.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (5 children)

blackout.photon-reddit.com

Damn. That is only a tiny little dip in the post/comment rate so far relative to the historical cycle. What, maybe 5%, assuming the vertical axis crosses at zero? Not terribly encouraging....

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

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.

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

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

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Time to sit back, relax, and watch ~~the world~~ Reddit burn 😎 🍿

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

I don't see myself going back to Reddit if they keep those subs closed down. However I do believe that if this "strike" goes on for longer than a week or so, the admins will forcefully replace each closed subreddit mods to make them live again.

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

I hope that if that actually happens they'll find no volunteers to actually mod those subs and realize they'll actually have to hire and pay the people that actually makes their site usable

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

Sadly there's always going to be people that will do this just for the feeling of insignificant power they get from moderating a subreddit

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

Probably won’t matter much when critical mod tools suddenly stop working.

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

Now include links to their preferred lemmy alternatives

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

This one has a pretty nice look with a list of all 6000 participating subreddits and fading in in real-time when a subreddit goes dark:

https://reddark.untone.uk/

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

blackout.photon-reddit.com seems to be down for me. Any idea what's up with that, or other places that are visualizing traffic?

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

It's back up!

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

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

My Reddit frontpage only contains a few minor subs still which are probably without an active moderator and some „going dark“ announcements. Very noticeable.

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

This is just beautiful to watch. For once reddit comes together to spite... reddit.

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

@[email protected] can we un-sticky this thread please, since it's no longer relevant?

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

Thanks for sharing!

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

Is blackout.photon-reddit.com down?

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

The level of unity has been awesome. At first I thought this might only really spread through tech minded subreddits, but it really caught on broadly.

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

It's going to be satisfying watching them slowly tick green.

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

/r/wellthatsucks has gone and it's poetic.

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

I don’t know about you, but streaming the “Darkening” is like the best thing ever. Just reading all the comments as viewers cheer on each subreddit.

When r/trees wend private I was thinking “shit just got real.”

Anyway, I suggest watching the stream, if just for the cameraderie.

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

There’s a trees sub-lemmy but it only had pictures of actual trees when I checked yesterday

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

It exists on Lemmy.world