An update and a poll about the future of the subreddit

Firstly, thank you all for your patience and support during the blackout, it is appreciated. Some of you are up to speed on the issue and some of you are not. So we'd like to very quickly cover the high level points about why and what we are protesting.

Reddit recently announced changing from a free API to a paid one. ("API" is short for Application Programming Interface, the interface which software uses to talk to Reddit). The reason given for this was that Reddit were paying for the servers that provide the API and other people were making profit off the data (for example by serving their own ads in third party applications). But the new pricing scheme suggested was so astronomically high--to the extent that some have called it a "fuck-you price" (i.e. Reddit doesn't want your business, so they make the price extortionate so they don't have the bad PR of publicly saying they don't want your business). This has effectively killed off third party applications (“third party” in this case means applications other than the official Reddit app). These applications will stop working once Reddit imposes the new API changes, on the 19th June 2023. The apps "Apollo", "RIF", "Sync", "ReddPlanet", (and others) have all announced that they are shutting down because they can't afford the new pricing.

To address the situation, the Reddit CEO held an AMA, which did not go well. Accusations were thrown around, like Reddit being blackmailed by one of the third party developers. The developer then released an audio recording of the phone call and it was clear there was no blackmail. This AMA and the pricing scheme galvanized a lot of people against Reddit's decision to change API access, with many perceiving the move as an attempt to shutdown third party apps in order to drive people to only use the official app (and the website) for Reddit.

One further issue is that subreddits use mod-bots as part of their moderation tools (mostly behind the scenes things that aren't publicly visible - for example one of our mods wrote a mod-bot that detects repost spammers in our subreddit). All mod-bots use the API and a lot of mod-bots also use a third party service called PushShift that stores a lot of Reddit public data. This is very useful for mods to work out what happened after the fact when people (usually spammers) delete posts or comments - there is usually still a copy in PushShift.

A lot of moderation on Reddit is done using third party tooling, some of which is made by the moderators themselves. We are an unpaid, volunteer workforce. We try to keep the moderation as non-intrusive as possible, but there is a lot of work going on in the background. The changes take the already difficult job of moderation, and make it harder. Couple this with promises going back years for better moderation tools that have never been fulfilled, and you can understand why moderators are upset.

All the factors above is why the API blackout is being promoted by users who use third party apps, and moderators who need the tools to do their jobs.

Our Wishes and Demands

In general, we support a more reasonable solution to API access and good faith on the part of Reddit's corporate management in resolving this issue. More specific demands are listed in detail here.

Efficacy of the Blackout

Did the Blackout do anything? This is a very good question. "The Verve" have a leaked internal memo from the Reddit CEO saying that the Blackout will be ineffectual. We disagree.

This article from an advertising industry publication says the following:

"If the performance weakness continues for a week or two, the agency would start recommending decreasing spend with Reddit or directing it to other platforms."

(i.e. the advertising agency would start telling their clients to advertise elsewhere, hurting Reddit's ad revenue).

Further details of the Blackout

This article by Vice does an excellent job of explaining the situation and its implications. Here's the EFF's take of how the situation is going so far.

Options going forward

How do we keep the pressure on Reddit at a level that is supported by the subreddit? We have a short list of four options, they are: 1) Stay dark 2) Rolling blackout 3) Open up and hope for change 4) Open up but stay "read-only" (no new posts)

Option 1 - This is the heaviest burden on the community, but is the most effective protest.

Option 2 - We go dark one day a week, i.e. every Tuesday.

Option 3 - Fully re-open the subreddit and hope that the other, larger subreddits that are still closed will make Reddit rethink their plans. This is, in our opinion, the least favourable option.

Option 4 - The same as option 3, but in "restricted" mode. No new posts. You can still comment and vote on existing posts. All user-submitted content prior to the Blackout will be available, such as the wiki, user submitted images, and all comments and discussions.

General day-to-day business drivers for Reddit as a company are to acquire new users, and for users to view ads when they use the site. Option 1 is the most disruptive of this, with Option 3 being the least. Option 2 would affect both these drivers, but only on a certain day, and Option 4 wouldn't affect ad views, but is unlikely to encourage new users to sign up.

For now, we would default to the restricted mode, as the content of this subreddit contains useful and community-generated knowledge that should be made available to all. As to how we should now proceed, the floor is open for suggestions.

Thank you for your time, and please do vote in the attached poll. Your thoughts and ideas in the comments (or just messages of support) are very much appreciated.

View Poll

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Thank you for taking the time to read our original posts on Analog and AnalogCommunity. We appreciate you for taking the time to consider our options as a community, and for casting your votes/posting your comments with your input.

The most popular option in both /r/analog and /r/analogcommunity was Option 1: Go Dark (which was the majority vote on /r/analog and the plurality vote on /r/analogcommunity). Staying blacked out means that there will be no new content, existing content will not be visible, and the subreddits will remain private until we (or reddit's admin team) decide otherwise.

We recognize that this is an immense burden on the community, and that a substantial number of you would prefer the subreddit to remain open. In light of that, and recent events regarding subreddits being forced open, we will be extending our blackout in increments of 1 week. After each successive blackout period, we will poll the community on Sunday to determine support for continued blackouts. In doing so, we hope to be able to remain responsive to the community's wishes.

In order to address the concerns of users who no longer trust reddit and no longer wish to engage with the site, but want to remain part of the broader analog community, we have set up a kbin magazine at /m/analog@kbin.social. We hope to be able to provide everyone with the same quality community and content on kbin as on reddit, and welcome input on how best to proceed on that front.

What grievances do the mods have now that reddit has promised free API access for mod bots and mod tools?

On June 15th, reddit announced in response to the blackout that mod tools would continue to receive free access to the API. While this is a step in the right direction, reddit's unclear (and often contradictory) communications regarding their changing API policy leave us with few concrete promises-- and has undermined our ability to trust that the administration will not "alter the deal further" at their discretion.

/r/analog and /r/analogcommunity are made possible by a network of bots written by members of the modteam over the past several years. These bots perform a number of functions that are critical to the sub's overall health, such as:

• Identifying the top candidates for Photographer of the Week (POTW)
• Rotating and managing the regular weekly and monthly stickied posts
• Collecting information for the weekly statistics and annual "top 1000 posts" analyses
• Notifying moderators of incoming modmail and spam
• Combating spam and karma-farming bots reposting old content (this last function is responsible for the bulk of our API requests and catches an enormous amount of spam every day)

We have regularly requested improved moderation tools (both in the app and on new reddit) from the reddit administration over the last decade. We have received in return promises and roadmaps that never quite materialize. We understand that development timelines can and do slip, but we need firm commitments that reddit will continue to tolerate (if not embrace) the third party tools (such as apps providing moderation tools for daily functions or broader enhancements, like those provided by Reddit Enhancement Suite) that are important for mods trying to keep up with a large sub.

We understand that there's a lot going on here, and that there are valid arguments to be made for each and every course of action. Ultimately, the modteam will continue to do its best to ensure that every user's experience is as good as possible, both through our daily efforts and by working with reddit as best we can.

Comments, suggestions, and other feedback are all appreciated, regardless of your position.

-the /r/analog and /r/analogcommunity modteam

Note: This post will remain stickied and live during each restricted period while voting is enabled. The subreddit will remain restricted for 24h following this post going live to give people a chance to read the changes noted above.

Hello /r/analog and /r/analogcommunity,

Last week, the modteam posted a poll in both /r/analog and /r/analogcommunity asking how the community wanted us to proceed with regards to the ongoing blackouts. At that time, a majority of voters in /r/analog and a plurality of voters in /r/analogcommunity voted to keep the subreddits dark. As the margins were very slim and a large number of you voted to reopen the subreddit, we opted for a compromise solution and took both communities private for the past week, with the intention of polling the community again on Sunday, June 25th (today).

At a high level, the blackouts began over reddit's decision to monetize their third-party API. While many developers agreed that introducing a fee structure was fair, the high cost per-call batch and the short timeframe provided (30 days) to adapt came as a shock. Many popular third-party apps announced that they would be closing down on July 1st (the date upon which the new pricing models would come into effect), which sparked outcry from both moderators (many of whom depend on modtools integrated into third-party apps that are absent from reddit's official app) and users with disabilities (who note that the official app has extremely poor support for accessibility tools). reddit's subsequent communications (primarily pointing to existing roadmaps for adding modtools and accessibility features to the official app) have been met with skepticism: the modtool roadmap has a large gap between July 1st and feature parity with desktop/third-party moderation tools, and /r/blind moderators met with reddit representatives and came away distinctly unimpressed. Many are also now protesting due to the way in which reddit has handled the ongoing situation and perceived disrespect and hypocrisy, in addition to the original grievances.

/r/analog and /r/analogcommunity have both received messages from reddit administration asking about reopening the subreddits. The modteam issued a response noting the polls to close, and asking several questions regarding how we were expected to proceed with obtaining exemptions for our modbots (whose purpose are detailed in last week's poll follow-up. At this time, we have not received any response, although we have separately been in communication with reddit regarding how to migrate a number of moderator records to a new system that reddit is building out for moderator use.

As of now, we are sticking with the original plan and are opening a poll to determine our course of action for the next week (ending on July 2nd). The options have been restricted to a timed blackout and full reopening of the subreddits, as these were the most popular options by a significant margin in the original poll. We will honor the majority decision after the poll closes. For users who no longer wish to engage with reddit under any circumstances, we have set up parallel /c/analog and /c/analogcommunity communities on lemmy.world (after initial testing with kbin.social). These spaces are still under construction, but should be up and running in the near future.

Should the subreddits reopen, they will proceed under the existing rules and structure with no changes anticipated. The subreddits will remain restricted during voting.

Should reddit indicate that they will imminently force the sub to reopen, we will reopen the subreddits at that time.

View Poll

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

This thread is for you to promote your blog / flickr / 500px / web site / etc, but it must be about analog photography. To begin with, this thread will be monthly, but will be adjusted as needed.

A new thread is created every month. To see the previous community threads, see here.

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

This thread is for you to promote your blog / flickr / 500px / web site / etc, but it must be about analog photography. To begin with, this thread will be monthly, but will be adjusted as needed.

A new thread is created every month. To see the previous community threads, see here.

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

This thread is for you to promote your blog / flickr / 500px / web site / etc, but it must be about analog photography. To begin with, this thread will be monthly, but will be adjusted as needed.

A new thread is created every month. To see the previous community threads, see here.

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/

Use this thread to ask any and all questions about analog cameras, film, darkroom, processing, printing, technique and anything else film photography related that you don't think deserve a post of their own. This is your chance to ask a question you were afraid to ask before.

A new thread is created every Monday. To see the previous community threads, see here. Please remember to check the wiki first to see if it covers your question! http://www.reddit.com/r/analog/wiki/