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

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!

    • JoeKrogan@lemmy.worldEnglish
      60·
      2 years ago

      Now videos should do the same but with rick astly…“you know the rules and so do I”

    • SSTF@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      2 years ago

      And then people will go check it out.

      Ironic engagement is still engagement.

      • dystop@lemmy.worldMEnglish
        15·
        2 years ago

        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.

        • SSTF@lemmy.worldEnglish
          9·
          2 years ago

          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.

          • aceshigh@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            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.

            • girthero@lemmy.oneEnglish
              3·
              2 years ago

              How about sexy John Oliver promoting Lemmy? Make reddit delete the post instead of the mods.

          • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            2 years ago

            The problem with that is, someone else who doesn’t care about the issues would take over as mod, and the sub would go on more of less normally. This way, it will eventually kill the sub without trying to delete it or take it private (both things Reddit can undo).

  • TheRealJefe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    76·
    2 years ago

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

  • Raltoid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    74·
    2 years ago

    Update on the vote results, for people who don’t want to go there:

    • Pro John Oliver: 61.7k

    • Return to normal: -13.7k.

    • NotYourSocialWorker@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      2 years ago

      I like the malicious compliance but I find that to be a bad way to do a poll. Better would have been one comment with the text “Upvote if you want John Oliver pics, downvote if you want it to go back to normal”.

      The way they did it if one group only upvote their alternative and the other also downvotes the opponent then the result isn’t representative. Or at least could be claimed not to be.

      • solarvector@lemmy.fmhy.mlEnglish
        211·
        2 years ago

        It would exacerbate the swing but wouldn’t change the result

        And I don’t think maliciously compliant mod is interested in statistical representation.

      • lich_hegemon@lemmy.worldEnglish
        121·
        2 years ago

        Let’s assume that everyone who upvoted their option also downvoted the alternative.

        The group A, has |A| number of individuals. Group B has |B| number.

        Option A: |A| - |B|
Option B: |B| - |A|

Option A = |A| - |B| 
         = -(-(|A| - |B|))
         = -(|B| - |A|)
         = -Option B

        The results would be opposites of each other and would highlight the opinion of the majority anyway.

  • thedarkfly@feddit.nlEnglish
    741·
    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.

    • DrGunjah@lemmy.worldEnglish
      28·
      2 years ago

      I think it will reduce traffic at some point, when the lurkers are getting tired of John Oliver pics

    • raoulvolfoni@kbin.social
      19·
      2 years ago

      Look at the alternatives. It’s either this kind of protest, or returning to normal operations or losing their sub.

    • seeCseas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      191·
      2 years ago

      the odds are stacked against the mods and the users, but any little bit of resistance is useful.

    • VoterFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      2 years ago

      Yeah they should’ve gone with something even more specific - like pictures of Joe Biden eating ham sandwiches. Something with limited content options so that the sub is essentially forced to become inactive.

      • AFK BRB Chocolate@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        2 years ago

        I think their way was better. It lets the giant number of subscribers have fun and engage, while also screwing the Reddit execs. They’ll eventually get bored and it will be the same result.

  • 00Lemming@lemmy.worldEnglish
    56·
    2 years ago

    This may be the best highlight of spec incompetence 🍿 For everyone talking smack on the moderators, this is exactly what they should be doing. Malicious compliance. Make it hard for Reddit to know what is going on. Love to see it.

  • curiosityLynx@kbin.social
    45·
    2 years ago

    Has John Oliver already had an episode about spez’s enshittifying of reddit? Because if not, I guess this is one way to make him at least mention it on Last Week Tonight. xD

      • STUNT_GRANNY@lemmy.world
        32·
        2 years ago

        Last Week Tonight is mainly known for taking deep dives into things people ought to be more concerned about, whereas most other late-night shows tend to focus on politics and pop culture stuff.

        • grue@lemmy.world
          1·
          2 years ago

          I’d argue that what John Oliver does is more legitimately political than the “focus on politics” horse-race bullshit the other shows have.

  • exixx@lemmy.worldEnglish
    44·
    2 years ago

    This is actually the reason I’m here on Lemmy now. I love John Oliver but with all the other dark subreddits it was a bit much, and already had been looking into it. Led to Lemmy by too much sexy John Oliver.

  • concealmint@lemmy.worldEnglish
    40·
    2 years ago

    Incredible move. But I doubt it’ll last. Reddit is going to became 9gag and iFunny very soon. Rest in peace old reddit. It was fun while it lasted.

    • darkmugglet@lemm.eeEnglish
      21·
      2 years ago

      The point is to hit reddit where it hurts - ad revenue. There will be a slight spike in interests as people laugh, then the lack of original content will cause people to be bored. New subreddits will have to be created and built from the ground up. Moderating a subreddit with 40m subscribers is hard.

      Spez needs to realize that going to war with the users is a dumb move.

      • orcrist@lemm.eeEnglish
        7·
        2 years ago

        He will not realize that, because he wants money and he’ll get it. On the one hand, Reddit was fun. On the other hand, it’s archaic for the reasons we’re experiencing right now. Progress.

      • Squizzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
        71·
        2 years ago

        Spez is thick as fuck but reddit will likely IPO and be just fine, this was a battle that didn’t need to be fought.

        Spez is a bad leader and his goals lie contrary to reddit’s mission statement.

        I left last time, I think it was the Victoria thing, and I joined Voat and that quickly went to shit. Reddit will get what they want from this which is more mainstream use.

        • darkmugglet@lemm.eeEnglish
          5·
          2 years ago

          I would argue that this whole thing will delay or devalue the IPO. Institual investors will look at this rather public fight and question his leadership. And the whole attempt at damage control makes him look bad. The only investors that will look past this fiasco are those who are doing the long play, and even then, they likely won’t want Spez involved.

          From a risk perspective, Reddit has just highlighted it’s biggest risk: the volunteer moderators. The only way Spez will be able to fix that is to replace moderators with AI or paid moderation teams. At an estimated value of $3.4M, and a company that is not profitable, that increases the risk in terms of the business model.

          In general, social media is inherently flawed for profits. The path to monetization is ads and data, and the fact that Spez is now squeezing the users make me think that the value of the data and the ads is not producing the returns to compensate for dumb ideas like the NFT project.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      2 years ago

      I visited 9gag last week for the firdt time in maybe 8 years…wow the boomer humour and aggressive bigotry rivals Facebook

      • girthero@lemmy.oneEnglish
        3·
        2 years ago

        Wow you ain’t kidding! Its White nationalist this, and White nationalist that! They’re going to replace us! /s

  • Nerogar@feddit.deEnglish
    401·
    2 years ago

    Looks like a few other subs have joined. r/gifs and r/art did the same poll