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?
-
Return to normal operations
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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!
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.
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.
When it gets stale then they'll have to decide whether to move on from the protest and go back to normal or continue in some other fashion. I think once the current "news cycle" is over they'll just go back to normal, but perhaps with 3PA shutting down in a couple weeks, they'll get a boost in spirit and keep it going.
I disagree, while driving traffic down is one way, filling the website with garbage is another way! Who wants to use a site full of nothing but sexy john oliver?
..wait. Bad example.
Bout to say. Who wouldn't want to use a site full of nothing but sexy John Oliver?
This is essentially my problem with this plan, lol. It's content people want to interact with, meaning it's counterproductive to the blackout.
Short term it's going to increase traffic, which also increases awareness of the issue at hand. Long term it will become stale and reduce traffic. Both are good things for the mods to do and it forces spez to eat his words should he choose to retaliate further. This was a choice the community voted on.
Well, it'll put Reddit in an odd place. Spez in particular has cited the Moderator Code as a justification to remove mods and instate his own.
THAT would be worse, since then instead of any blackout at all it's business as usual (while being slowly crippled from bad moderation and decaying user behaviours).
The John Oliver thing is an alternative to THAT. They are technically doing what the users want, which was Reddit's whole ammunition against them. Closing a sub of millions of people could be said as harming the site significantly enough that reddit steps in. Opening it and maliciously complying with the rules IS what the users want, so Spez will be hard pressed the wrest control of the sub while simultaneously saying he supports the protests in line with the Code.
I view that as the next step in this protest: proving to Reddit that the previous relationship Reddit had with its organically grown volunteer moderation system is (was) quintessential to what made Reddit good. If instead Reddit thrives in a context where those moderators are simply replaced with Reddit stooges, then I guess we'd be proven wrong, about whether this protest mattered at all. Either way, the outcome will act as a transparent display of what Reddit's true value is, which I think is a useful thing for everyone to know.
Yes but all the blackout really achieved was replacing the normal top content with content from subs that didn't blackout.
A blackout prevents action. It prevents the usefulness.
A satiric malicious compliance focus does not categorically prevent activity, but does prevent general activity. It prevents the usefulness and value of the subreddit too.
When you are at risk of losing the blackout by losing control of the subreddit. it's the only thing you can do. It's the next best and next most effective thing.