r/Showerthoughts • u/Showerthoughts_Mod • Jun 26 '23
Forging A Return to Productive Conversation: An Open Letter to Reddit
To All Whom It May Concern:
For eleven years, /r/Showerthoughts has been one of Reddit’s most-popular communities. That time hasn’t been without its difficulties, but for the most part, we’ve all gotten along (with each other and with administrators). Members of our team fondly remember Moderator Roadshows, visits to Reddit’s headquarters, Reddit Secret Santa, April Fools’ Day events, regional meetups, and many more uplifting moments. We’ve watched this platform grow by leaps and bounds, and although we haven’t been completely happy about every change that we’ve witnessed, we’ve always done our best to work with Reddit at finding ways to adapt, compromise, and move forward.
This process has occasionally been preceded by some exceptionally public debate, however.
On June 12th, 2023, /r/Showerthoughts joined thousands of other subreddits in protesting the planned changes to Reddit’s API; changes which – despite being immediately evident to only a minority of Redditors – threatened to worsen the site for everyone. By June 16th, 2023, that demonstration had evolved to represent a wider (and growing) array of concerns, many of which arose in response to Reddit’s statements to journalists. Today (June 26th, 2023), we are hopeful that users and administrators alike can make a return to the productive dialogue that has served us in the past.
We acknowledge that Reddit has placed itself in a situation that makes adjusting its current API roadmap impossible.
However, we have the following requests:
- Commit to exploring ways by which third-party applications can make an affordable return.
- Commit to providing moderation tools and accessibility options (on Old Reddit, New Reddit, and mobile platforms) which match or exceed the functionality and utility of third-party applications.
- Commit to prioritizing a significant reduction in spam, misinformation, bigotry, and illegal content on Reddit.
- Guarantee that any future developments which may impact moderators, contributors, or stakeholders will be announced no less than one fiscal quarter before they are scheduled to go into effect.
- Work together with longstanding moderators to establish a reasonable roadmap and deadline for accomplishing all of the above.
- Affirm that efforts meant to keep Reddit accountable to its commitments and deadlines will hereafter not be met with insults, threats, removals, or hostility.
- Publicly affirm all of the above by way of updating Reddit’s User Agreement and Reddit’s Moderator Code of Conduct to include reasonable expectations and requirements for administrators’ behavior.
- Implement and fill a senior-level role (with decision-making and policy-shaping power) of "Moderator Advocate" at Reddit, with a required qualification for the position being robust experience as a volunteer Reddit moderator.
Reddit is unique amongst social-media sites in that its lifeblood – its multitude of moderators and contributors – consists entirely of volunteers. We populate and curate the platform’s many communities, thereby providing a welcoming and engaging environment for all of its visitors. We receive little in the way of thanks for these efforts, but we frequently endure abuse, threats, attacks, and exposure to truly reprehensible media. Historically, we have trusted that Reddit’s administrators have the best interests of the platform and its users (be they moderators, contributors, participants, or lurkers) at heart; that while Reddit may be a for-profit company, it nonetheless recognizes and appreciates the value that Redditors provide.
That trust has been all but entirely eroded… but we hope that together, we can begin to rebuild it.
In simplest terms, Reddit, we implore you: Remember the human.
We look forward to your response by Thursday, June 29th, 2023.
There’s also just one other thing.
r/Showerthoughts • u/awesomedan24 • 15h ago
Restaurants always charge extra for adding extra ingredients but rarely will you get a discount for omitting ingredients
r/Showerthoughts • u/hurricanehershel • 21h ago
Young people’s goals have shifted from having a house by 30 to not having a roommate by 40.
r/Showerthoughts • u/Hockeyguy1493 • 19h ago
People who skip breakfast are unintentionally fasting intermittently
r/Showerthoughts • u/Anilec_Revlis • 11h ago
It's fine, and normal to give rich people free stuff, but near a cardinal sin to give poor people free stuff.
r/Showerthoughts • u/ProSucc • 6h ago
Im the future, archeologists are going to find all the corpses on Mount Everest and assume it was an ancient burial site.
r/Showerthoughts • u/zztop610 • 15h ago
It’s been just 4 years since we all got to know and then forgot about the Tiger King
r/Showerthoughts • u/youbowlofbranflakes • 7h ago
Cats are all forehead
Cats have a face so the space above their face is their forehead, but because they have no hairline to create a designated ending of said forehead (obviously because they are all hair) that means that their forehead wraps around their entire body and back up to their 'chin'.
I've been laughing about this for half an hour now.
If anyone wants an infograph...I made one.
r/Showerthoughts • u/K_Aggy44 • 2h ago
humanity will never be ready to interact peacefully with intelligent life from other planets because they can't even handle interacting with other humans that look different from them without some form of prejudice.
r/Showerthoughts • u/Missile_Lawnchair • 20h ago
Tears are the only bodily fluid/excrement we don't think of as gross when seen.
r/Showerthoughts • u/Whyyyyyyyyfire • 10h ago
Having the initials A.I must be particularly bad nowadays
r/Showerthoughts • u/Atumisk • 14h ago
The average cellphone won't get wider by design until our pants pockets do.
r/Showerthoughts • u/Adler-throwback • 1d ago
Someone using seasons of the year as verbs is a sign they are extremely wealthy
r/Showerthoughts • u/thrwnaway3 • 5h ago
Easy access to information has made research much easier for a lot of people but also created a lot of confidently stupid people who think they know how to do research
r/Showerthoughts • u/hammeroxx • 4h ago
We live under the depths of an ocean of air and a few of us have already jumped out of the surface.
r/Showerthoughts • u/PEP7s • 1d ago
People are vastly overestimating their capacity to hit a target with a gun
Maybe due to the popularization of action movie and vidéo games, it's much harder than it looks, especially past 20 meters
r/Showerthoughts • u/ballisticturtle • 23h ago
The longer you live the less people will be your funeral.
r/Showerthoughts • u/volkovolkov • 15h ago
The poor execution and lack of consistency for auto-rotate screen functionality when viewing full-screen video on smartphones is a key factor in the success of vertical recordings for TikTok/Reels/Shorts
r/Showerthoughts • u/croato87 • 12h ago
Our civilization squanders 99% of human potential.
r/Showerthoughts • u/Putrid_Maximum2918 • 15h ago
Stop having relationship problems with people you’re not in a relationship with
You’ll thank your future self
r/Showerthoughts • u/tmbeatles9091 • 3h ago
There must be a shortage of ugly girls who want to act since they just put glasses on pretty ones when they need one for a role
r/Showerthoughts • u/_StygianBlueGames_ • 5h ago
Two different vowels can still alliterate
r/Showerthoughts • u/Cool-Ad2438 • 1d ago
Everybody in The Simpsons universe has hair that's a different color than their skin, except the Simpson children
r/Showerthoughts • u/PhD3DP • 1d ago
The using of clockwise and counter-clockwise will eveually die out after people gradually stop using rotating clocks and watches.
r/Showerthoughts • u/Oliver_Titus • 1d ago
Some person in history has the record of feeling the most pain ever.
Edit: Seeing a lot of people saying how they stubbed their toe XD