wow WoW Subreddit Reopens with Restricted Access and Asks Users What Should Be Next

[Staff 1,488]

The WoW Subreddit is back with restricted access. The mods have posted an update on the current state of the subreddit and are asking users to vote in a poll about what should happen next.

Many subreddits are going dark in protest of Reddit's planned API pricing changes which force third-party apps to shutdown.

The Warcraft subreddit mods have posted an updated and explained they were in a call with an Admin from Partner Communities on June 16 who wanted to know what it would take for the community to end the blackout.

After the call, they received r/wow mods received the following message from the "Mod Code of Conduct" team:

Now, the fate is in the hands of the community and you can decide about what the next step will be.

The options are:

1. Going completely dark

2. Completely reopen comments but only accept submissions with Denathrius fanart.

3. Completely reopen and continue like nothing happened.

4. completely reopen and have a space to continue discussing core concerns of the protest.

We're reposting the whole post here in case r/wow goes dark again.

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How we got here, and what should /r/WoW do next?

Welcome back r/WoW.

TL;DR: Vote in our ranked-choice poll.

What happened

• On Friday, June 2nd, the community overwhelmingly indicated the desire to join the protest. The thread accumulated a 96% upvote ratio where the top 30 comments voiced a desire for a blackout.
• Two of our mods (/u/Rejemah & /u/YourResidentFeral) attended a call on Thursday, June 8th, with the Partner Community admins. Our concerns about accessibility, turbulence, mistrust, and timelines were heard, and the representatives on the call promised to escalate those concerns. It was a productive call that was immediately followed by the…
• AMA dumpster fire on Friday, June 9th.
• On Monday, June 12th, we joined the protest and went dark for 48 hours.
• On Wednesday, June 14th, we came back from private mode to ask what our next steps should be. An obvious downside of the original protest was always the stated limited duration; Reddit just had to wait us out. Feedback on this post was more mixed than the first one. In lieu of a poll, we opted to let the community discuss, which meant that the results weren't a clean cut "% of users support X." This post also wasn't open very long, as we rushed to decide our next steps. The highest upvoted comments said, "stick it out or don't bother," and given that we'd already bothered, we took this as an indication to continue the protest. There were, however, many mildly upvoted comments that suggested we re-open. Ultimately, the ratio for the re-closure post was 56% at the time we went back into private mode; a majority but no longer an overwhelming one. We discussed when we'd ask for community input again internally and we decided to use a real poll early the next week for definitive results.
• While we were closed, we continued to receive your feedback over modmail. Feedback received was initially skewed towards support of the protest (you'll just have to trust our math on this). For every message we received in support, we also received a modmail telling us to re-open. Some of these were insulting, harassing, or downright violent in nature; that is to say, a not-insignificant number of pro-reopening messages were from users who would be banned from our community for those same messages.
• Friday June 16th we had a call with an Admin from Partner Communities who wanted to know what it would take for our community to end the blackout. We discussed our concerns: Reddit has promised certain things, but our recent experience is that /u/spez is a lying liar who lies (especially most recently in his AMA). We have moderators/users who use Apollo and some users in our community have visual impairments. Reddit has assured us that accessibility apps will be open and that our ability to moderate and remove spam will not be impacted, but Reddit also said the API pricing would be reasonable. /u/spez said they were working with developers, and yet those same developers have said their emails have gone unanswered. The Partner Communities rep also warned us that "Mod Code of Conduct" was coming.
• Lo and behold, about 30 minutes after that extremely productive call, we received a threatening modmail from the "Mod Code of Conduct" team. This message is an ultimatum: reopen or else. We assume r/gaming and r/pics received the same message as both reopened in some fashion.
• As the weekend started, more subs are back, and modmail feedback skewed towards reopening.

Going forward

The strength of this protest was always in our collective action. With large subs caving to Reddit's pressure, we feel there isn't much more we can accomplish. We're not sure we still have the support of our community. We're unwilling to see what would happen with whoever Reddit puts in charge of r/WoW, as we have no way of knowing whether our replacements would have the same dedication to maintaining an inclusive community that has always been our number one priority.

We have a couple of options:

• Go back dark, ****  'em.
• Completely reopen comments, but only accept submissions that are Daddy Sire Denathrius fanart.
• Completely reopen and have a space to continue discussing core concerns of the protest (i.e. the state of API access and accessibility, perhaps in a weekly pin).
• Completely reopen and continue like nothing happened.

These options are presented in a ranked-choice poll, please vote for the options that best represent your opinion. This poll will be open for the next 24 hours.

As always, you are welcome to make your thoughts known about the landed gentry our moderation in (1) modmail, (2) on r/wowmeta, or (3) as a meta post here when/if we reopen. It is our continued privilege to serve you.

-- the r/WoW mod team

 

 

[Arcling 898]

I don't think they can do anything to stop this. This change to API will be implemented regardless, Reddit can simply ignore these protests, besides many other subreddits didn't even join this blackout to begin with.

[TheRagingwolf 258]

The Reddit CEO has already stated they are not affected by any of these protests and Reddit intends to stand firm. This is basically like a kid going on a hunger strike because mom made spinach for dinner. Mom doesn't care if they don't eat, mostly because she knows they will get hungry eventually and have to eat what she made.

 

[Bambiprsi 44]

Regardless of reddits changes to their own API, i think this is prime example of blackmailing and taking wow oriented users hostages by few mods. Vast majority of users go to r/wow because of wow, not because of reddits own internal rules of usage. If I would have a problem with reddits changes to API affecting 3rd party apps, i would stop using reddit on my own. Decision of indefinitely shutting down whole subreddits made by few mods regardless what all of the thousands of visitors think or want, is spit to the face to all of the users, and if the subreddit will stay online after this poll, all of the mods should be replaced.

[Trest 61]

Simping for big corporations and the rich is not the win some seem to think… The profiteering corporate rulers are more than happy to have people just lie back and take it as they extract ever more wealth from the rest of us while gradually (and sometimes not-so-gradually) diminishing the scraps we get in exchange.

Protests rarely achieve the goal that they are in service of… in the short term. But over time, many protests, that may have seemed to get nowhere at the time, add up to actual change. I get that that is hard for most folks to really understand, because that sort of impact goes beyond the short-term limits of human perception & understanding. But all social change comes about after decades—often generations—of people doing things like protests and other advocacy.

And there are near-term benefits of protests (even the ones that don’t seem to accomplish their goals). People connect through protests, and some of those connections go on to build more action and social change. Situations that would otherwise have been left unchallenged are visibly questioned & contradicted—enabling more people to question that status quo. That sort of questioning can lead to more people taking action in future.

[SpilledStars 71]

This has queasy echoes of past times when I've seen open-source projects dev split.

Reddit thinks we-the-ordinary are a captive audience, eyeballs to sell, etc, and roughly claims that whatever changes they make have no impact to us.   Will try to claim any mod-teams darkening their Subreddits are the villains, taking away our chocolates.

But this isn't valid;  when /r/wow briefly reopened, we the people told them stick to their guns and they did.

If the question is HONEST (how can we get your community to reopen) the answer is obvious:

• become trustworthy
• don't hold communities under the sword-of-damacles anymore

Real problem is, we can't hold bullet two to them, because that's future, and so far, their phrasing of "now mods be nice nicey don't be tykes" gives no confidence that either of these are solid cases yet.

I know "trustworthy" is a vague thing 

I'm telling ya though, right now I have a lot more expectation of successful responses from Blizz Tech Support than I have of /r/wow mods getting the time of day on an API glitch.

[SpilledStars 71]

2 hours ago, TheRagingwolf said:

The Reddit CEO has already stated they are not affected by any of these protests and Reddit intends to stand firm. This is basically like a kid going on a hunger strike because mom made spinach for dinner. Mom doesn't care if they don't eat, mostly because she knows they will get hungry eventually and have to eat what she made.

 

Once upon forever ago the adults in my kid life told me I had to eat the food in front of me because "starving children in India would want it, now eat."  I mean, I didn't know at the time that I was allergic to an element of the food in front of me, only that it made me feel like I'd be worse if I did.

I told them go ahead and package it for India.  By the time it gets there it wouldn't be edible to them either.

The parable version of this becomes - where will /r/wow go if they won't light up /r/'s livelihood before its IPO?

I do not think /r/ is the only place an active, chatting community can go.  

If the active team that keeps that content together "goes" somewhere else, I'll follow.   I won't even have to work at it, much, because search engines like Google will lead me there as soon as the content's in.

It's possible to flourish without being a slave - or a salve - to advertisement culture.  Shall I worry for Reddit's IPO if they're proving their model isn't the clean machine they're selling to the investors?  Or was the whole API-fandango a song and dance to get their name above the fold?   Will they hat-in-hand in a week or so to make themselves look even better?

I uh
I'm probably not gonna worry - about reddit

I'm probably gonna worry about whether the WoW megadungeon will be off limits and heartbreaking to my newly dinged level 70 alts wearing "primalist (itemslot)" hand me downs.

I see Reddit's dev leads & PR crew playing a game we didn't sign up for.
 

[TheRagingwolf 258]

18 hours ago, SpilledStars said:

Once upon forever ago the adults in my kid life told me I had to eat the food in front of me because "starving children in India would want it, now eat."  I mean, I didn't know at the time that I was allergic to an element of the food in front of me, only that it made me feel like I'd be worse if I did.

I told them go ahead and package it for India.  By the time it gets there it wouldn't be edible to them either.

The parable version of this becomes - where will /r/wow go if they won't light up /r/'s livelihood before its IPO?

I do not think /r/ is the only place an active, chatting community can go.  

If the active team that keeps that content together "goes" somewhere else, I'll follow.   I won't even have to work at it, much, because search engines like Google will lead me there as soon as the content's in.

It's possible to flourish without being a slave - or a salve - to advertisement culture.  Shall I worry for Reddit's IPO if they're proving their model isn't the clean machine they're selling to the investors?  Or was the whole API-fandango a song and dance to get their name above the fold?   Will they hat-in-hand in a week or so to make themselves look even better?

I uh
I'm probably not gonna worry - about reddit

I'm probably gonna worry about whether the WoW megadungeon will be off limits and heartbreaking to my newly dinged level 70 alts wearing "primalist (itemslot)" hand me downs.

I see Reddit's dev leads & PR crew playing a game we didn't sign up for.
 

There are plenty of active WoW communities currently, like the one we are chatting on now, so the "chatting community" is much larger than many realize or take notice of. As for the "active team", realistically, it is the every day users, not mods, that make a subreddit what it is in terms of content and discussion.

As for worrying about the megadungeon, or anything else in-game, we know Reddit is not needed for us to stay informed on these matters. Icy Veins does a good job of keeping us up-to-date on such issues and for the most part, Reddit just regurgitates what is seen on other sites.

Personally, I was done with Reddit the site years ago. It is very toxic and has overall devolved into a pit of "why are you asking that? did you not read the side bar?" or worse "despite all the verifiable facts you present, I am going to continue to disagree because I choose to ignore reality".  It's just a bad place to spend your time.

And no, I don't believe anyone should feel bad for Reddit should their financials tank (which they won't) and their IPO fail. Reddit is a corporation like all others and their only concern is the bottom line. Given the statement from their CEO, they have already run the numbers and have no fear going forward so, yeah, they can ram a large stick into a very uncomfortable place on their body and have a nice day.

[TheRagingwolf 258]

18 hours ago, SpilledStars said:

This has queasy echoes of past times when I've seen open-source projects dev split.

Reddit thinks we-the-ordinary are a captive audience, eyeballs to sell, etc, and roughly claims that whatever changes they make have no impact to us.   Will try to claim any mod-teams darkening their Subreddits are the villains, taking away our chocolates.

But this isn't valid;  when /r/wow briefly reopened, we the people told them stick to their guns and they did.

If the question is HONEST (how can we get your community to reopen) the answer is obvious:

• become trustworthy
• don't hold communities under the sword-of-damacles anymore

Real problem is, we can't hold bullet two to them, because that's future, and so far, their phrasing of "now mods be nice nicey don't be tykes" gives no confidence that either of these are solid cases yet.

I know "trustworthy" is a vague thing 

I'm telling ya though, right now I have a lot more expectation of successful responses from Blizz Tech Support than I have of /r/wow mods getting the time of day on an API glitch.

Reddit does not care if what they do affects the every day user, that is where many are confused. They have been clear in stating "these protests caused a problem, but ultimately are not big deal". Whether that is understating the issue or not, it has been said and means they simply do not care about these protests.

So, regardless of your trust in them, Reddit is going to Reddit and the plebs can pleb.

[TheRagingwolf 258]

19 hours ago, Trest said:

Simping for big corporations and the rich is not the win some seem to think… The profiteering corporate rulers are more than happy to have people just lie back and take it as they extract ever more wealth from the rest of us while gradually (and sometimes not-so-gradually) diminishing the scraps we get in exchange.

Protests rarely achieve the goal that they are in service of… in the short term. But over time, many protests, that may have seemed to get nowhere at the time, add up to actual change. I get that that is hard for most folks to really understand, because that sort of impact goes beyond the short-term limits of human perception & understanding. But all social change comes about after decades—often generations—of people doing things like protests and other advocacy.

And there are near-term benefits of protests (even the ones that don’t seem to accomplish their goals). People connect through protests, and some of those connections go on to build more action and social change. Situations that would otherwise have been left unchallenged are visibly questioned & contradicted—enabling more people to question that status quo. That sort of questioning can lead to more people taking action in future.

Comparing the protesting of social injustices to that of a few subreddits blacking out over API charges on a website is beyond extreme. They are not the same at all.

The biggest difference here is, social injustices can be legislated away (in a sense), while corporate decisions regarding what services to charge for and how much can not. The current protest is the same as if WalMart were to start charging for parking and customers protested it. If WalMart sees more value in charging for parking, and the numbers tell them it is more positive to do so than negative, then they will do it and stick to their decision, regardless of the outcry which they have likely already factored into their decision.

Additionally, this change ultimately affects only devs utilizing the API of Reddit. It does not consider race, *filtered*, gender, economic status, etc. So, there is no societal wrong to right, it is merely a company pricing what they see as a product at a price they believe is commensurate with its value. Unfortunately, that price is based on a model which is not adjusted for the financial capability to pay of the small devs which utilize the product. So, no injustice, just a bad pricing model.

[Grumar 188]

Wow reddit mods are power hungry incels, ban you for literally nothing.

[SpilledStars 71]

To reddit you are not the customer, you are the product.
 

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if what they do affects the every day user

They are trying to tell the stock market that their platform is yummy and carries good product.  The bad news above the fold has a strong chance of making their IPO need allergy meds.

So as unexpected as they find it, yes, user bias is going to have effects on them.   Do they "care" kind of no, in the same way little kids don't know how to care if ice cream melts.  They're a bit disconnected from how the world around them works.

Someone seemed to think I trust Reddit.  Strange interpretation. 

What I meant was I trust the people of the /r/wow mods team to care about (us, the wow players) more than Reddit does (and I know, to a cynical enough reader, that's a low bar to reach).

If they by means of their noisy faux pas manage to demonstrate that their model isn't good enough for investment, they shoot themselves in the foot.  Slow motion, mind.  Still in progress.

I'm going to repeat my original expectation, "we go somewhere else" is a viable option. Reddit doubts that's feasible (if anything that's their "we're unique" selling point to Wall Street).  They rather have to doubt it, loudly and carefully, because otherwise they'll just shoot themselves in the other foot.