reddit is burning!

[r56]

There are lots of individual reasons why someone would use a 3rd party app to browse reddit. The ones I am familiar with are ones for people with low vision. Low vision and blind people need extra assistance in general, and these apps help with text to talk, ehnanced visuals, etc. A lot of it is accessibility based, however I know there are apps for personal modification reasons as well.

This is exactly why I went third party and set it up for my (blind as a bat) mother on her iPad!

[Excalibur]

Wait. People use Reddit for things other than porn or memes? 🤣🤣

high key i found some useful memes from reddit lol.

also some leads to stonks were great!

[Aero]

I recently (aka last night?) found out about the this blackout and a bit about the API thing. Definitely solidified how much I dont know about how things work. I keep asking myself what API would Reddit have that these apps need? What do that apps do?
Can you explain the apps you use to mod the subreddits? (if it's not super secret information)

The apps use Reddit's API to pull and serve content to their users. They also use the API to allow their apps to implement Reddit functionality such as mod tools (i'm not sure which ones since I'm not a mod) + other basic functions like posting, upvoting, etc.

The reason why a lot of people prefer third party apps is 1) accessibility & customisation like already mentioned, 2) mod tools (afaik mod tools only exist in a useful fashion on the old desktop layout as well, at old.reddit.com), and 3) better user experience. On (3), the first party app has a lot of complaints that it serves ads that are too confusing as they mesh into the layout, are not targeted enough, and is generally more buggy and less user friendly than third party apps. Ironically, Reddit bought out beloved iOS app Alien Blue years ago and then proceeded to let it languish and die...

Note that the original audience of Reddit was pretty techy, so they might be extra averse to the new Reddit changes/UI. I'm not sure if newcomers to Reddit care at all.

[LibraryFaerie]

God that sounds like such a cool job! The Internet Archive is honestly one of my dream companies to work for, but I'm honestly not familiar with other organizes working toward digital archiving aside from unofficial ones like /r/DataHoarder. I feel you about this worry, it borders on anxiety and I've found myself wondering if it'll get to the point where I need to explain it to my therapist. I feel like as a kid/teen we were threatened with "the internet is forever" and now there's just...so much lost. Especially the image hosts, man. Like so much of reddit was already fucked because of the imgur changes that just happened.

I attended a digital conservation conference last year and I had no idea how huge the world of digital archiving was until I got there. it was very much a little fish in a big pond moment but also overwhelmingly cool. I've seen you mention you're on a job hunt, if it's a field you might be interested in, trying searching digital archives, digital conservation, or digital preservation. The Digital Preservation Coalition was a big sponsor of the conference I went to. I have a Masters in Library and Information Science, but the people I've met in the field have a wide range of non-library backgrounds

And OMG the image hosts!!! I'm getting heartbroken just thinking about it. Even The Internet Archive is riddled with broken thumbnails and images. So so sad

[Lilac Tentacles]

I recently (aka last night?) found out about the this blackout and a bit about the API thing. Definitely solidified how much I dont know about how things work. I keep asking myself what API would Reddit have that these apps need? What do that apps do?
Can you explain the apps you use to mod the subreddits? (if it's not super secret information)

I used to use Apollo until I switched to my Samsung last year. I know one of our other mods had to take over mobile modding because the 2 apps I have aren't really as autobot friendly. I used joey for a few months for some of their features but I don't need the speech stuff anymore since I'm not distracted with a baby anymore. It would audio the longer posts so I didn't have to read. Relay is prob the best android though. iPhone always has the better apps, but I hate iPhone so I gave up. I just mod from desktop when I need to now.

[kittyray]

I attended a digital conservation conference last year and I had no idea how huge the world of digital archiving was until I got there. it was very much a little fish in a big pond moment but also overwhelmingly cool. I've seen you mention you're on a job hunt, if it's a field you might be interested in, trying searching digital archives, digital conservation, or digital preservation. The Digital Preservation Coalition was a big sponsor of the conference I went to. I have a Masters in Library and Information Science, but the people I've met in the field have a wide range of non-library backgrounds

And OMG the image hosts!!! I'm getting heartbroken just thinking about it. Even The Internet Archive is riddled with broken thumbnails and images. So so sad

I am on the job hunt! I check The Internet Archive every so often for openings, but I wasn't really aware of other specific places that might be hiring, so I'll for sure look into those and check those out. And yeah, I feel like more often they're in need of Librarians/Archivist/Lawyers that developers, but they do still need some! I'll look into The Digital Preservation Coalition and also see what other organizations that are out there. Thank you sincerely for the tip!

And yeah, the hosts are just...god it hurts.

[TsUNaMy WaVe]

I'm not a big reddit user currently, but I've def used it a lot in the past and also still use it today occasionally. It is sad that data is getting lost, and I really hope Reddit would just go back of their ridiculous decisions. Though I kinda doubt it, I still have hope.
I will definitely start using the Internet Archive more from now on, thank you for all of the tips @(you need an account to see links) !

[Crooked]

Looks like a lot of smaller subs have already gone back to being public, but lots of bigger ones are still holding the line and staying private. It would be cool if everyone got on the same page and completely locked it down for at least a week... I think a blackout that long would be a lot more poignant than just a day or two.

[kittyray]

I know a lot of subs are going on a case-by-case basis. Some of the real community based ones don't want to just rip the rug out from under people because of how damaging losing something like that can be, and that other ones that have a big wealth of information are switching to read-only, but it really is such a tricky situation to be in. I've witnessed other reddit blackouts, but it's usually been in situation when the company is on our side because it's done in protest/solidarity with policy changes getting voted on by people who don't understand the internet, or some such things.

[doraemon]

Browsing Reddit just isn't the same without Reddit Sync. RIP.

Adjusting to Reddit on mobile web browser is doable, but it's so...inconvenient? Still not enough to make me download the official Reddit app though.