reddit mod mutiny shows chink in “armor” of user generated content?

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Time_youcover01hi all, there was a recent reddit moderator mutiny where they shut down significant sections of the site, in protest over firing of a popular community relation manager.[a] reddit is currently valued at something like $~¼B dollars! its a complicated situation partly related to CEO Pao being just involved in a high-profie, lost lawsuit with Kleiner Perkins over gender discrimination.[b]

this is an area of big implications for the internet, namely collaborative systems, user generated content, and “collective intelligence”. sometimes the so-called wisdom of crowds can quickly turn into cyber mobs/ vigilantes.

user generated content fuels massive billiondollar corporations like Facebook, and even ultimately Google (which was invented basically to index it!); it also has big connections and crosspollinations to open science such as in “open/ public publishing” etc which is another key topic around here.

have been hanging out on another highly user-centric site for 3 eventful years, stackexchange, and have been immersed and studying its culture quite intensively and have talked to many different mods in chat over that time. (it also has a large volunteer moderator team probably numbering in the hundreds over all their many sites). they seem to be mostly ok with the site, but one can occasionally see the tension/ friction/ splits/ shearing with se management. stackexchange cofounder jeff atwood left it a few years ago and is working on a new online forum platform; he’s very innovative & have long felt theres a lot of room for continued innovation in this area, stackexchange is a remarkable, leading, topnotch collaborative system & hope he succeeds again elsewhere but it doesnt seem to be getting much traction so far.[f1][f2]

only in the last few years “800Lb gorilla” in user generated content, wikipedia, was in the news quite a bit,[c] such as about accuracy and hoax issues,[e] and there was some alarm about volunteers quitting.[d] but it seemed more at times like the mainstream media focusing on a commotion-du-jour and seeing it as a competitor, and now it seems now almost entirely off the mainstream media radar; the MSM now seems used to the idea. wikipedia has now matured, apparently now in middle age, and it has a somewhat different dynamic than in its “youth”.

❗ ❗ ❗ (update) Pao resigns! 😮

 

a. reddit mod mutiny
b. pao lawsuit
c. wikipedia
d. decline?
e. accuracy/ hoaxes
f. etc

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  1. Pingback: cyberspace unleashed 2015, huge link pile | Turing Machine

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