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Site to track Subreddit's as they go dark (reddark.untone.uk)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by RedPander@lemmy.rogers-net.com to c/technology@beehaw.org
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Hopefully I'm posting this in the right place, but I see Reddit developments as Tech news right now.

Wanted to share a website that is tracking Subreddits that have/will be going dark. It even has a sound notification for when they change their status.

Edit: Adding the stream https://www.twitch.tv/reddark_247

Double Edit: Data visualization https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/

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[-] brunofin@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago

It's sad though I truly enjoyed Reddit like obviously many here, but also to be fair I've also felt like the quality of posts and comments overall degraded and the whole thing turned into a big meme factory where only funny images with text and tiktok reposts really were uploaded.

The whole thing started going downhills as soon as the first tiktok reposts started flooding in to be fairly honest. Let's please not let this happen much here, unless of course in dedicated communities for that because everything has a place.

Also, this is my first ever post on Lemmy, hi 👋

[-] Whooping_Seal@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

I feel like this still depended on community. There was plenty of more niche hobby specific communities that were enjoyable. r/coffee comes to mind for me or something like r/fountain pens. I still enjoyed r/Analog although that had it’s own issues.

[-] that_one_guy@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Yeah there are going to be quite a few TTRPG subreddits that I will miss. I really hope that the fediverse will be able to grow enough that niche interest pages can thrive here like they did over on reddit.

[-] followthewhiterabbit@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago

Just flipped the switch (so to speak) on a couple subs I moderate, and the largest (just shy of 1m users) will be going dark in a few hours.

What surprised me most is how well the members are took it. To be fair the subs I moderated are typically quite tech-minded, so everyone is quite in-the-know with what is happening and why.

It makes me furious that a site built and maintained by the users is being exploited at the users' expense.

I hope Reddit bleeds money from this silly line they drew in the sand.

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[-] Die4Ever@programming.dev 3 points 1 year ago

update for 2nd day of the blackout

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[-] PenguinTD@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago

It does have a pretty big impact on the first day already.

[-] Die4Ever@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

comments are way down

If the creator of the site was here, some guidelines across the graph could be nice

[-] ramblechat@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

"6236/7265 subreddits are currently dark."

85.83%

That's a pretty good response from the subs.

[-] HowieDewitt@aussie.zone 1 points 1 year ago

93% now

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[-] StrayCatFrump@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

blackout.photon-reddit.com

Damn. That is only a tiny little dip in the post/comment rate so far relative to the historical cycle. What, maybe 5%, assuming the vertical axis crosses at zero? Not terribly encouraging....

[-] setsneedtofeed@beehaw.org 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I’ve continued to tell people: This won’t kill Reddit in the sense of outright turning it into a ghost town. If your only goal is to make Reddit collapse overnight, you’re going to be disappointed. The quality content that many people here enjoy is not what makes up the frontpage of r/all or what a huge amount of passive users consume. Reddit has more than enough low quality trash to backfill the frontpage and keep users occupied.

Anybody migrating should focus on porting quality content. Let reddit live long and be a dumping ground.

[-] strainedl0ve@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

I see this less as a damage to Reddit, and more as an opportunity to diversify, make people aware of the threat of centralised corporate-run platforms, and to build the federated internet alternatives a bit more, to give them momentum.

[-] TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My partner is a casual reddit user; the experience change was immediately apparent. She got bored and switched to facebook because all of the niche communities that the larger subreddits repost from went silent.

[-] BlackCoffee@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This should be bumped.

The smaller/niche communities is what made Reddit interesting.

When those eventually decide to pack and the only vibrant communities are the meme subreddits etc then you would probably see a drop in usage.

[-] s_s@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

My GF is also a pretty casual reddit user and she was pretty pissed about her favorite subs being closed.

[-] nottheengineer@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago

The large subs and front page just consist of bots reposting the same old content. The bots are easy to tell apart from real people just by eye, so I'm sure that reddit either has no problem with that or that they made these bots themselves to hide the fact that actual users are becoming less and less.

[-] squaresinger@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I was negatively surprised as well. Almost 60% of all big SFW subreddits closed, and still only a small percentage less posts and comments.

[-] a_statistician@programming.dev 1 points 1 year ago

Reddit may also be astroturfing their own site to make it look like there's not much effect of the blackout.

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[-] fresh@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'm guessing (hoping) the difference at peak will be larger. All we can do now is wait and see, unfortunately.

[-] Bluejay@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I saw that too - hopefully the changes will show in the next “up” cycle. Apparently the bots are out to play as well.

[-] d3Xt3r@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

@alyaza@beehaw.org can we un-sticky this thread please, since it's no longer relevant?

[-] lorossi97@feddit.it 2 points 1 year ago

I don't see myself going back to Reddit if they keep those subs closed down. However I do believe that if this "strike" goes on for longer than a week or so, the admins will forcefully replace each closed subreddit mods to make them live again.

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[-] Hyperz@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Time to sit back, relax, and watch ~~the world~~ Reddit burn 😎 🍿

[-] haganbmj@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

The level of unity has been awesome. At first I thought this might only really spread through tech minded subreddits, but it really caught on broadly.

[-] Chapi_Chan@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

Oh god here it comes. So long and thanks for all the fish.

[-] richie510@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'm really confused by the chart on the site https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/ I understand the dip annotated with the red arrow, but I do not understand the rebound annotated with the green arrow... With that many sites down, it should not be possible to rebound to normal levels...

[-] sydneybrokeit@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Because that dip isn't due to the blackout. Reddit was pretty hard down for about an hour.

[-] Master@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

If you go to the site and view by new it's just page after page of /r/askreddit. Tons of people posting to it with nowhere else to post. So that would explain some of the rebound but the graph is still odd that it rebounded to exactly where it should be if there was no blackout.

[-] RedPander@lemmy.rogers-net.com 1 points 1 year ago

I could actually see engagement staying relatively the same since most people are probably popping Reddit open for a few minutes, maybe engaging, then moving on.

What I do find odd is how consistent Posts per minute are over time. But it doesn't dip or rise with comments. So now I'm wondering how automated a lot of posting is.

[-] PenguinTD@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

Bots, all the bot posts. If you even check "All" for a bit even on Lemmy you will see the bots are moving here as well.

[-] ashen@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

Reddit is deddit.

[-] girthero@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah I'm getting a "You Broke Reddit" message when attempting to old.reddit.com. I didn't break reddit 'you' broke reddit lol.

[-] TechyDad@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

I found a different one, posted by the author on the DataIsBeautiful subreddit: https://blackout.photon-reddit.com/

[-] RedPander@lemmy.rogers-net.com 1 points 1 year ago

This one is great!

[-] Solemn@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

blackout.photon-reddit.com seems to be down for me. Any idea what's up with that, or other places that are visualizing traffic?

[-] bad_alloc@feddit.de 1 points 1 year ago

It's back up!

[-] Cralex@lemmy.one 1 points 1 year ago

Thanks for sharing!

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this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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