Reddit brings back r/place - tomorrow, July 20

morrowind@lemmy.ml to Reddit@lemmy.ml – 459 points –
reddit.com

Totally not suspicious timing at all.

Also if you're willing to visit reddit, the comments under the post are great. They're not fooling anyone.

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I'm personally not willing to visit Reddit unless I need to cause it has technical answers, deleted the app and haven't been on since the protests were announced.

Honestly Lemmy is pretty fucking awesome I love it here, I'm gonna stay here until the community dies or I do.

Yeah, I've regained probably an hour of my life after giving that place up.

I gained atleast an hour every day after leaving Reddit. I Read lots of ebooks again and enjoying my time on lemmy.

Are you me? I've been listening to a ton of audiobooks since I got off reddit

No, they're me. I still spend a lot of time on the fediverse, but I find I can stop before 3am more readily, and I've been reading ebooks a lot more. Overall life is significantly better. The quality of discourse on lemmy is so much higher than on reddit. And I can log out and meaninglessly scroll memes for a while if I feel like it too.

And whether people like you or not, you get a conversation no matter what you say. It’s not so overpopulated that most of your comments and posts go completely unnoticed.

I made a dumb joke that was practically only downvoted, but at least it was seen.

I miss Reddit for a few little things here and there, but I’m glad I migrated.

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I still accidentally type it into web browser from time to time but it's usually only a few secs before I realize my error

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I blackholed reddit.com and all sub domains in DNS since the protests started, not looked back.

I did the same thing! It was pretty astonishing how many times I tried to go back there.

If we could get some of the awesome subs like askhistorians and the like to bring their content over, Lemmy could become home to many more users. The sad fact is Reddit is still a treasure trove of niche information

I think you're right; Askhistorians is a great example of the power and necessity of moderation. Not every community needs to be so heavily moderated, but askhistorians knew what they were going for and we're willing to work to maintain it.

Tangentially related, I had a friend who had studied History at Oxbridge who was excited to discover ask historians existed, but bewildered (and slightly offended, ha) when one of his answers was rejected. The problem was that he was used to speaking to other academics, and that uses a different style of speaking and citing sources; on the internet, and ask historians more specifically, it's much harder to lean on one's credentials than in real life, and I think that's a good thing. (My friend get over himself and resubmitted the answer)

In context, it's straightforward and logical, but it does tickle me to remove that context and consider it as "ask historians has higher standards than Oxbridge"

I recently built a PC for the very first time and am very ashamed to admit I had to visit old threads to help me get up and running. It’s such a tragedy what they’ve done to the site, its communities had and still have so much value. Heartbreaking that they’re so determined to run it into the ground and personally nail its own coffin shut.

In depth technical knowledge is the thing I’m having a hard time replacing too. Hopefully lemmy can replace it with time and more users

I feel as if I can have an actual conversation with someone here even if we have two fundamentally different world views where it won't devolve into name calling. Conversations can be productive even if neither opinions change.

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This makes me sick honestly. r/place is one of the nicest memories I have of Reddit and now they’re using it as a cheap tactic to bait us to come back. Really a low blow.

I'm betting it's going to be either overrun with protest content and Lemmy advertisement, or it'll be so heavily locked down and curated that it'll be an obvious shell of its former self.

I’m going with both. It will be a free for all at first with a ton of protest stuff and after a day (maybe less) they will realize “oh shit we forgot this was the internet” and then lock it down.

It doesn’t matter because even if it ends up with the greatest fuck spez message ever it’s still engagement on the site and that’s what they’re looking for.

If the "engagement" consists of people seeing advertisements for alternatives to Reddit and reasons why they should be trying them out, I'm fine with spez thinking he's "won" somehow because a line briefly went up.

Let’s be real. /r/place is a good time. It’s going to keep people interested in Reddit and not the tiny corner that’s fighting with Reddit bootlickers to make a Lemmy space.

Did you read the comments on the thread announcing /r/place? It's going to keep people interested in Reddit's fuckups. Those are going to be plastered all over it.

I like Lemmy, it’s much more mellow and the discussions are much better. I’ve given up on Reddit personally. But sometimes people here have a crazy idea in their heads that Reddit is actually going to suffer and lose people and Lemmy is going to take them all in. I don’t think the majority of Reddit is going anywhere even with their fuckups

The majority doesn't have to go anywhere. Just the most engaged people (the ones who will be visiting /r/place, for example) who provide the value that keeps the other ones visiting and viewing ads. Once they're the only ones left the site will be basically a zombie.

It takes time for giants to fall. Digg is still around to this day, and Reddit will likely be around a decade from now too. It just won't be the "front page of the Internet" any more.

The biggest fuck you that can be sent is the thing staying completely empty

won't happen though, so we may as well twist it to our use

The last one was great for the fuck cars movement; this one easily has the potential to be similarly good for the threadiverse even despite any Reddit engagement it entails in the short run.

Corporations don't care about you or your nice memories, unless they can monetise that somehow. Something to keep in mind. It'll be reddit trying to abuse us today, and some other business in the future if we let them.

I know that, sadly. Doesn’t stop me from feeling disgusted by it.

I feel like it’s a thing you really can do only once. Just like Twitch plays Pokémon. It’s super exciting when no one knows what’s the outcome. People try to figure it out in real time.

But the second time you already know what’s going to happen. People have already figured it out. Subs had already worked out plans before it even started.

Any attempt at replicating it becomes stale in comparison.

I feel it might remain special with enough time between events. Once every 4+ years allows enough shift in users and internet culture to make each unique, if not as special as the first time. Allow every Reddit-"generation" to make their mark.

This one is just empty, though.

Yeah and it's also too much effort for communities to band together around it every year. Someging that requires this much effort from communities should remain once every 5 years, otherwise they'll stop participating.

Not that it even matters at this point :(

I feel pretty confident that there are gonna be some protest graphics :P

I wouldn't be surprised if there was a lot more far right content on it this time round. :(

I never tried it, thinking, "there's always next year."

Fuck Spez. I'll go back to Reddit to protest there and then leave again, bye it's not what I'd hoped.

Someone's already made a subreddit to coordinate using it for protest https://www.reddit.com/r/PlaceAPI/ (likely more than one, this is just the one I saw)

edit: discord link for coordination https://discord.gg/KeH5PzUN

This community has not been reviewed and might contain content inappropriate for certain viewers. View in the Reddit app to continue.

What fresh hell is this

I almost can't believe it. Now they're just like Twitter, gotta log in to view the shit you want.

Man spez really can’t stop copying Elon. It’s sad really

Spez and Elon sitting in a tree, ruining the internet entirely.

They didn't "review" subs when there was one using images of children as child pornography, without the subjects knowledge or consent.

They didn't "review" subs when mask-off, far-right extremists moved in and started trading slurs and writing murder fantasies.

They didn't "review" subs when reactionaries were spreading dangerous and clearly false medical misinformation in the middle of a pandemic.

But they'll review subs when those subs might be a threat to their revenue.

Actually, Spez personally reviewed a subreddit rife with child pornography, r/Jailbait. Everyone seems to forget that Spez is actually a pedophile.

I'm pretty sure that's just the standard message they show when you attempt to view any nsfw content on their new site.

The sub doesn't appear to be marked as NSFW.

Right, but give your users free reign to draw whatever they want pixel by pixel and it's going to quickly become nsfw. I know reddit sucks and all and I'm not trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I just don't think this message is the conspiracy theory everyone thinks it is.

Not exactly a conspiracy theory to predict that a company that has been routinely unethical might be unethical.

Old.Reddit doesn’t have that problem though I’m sure they’re working on it

When old.reddit finally goes away is when I will finally stop even the minimal remaining interaction I have with that site.

Open it in browser and change the “www.” To “old.”

Spez is one of those people who still find Elon perfect and infallible despite everything. It's worse though, because he has the power to change things.

I wouldn’t put it past the admins to actively try to remove protests on r/place

They censored a lot of stuff on r/place back in 2022 (I don't remember the 2017 r/place). It seems basically inevitable that they're going to remove all of the "FUCK SPEZ" stuff at some point (or try and put something else on the canvas where the "FUCK SPEZ" stuff is). It would be really bad publicity for the site if a picture of the canvas plastered with "FUCK [the CEO of Reddit]" ended up in the media before the site's IPO. I'd love to be wrong though as it'll be fucking hilarious if the final canvas picture has at least one giant "FUCK SPEZ" on it.

They might do their mass censorship operation when their most active users are asleep to limit the outrage.

If r/place ever taught me anything it is that coordination of r/place does not happen on Reddit.

On both cases it was swarmed and "ruined" by influencers on other sites.

This one looks promising. Just spam it everywhere like the amongus last time.

you can make it smaller by using colors

Yeah that's definitely better, they hadn't come up with that yet when I posted this

They want to give their rebelling and unhappy user base a giant digital dry erase board to graffiti and express themselves? That will go great!

I want to see the entire board just say "fuck u/spez!" with a giant middle finger...

Especially when they start censoring any mention of the API changes or the blackout

I wonder if they will be able to blackout a void?

Yeah it's gonna be a shit show, but for anyone who wants to help draw people over here and take advantage of it, come join the community I just made to make a join lemmy banner on it.

!place_join_lemmy@lemmy.world

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We gonna take it over and continue the message of fuck u/spez?

We'll certainly try. If nothing else make them regret using it as a distraction

But you are back on Reddit in the meantime, and they know that even small engagements are what start to bring people back. It’s like smoking cigarettes, it only takes a few to fall back into the habit. Suddenly your popping by your old favorite communities to check in on things and blah blah blah slippery slope.

Maybe. But it's pretty easy to not contribute even if I succumb to the temptation of swinging by. And reddit gets no ad revenue from me.

Just don't give in to any temptation and it's fine. If you're going, you're contributing to their traffic and hence to their value proposition to advertisers whether you click ads or not.

Flood it with bots, each managing one pixel to collectively spell out "fuck u/spez"

We need to put a giant “join Lemmy” sign and /or a giant “API” sign to piss them off

I'm definitely going to be helping out with a join lemmy banner somewhere

This is exactly what they want. You'll give them clicks and anything they don't like will be removed.

Hard to imagine that the clicks will make a difference, they have hundreds of millions of users. If we give them 1% more clicks and grow Lemmy by 100%, that's a worthwhile trade-off.

You really think they want advertisements for "the new Reddit" all over their IPO showcase project?

There will 100% be mod overreach, but I'm guessing/hoping it will be more focused on removing people making a big API and fuck u/spez. Sure, those few of us working on maintaining it will add some clicks but it's a drop in the ocean to them. Its a public place (pun unintended) seen by a great many people. The benefit to us will be greater than to reddit.

This will give Lemmy a huge boost just like last year with r/F***Cars

I'm with ya there. As much as I'm done with Reddit... the thought of spitting in Reddit's face after what they've done to spite everyone else in the quest for money, is tantalizing.

Ah, reddit comment bots. Now with...Boomhauer?

For nobody wondering, I'm gonna go with lolno. Moving away from reddit means I'm moving away from reddit, not screaming profanities on their front lawn at 3am like a drunken ex trying to prove how much I don't need them.

Looks like someone continuously hitting the suggested words on there cellphone keyboard.

Also, love the analogy.

Call me boring if you want but this was already overdone and annoying by the second time they did it. Not looking forward to dumb screenshots of hard to understand pixel drama taking over everything again, it will probably be posted all over lemmy too...

I think if you stay off this community and any other reddit related ones you should be fine

let's start our own c/place, with blackjack and hookers!

Pretty sure there was a thing like r/place but for streamers. So they're are ahead of ya there at least.

Time to make as many Lemmy references as possible on that canvas. Hidden, overt, just everywhere

Like the Among Us characters...Lemmy across the board! Some brave soul should grab screenshots, for those of us who won't go there out of spite.

I'm sure we will have another round of recap videos on YouTube that will be made up of screenshots

Totally not suspicious timing at all.

I like how they included June 23 in their animation, like they'd been planning to do it for reddit's Very Special 18th birthday and just accidently overshot, instead of "they're foundering and are desperately trying to drive traffic to the site back up so they can tell the advertisers and the investors that traffic and engagement is back up" - without telling them exactly what they did to try to drive traffic back up.

Current view seems to be a great big "API" on the screen, but I absolutely wouldn't put it past them to either skew the accounts (admin accounts can change colors as much as they want!) or do something annoying like arranging for xQc and his little cult to grief the board again (which probably wouldn't take much beyond someone telling him that he was welcome to do so).

Not really a new thing for them, they've been trying to milk r/place since the first one. The last time they let it run too long as well, it needed to be like a 1 or 2 day max thing not a week

Can not wait for the biggest "fuck u/spez" ever 🤣

I clicked on the link (this was posted.on Tildes, that's where I clicked) and it was a flood of "API" sprinkled with some "F U u/Spez" comments. Just nonstop. So, I suspect this is not going over so well.

Lmfao the past few weeks have legit looked like a corpse flailing on the ground, it's nervous system pumping out every desperate attempt at reviving the body.

But make no mistake, the body is dead.

I mean, have you seen a headless chicken? When i was at my grandparents i'd see them quite often. Some would take even 30 minutes to stop moving. Gruesome, but it does teach a lesson about things flailing about long after they're dead.

The whole point of r/Place was to happen only so occasionally. I really got hyped for the second one, because I was too late for the first one. It happening every year would kill the hype for me. So thanks, I’ll pass and stay logged out.

It really didn't function at all like it should have a shirt time after it released. Once the bots were out, there was no use participating.

Quick, someone figure out a way to write 'Fuck u/spez' without increasing site traffic!

I didn't touch it last time when they made it exclusive to the new site design. Definitely not touching it after everything else.

Wow, remember when they did something different every April first

Also, this isn't going to keep us distracted - this is an effort to keep the userbase alive - by continually running events and keeping controversy fresh, they can get people's curiosity to get the best of themselves and make the number of active users spike.

My guess is they potentially go public during one of these spikes

I'm not gonna use reddit ever again, but I can't wait for the shitshow lmao

Hey 🤨 you guys smell that? 😏it reeks of desperation

Would be cool if r/place could be used to give some exposure to lemmy. Maybe something like a big "move 2 lemmy" text. But probably difficult to find and coordinate enough people.

It's worth trying, at least a small one if someone wants to make a discord/matrix server to coordinate. I'm already working on the pixels

I look forward to people using it to encourage Rexit. People will add links to Lemmy servers, etc. It will be glorious.

The only thing they could bring back that would make me consider making an account is TheButton. By the way I was a 42s Blue Hitchhiker.

Wow this couldn't be any more transparent. Laziest way to get easy PR after the stream of terrible decisions they've made. Thankfully doesn't look like anyone's buying it.

Looking forward to watching the cat-and-mouse game of people writing "fuck /u/spez" and the admins deleting it. Gonna be a shitshow.

What was r/place? Not familiar with it.

Giant public canvas. Once every ten minutes, each reddit user can select the color for any one pixel they want.

Thanks! I do remember that and was late to the last one. That was neat to see.

This is going to go about as well as gasoline to out a fire. Surprised they are not locking this to only users with premium subscriptions.

I hate how the people keep spamming "SPRICH DEUTSCH DU HURENSOHN" (I know what that means, I am German, also very funny and totally not overused ) below every single comment.

Maybe I'm OOTL on whatever announcement they made on ich_iel but this seems like they're meme-ing on the people that want to put stuff like "API" or "fuck u/spez" on the canvas and I do not see the positive in meme-ing on them since that's pretty much the only thing left to do.

I'm having fun with the Fediverse. I'm pretty sure Reddit doesn't care if everyone leaves. I still like reading news about them but I've not been back. If I accidentally click on someone's posted reddit link (happens a lot - trying to retrain!) I back out quick before it loads.

I have to say though, I'm going through Reddit withdrawal this week. I've also moved away from Twitter. Even though the Fediverse is great, it's still growing and the apps don't have everything I need. I've been grumpy and unsettled and 100% it's because my beautiful Reddit app and routine has gone away.

I still like reading news about them but I’ve not been back. If I accidentally click on someone’s posted reddit link (happens a lot - trying to retrain!) I back out quick before it loads.

This is the whole reason I still haven't uninstalled Boost. It doesn't work anymore but it's still set to open as my default, so if I ever click by accident, I'm met with a blank screen before I remember.

There’s a boost for Lemmy. Idk if it’s ready (I’m on iOS, but used to use boost on android, and I miss it so much, I just come across the news now and then), but you might be able to test it if not!

https://lemmy.world/c/boostforlemmy

Not on Lemmy, so I've just consented to wave sadly as my old love passes me by. It was a fantastic app and will continue to be. Kbin's waiting on Artemis, and until then I'm surprisingly satisfied. I do appreciate it, though!

Don't worry it will get better and in the long term you will feel even better than before you quit reddit. For me quitting reduced the time spent on my phone by more than an hour per day.

Love the top comment on this post data “API” that’s funny.

Oh, the IPO must be really imminent then.

Nice to see that r/place is going about as well as I was expecting it to (surprised the "FUCK SPEZ" stuff has lasted as long as it has). Does anyone want to place any bets on how long the "FUCK SPEZ" messages will last before Reddit's censors admins come and get rid of them? This is going to result in some well deserved bad publicity for the site if any of this ends up being censored, or ends up in the final canvas, so they're damned if they censor any of this stuff and damned if they don't lmao.

I'm just wondering how they're going to censor it once all the API and "fuck u/spez" slogans form

Same way they did last time. The rules don't apply to them.

I feel like instead of writing 'fuck spez' on reddit, the best decision is to ditch it completely. I mean, I do still visit reddit due to some niche communities that don't have that big of a user-base on lemmy, but clearly reddit exists for 10+ years. The change can't happen overnight. In any case, I am still astonished by how quickly lemmy got that much traffic. From a small village, it has turned into a city, it's incredible. :)