I’ve been the main moderator of the same community since 2016. This evening, i approved my last comment.
I’m leaving for two reasons:
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Reddit went public a week ago. I didn’t volunteer to work for a publicly traded company, i volunteered to work for a community. As long as i live under capitalism i accept that my labor will generate value for shareholders, but damned if i ever do it for free. (this is not a Faulkner quote)
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April 1st is coming and i’m scared they might do another r/place. Doing in r/place 2022 and 2023 has left me dejected and bitter and i don’t want to feel obligated to participate again.
Leaving felt like ripping myself off of something warm i’ve been comfortably glued to for a long time. Still recommend it for anyone still giving Reddit shareholders free labor
EDIT: there are too many comments to respond to, but i’ve appreciated all of them! Thank you
The first r/place was one of those unique events in history. The later ones didn’t work because people now knew what it was, techniques to use, and of course bots. I think the most enjoyable was how it not only sparked comradery within various subreddits to support their design and keep it alive, it also brought together some “opponents” to do the same (thinking my experience with the Star Citizen/Elite Dangerous agreement to help each other).
Also streamers were a lot more influential on place 22 and 23 than they were in 17. Streamers are external to the website, don’t particularly have a dog in the race other than themselves, are encouraged to create spectacle, and the kind of personality that makes you a big streamer is not conducive to being a good neighbor in a competitive pixel art game. So while i hesitate to say that there was anything about Reddit in particular that made Place 2017 a good event, i do think the presence of streamers made 22 and 23 much worse.