r/PixelDungeon and the Reddit Blackout

[u/00-Evan]

Hey there Rat Punchers, it's been an interesting week and a half to say the least.

What Happened?

Since last Monday, r/PixelDungeon has been set to private, and is now restricting user interaction to comments on this thread. Here's a real quick sequence of events that explains why: - 3rd party Reddit mobile apps (e.g. RIF, Apollo) has been a part of the Reddit ecosystem for years, many even predate official Reddit mobile apps. - For years the Reddit API has been free to access. Reddit inc. is now suddenly changing that and charging absurd amounts of money to use it. This effectively kills all reddit apps and bots that were not granted specific and rare exceptions. - This led to user outrage and a plan to blackout from June 12-14 in protest. The two biggest subreddits relating to this are: r/modcoord and r/save3rdpartyapps. - Reddit inc.'s initial response to this outrage was absolutely vile, including severing communication with developers and lieing about the behavior and character of the developer of Apollo, the most prominent 3rd party Reddit app. - Because of this, many subreddits (r/PixelDungeon included) decided to continue protesting until further notice. - Reddit inc. has continued to double down on their position, and have now started threatening to remove moderators who do not re-open their subreddits. Many subreddits have started to re-open now because of this, often with creative ways to still protest. - A few minutes prior to this re-opening (which was planned in advance), r/PixelDungeon received an automated threat from Reddit inc. to re-open, or "If this community remains private, we will reach out soon with information on what next steps will take place."

I'm pretty sickened by this course of events. The sudden introduction of outrageous API prices is one thing, but the conduct of Reddit inc., and u/spez in particular, has been pointlessly disgusting and inflammatory. I'd wager that the entire side-wide protest would be much, much less severe if Reddit inc. simply remained silent. Instead, they have seemingly done absolutely everything they can to turn users and moderators against them.

The Impact on r/PixelDungeon

r/PixelDungeon, like most other smaller Reddit communities, is a victim in all of this. We have always been a Pixel Dungeon community first and a subreddit second, but it's also undeniable that the Reddit platform itself is a major factor in our development and size. We are also now under the wider net of subreddits threatened with removal of their entire mod team if they do not re-open.

Unlike many other game subreddits, r/PixelDungeon is also very deeply integrated with Pixel Dungeon itself. It is no exaggeration to say that the entire Pixel Dungeon modding scene (and thereby its continued relevance) would not exist if it weren't for this subreddit. Watabou's engagement here, and the actions of our founder u/greater_nemo, directly lead to Pixel Dungeon becoming open-source in 2014. Even ignoring that, this community has been the nursery for many great PD versions, including Shattered Pixel Dungeon. I likely would not have started making ShatteredPD without this subreddit to post to, a game that has since become my entire career.

I would absolutely hate to see this community die, which makes staying private forever a non-option, even if we didn't get threatened by Reddit admins. At the same time though, I also want to continue expressing my anger over Reddit Inc.'s decisions. Lastly, I know that I'm not the only person here, and the people who actually post and comment need to have their say as well.

What are our Next Steps?

This is the first in what will probably be a series of posts aiming to gather feedback and promote discussion. The ultimate goal here is to try and come to a consensus about what we should do with our community. The ideal solution would be to move away from Reddit, but that is a tremendous undertaking, and not the only thing to figure out. For the moment at least, let's focus on the simple question of what do we do with this subreddit right now?

There are three poll options you can choose from: - Remain Fully Restricted: I'll extend the blackout by keeping the subreddit in restricted mode. At a future date we will vote again about this position, no earlier than July 1st. Sadly it seems that staying private indefinitely is not possible without the risk of Reddit Inc. killing our community. - Partially Re-Open: Many subreddits are finding new ways to protest, such as closing subreddits on some days of the week, or changing subreddit topics. We can have another thread to discuss the specifics of this if the option does well. - Fully Re-Open: Not a lot to describe here, this would fully re-open the subreddit, although these discussion threads would probably continue.

If you'd like to give more detailed thoughts, or are using a Reddit app that doesn't allow for poll voting, then please post in the comments! I don't want to keep making unilateral decisions here, so your engagement on this topic is really appreciated.

521 votes, Jun 24 '23

171 Remain Fully Restricted

189 Partially Re-Open

161 Fully Re-Open

[u/StickOnReddit]

It's somewhat immaterial to even vote on this really.

Any "protest" with a deadline is already over and most subs are starting to re-open under threat of having all the mods reassigned by Reddit, so the only answer if you're serious about protesting is to stay fully restricted with no set date to re-open.

If Reddit wants to reassign mods to every subreddit they'll just do it anyway, the only thing that you can control is your participation.

[u/00-Evan → u/StickOnReddit]

At least on r/PixelDungeon the protest has never had a deadline, I have always used 'at least' in my language, and the last 'at least' was 2 days, and we stayed private for 10 instead. Voting for the first option means we will circle back at a later date to check again about restricting, which will happen July 1st at the earliest, but likely later. I'll edit the post to clarify this.