Reddit is bringing back r/Place at perhaps the worst possible time

www.theverge.com Reddit is bringing back r/Place at perhaps the worst possible time

What could go wrong?

Reddit is bringing back r/Place at perhaps the worst possible time::Reddit is bringing back r/Place — a collaborative project where individual users can edit pixels on a giant canvas — at a time when user dissatisfaction with the platform is very high.

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So anyone want to take a guess at the dimensions of the giant "fuck /u/spez" ?
- Its enough to make me log into Reddit again. Wait a second...
  
  If we're patient, we can see it play out a dozen times in YouTube videos without giving Reddit any traffic.
  
  Edit: I am not patient.
  
  We shall eagerly await your report. Lol
  
  Sounds like a plan! Time to log in on my Reddit account.... wait... oh.... right 😏
- That would require logging into Reddit. I have a feeling this is to boost clicks for a really poor months performance so they can say “look 3rd party apps being dead is fine!”
  
  Ding ding ding
  
  I mean, its pretty transparent attempt by spez to boost.interactions with the site, but that won't stop people from doing exactly what spez wants them to do.
  
  True but surely a full page spez hate graphic wouldn't do well for them.
  
  this is their cnn trump town hall. ten bucks says traffic spikes for /r/place and then drops below pre-/r/place levels.
  
  Tbf, I don’t recall r/Place ever working on 3rd-party clients.
- Admin can remove it easily like last year. They removed several things they didn't want.
  
  I'm hoping sentiment is shared enough for this not to be effective. We'll see
That doesn't seem like a prudent idea.

"Hmm, a lot of people are incredibly unhappy with decisions we've made in relation to Reddit, we should give them a highly visible visual way to express themselves and see what happens!"
- Spez has almost never had the gift of foresight.
  
  What do you mean? I heard that he sees great potential in the youth.
  
  Spez has never had the gift of foresight. Reddit was Paul Graham's idea after he shot down the idea that Huffman and Ohanian pitched
  
  https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/09/how-steve-huffman-and-alexis-ohanian-built-reddit
  
  Even the laser eye surgery couldn’t fix it.
  
  You don't need foresight when you can just go into the database and rewrite history.
- No such thing as bad publicity and for reddit's case no such thing as bad user engagement. He could right in that area. As much as reddit users complain as long as they keep engaged with the platform instead of doing it somewhere else and keep visiting it frequently to vent their frustrations it's a win. Engagement is engagement.
- Place was always very popular, it makes sense to roll it out whenever publicity tanks.
  
  But it’s just the randomness of it being release on a random july Wednesday just over a year after releasing the last one. Idk if people will care as much about this one
- You can bet your ass it will be heavily moderated.
- I couldn’t have said it better
Its a trap. The best way to fight reddit is to not even engage. Imagine r/place was left blank because no one was there.
- Imagine r/place was left blank because no one was there.
  
  That would be amazing but also not gonna happen
  
  Edit: instead maybe the mods at r/pics can convince everyone to only place white pixels on the canvas
  
  Especially since it was revealed Reddit employees had access to /r/places without a timer. They'd just fill it with random shit if it was dead (which it won't be, because streamers will get people to flock there regardless).
  
  One massive, throbbing, pixelated John Oliver.
  
  It's funny how individually we can do the right thing but together is a whole other beast.
Oops! All swastikas!
- It'll probably be a giant "Fuck /u/spez"
  
  Nah it will be covered up by the admin brigade and cause more Trubble for reddit.
  
  then spez will ban every account that contributed to it
Sadly, nothing bad will happen to reddit no matter how many people try to protest with pixel art on /r/place. Last year, admins unabashedly removed entire swathes of canvas that they deemed inappropriate, sometimes catching legitimate art in the crossfire. Not to mention the admin who got caught red handed placing multiple pixels off of the timer, with video evidence.

So no, a giant fuck /u/spez will never be allowed to exist long enough to be anywhere close to complete. They'll do the same thing to any API related banner or whatever you might think of.

The best thing you can do is not engage. They are doing this again so soon after the last one because they desperately need clicks and traffic to boost their site metrics for the upcoming IPO.

Besides, it's just going to be a canvas covered 75% in flags maintained by bots anyway because reddit sucks at programming in safeguards to prevent abuse, so your 1 pixel of contribution won't mean squat.
- I don't know. The users are way smarter than the admins. I'm sure people can think of a way to do it that the mods won't notice until it's too late.
I was looking forward to the next version of r/place in a couple years. Now it’s just utterly pathetic pandering to attempt to bring disaffected users back to the site
The thing I want to know is - are they going to try and block any mention of Fedi or Lemmy on the canvas?
- I guarantee you they've got a flock of admins sitting there with the tool to replace any pixels they want.
  
  Didn't that happen last time?
This isn't the worst time, it's the best time.

If you think like a capitalist, for their IPO it's a catcher to show how strong and big the community is. Investors would love this.
- Because the Reddit hive mind will most likely use it as a form of protest against spez. I also agree that it's the best time, going to go get me my popcorn and enjoy the art
  
  There's a great Lenin quote about it: "The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." If your goal is profit you will do anything for it, including letting the customers publicly shame you or your company.
  
  That said, I imagine Spez being petty enough interfere with the protest.
- What better way to create the image of a thriving userbase, than for your userbase to literally create the image.
  
  Can we make a lemmy logo on it?
- Yes but what sorts of images are going to coalesce, I wonder.
Let’s organize to post a message “Use Lemmy.world”
- Why Lemmy world specifically? I'd just go for Lemmy in general and then it's a shorter message and doesn't lead to Lemmy world becoming even more bloated/slow.
  
  “Use Lemmy” works for me
  
  Joining lemmy.world is a very straightforward replacement for reddit. "Join Lemmy.World" is a much more effective message than "do some research about various instances, register with one that federates with other instances you find interesting, and subscribe to specific communities by searching for them".
  
  I think people on Lemmy.world wants every Lemmy user to be on their instance. I have never seen any other instance post so much messages about how people should that instance instead of joining the network.
  
  Centralized will lead to a lot of issues for Lemmy but I guess people need to learn that.
- And drive traffic to reddit? Nah
- Lemmy show you the way.
- I just created a community for this! Head over to !place_join_lemmy@lemmy.world of you want to help out with construction when the time comes!
  
  The actual pixel art, I believe, should read
  
  Fuck Reddit
  Join Lemmy
  [lemmy link]
This has been crossposted on so many communities, please, stop beating this particular dead horse. I am sick of hearing about Reddit.
- It does feel like a lot of people here are more angry about their ex than enjoying their new freedom doesn't it?
  
  Just complaining to the new relationship.
- Right? Keep this shit to c/reddit.
- It's the same thing with Elon/Twitter posts on Mastodon, it's like half the content on there!
I KNEW IT LOL
I thought that they'd try to bring this back to get media attention and traffic from fans of YouTubers if they try to get involved, to try to divert attention from their shitty management of the site
Still won't go back. Am happy here.

But just imagine, only a handful of people with bots on their hands. This could end up in a fucking shitshow deluxe.
I don't want to give Reddit any traffic BUT this might be a good opportunity to let people know of alternatives like Lemmy!
- My cynical guess is that's what they're hoping the community will do ("like lemmings, I tell you!" - spez, probably) to drive higher traffic numbers before some announcement or meeting.
Maybe we should write lemmy somewhere...
- But that would require us to use Reddit, which I think may be their plan all along.
  
  Don't be surprised when the Lemmy pixels are suddenly overwritten by spez.
- For real though, fuck Spez.
Last time I was happily making the Skyrim logo with r/Skyrim. This time I won't participate. Losing reddit still hurts but I'm happy to be here with y'all.
So… how many divksnare going to get drawn with spez’s name on it?

Edit: chtorr is probably gonna get caught over painting things again. Probably even has minions doing it this time
Is there a way to see what's happening to r/place without actually going to reddit? (like a stream or something.) I don't want to give them the traffic.
- Great though!
- The more recent Verge article includes a gallery of some progress images: https://www.theverge.com/2023/7/20/23801716/reddits-r-place-protest-art
It is impressive the lengths that Reddit will reach to ignore their protesting users. They make one tone-deaf decision after another. r/Place should be quite entertaining.
Let's wait for the anti-reddit pixel art. Mods will "cheat" and remove it before it stays too long.

And maybe it will even be removed from the "public" data.
- Someone who knows how needs to save a copy of whatever gets posted often.
That's a whole lot of "fuck spez". Well done, strangers.
Why are they bringing it back? It was always a April fools thing?
- My personal theory: to offset activity losses and show shareholders that they can still drive engagement.
- It's their "use in case of emergency" tool.
  
  It was popular so they are bringing it out as a distraction.
Admins will watching it and nuking giant spots every few minutes like they did last time, when they didn't consider it advertiser or IPO friendly enough.
They know what they're doing....
Void is gonna do real well this year, I'd imagine.
We need a team to collaborate and make a large ad for Lemmy.
Negative engagement is still engagement... is what spez would say.
Oh shit! It's not a joke ??? I saw that early today and imagined how stupid it would be to launch another r/place right now. Grabs some popcorn people, it's going to be interesting to watch.
Fixing the Titanic with chewing gum...
- ... and they forgot to chew it first!
I’m gonna be cracking out the popcorn for this one.
That suuuurely won't blow up in spez's stupid face /s
Wish I still had a reddit account to help write fuck u/spez
I just don’t have enough pop corn for this shitshow
Oh this is gonna be fun
Given the dimensions are huge, the opportunity for a gigantic manipulated photorealistic image is there. How about a photo of Spez sucking an entire bag of dicks.
And I'll gladly scroll past from here what someone else is willing to post when they do.

130 comments