Announcement: Sanderson Subreddits Reopening, Further Protest Plans, and more

Background

Reddit recently announced changes to API access pricing that are anticipated to result in the death of most commercial third party mobile applications (which twenty percent of our subreddits use to access the site, per our annual survey data), impact the moderability of massive subreddits, and interfere with the ability of blind and visually impaired users to use the platform.

In response to these changes, our community voted to go dark for one week in protest, and then hold a follow-up poll. At the end of the one-week closure, we reopened the subreddit and conducted both a poll and a separate survey intended to help us understand the meaning of the results.

Due to a sleepy moderator error in setting up the poll, the poll was set to run for three days rather than the two that we announced it would run. We made it clear that we would evaluate after forty-eight hours, and screen captured the results at forty-eight hours. An image of that screen shot is below.

Topline Results

On the question of ending the blackout, there were 1521 votes to end the blackout and 1302 votes to continue the blackout.

On the question of continuing to protest in some form, there were 1523 votes to continue protesting in some form and approximately 1300 votes to fully return to normal.

Accordingly, we will be reopening these subreddits immediately. However, we will also be continuing to protest. Both of these represent the clearly expressed will of the community.

Community Priorities

One of the questions in the survey asked what community member priorities are, and the answers to that question were:

1. continue to protest until something changes

2. have somewhere to discuss sp3

3. remain with the community

4. continue to protest out of principle

5. return to normal

Some of the middle rankings were close, but the top and bottom were not — just under a third of members who voted in the survey thought that continuing to protest until something changes was the most important option, and just over half of community members who voted in the survey thought that returning to normal was the least important option.

It's also fairly clear that providing a space to discuss Secret Project 3 is very important; not only did a third of the community rank that as the second most important option, but another seventeen percent ranked it as the most important option.

We interpret the answers to the priorities question as telling us it is extremely important to the community that we both continue to protest and that we have a place to discuss SP3, and that it isn't particularly important that we "get back to normal".

Further Protest Plans

The following are some protest plans we've decided on, based on your input from the survey.

Stickied Megathread

54 percent of the community has voted to maintain a stickied megathread about the protest. We will maintain a stickied megathread about the protest in r/brandonsanderson, and we will rotate weekly to prevent the conversation from becoming stale.

Please note that we will also use this megathread to conduct periodic surveys about whether to continue, alter, or end protest measures over time.

Automod Reminders

41 percent of the community has voted to have automod reminders about the protests. We will set up automod in all four subreddits (r/brandonsanderson, r/mistborn, r/cosmere, and r/stormlight_archive) with a short automod response to posts, directing people to the stickied megathread.

Restricted access two days per week

57 percent of the community voted for a continued "partial" or "minimal" blackout on a weekly basis. Between the overall sentiment to end the blackout and the strong support for having spaces to discuss Secret Project 3, we're not sure this is strong enough of a majority to enforce something like this. After a lot of discussion today, with various opinions among the moderators, we feel that the best compromise here, and the best way to honor the priority of continuing to protest, is the following:

We will set all four subreddits to Restricted two days per week (Tuesdays and Wednesdays) with commenting allowed. We plan to create a few general purpose discussion threads (as long as people are being careful with spoilers), but posting will not be allowed.

This was the most difficult decision, so bear with us, and make sure to make your voice heard in next week's poll. Let us know if we need to be protesting more aggressively, or if we need to tone it down!

Reddit Alternatives

We're hearing that MANY of you are deeply frustrated with Reddit and would prefer to find an alternative, either as somewhere to move permanently or otherwise. We plan to help people find alternate homes and, if there is continued interest, to establish a new community, and we have spent the last ten days working hard to research our options. We're not ready to make an announcement on this front, but we do hope to have an update next Tuesday, in the first protest megathread. So keep your eyes out for that.

Just to be clear, the subreddits aren't going anywhere. This is only for those of you who are interested.

Summary and Final Thoughts

So that's all we have to say right now. The subreddits are open, and we're going to start implementing additional protest measures (megathread, automod replies) as soon as possible. Next Tuesday and Wednesday (Pacific Time) will mark our first pair of Restricted days. The first megathread will also go up on Tuesday, with any updates we gather over the next week as well as an additional poll for continued feedback.

This has been a really difficult issue for a lot of people with very different opinions. Please continue to be patient with us and, most importantly, one another! If you have any questions, concerns, or anything else you want to discuss, please share in the comments or contact the moderators directly.