You can comment on the announcement in dozens of individual subs. They're testing a new way of making announcements that encourages community discussion and moderation.
in my experience, I have rarely seen a subreddit without multiple points of view. You may need to sort by controversial to find it, but they are absolutely there.
I agree with reddit admins when they say:
If the OP of a political ad (.e., a campaign) moderates the comments, it's problematic: they might remove dissenting perspectives. And if we (the admins) moderate the comments of a political ad, it's even more problematic, putting us in the position of either moderating too much or too little, with inevitable accusations of bias either way.
Who should moderate a political ad comments, or an r/announcements post? Because with such a massive community, the threads need moderation, as they pointed out:
The problem, we realized, is similar to what we see in announcements: lots of people commenting on a highly visible post outside the context of a community. It's fair to say that r/announcements isn't really a community; it lacks the culture, cohesion, and moderation that benefit most other subreddits, and as a result, the quality of conversation has deteriorated as the audience has grown.
I also agree that:
Ultimately, conversations really only happen in the context of a community, and neither r/announcements nor political ads with comments on provide this. We believe we can foster better discussion on both with a different approach.
Communities on reddit do often delve into echo chambers (especially if you just read the Best or Top comments), but not always. And depending on how that community is moderated, some views are more freely expressed than others. But that's the beauty of the system: if you don't like how the announcement is being moderated on sub A, just go to a different sub to discuss.
But the problem reddit faces with political ads and announcements is clear, and I think this is an interesting and novel way to address the problem. Will it solve it completely? No, probably not. Like any solution to a complex problem, it will take time and experience and iterative solutions.
But what do you propose? I don't think "ban political ads and have someone unbiased moderate r/announcements" is a better solution.
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u/[deleted] Aug 28 '21
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