LMAO UPDATE:
Nayaor: lol this [post] is so funny
they really don’t care
so we’re all good
So, recently replit’s discord invite has been paused and we found out:
TL;DR: To summarize, basically the mods have been blamed for replit’s wrong doings and are being paid about 21 dollars for it. So they get to be the scapegoat and they get 21 dollars. (they raised fair complaints about the way that the replit discord was being run – that is, on site admins doing things willy nilly without ever interacting with the discord community and consulting the mods).
here’s the google doc
Here’s the text ver:
Hi everyone! This doc aims to explain what has happened recently and why five out of the six active moderators have suddenly resigned. I (Nayoar) am writing this on behalf of cnnd, Dart, frissyn, PotentialStyx, Snow, and myself, at 13:30 UTC on 13th Jan 2023.
On 10th Jan, Lena (a paid community manager at Replit) deleted the Staff role in the Discord server, with no warning and no attempt to fix any permissions. This was the final straw for us after several instances of changes being made to the server without our input. A few hours later, I sent a doc with the following text in #mods, pinging Zwack and Lena.
A Letter from the Moderators of the Replit Discord Server to the Replit Community Managers
Hi everyone, I hope you’re all having a great day.
Everything I say in this message is fully agreed on and supported by myself, cnnd, Dart, frissyn, PotentialStyx, and Snow.
Please understand that what I say in this message is not intended as a personal attack on any individual. I believe that all the people involved are making the decisions they think are best for the community.
I and other moderators of this server have previously expressed our concerns with how this server is being run. Several significant decisions have been made by someone who barely interacts with the server’s community, and does not consult with or even inform the team who actively moderate the server. Between the six people mentioned above is a total of over 16 years’ membership of this server and 500,000 messages sent; we think it is reasonable that we should be informed about any planned changes, before they happen. Examples of changes we were not informed of include Lena becoming the server owner, the server being put forward for Discord’s verification program, the server logo being changed, and most recently, the Staff role being deleted, which significantly impacts the way permissions are set for a number of channels.
What we want is simple and hopefully not a burden. We want ALL changes to the server, other than those which are truly urgent, to be proposed in #mods an absolute minimum of 24 hours before they will take effect. If any active moderators disagree, the change MUST be discussed, and delayed if necessary, and if the consensus is that the change is harmful to the community or to our ability to moderate, it will not be made.
We (I, cnnd, Dart, frissyn, PotentialStyx, and Snow) will not be moderating the server until this is explicitly agreed to by both Lena and Nathan. We are sorry to have to do this, but these concerns have been brought before, to no effect.
Another issue some of us see is that those employed to grow and improve the community have had little or no effect. In the last 6 months alone, the server has grown from 17,000 to 20,000 members; such rapid increase must be met with dynamic change and innovation from those whose job it is.
A final note is that we have been told in the past we would receive Replit’s Hacker plan for free as some sort of payment for our efforts, but this has recently stopped. We would like this to resume - it seems like a minimal reward for what would otherwise be a full-time job for multiple people.
Thank you very much for reading this and we hope you give it serious consideration.
Nayoar, cnnd, Dart, frissyn, PotentialStyx, and Snow
Zwack responded within an hour. His message was full of support and understanding, and he promised to address the issues we raised. We are very grateful to him for this.
Over the next hours, we received rumours from a few sources about what the official Replit response might entail. We were told there would be big changes, one of which might have been the Discord server being made unofficial. Obviously, we thought this was not a good thing, but we were also worried how it might be handled - the expectation was that while the server would be made unofficial, Lena would remain the owner and in control. This seemed like the worst possible outcome, so we briefly discussed approaches, and I regret to say that I even considered blackmailing Replit to make them give up control of the server if they made it unofficial. Also during this time, at least two of us were sent aggressive DMs by members of the Replit team.
Two days later, on 12th Jan, Lena posted Replit’s official response. We won’t be publicising the full doc but here are some excerpts:
Looking at the data, our server has 20k members but only ~1400 visitors and ~200 communicators in any given week. Users who have left shared the sentiment that they didn’t feel welcome or that the tone of the Discord was too negative. This is a Discord for the Replit Community of learners, creators, builders, professionals, and more. Our focus is on enabling all of these kinds of users to create and build on Replit. Moderators help ensure we can continue to do that!
However, the way moderators have represented the moderator team and Replit to the wider community has not aligned with the Moderator Code of Conduct or Replit’s Community Values which both focus on empowering users and being respectful to all members within the channel.
We want to reward mods who help make this server a great place! All current moderators who are interested in continuing to moderate must complete this form [linked] by January 20th. If you are selected, you will be notified via Discord DM.
All current mods will receive 3 months of Hacker immediately as a thank you for your contributions to this server. If you no longer wish to continue as a moderator due to these changes, please let us know. We understand and hope you’ll remain a part of our community.
You can imagine how this made us feel - having the server’s problems blamed entirely on us, having to reapply to keep our positions, and being told our hundreds of hours of contribution are worth a grand total of $21 for each of us, while our legitimate concerns are brushed aside. In the next few hours, Dart, frissyn, PotentialStyx, Snow, and I all resigned in response to this. At time of writing, it is uncertain whether cnnd and Hithere will continue as moderators.
I hope that clears up any questions. I want to thank Zwack for being really kind and supportive throughout these events, and for always valuing our efforts. If there’s anything more you want to know, feel free to DM me, though I may not answer your questions.
Nayoar
So, now that replit has essentially got all the replit discord mods to quit in protest and for what they did wrong, I think it’s safe to say combined with the recent monetary shift and some other complaints (like the UI, how replit has changed how posts work, the community, and general lawlessness and toxicity), I think that replit has to change it’s community quick or… I’m just up and leaving
thanks