https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/141oqn8/api_updates_questions/
created by lift_ticket83 on 05/06/2023 at 19:17 UTC
0 upvotes, 104 top-level comments (showing 25)
Hi Mods,
We’re providing a follow-up on the last API update[1] we made to make sure our mods, developers, and users have clarity on changes we are (and aren’t) making.
1: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/13wshdp/api_update_continued_access_to_our_api_for/
This exists and continues to be available.
We will ensure existing utilities, **especially moderation tools**, have free access to our API. We will support legal and non-commercial tools like Toolbox, Context Mod, Remind Me, and anti-spam detection bots. And if they break, we will work with you to fix them.
Developers can continue non-commercial usage of the API, free of charge within stated rates. Reddit is also covering hosting for apps via the Developer Platform, which uses the Data API.
Here’s our roadmap of the mobile mod tools we are shipping in the near future:
A new comment with enterprise pricing details is here[2]; note that we are not charging for mod actions.
Finally, these updates have no bearing on old reddit and sexually explicit content is *still* allowed on Reddit, as long as it abides by our policies.
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A: If usage is legal, non-commercial, and of reasonable scale – especially if it helps our mods, and keeps our users safe – you should not be impacted. We will work to ensure your tools face as little disruption as possible.
If these tools break, we will work with you to fix them.
The reality is that one size does not fit all and our general terms and rates need to account for unknown users and bad actors.
A: The vast majority of API users will not have to pay for access and can continue operating as is.
The Reddit Data API is free to use within the published rate limits and subject to our Developer Terms[3] and Data API Terms[4].
3: https://www.redditinc.com/policies/developer-terms
4: https://www.redditinc.com/policies/data-api-terms
If your app needs to run at a scale above the published rate limits, let us know; if it adheres to our terms and is a legitimate mod bot, you most likely do not need to pay–we’ve already got a few exceptions in place.
If you are concerned or confused, get in touch with us, and we will work with you to remove any hurdles as quickly as possible. Popular moderation tools are on our radar and things we are proactively looking into supporting, in the (often unlikely) case that they may break.
A: No. These changes have no implications for old Reddit or the future of NSFW on Reddit.
A: No. Access to all subreddits will continue to be available to free-tier developers via the API, granted their apps are not third-party UIs.
Sexually explicit content will be restricted within third-party UIs. ~~Access will be limited to moderation views within those apps.~~ This plan has changed since this was posted to our Dev Platform community earlier today. **Moderators will be able to see sexually-explicit content even on subreddits they don't directly moderate.**
SFW, and NSFW communities that are not primarily for sexually explicit content, are not impacted at all.
A: This should not be impacted on Reddit native apps/sites, or for most free-tier users of the API.
We know this question also applies to modding on third-party apps. ~~The team is looking into this and will update you when we have more helpful information.~~ This plan has changed since this was posted to our Dev Platform community earlier today. **Moderators will be able to see sexually-explicit content even on subreddits they don't directly moderate.**
Please let us know in the comments below if you have any questions about these upcoming changes.
Comment by heyjoshturner at 05/06/2023 at 20:01 UTC
190 upvotes, 4 direct replies
The Reddit Data API is free to use within the published rate limits and subject to our Developer Terms and Data API Terms.
I'm the developer of Pager[1] - I don't charge for it, it is non-commercial, I have plenty of mods who use it but also non-mods.
Are you still changing the current rate limit of 60 requests per minute **per user** to 100 requests per minute per **client id**?
Comment by p337 at 05/06/2023 at 20:25 UTC*
179 upvotes, 5 direct replies
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encrypted on 2023-08-16
see profile for how to decrypt
Comment by PabloHonorato at 05/06/2023 at 19:33 UTC
101 upvotes, 1 direct replies
What about the elephant in the room, Pushshift?
Comment by Empole at 05/06/2023 at 19:48 UTC
205 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I'm dissapointed in this FAQ. The questions responded to are largely straw-men of the legitimate concerns people have, and still leave the largest questions unaddressed.
It is still ambiguous whether moderators will be able to leverage 3rd party Reddit clients as moderation tools for example.
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And if they break, we will work with you to fix them.
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Reddit is also covering hosting for apps via the Developer Platform, which uses the Data API.
My understanding is that the Developer Platform has major usability issues for anything but the most trivial bots, and also largely has no migration path for existing services that weren't written in typescript.
Per one of the early beta testers:
When looking at the API, the way we get all of the information we need, we have access to a fairly large amount of information. The Developer Platform, while it has its uses, is not designed with large and busy bots in mind. It's much better suited for entry-level 'learning to code' style bots that we see frequently pop up on the site. Issues from data usage limits, data storage limits (500kb! Our database in Blossom is over 1.4GB), connecting to services outside reddit (which we have gotten special permissions for, I'll give them that), and more plague the development experience at the time of this writing.
Comment by IAmKindOfCreative at 05/06/2023 at 20:44 UTC
72 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So this quote:
We will ensure existing utilities, especially moderation tools, have free access to our API. We will support legal and non-commercial tools like Toolbox, Context Mod, Remind Me, and anti-spam detection bots. **And if they break, we will work with you to fix them.**
(Emphasis by me)
Does not inspire confidence following a separate admins response when the Apollo app dev, u/iamthatis asked for clarification about improving their app and was met with this reply[1]:
Having developers ask this question of themselves is the main point of having a cost associated with access in the first place. How might your app be more efficient?
Which pretty clearly reads as, "Figure it out yourself."
I get that Reddit has an obligation to its shareholders, but because I understand that obligation, I lack the willingness to believe any of these promises will be preserved. The additional shiny bobbles of the Reddit app "coming soon" meant to distract mods here instead only acts to highlight all the reasons mods should not trust a reddit app made by Reddit in a vacuum without competition. Many of these features are basic, and should have been baked into the app ages ago.
Comment by lowkeyterrible at 05/06/2023 at 19:37 UTC
140 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Q: How will rate limits impact my bot that is used for moderation, fighting spam, or is non-commercial? ContextMod, Toolbox, anti-spam bots, remindmebot, etc.
A: If usage is legal, non-commercial, and of **reasonable scale** – especially if it helps our mods, and keeps our users safe – you should not be impacted. We will work to ensure your tools face as little disruption as possible.
Can you clarify what "reasonable scale" means?
A lot of us rely on 3rd party bots for moderation tools. /u/SafestBot is one of the more important parts of our setup on /r/me_irlgbt due to the huge amount of brigades we get. We are not able to make our own bot, so we rely on the work /u/blank-cheque has put into maintaining this. Given AEO's lack of response to community interference, I doubt this feature is going to be turned into a native reddit feature any time soon. Safestbot has to look at every user in almost 500 subreddits. Is that reasonable? If not, what do you propose communities do when they rely on tools like this?
Comment by myalterego451 at 05/06/2023 at 19:55 UTC
321 upvotes, 4 direct replies
This is ludicrous. The Mod Community has been crying out for months and months for proper mod tools across all platforms - I cannot see the (proper) Mod Queue, the Reported Queue, the Removed Queue or the UnModerated Queue in the Android native app, and this is the reason I use Boost.
(I would actually use Boost for everything, but of course DMs and chats were never released on the API, so I have to use two apps, but that's irrelevant now)
To turn off third-party access before the native app has all Mod tools in it is just plain dumb - a large proportion of your (unpaid volunteer) Moderators are losing tools from their armoury with nothing to replace them.
You mention that there is a mod queue upgrade due out this week - any more details on this, or are all the queues properly serviced only in the September update ?
Have you fixed the borked chat Vs legacy chat issue yet ? Will I be forced to choose between functioning queues or a functioning chat if I allow the coming update ?
Comment by Jordan117 at 05/06/2023 at 19:30 UTC
146 upvotes, 1 direct replies
1. This does not address the imminent bankruptcy of third-party Reddit apps, which is driving the majority of this backlash.
2. Even if third-party tools like bots are not directly affected, their maintainers and users *disproportionately* rely on third-party Reddit apps to moderate and browse the site, and many are now threatening to quit the site and take their critical tools offline in protest if their favorite apps are forced to shut down by the exorbitant API costs.
These changes affect a tiny percentage of Reddit's userbase. But this tiny percentage are the most engaged power users that help make the site go at every level, far more than multiple millions of lurkers and occasional commenters. Read up on the 1% Rule[1] of social media. Y'all are screwing with the load-bearing walls holding up the inverted pyramid of your entire business model.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_rule
Comment by MinimumArmadillo2394 at 05/06/2023 at 19:22 UTC
142 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I think you all have kind of lost the whole point.
The app is trash. The third party apps aren't. That's the main point here. The app is trash when it comes to moderation and general use.
Between accessibility issues, a distinct lack of features, and a poor ease of use compared to these 3rd party apps, there is *no* reason for me to use the official app. Getting rid of 3rd party apps will just make me not use the site, that includes moderating my subreddits. Over 150 other subreddit mods feel the same way.
Comment by Empole at 05/06/2023 at 21:45 UTC
43 upvotes, 1 direct replies
There are less than 3 months separating the initial announcement on April 18th 2023[1] and start of enforcement on July 1st.
It is *exceedingly* abnormal in healthy service<->developer relationships to ship a breaking change, especially one of this magnitude, on such a tight timeline.
For example, the Chrome Web Browser is currently trying to migrate their *entire extension ecosystem* from Manifest v2 to Manifest v3. This is a disruption similar in impact to Reddit's API changes, since many browser extensions will no longer be viable after this change is finalized. The Chrome Team publicized this effort back in 2020[2] and the migration is *still ongoing*. That's over 3 years vs this timeline at less than 3 months.
2: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/intro/
Comment by MostlyBlindGamer at 05/06/2023 at 19:33 UTC
197 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Since you won’t fix accessibility issues on your website or apps, how do you expect blind and visually impaired users and mods to remain on your platform, without access to the third party UIs?
Comment by Weirfish at 05/06/2023 at 19:58 UTC*
40 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The issue with moderation on apps is that third party apps offer far better tooling than reddit's first party app, and from the sounds of things, will continue to do so.
Additionally, in order to appropriately moderate, an app must load all the data a user can load *plus more*.
This leads to an issue where, in order for reddit to serve their moderators the content they need to moderate, they must either provide only the mod tool interactions for free (which still kills the third party app), or make third party app requests free for moderators. The latter option then leads to every user making and moderating a tiny niche personal public subreddit with no intention of growing it.
This leads to reddit will either have to concede to 3PP apps (which leads to zero change), or reddit will have to raise the threshold for what they provide, which will fuck smaller subreddits made in good faith.
The solution is obvious, of course; cede absolute control over the app space, and charge third party app developers reasonable rates for their requests.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/06/2023 at 19:48 UTC
77 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This announcement addresses none of the actual issues. The fact alone that Reddit is making these drastic changes to an API they’ve been supporting for many years, with only **one month** notice, is extremely disrupting to anything interacting with it.
Reddit is not being accomodating towards third party app developers to any extent, and is now doubling down on their ridiculous new policy and pricing options.
Oh, and they’re also still limiting API access to third party apps, including removing access to all NSFW sexually explicit subreddits. But I guess that’s a moot point when third party apps are being killed off anyway.
And their official app still sucks.
Comment by TwasAnChild at 05/06/2023 at 19:24 UTC*
76 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Btw reddit your official app is down rn, we can't even remove flame baiting and hate full comments on this unstable flimsy app.
And you put up a non answer instead of fixing the mess you all created.
Edit:It's fixed now for me, now fix the reddit API pricing
Comment by [deleted] at 05/06/2023 at 21:51 UTC
71 upvotes, 1 direct replies
New Mod Stuff
Here’s our roadmap of the mobile mod tools we are shipping in the near future:
Mobile mod queue improvements - launching this week (announcement coming tomorrow)
Mod-centric User Profile Cards (faster loading time, more user information, mod actions are front and center) - launching the week of June 12
Mobile Mod Log - launching the week of June 26
Mobile Mod Insights - also launching the week of June 26
Mobile Community Rules Management (add/edit/delete rules) - launching the week of July 3
Enhanced Mobile Mod Queues (improved content density, focus on efficiency and scannability) - launching in September
Native Mobile Mod Mail - launching in September
Is this a joke?
Many of those, such as modmail and the mod log, are basic features that should have been present Day 1.
It's been 5 years since the official app was released. Instead of adding basic features during this time, you added... NFTs...
Get your priorities straight.
This is exactly why I use Apollo.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/06/2023 at 20:15 UTC
69 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Your app sucks and is not a viable product for moderating. How are you not embarrassed to type “Modmail: coming in September”? The app has been out for 5+ years and doesn’t have native modmail?
Apollo is developed by one guy and has perfectly functional moderating features, including native modmail. I won’t pretend to understand how reddit’s professional dev team can’t make an app with the same features as Apollo, but as they can’t, removing third-party apps **is** getting in the way of moderators.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/06/2023 at 05:30 UTC
66 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by YourResidentFeral at 05/06/2023 at 19:25 UTC
24 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Moderators will be able to see sexually-explicit content even on subreddits they don't directly moderate
Will this be true if I moderate on RiF?
Comment by stormfor24 at 05/06/2023 at 19:31 UTC
23 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Hey! While those changes are good us moderators need the 3rd party apps and will continue until we get them.
It also doesn't help that the official reddit app doesn't work with screen readers for vision impaired users.
Comment by hi117 at 05/06/2023 at 20:13 UTC
28 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Hey, is there a miscommunication around how billing works for 3rd party apps possibly? It makes no sense for rate limiting to be per-app instead of per-app-authorization for apps that take actions as users. For instance, RIF is authorized to act as me, but if I make a ton of requests with that authorization it shouldn't bill RIF nor should it hit rate limits for the entire system. It almost seems like it was just written wrong in the announcement. Is this the case?
Or is it that these 3rd party apps are designed poorly and they can avoid the massive billing by changing their auth model?
Comment by Aether_Storm at 06/06/2023 at 02:25 UTC*
28 upvotes, 0 direct replies
The official app is **absurdly** **enshittified** and banning third party apps for the average user does not change this.
Q: Is access to sexually explicit content/subreddits being removed from the API? How about other types of NSFW?
A: No. Access to all subreddits will continue to be available to free-tier developers via the API, granted their apps are not third-party UIs.
This statement heavily implies that pricing out third party mobile apps is the intended goal of this. But I'll ask anyway;
The official app is so heavily enshittified many people much prefer having customization over how what they see is presented.
I do all my moderation from Relay for Reddit. I think the official app is absolute garbage and only switch to it when I need to do a specific task Relay does not support. Am I shit out of luck? Will my subreddits have to go without me and the other mods like me during the time we don't have access to desktop?
Comment by Meepster23 at 05/06/2023 at 19:20 UTC
89 upvotes, 4 direct replies
So you are still trying to kill third party apps via pricing and removing access to NSFW content..
And this "update" is only "hey you can see NSFW content on stuff you don't moderate if you are a moderator"..... Great update..
Also your shit is broken and vomitting errors everywhere currently.. Keep up the solid development work
Comment by [deleted] at 05/06/2023 at 19:42 UTC*
74 upvotes, 0 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 05/06/2023 at 20:06 UTC
23 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by kittens_from_space at 05/06/2023 at 19:21 UTC*
121 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Q: Is NSFW in jeopardy? Is old Reddit next?
A: No. These changes have no implications for old Reddit or the future of NSFW on Reddit.
You will still kill old reddit one day, and it'll be the day I leave the site.
Edit: Also, this update basically says that you will be going ahead with killing third party apps. Way to go, guys!