https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/xuvkmy/announcing_consolidated_pinned_posts_on_android/
created by athleisures on 03/10/2022 at 21:10 UTC
107 upvotes, 125 top-level comments (showing 25)
Hey Mods!
I’m u/athleisures[1] a member of Reddit’s Conversation Experiences team. Over the past few months, we have been working on a variety of ways to simplify how redditors access posts and comments when visiting a subreddit. We believe that making it easier for redditors to read posts more efficiently will encourage them to engage with more content within a community.
1: https://www.reddit.com/user/athleisures
In July we ran an experiment across all of Reddit where we automatically collapsed pinned posts within a community after a redditor made two visits to that community. We were pleased to discover that reducing the scrolling length for redditors by even a *tiny* amount had positive effects. During this time period, we noticed redditors were spending more time hanging out and reading posts within a community where this experiment was enabled. Given these results, last week we launched this experiment as an official feature on Android (iOS to follow in the near future).
We understand the important role that pinned posts play within a subreddit. Oftentimes they welcome new users to a community, explain the rules of the road, and are repositories for important information like links to frequently asked questions or interesting upcoming events (i.e. gameday threads, ama’s, etc).
In order to keep highlighting this important information pinned posts will only automatically collapse after a non-mod user has visited a subreddit two times (feedback request: let us know if you think mods should see a similar experience). Pinned posts will automatically expand again if there have been any updates made to the post or if a new one has been added to the community. We believe this will help signal to redditors that new information has been added to the subreddit by mods, and that they should check it out.
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We hope the long-term effects of this new feature will continue to increase community engagement without compromising the ability of mods to convey important information to their community. Our team will continue to explore new ways to make it easier for redditors to access content more quickly, in conjunction with building new tools for surfacing rules or important information to users more efficiently (ex: potential badges or notifications showing a new pinned post has been created).
In the meantime, we are excited to hear your feedback as we continue to iterate on this feature so please feel free to share any thoughts or ask any questions in the comments below!
Comment by CaptainPedge at 03/10/2022 at 22:17 UTC
158 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Why are you actively making it harder to moderate?
Comment by CaptainPedge at 03/10/2022 at 21:42 UTC
120 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Roll this back and make it opt in.
Let me make this clear
Comment by DidItForButter at 03/10/2022 at 21:33 UTC
157 upvotes, 2 direct replies
One idea: make it a toggleable feature per post.
Second idea: maybe let us give input before you set on executing. This doesn't interfere with ads/reddit revenue, this just interferes with mods. Why not ask your SMEs on new features instead of assuming the needs and the solutions?
Comment by bwoah07_gp2 at 03/10/2022 at 22:21 UTC
68 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I haven't commented on this subreddit before. When a new post arrives I read it, digest the information, and keep my thoughts to myself. But after reading this, I feel compelled to share my two cents here.
I don't understand this feature. This is one of the most stupidest features I've seen implemented (so far.) There's a reason why we pin posts for crying outloud! It has to be there for people to see! And the rationale "We believe that making it easier for redditors to read posts more efficiently" is utter crap. I've used reddit for 3 years and been a moderator for half a year so far. I speak as a general reddit user in saying I've never been disturbed or distracted or dissuaded by pinned posts even if I've seen it everyday. I speak as a moderator in saying nobody has ever complained about stickied posts.
Reverse this change immediately.
Comment by SpartanJack17 at 03/10/2022 at 22:28 UTC
132 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Sticky posts aren't just used for announcements. A lot of subreddits use them for discussion posts, or q/a threads, or even AMAs. This massively hurts the visibility of these threads which are designed to be visited multiple times. Please either revert this or make it optional.
Comment by SaberMarie at 03/10/2022 at 21:46 UTC
109 upvotes, 2 direct replies
This is not a great idea for mods. We already struggle with the very limited 2 pins and if users sort by anything other than Hot, the pins aren't visible.
Pins are already easily missed as is. This just makes things harder for mods to manage our communities and is an all-around frustrating change.
Comment by DerekL1963 at 03/10/2022 at 21:55 UTC
106 upvotes, 1 direct replies
We understand the important role that pinned posts play within a subreddit.
You very obviously do not.
Reddit should ***never*** automatically hide a legitimate post from the reader/user.
Comment by Sun_Beams at 03/10/2022 at 21:47 UTC
99 upvotes, 2 direct replies
u/creepypumpkins I think the Reddit’s Conversation Experiences team need some mandatory Adopt-An-Admin time. This misses the mark by quite a large margin.
Comment by FinallyRage at 03/10/2022 at 21:20 UTC
94 upvotes, 2 direct replies
This is stupid, we run events on the stickies and people still miss them, collapsing them will make the even harder. 2 pins suck and are difficult enough already
Comment by KillAllTheThings at 03/10/2022 at 21:31 UTC
82 upvotes, 7 direct replies
How about pinning posts no matter how users sort their front page?
If a user sorts by anything other than "HOT" they will not see any pinned posts.
Comment by ohvalox at 03/10/2022 at 21:44 UTC
117 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Yeah noticed this a few days ago and I really, like **really** **really** dislike this. Revert ASAP.
Even in expanded form the posts are barely visible.
It's already hard enough to get people to read the most simple rules or inform them of events etc. Plus, our sub and our users heavily rely on pinned live-discussion, as do many others.
Now mobile/new Reddit has literally no way of making users aware of anything. No sidebar (which is understandable), no customization for posting, no CSS banner, and now no pinned posts. Why don't you auto-collapse pinned comments too while you're at it?
Comment by [deleted] at 03/10/2022 at 21:18 UTC
42 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Herbert_W at 03/10/2022 at 22:02 UTC
45 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'm going to join the chorus here: as an *option*, this is something that *some* subs would find useful.
As-is, it makes the problem of users not reading rules and other introductory information worse.
Comment by ExcitingishUsername at 03/10/2022 at 21:35 UTC*
34 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Can it be made possible to configure this on a per-community basis? As well as clarify what is meant by collapsing them after "2 visits", and what constitutes "an update"; I assume the latter means an edit?
I could see this being *helpful* in a sense to drawing more attention to *new* announcements; but unless there is a way to configure it, perhaps even turn it off, a *whole lot* of communities will just resort to defeating it altogether by making pointless edits to pinned posts, or even repeatedly deleting and re-pinning them if editing doesn't un-collapse them.
This feature would be more useful to everyone if it were configurable. At the very least, we'd like to be able to configure how many visits or what length of time before these collapse, to ensure users don't pass important announcements by the first or second or third time.
If the advertisers consider it important to run the exact same product ad 80 times a day to ensure users see it, we should be able to do the same for our important announcements.
Also, why are post requirements still not shown to users? A lot of the reason we have such a fatiguing amount of pinned posts in the first place is that we can't present that information **where it is needed**, such as on the compose post screen, or on the reporting dialog, or when commenting. If we could present *action specific instructions* (these can collapse after a user does the action a time or two, if the message is still the same, if you're worried about "engagement"), it would eliminate the need for a lot of these pinned posts.
Comment by GingerbreadRecon at 03/10/2022 at 21:23 UTC
70 upvotes, 3 direct replies
As a moderator this is seems incredibly counterintuitive.
We sticky posts because we *want* people to see them. Whether that be a rule change, contest, upcoming news, a megathread, we sticky them to be seen.
Does this "two visits" rule reset if a stickied post changes?
Comment by delta_baryon at 03/10/2022 at 23:23 UTC*
31 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So hang on a bloody second, are you telling me if we sticky an AMA and a user navigates away twice they won't be able to see it anymore?
We use stickied megathreads to stop common topics from overrunning the front page. Now, our rules will be directed users to post in threads that you have hidden from them. That's a terrible user experience.
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More engagement is not the same as good engagement. This is a classic example of how the interests of mods don't align with the admins'. I don't want more engagement at any cost. I want engagement with users who understand the rules and the culture of the community they're joining.
People already complain that it's difficult to post on reddit because you guys have streamlined the rules into invisibility. Consequently, their first interaction with the rules is being told off by a terse moderator or a strict automod setup. I don't think that's a more streamlined experience than having to read some rules before posting.
I really think this attitude from the admins, that moderators don't know what's best for their communities and that all engagement is good engagement, is a false economy, as it forces moderators to take an almost oppositional attitude with the users and actually hurts overall engagement in the long run.
Comment by [deleted] at 03/10/2022 at 21:29 UTC
55 upvotes, 3 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Clavis_Apocalypticae at 03/10/2022 at 22:16 UTC
21 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory once again.
It’s like fucking pathological at this point.
Comment by Maydaytaytay at 03/10/2022 at 22:58 UTC
23 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I am unbelievably upset you have done this.
I run r/dragonvale and I can only have 2 pinned posts on my subreddit, and we need to have always 1 for adding people in game and another for all the other threads. And now that they get hidden with 2 visits they spam posts that have those things that they are looking for. And we don't edit those posts much except for once a month. And what's worse is that dragonvale is a mobile game. So the changes affect me instantly. *please* don't do a change like this.
Comment by ashamed-of-yourself at 03/10/2022 at 22:33 UTC
21 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Are you kidding? I already have a difficult time getting people to *notice* the stickies in the first place, and now you want to make it *harder* for them to be seen?
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We understand the important role that pinned posts play within a subreddit.
Judging based on this post, your sentence here is either pure bullshit or pure stupidity. You either don't understand anything, or you do understand, and you're still choosing, in your infinite malice, to go ahead with this.
Comment by NapoleoneBonoacarte at 03/10/2022 at 22:01 UTC
19 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I would advice to boost the pinned posts more, instead of simply nuking them tbh.
See, very few people see/interact with pinned posts, thing that doesn't help us mods in communication of very important sub's topics.
So... why don't you simply boost them more on the frontpages of the sub's members, instead of doing these pretty useless turnarounds.
I'm asking sorry in advance if this comment looks too "direct", but as other mods say, nuking pinned posts isn't the way
Comment by ItalianDragon at 03/10/2022 at 23:07 UTC
20 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This idea is pure dogshit, period. We might need yo visit a thread multiple times for moderation reasons (heated debate, etc...) and this auto-nesting would make keeeping tabs on the flow of the discussion an absolute pain.
Furthermore, if we struggle already to have users read a lone admin post, if it's nested, it'll 100% be ignored, leading to possible suspensions/bans that wouldn't be understood at all for rule breaches we'd notify about in a post who'd get auto-nested.
Lastly, none of the admins of the subreddit I'm a mod of give a crap about "engagement". What we care about is that the information is clearly accessible, even in a debate, and this "feature" directly goes against the goals of the team. This is even dangerous, as in the case of the subreddit, we help share information to people who are at risk of being taken away to facilities like Paris Hilton was, meaning that time is absolutely vital, and the more resources we can share to help the person, the more we can push towards a successful avoidance of those facilities.
The auto-nesting directly goes against this, effectively putting users that seek help at risk of missing extremely important information.
This change needs to be ***immediately scrapped***, period.
Comment by the_lamou at 04/10/2022 at 14:00 UTC
20 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Mod: "I worked really hard on this pinned post to make sure that everyone is always aware of this thing that is so important to the subreddit that it should never go away, and that we already have a lot of difficulty getting people to notice, let alone pay attention to. You know what would be great? Some way to highlight them more prominently so that users can't possibly miss them."
Admin: "We hear what you've been saying, so we're going to automatically hide those posts because we've never actually used Reddit once!"
Comment by NapoleoneBonoacarte at 03/10/2022 at 22:01 UTC
19 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I would advice to boost the pinned posts more, instead of simply collapsing them tbh.
See, very few people see/interact with pinned posts, thing that doesn't help us mods in communication of very important sub's topics.
So... why don't you simply boost them more on the frontpages of the sub's members, instead of doing these pretty useless turnarounds.
I'm asking sorry in advance if this comment looks too "direct", but as other mods say, collapse pinned posts isn't the way
Comment by Zavodskoy at 03/10/2022 at 23:03 UTC
20 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Ah yes because people didn't complain about missing stickied posts enough when you refuse to show them when sorting by new
