A screenshot, taken way before rexxit, of two comments on reddit, dated “1 year ago”.
The first comment is by a deleted user and the comment has been removed. The second comment is a reply to the deleted comment and it says: “That solved it. Thanks!”
Edit: added temporal context.
As much as reddit sucks right now, getting rid of decades of tech solutions that are not found anywhere else (not on the fediverse either) is not a solution. back up your reddit stuff somewhere and link to it from reddit, but don’t delete it, and don’t delete it and tell people ‘because lemmy’, people will hate lemmy.
Use “Because API changes” instead of “Because lemmy”. But I agree; changing it to a link to Lemmy instead is better. Theres a shit-ton of valuable information buried on Reddit.
Well without a public API it may be quite impossible to mass delete stuff (for non EU-citizen at least, EU citizens can always do a GPDR delete request -otoh you basically have to connect your reddit account with your real name to do that so big nope as well) in the future, so i fully understand why so many people did it
Will it cause collateral damage? Yes. Am i happy I did it when it was still possible? Fuck yes.
Honestly, those decades of solutions are useless unless they have both a version number and a date associated with them. And if that date is more that 6 months ago, it’s probably still useless even if it has both.
You say that, but when your employer is still running Windows Server 2012, you’ll find a lot of 10-year-old solutions to problems are still very much applicable.
Even beyond that, there are a lot of new versions of things that are still built on legacy software. Some things change but some things just remain the same for a long time.
It’s not just tech solutions. It’s solutions for everything.
I’m running a GTX 1060, have debian Servers and my Powerline Adapter is from 2015. ipv4 is still dominant and the x11 protocol hasn’t been changed in over 40 years. Plenty of tech widely in use today isn’t getting updated or replaced or updated every 6 months
It’s usually still a good-enough jumping off point. My fiance came across this just yesterday, her sound in Overwatch kept cutting out and found a 2 year old solution from Overwatch 1 and it got the issue fixed. I’m gonna be bummed when all that data is gone forever.
These solutions are not always workarounds for bugs. Sometimes they are ways to do something non-trivial, and that nontrivial something can still be done in the exact same (or at least very similar) way even after several major version releases.
I posted a reply with a “quick fix” to a Lenovo T14s issue, quite some time ago. That reply has kept getting “Thank you” replies now and again. I suspect that that will continue for a long time to come.
There is a lot of that kind of useful information on Reddit that doesn’t get outdated for at foreseeable future.
Hell. I found a 14 year old solution to a Borland database issue I had at work, buried in some old forums, so don’t dismis the value of old information.
Not necessarily on that last point. Alot of people run older hardware, especially recently with the economy dialing back and negligible updates being made hardware wise the past 5-6 yrs. Like i DD a '15 i7 MBP with Arch linux, and if it weren’t for the Saved documentation in the Arch Wiki for this 8yr old laptop, I would be SoL on getting many things working.
This is why maintaining your account there and keep deleting your comments/posts will destroy Reddit. Do it, you have the power.
I destroyed thirteen years of comment and post history. Is there any reason I should further maintain my account? I’m asking because if there’s something more I can do to screw with their site via my account, I’m all ears.
Make sure your posts are deleted, and sell it to an advertiser. Just look up where to sell. A 13 Year old account will make you a good bit of money, and it will in all likelihood be used to spam the site with an ad campaign.
Excellent. I don’t have any other idea yet but I always think it’s better to maintain an account there in case we want to use it. I plan to use my account to refer people to Lemmy for example.
yes but at the same time – isn’t this worse for us, the users, as a whole losing bits of information like this? the fucks up top do not give a shit about any of this
It absolutely is worse for users because we can only find the content via channels that spez approves of - removing the content just means you can find the content to be unavailable faster than if you had to scroll through the ads
Obligatory relevant xkcd.
That’s the intention of users deleting their staffs: making reddit less useful, and therefore, shrink its traffic.
That’s the downside of having a website completely runned by the community and volunteer moderators. You mess with them, you lose half of their contents. 🤣
That says removed. That means someone else removed it, but not the user.
Does that make a difference?
I was under the assumption that it was removed bc of the migration/protests. Would that be the case, I wouldn’t mind the info being lost. I’ve been trying to avoid clicking on (live) reddit links even if there’s the answer I’m looking for. Also, maybe using the wayback machine does the trick?
As I said in the description, this was taken last year, when the comments were a year old already. And even then it didn’t make a difference why the information wasn’t there anymore.
Yes, I had read that, hence the “I was”. Anyway, the wayback machine is still worth a try since it can go back pretty far back in time (if you are ever in that situation again, that is).
Actually worse, since you now know there is a solution. Even better when you find other links marking it as solved, that point back to the same place.
I didn’t delete my comments. Mainly because Reddit had been renewing comments after deletion, so why waste my time over a thing out of my control now. But also just in case, for this. I doubt I posted anything very enlightening, but it’s not for me to judge their value. Maybe someone did, and others would.
I just moved on, let things happen however they will.
Of course it’s not just deleted, it’s removed by moderators.
Typical Reddit.
I’m really torn by this. Should all this data be preserved for the betterment of society, or is that what Reddit should get for killing their goose that laid golden eggs…
Mass deleting comments is something that just makes us feel better. Reddit still profited off the post with people clicking on it. They just see a deleted message instead of an answer.
but won’t it eventually fade from search results due to SEO?
I think as long as the original post is up it would hit enough key words but I could be wrong. Deleting the actual post is more effective than the comments.
Yes
deleted by creator
That solved it. Thanks!
Yeah, I gave advice on some smaller / niche, topics. I didn’t delete the whole thing, only my most upvoted and/or most recent comments (I went all the way to december 2022, and every comment with more than 20 upvotes). Replaced it all with a link to my kbin.
It was kind of sad reading all the replies that were like “we should put this comment in the FAQ / this is the best comment / this covers everything”. I was very throughout and loved speading what I learned, and it pains me a little the few times I lurked in those communities since moving to kbin and see lots of unanswered pleads for advice or straight up terrible advice being given…
I think you’re going to begin to see a lot of that on Reddit. I overwrote and delete my ~10 years of comments and posts before deleting my account. I imagine a significant number of others have/will too.
12 years here. It’s not to deprive others of information either. I did it because if people with the ethics of Spez own it, they’ll use for whatever means they see fit, meaning money, or paywall etc .
The information people seek is still out there in the same places we all got it from in order to post it on reddit.
Reddit made this mess by destroying trust. I have no idea how they’ll use that information if I leave it there .
This is know: it won’t be for my benefit, likely it will be used to manipulate,or in bad faith. Similar to Facebook and insta.
Unlike the Great Library at Alexandria, the information contained in many reddit threads is actually available in other places and can be recreated - often by the same person if necessary and relevant.
I understand people not wanting to have that information deleted, but I think the analogy is a bit heavy. For many, it’s a balancing act where the fundamental disagreement with reddit’s cultural evolution outweighs the desire to participate in the knowledge repository.
I think many people were comfortable with their ideas belonging to the communities that spawned on reddit, and they viewed reddit’s ownership as a necessary technicality for the platform to exist. Once reddit clarified that they intended to act on that ownership, many people no longer wanted to participate.
I think they have that right.
More importantly, who owns our thoughts in this space?
deleted by creator
This thread is great. I love how people are arguing against deleting your Reddit history by comparing their own history to the content in the Library of Alexandria. The Reddit hive mind and subreddit echo chamber had a lasting effect, it seems.
I see lots of them. Unpopular opinion but I think going back and deleting every single comment you made is an over the top method of protesting the API charges. Lots of interesting conversations are now gone forever.
