So it has now been over a month since I last used Reddit, and I’m now looking at deleting my account there.
However before I do so, I have heard of “poisoning” my comments and posts on there using automated tools, or mass deleting everything before actually account deleting.
So my questions are, is mass deleting or poisoning still worthwhile? And does anyone have any recommendations of tools or scripts to facilitate this? It’s not a massive account, but 3121 contributions is still too much to go through manually.
Thanks everyone!
Its impact on Reddit’s business is absolutely negligible. A handful of people "poisoning* their accounts will not even register on their traffic monitoring. But the answers to questions or solutions to problems they may have posted over the years could help dozens or even hundreds of other people.
To me that tradeoff isn’t worth it. It’s throwing rocks at the armoured car driving past just to feel like you are doing something. The only one you have a chance or hurting is your neighbour.
I disagree. If it’s helping hundreds of people, then removing it makes hundreds of people less reliant on reddit, and if lots of people did that it would be meaningful. And even if it added up to nothing significant, that argument is basically like saying “since I’m just one person its ok if I litter, because my individual impact on the environment is negligible.” The morally correct thing to do is to not support evil, regardless of the size of the support.
It’s just sort of prisoner’s dilemma. Lot’s of people won’t do it. I’m just being realistic. And in the reality where the percentage of people who are likely to attempt to delete or “poison” their accounts is as miniscule as it is, it will have absolutely zero impact on the traffic Reddit receives. Yes, even if each of those accounts produced hundreds of Google hits. But maybe I am more concerned with preservation of information and helping people than spiting Reddit. What would be great would be for people to replicate the useful answers they made on Reddit on here so we can show up in searches and actually provide a valid alternative. In general I think we would be better off trying to build this place into something better than caring too much about our old Reddit accounts.
you sound like a ‘i only get one vote so it doesn’t matter if i vote”, person.
that’s not the best kind of person you can be.
I guess I just value the small and direct positive impact preserved information can have on the lives of others, and in this case I consider it a bigger gain than what the deletion would bring in the tradeoff. Maybe that’s evil, I don’t know.
Voting in elections is the exact opposite to that, at least in my eyes, and I always vote in state, local and legislative elections. In fact, I’ve been looking forward to this current election period for years now as maybe the tides are finally turning in Sweden and we can enact some change. Maybe.
Yeah, it would be ideal for people to repost any useful content to somewhere like the fediverse so it can still be indexed and findable.
Anyway, I’m personally still happier to have removed my contribution to their profits, negligible as it may be, even if it did mean losing information. Sorry to that dude who ran into the same tech problem as me and needs the solution I found 10 years ago!