badmin

Back when the big flock from Reddit to Lemmy took place, I used this account to post this Unpopular Opinion:
Erasing your Reddit history is an asshole move, and does not really help "the cause"

If you check the profiles of the most ardent anti-Reddit voices from that thread, you would notice that most of them disappeared from Lemmy shortly after that, or a few months later at best.

Where did they go? Back to Reddit of course.

Lessons learned? Beware that the loudest most uncompromising voices regarding a cause when enthusiasm for it is at its peak, are often the ones who are the least committed to it.

Do note that neither the reaction back then, nor this retrospect came as a surprise to me.

So a bit under 3 years ago, I made my infamous Wayland rant post that is likely the most read post on this blog by miles. I should really actually write about music again one of these days, but that's a topic for another time. The language was perhaps a bit inflammatory, but I felt the criticisms I made at the time were fair. It was primarily born out some frustrations I had with the entire ecosystem, and it was not like I was the only sole voice. There are other people out there you can find that encountered their own unique Wayland problems and wrote about it.

With that post, I probably cast myself as some anti-Wayland guy which is my own doing, but I promise you that is not the case. You can check my mpv commits, and it's businesses as usual. Lots of Wayland fixes, features, and all that good stuff. Quite some time has passed since then, and it is really overdue look at the situation again with all the new developments in mind. To be frank, my original post is very outdated and it is not fair to leave it up in its current state without acknowledging the work that has been done. So in comparison to 3 years ago, I have a much more positive outlook now.

Users removing their entire Reddit history might block people from reaching useful info that was in that history. Think of people, who may not be Redditors themselves, searching in the future via google, or whatever, for some useful info that was in your deleted history, just because you wanted to feel good about yourself sticking it to spez, or just because you blindly followed the manic sheeple who advised you to do so.

Deleting your entire Reddit history does not help the cause, not proactively anyway.

What would help the cause is people knowing that a very useful/knowledgeable/interesting user, as evidenced by their Reddit history, has abandoned their platform. Even better, if people knew that the useful/knowledgeable/interesting user has moved to a new platform called Lemmy.

Whether you are planning to leave Reddit completely, or you are splitting your time between here and there, leaving a message like the one below at the end of comments, and/or in its own stickied post in your profile, would be much more helpful than trying to erase your Reddit history:

𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗲: 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗳𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗷𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗺𝗺𝘆 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱.

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝘀𝘆𝗺𝗯𝗼𝗹𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝗱𝗱𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘄𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝘁𝗼 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗟𝗲𝗺𝗺𝘆.

𝗦𝗼, 𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱, 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗯𝗮𝗿 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗼𝗽𝘆-𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗶𝘁:

𝗵𝘁𝘁𝗽𝘀://𝗷𝗼𝗶𝗻-𝗹𝗲𝗺𝗺𝘆.𝗼𝗿𝗴/𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲𝘀

If it's possible to do this to old messages in batch, that would be great, as long as it can be done without triggering automatic Reddit admin alarms.

Getting a copy of your Reddit history via a GDPR request is something you definitely should do.

Saving a lot more of old.reddit in the Internet Archive would also be helpful and great.

But as things stand, do not erase your Reddit history!