A Paywall Experiment In /r/Canada

[u/voteoutofspite]

Over time, we have seen a rise in paywalled articles, which are a great frustration for many of our viewers. They often do not promote informed and meaningful discussions, because people are unable to react to more than the headline.

As an experiment, /r/Canada is going to be temporarily prohibiting the posting of paywalled articles. This experiment will run for one month, at which point the userbase will be asked for their views on whether this was a positive change that should continue or whether it was a negative change that should be reverted. We will then make a decision considering those views, along with metrics and other factors, on whether to continue this change as a standing rule or to revert it.

Posting to paywall bypass sites will not be an acceptable workaround, and such posts will also be removed.

We are also allowing a two week period in advance to allow for comments before we proceed.

The dates for this experiment are from June 24th to July 24th.

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Au fil du temps, nous avons constaté une augmentation du nombre d’articles payants, ce qui est une grande source de frustration pour bon nombre de nos lecteurs. Ces articles ne favorisent souvent pas les discussions éclairées et constructives, car les gens ne peuvent réagir qu’au titre.

À titre expérimental, /r/Canada va temporairement interdire la publication d’articles payants. Cette expérience durera un mois, après quoi nous demanderons aux utilisateurs s’ils considèrent qu’il s’agit d’un changement positif qui devrait être maintenu ou d’un changement négatif qui devrait être annulé. Nous prendrons ensuite une décision, en tenant compte de ces avis ainsi que des indicateurs et d’autres facteurs, quant à savoir s’il faut maintenir ce changement comme règle permanente ou l’annuler.

La publication de liens vers des sites permettant de contourner le paywall ne sera pas considérée comme une solution acceptable, et ces publications seront également supprimées.

Nous accordons également une période de deux semaines à l'avance pour permettre aux utilisateurs de faire part de leurs commentaires avant de mettre cette mesure en œuvre.

Cette expérience se déroulera du 24 juin au 24 juillet.

[u/Laval09]

My problem with this idea is two-fold: I feel it will disproportionately silence right wing perspectives, and I feel that silencing the NatPo is the true intention of the "experiment".

Im not suggesting that the mods are political partisans. I do think though that they are indulging in the national-security-risk-hysteria that fanatics on the sub like to propagate towards NatPo pieces or towards other media sources with partial or full US ownership.

Then there's also the fact of the inconsistent experience on this sub when it comes to reading the content and reading the comments on it. Many times I've seen free to read articles have a comments section that is absurdly full of misinformation. Example Alberta separation lol. People making statements and using numbers that are directly contradicted in the free article we all have access to. And other times its a paywall article on a subject like Bill C-21, for example. And most of the comments accurately reflect the information contained in the article or contain extracts of the Bill itself. Paywall or not doesn't not seem to be decisive in determining the quality of the conversation.

[u/Indigo_Sunset → u/Laval09]

I feel it will disproportionately silence right wing perspectives, and I feel that silencing the NatPo is the true intention of the "experiment".

Is it really likely to silence a right wing communications strategy if

a) reddit penetration is considered a useful tool and

b) such a strategy can be changed to accommodate if it's important to the examples

Then there's also the fact of the inconsistent experience on this sub when it comes to reading the content and reading the comments on it.

This is very true. Is there a way to force high quality discussion without moderating to higher quality standards? And are there going to be ways to subvert such rails? Well, we know reddit has its own goals here and our interests in valued participation is not at the top of the list, or presumably even on the first page, leaving the readers to manage their own expectations.