ErraticDragon

I switched to Obsidian not too long ago.

For my needs, Joplin was a good open source alternative.

Between the two I went with Obsidian because, while the apps are closed-source, the data is accessible. All your notes are just stored in plaintext (with markdown) as simple files in a directory structure.

Joplin, in contrast, uses a SQLite database which adds a layer of complexity.

Yeah it would probably be illegal to use the data for anything in the event of a GDPR removal.

They do technically still have it in their backups, most likely. It should be covered in Reddit's ToS.

According to France’s GDPR supervisory authority, CNIL, organisations don’t have to delete backups when complying with the right to erasure.

Nonetheless, they must clearly explain to the data subject that backups will be kept for a specified length of time (outlined in your retention policy).

If you decide to go down this route, you should bear in mind that other supervisory authorities might be stricter and that you must be able to demonstrate that it’s impractical to delete backup data.

https://www.itgovernance.eu/blog/en/the-gdpr-how-the-right-to-be-forgotten-affects-backups-2

Yes, it's obviously technically possible to recover from a backup whether or not you edit. If anything, alienth was probably sharing that they can see deleted comments with no extra work required at all.

My point was that "editing before deleting" is done by these shredding tools because of the comment I quoted. It does nothing to prevent third parties from keeping their own copy, and is at worst an inconvenience to Reddit, Inc.

Therefore I'm not sure there's any real value to it for this kind of use.

Yes when all the apps had to change their names (January 2020), it came out that they had previously been working under a Trademark licensing arrangement.

(When "reddit is fun" became "rif" and then "rif is fun for Reddit".)

A lot of people thought it was Reddit suddenly cracking down to protect their trademark, but in reality it was something more petty.

https://old.reddit.com/r/redditisfun/comments/el8ri3/reddit_is_fun_is_being_renamed_to_rif_is_fun_for/

I should mention I'm grateful to the "old" Reddit Inc. and its former employees for being willing to let me use the "reddit is fun" name for the past decade, working with me on mutually beneficial agreements like revenue share, in exchange for licensing the Reddit trademark. Not sure if you would be reading this, but thank you.

Technically it's the "edit" they ban for, not the "delete".

The Reddit history deletion tools like to edit every comment before deleting them.

This was (is?) a privacy "best practice" based on the understanding that Reddit, Inc. can recover the text of deleted comments, but not the edit history. Just what the comment said at the time of deletion.

Quoting reddit Admin u/alienth:

We will still have access to a deleted comment. So, yes, if you'd like to ensure that something is completely removed, editing would accomplish that.

Edit: to clarify, the delete button does delete the content from public view on the site. The differentiator with the edit button is that we simply don't store old edits. People can choose to take advantage of this by editing away the text.

In the case of deleting your comments to protest Reddit's decision, I'm not sure editing is really helpful. It's technically possible but very unlikely IMO that they would do something like a mass undelete just to keep your content on their site.

It will prevent a catastrophic exodus like Digg experienced. Any amount spent it well worth it.

They might have to contract some janitors temporarily.

They can afford it. It will keep things running smoothly until volunteer mods are sourced.

Also, the reason they are shutting down third party apps is control. Bottom line is money, but indirectly. They want everyone using their app or their web interface so they can harvest the most data and sell the best ads.

They wouldn't want to pay someone to run communities, the "thinking" work that moderators do.

They won't mind paying call-center-level employees/contractors to do the janitor work, the "unthinking" work, which is voluminous.

They only have to do it until more mods come on board.

And don't forget they already have a lot of mods from subs that didn't blackout at all, and likely some from subs that already reopened.

It will not be hard or too terribly expensive for them to keep things running well enough that the masses are placated.

They can throw money at it until it works out. Mods do good things, but the bulk of the work is relatively mindless, and easy to outsource.

Anyone saying that they wouldn't was lying. Spez has a history of lying.

Here's what they said on June 7:

###Blackout

• We respect your right to protest – that’s part of democracy.
• This situation is a bit different, with some leading the charge, some users pressuring . We’re trying to work through all of the unique situations.
• Big picture: We are tolerant, but also a duty to keep Reddit online.
• If people want to do this out of anger, we want to make sure they’re mad for accurate reasons, not over things that are untrue. That’s a loss for everyone.

https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/comments/143rk5p/-/jnbjtsc/

It might push more power users away. It won't push away the teeming masses.

Quality will suffer, but they'll keep their traffic.

There are tools to help. The best recommended ones I know of:

A Rust CLI app: https://github.com/andrewbanchich/shreddit/

A JavaScript bookmarklet (that feels a bit like a full browser extension): https://github.com/j0be/PowerDeleteSuite