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aarmea/goodbye-reddit.md

Last active September 11, 2023 11:03
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How to migrate, not nuke, your Reddit content
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goodbye-reddit.md

I edited my Reddit comments using a version of Power Delete Suite that I modified to do the following:

  • Include a patch by james2432 on GitHub to add a 5 second delay between every write to avoid running into Reddit's (pre-7/1/23) API limits.
  • Backup comments and self-post text as base64 instead of raw text so that the formatting can be restored.
  • Include the URI-encoded permalink in the edited comment to allow deep links to the comment itself in the mirror. To use this, enable the "Edit comments / self posts" option and put %encoded_permalink% somewhere in your text.

My fork is available here. If you want to do this too, make sure to run this script before 9 PM PDT on June 30, 2023, as Power Delete Suite makes heavy use of the Reddit API.

By running Power Delete Suite in any way, there is a risk that:

  • your comments may be removed by subreddit moderators
  • you may be banned from specific communities or by Reddit itself
  • you may be shadowbanned, making the edits invisible to anyone else

Fortunately, if your primary goal was to delete your contributions, this is far more effective than just doing it yourself: while Reddit has been caught restoring content removed by users, I doubt Reddit will undo bans to restore content that had been removed by moderators.

I will eventually write an article describing how to self-host your old Reddit content on my blog (link to follow once it's written).

In case you're curious, here's what I edited my comments to:

I have removed this comment due to Reddit's continued refusal to cooperate with developers and moderators, and their blatant disrespect of the users who voluntarily contribute content (and therefore value) to the site.

For historical purposes, this comment will eventually be available on my personal website here, where I have full control over the hosting and copyright.

I am no longer participating on Reddit as /u/aarmea. Effective immediately, I hereby revoke my consent for Reddit to host my comments as /u/aarmea. If comments by /u/aarmea with any other text remain on Reddit, they are there without my permission or consent.

I have moved to the Fediverse, which as a whole is not subject to the whims of a few admins. I am now participating on https://lemmy.world instead as /u/aarmea.

See you on the other side.

🫡

If it's not too late and you want to migrate (rather than nuke) your Reddit content, I described how I did it here.

@DealsBeam
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Thanks for this

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