That’s a recent quote from Reddit’s VP of community, Laura Nestler. Here’s more of it: This week, Reddit has been telling protesting moderators that if they keep their communities private, the company will take action against them. Any actions could happen as soon as this afternoon.
In terms of losing knowledge, this sort of happened to a longboarding forum that I was a very active member of for like 8 years. The site, Silverfish Longboarding, had been around since the early 2000s and was a massive repository of information. In 2017, the owner announced he was pulling the plug, and there wasn’t enough notice for members to try to archive the entirety of the website.
The website played a pretty substantial role in shaping the longboarding industry, with hundreds, if not thousands, of guides on making your own skateboards using different techniques, tutorials for different tricks, etc., which are now gone forever. It was a niche enough sport that a bunch of brands formed on the website, and the owners of bigger companies frequently posted on the website, so you’d have experts having in in-depth discussions with users about the science behind different board and truck designs, wheel shapes, etc.
The site was basically the de facto knowledge base for longboarding, and there still hasn’t been a replacement as far as I’m aware.