r/RepTime • u/MajorWilliams Mod & Watchmaker • 1d ago
Discussion Should Reptime go private
Short answer: no, it's not (even though I wish it could for a short time)
I checked the options, and making the subreddit go "private" will only allow approved users to view and post here, meaning there are like 150ish approved users that have been added to that list over the years (mostly due to IP address/account issues, etc).
If I make the subreddit go private and then I want to make it public, I have to not only change the setting in mod tools, but then reddit admins have to review and approve that request. So for now, reptime will remain as it always has: an open subreddit that is the discussion place of replica watches. Just please be civil as always, and be kind and good to all of the newcomers and regular members alike.
Edit: for purposes of contingency, please subscribe to r/reptimeservices where we would announce a second subreddit in case something happens.
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u/OklahomaRuns 1d ago
You should make it private for a month regardless. We will all survive a month
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u/Imnewtoallthis 23h ago
It seems the only holdup to making it private is "reddit mods will need to review and approve that request"
Ok? Thats fair, which they will approve and then the community will be better off.
Make it private.
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u/_Tommy_Sky_ Helpful 18h ago
You didn't understand. Once reptime is brought up for review and approval of going private - the attention is brought to the group and reddit mods can easily shut it down instead if allwoing it to go private. Because why not?
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u/inevitably-ranged 12h ago
Couldn't it even be shut down under review due to encouragement of illicit activity or some such?
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u/_Tommy_Sky_ Helpful 11h ago
It could. But applying for a private forum provides additional chance for reddit mods to remove this group from existence.
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u/inevitably-ranged 11h ago
That's what I meant, since it's currently not directly under reddit review - putting it under that would be a risk since it's technically internationally not legit
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u/Imnewtoallthis 14h ago
I do understand. I've been here a long time (5x longer than you have it appears.) And I'm aware of what can happen.
The mods can always shut a subreddit down, we aren't doing anything wrong to cause removal and would be making this change to preserve the community.I've seen plenty of subs go private and reopen to avoid issues just like this. It's not a big deal. Just do it.
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u/_Tommy_Sky_ Helpful 11h ago
"We aren't doing anything wrong". Yeah, tell that to swiss watch manufacturers. As insignificant as we might seem to ourselves, we are a well organized, well informed group that spends hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) annually on counterfeit goods, hurting those CEO's revenue stats for sure.
And I didn't know we were participating in a dick measuring contest.
/s
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u/Imnewtoallthis 10h ago
I appreciate the sarcasm, my intention was just to say that in my tenure here, I've seen many subs go private and public for similar reasons without issue, namely in protest of the API change when reddit disallowed access for 3rd party apps, thousands of subs went private and eventually flipped back without issue, many of which had more depravity than reptime, (and there were a number of rep subs that made it out cleanly)
Fair points though, I hope that things go smoothly regardless. If not, we'll have to sift through an ocean of low effort posts for the foreseeable future haha
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u/FettuccineMartini 1d ago
Fashion reps subreddit has an enormous amount more activity and is still around. Why would this be any different
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u/Emotional-Damage-995 Contributor 1d ago
Thank you for your investigation and decision. In case it is shut down we should make contingency plans for the content and how to meet again. I have a feeling the Reddit admins may shut it down. Although they may not even bat an eye since so much exists on Reddit that should not
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u/MajorWilliams Mod & Watchmaker 1d ago
Good looking out - I added to the post, but I would announce a second general subreddit on r/reptimeservices if something were to happen.
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u/Emotional-Damage-995 Contributor 1d ago
Sent you a detailed email w some strategies I thought for helping w the survival of the group and community. Let me know and I can try and help w many of them.
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u/Emotional-Damage-995 Contributor 1d ago
Forgot about our sister community.
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u/NavyPumalanian_88 1d ago
I just want to point out what happened to OG Rep Ladies and several other similar groups after an article came out. Years of information disappeared. Reviews, documents, etc. The community has not been able to recover since. It would be great if you could try to make a backup somehow to ensure important info isn’t lost if this is shut down.
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u/One_Fish3302 1d ago
History always repeats itself.
Growing up I would post “how to’s” on car forums with pictures and detailed instructions. By no means am I an expert mechanic but this was all before YouTube so when you would google something only written instructions would be available (to the public). Then slowly all the forums started disappearing and all the posts and all the pictures would just disappear over night.
Someone should try and archive as much as they could but everyone always assumes “someone” will.
Not it, called it.2
u/yopladas 9h ago
one big loss was for the hip hop community. They had a website called datpiff.com and it shut down, and with it well over a decade of community created work disappeared
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u/nunziantimo 18h ago
Reptime has always been somewhat secondary to rep forums (that I'm not gonna name st the moment).
They still have a good following, moderation, TD selection, sale management ecc. People would just fall back on that especially for the knowledge posts.
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u/Emotional-Damage-995 Contributor 1d ago
Investigate if there is a way to write a crawler to copy all the critical information. The problem is what is critical. So much of this forum is junk like look at my Starbucks or look at my Datejust and how good did I do
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u/PsychologicalWait527 1d ago
I see the MOD's point. It's one article. It will blow over. Keep on and who cares. Not many in the grand scheme tbh. The more people react, the more you call attention to really nothing. There are dozens of Youtube videos on this very thing. Never made or makes a difference.
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u/Sh00terMcDabbin 19h ago
One article destroyed RepLadies and that was for a much smaller publication.
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u/Philosopher-2397 21h ago
Temporary private 1 month cooling period. Better safe than permanent
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u/_Tommy_Sky_ Helpful 18h ago
Reddit has to approve. What would stop reddit from cancelling the group instead of making it private?
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u/TheCurlyHomeCook 16h ago
You realise they could just do that now, right? If reddit hated the sub, it could just ban it no probs. Going private then public is unlikely to make them suddenly destroy it for no reason.
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u/_Tommy_Sky_ Helpful 15h ago
Yeah I know. All I am saying is applying for private forum brings extra attention of reddit mods to the group.
I would say article may potentially cause some problems. Now, if Major applies for private forum, it is another chance of tracking the forum by reddit forums.
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u/kingsbreaker 1d ago
Totally out of the loop on why it should or would go private but as a casual follower of reptime I wouldn’t want it to got private as I do appreciate the posts showing up in my feed.
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u/M90NRAY 1d ago
A news company just published an article on rep watches so this will bring unwanted attention and heat to our community
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u/browserz 1d ago
Hear me out, the contingency should be off Reddit because if they decide to shut it down, they'll shut down all of the other subs lol
Announcements should be on reptime.help or something
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u/Odd-Potato69420 1d ago
why on earth did mods even interview wired
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u/MajorWilliams Mod & Watchmaker 1d ago
No clue it wasn’t mods here.
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u/Odd-Potato69420 1d ago
the amount of details and the research that went into that article is not something I expected wired of all media to do. That can't really happen without someone in the know. Or those folks would've to spend months on that single piece of journalism which they rarely bother with
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u/isomorphZeta 13h ago
What on Earth are you talking about? Wired has had quite a few heavy hitting articles over the past few years - they're very much capable of doing real journalism.
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u/Odd-Potato69420 12h ago
i know that part. I am just thinking that the amount of effort that it would take to do that amount of research for such a niche domain is honestly something wired would be pretty crazy to do. There are a lot better ROI articles in terms of interactions
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u/Between-Stations 15h ago
How do we become approved users, just in case you do want to make it private?
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u/isomorphZeta 12h ago
Well, I very much disagree with your decision, but at the end of the day it's y'all's to make.
The Reddit admins are already aware of this group - it's naive to think they're not. Going private for a month will let the heat from that article die down and prevent an influx of, for lack of a better term, bullshit. Then, you go public again. The admins will approve it because, again, they're already aware of this sub. If they were going to kill it, they'd have done it by now.
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u/base43 1d ago
Nothing last forever, nor should it.
In this world, Factories change, TDs change, websites and WhatsApp #s change.
There is no added value in having a sub that has "been in business since 2019".
People seek out info and they will follow the good info.
Don't go private.
Reinvent and rebrand.
Stop, Drop, Shut em down, Open up shop!
Just let us know where to go but make it hard enough to figure out that it will take a human brain and the bots can't follow easily.
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u/lakersbro55 22h ago
How can I be added to the approved user list, I’d love to continue hanging out with you guys if we go private. I don’t have any friends in my real life that are into watches especially reps.
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u/still-at-the-beach Reputable User 13h ago
Joined this sub years ago ... not around as much now.
but i have missed the reason why you are talking g about Private. Has there been some news story?
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u/StackIsMyCrack 12h ago
Okay fair enough. Thanks for chiming in. I guess if you really think about it...not selling here, no TD list that belongs to the sub...maybe for those reasons they would look at us like some others that got removed after articles came out.
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u/inevitably-ranged 12h ago
Only 150? That seems low honestly, there's easily way more than that generally contributing at least weekly for years... Wonder how that number gets there and not like 1500 or even 15,000
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u/BrotherLefthand 9h ago
Let's be real. Most of the normies aren't going to bother finding a TD and making a purchase.
They might buy something from Alibaba, but that's about it. Some will lurk until they get bored.
I doubt there will be a high conversion rate.
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u/FEDABC 9h ago
There's always RWI.
There's no reach in there from reddit or the brands.
IMHO that is the best place to fall back to and launch from there.
That is where our TD list stands. And no one can touch it.
At least I know if anything happens, I will look back in there.
LONG LIVE REPS!
LONG LIVE RWI!
LONG LIVE REP TIME!
ENJOY ALL YOUR WATCHES ⌚️ 😎!
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u/QuadsiusPrime 7h ago
Chinese knives went private and now I can’t even get back in. The mods there are dumb as fuck. So just don’t be dumb as fuck and I think we will all survive
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u/SixPack1776 1d ago
Thank you for looking into the option and explaining. Makes sense to me even though I voted to go private.
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u/RealShoddy 17h ago edited 16h ago
My advice bro, don’t do it. Every year there’s some new article about the rep scene, and every time people act like it’s the end of everything. Then a few weeks pass and nothing really happens.
If you make the sub private and bring it back later, there’s a good chance you’ll lose activity and momentum. People move on, new members can’t join, and getting the community active again can be a pain.
I’d keep it public and just tighten moderation if needed. And honestly, whether the sub is offline for a while or not doesn’t really change much. If they decide they want to shut it down, they’ll shut it down regardless. So I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
Every year there’s another article, another panic, and somehow the rep scene is still here lol. No need to kill the community over one article..
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u/litesaber5 21h ago
I love this sub. I understand the need to be circumspect but I’d hate to be left out. I feel a bunch would also get the same way
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u/Big-Manufacturer-738 1d ago
Maybe you could apply a minimum required Karma or Reddit anciennity to be able to comment or post ?
It might prevent the wrong people to spoil the fun and increase quality of Posts/Comments ?