Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin • Hacker News Board

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#191

Post by radley » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:15 AM UTC

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #11

minimaxir wrote: post #3

More Context into the events that possibly led to the layoff: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bxduw/why_wa... Alexis Ohanian's response: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bw39q/why_ha... List of subreddits suddenly going private: http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3bxjyu/list_...

> Due to an unexpected Reddit administrative personnel change /r/science is temporarily private so that we can resolve the situation, our apologizes for any disruption this may cause. The doublespeak is weird. If it's a protest, say so. There's no direct relation between the employee getting fired and a subreddit that is not focused on celebrity PR going dark.

They didn't go private to protest. That action simply cascaded into a large protest.

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#192

Post by calbear81 » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:17 AM UTC

AUmrysh wrote: post #153

drspacemonkey wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to kn0thing, it's a shame, "but so it goes". And then there's the implication that they're all sitting back and enjoying popcorn while Reddit consumes itself. http://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3bwgjf/riama...

What's really sad is that reddit and Alexis were, arguably, the most successful Y-Combinator startup, and now they've fallen by the wayside as cronyism and personal agendas take over. Alexis let this happen, though. Not that I blame him, I'd have taken the money too.

I'm not sure by which objective measure that would be true besides potentially being the most visited by consumers and having the most cultural-currency. From a business perspective, they are far from being the most successful and I'm guessing the last round of funding came with quite a bit of goals that needed to be met including getting the community under control and sanitizing it for mainstream America.

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#193

Post by kefka » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:19 AM UTC

blhack wrote: post #33

It's kindof astonishing what is happening over at reddit right now. "The internet" has it's own culture, and the people running reddit right now (one of the places where this culture is the strongest, imo), seem to have no idea how to interface with it. It honestly feels like it got taken over by silicon valley middle management marketing types or something, and now they just can't seem to figure out why the users ke…

Reddit has gone from someone who understood 'The Internet' :

“We will not ban questionable subreddits,” Reddit’s CEO, Yishan Wong, wrote in the aftermath of that catastrophe. “You choose what to post. You choose what to read. You choose what kind of subreddit to create and what kind of rules you will enforce. We will try not to interfere — not because we don’t care, but because we care that you make your choices between right and wrong.”

To the current CEO, Ellen Pao:

It's not our site's goal to be a completely free-speech platform. We want to be a safe platform and we want to be a platform that also protects privacy at the same time.

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#194

Post by vonklaus » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:20 AM UTC

codezero wrote: post #157

vonklaus wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is just amazingly tone-deaf on Reddit's part. They do not think like a business. They are a storage mechanism for other peoples content which their users generously provide for them to index. They don't make content, they don't generate revenue, they are stuck in a web2.0 model being valued on a per user basis. Reddit probably can't recover as community, but almost certainly not as a business. > What is Ellen…

I'd go further and say their users don't provide content, but instead act as evaluators and filters for others' content. The thing is, almost anyone can evaluate content for basic human emotional or intellectual value. The community built up around shared interest and that is itself hard to replicate in a way that achieves critical mass.

> I'd go further and say their users don't provide content, but instead act as evaluators and filters for others' content.

my post was a bit unclear, i meant they literally provide it to the site by finding it and posting it. They act as the first tier of the filtering mechanism(votes being secondary).

> The community built up around shared interest and that is itself hard to replicate in a way that achieves critical mass.

reddit itself, and many other companies/communities are caught in the trap of placating a vocal minority and exercising to broad of a control on the culture. The Y-Combinator ethos is basically this. Make something that enough people love, rather than a lot of people really like.

This revolt is backlash against changing a well-ingrained culture to try an please discrete sub-groups. Whether these sub-groups are "right" or "wrong" was largely a question of the communities sentiment expressed in posts and votes. When reddit altered the culture here they lost critical mass.

It is happening on 4chan right now as well with people moving to various cloned image boards. Reddit needs it's users a lot more than users need reddit, so we will see what will happen. I am short on reddit and bullish on community choice though.

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#195

Post by rblatz » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:20 AM UTC

x0x0 wrote: post #134

keithy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing at all. Reddit is OK already, but the new management seems to want to change it more and more. These new CEO's want to always push their "vision" for what reddit should be despite what the userbase wants and the backlash for that is already showing. The thing is, the power doesn't rest on the CEO or the company, it rests on the user base. Redditors can migrate to any ot…

Reddit is a pretty terrible business. Discussion boards in general are a terrible business. Redditors can migrate anywhere they want, but the question is where are they welcome, particularly in volume? voat is begging for money, fighting with paypal, and being forced to kill wannabe kiddy porn / jailbait. I'm sure reddit would be super tore up if the fat haters, racists, and jailbait traders left :rolleyes:

Which is why it's a big deal that this has spread into the mainstream subs.

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#196

Post by markdown » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:22 AM UTC

nols wrote: post #110

eclipxe wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pao ruined reddit unfortunately. Time for an alternative.

Spare us, Reddit's been mismanaged for long before Ms Pao started there. Just look at Alexis Ohanian's (kn0thing) comments[0]. Not to mention the celeb nudes debacle, which was allowed then disallowed and announced by a sysadmin [1]. And the then CEO Yishan Wong publicly fighting with a former employee [2]. Then we can go way back to /r/jailbait and the Violentacrez affair, the only mod to be awarded a golden trophy…

> And the then CEO Yishan Wong publicly fighting with a former employee

This was awesome. The employee started the trash talk, fully expecting Reddit not to defend itself (as expected of bullshit corporate america). It was perfect /r/justiceporn when Wong came out swinging in response. Glorious to see.

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#197

Post by innguest » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:22 AM UTC

trcollinson wrote: post #175

I have heard a lot of people here and in reddit say, "well we should just make something better and leave!" Maybe a lot of that talk is just anger or discontent coming out right now. The community is up in arms. The moderators are frustrated at both corporate reddit and the website/tools available to them. Users are mortified. But in all seriousness, I want to explore the question, why don't we? What is stopping us f…

People want/need x, where x : forum threads :: IRC : chat.

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#198

Post by rodgerd » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:23 AM UTC

vonklaus wrote: post #122

forgottenpass wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It honestly feels like it got taken over by silicon valley middle management marketing types or something, and now they just can't seem to figure out why the users keep getting pissed off at them. I can't agree more, back in the jedberg/HueyPreist days the staff felt like reddit users, now you get the feeling the office just looks at the community as a magic box of unpaid labor. Anyone putting in real effort is bette…

> basically everything you said It isn't about the firing. It is about subverting posts, subverting ideologies, deleting subs, limiting free speech in general and having an ambiguous morality/decision making process that is impossible to trust. Hiring Pao was so stupid. Leaving aside whether she was qualified, you can't lead a team that doesn't respect or relate to you. > this is a huge vote of "no confidence" toward…

You forgot ethics in game journalism.

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#199

Post by pests » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:24 AM UTC

nothis wrote: post #160

blhack wrote: post #33

It's kindof astonishing what is happening over at reddit right now. "The internet" has it's own culture, and the people running reddit right now (one of the places where this culture is the strongest, imo), seem to have no idea how to interface with it. It honestly feels like it got taken over by silicon valley middle management marketing types or something, and now they just can't seem to figure out why the users ke…

Honestly, though... isn't this just a total overreaction? I get that Victoria getting fired was bad for /r/IAMA (which once WASN'T a celebrity PR stop) but how does setting the whole damn subreddit to private help anyone? Like, I'm seriously asking. How? The "solidarity" thing also makes my eyes roll because I don't fully get how a place like /r/AskReddit is affected by this, at all. Reddit's admins have always taken…

Its more of a last straw. More at [0] but other complaints include outdated modding tools, new search UI, lack of communication.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bxduw/why_wa...

Re: Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

#200

Post by rodgerd » Fri, Jul 03, 2015, 3:25 AM UTC

lingben wrote: post #138

flashman wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link also illustrates how utterly hateful some parts of the Reddit community is. Being a Reddit admin must be really frustrating.

It is a 2 way street. The community can be nasty but they do not treat every admin this way. Consider Victoria who was just fired. The whole shenanigan today isn't really about her but about the way the mods are being treated. But my point is that the community really appreciated her work and her approach. When you come in and right off the bat are condescending, haughty, and tone-deaf, as well as non-transparent, th…

> The community can be nasty but they do not treat every admin this way

Who would have thought that the minds responsible for redpill, mensrights, and coontown might make a community less than enjoyable?