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Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

nytimes.com

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Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#101

Post by paulhauggis »

Zikes wrote: post #24
paulhauggis wrote: post #11

This article makes it seems like the moderators actually work for Reddit, which isn't the case. This is the problem, actually. Because it's not a paid position, the company can't use that as leverage in situations like this. The moderators essentially have nothing to lose. Even in the article, it states that it was shutdown because of the abrupt termination of Ms. Taylor. Anybody that makes these sort of emotional de…

Those moderators are the content creators that make Reddit run, and Reddit runs only because those people have "the power". The average Reddit user doesn't know or care where the content comes from or how it's moderated, and they similarly have no loyalty to Reddit. If those moderators get upset enough with the way the site is run and go elsewhere, the rest of Reddit's users will likely follow suit, just like they di…

"Those moderators are the content creators that make Reddit run"

I disagree. Most content on Reddit is copied/pasted from elsewhere.

"and Reddit runs only because those people have "the power".

There have been many other successful communities that didn't give so much power to moderators. The moderators at HN, for instance, are paid employees.

"If those moderators get upset enough with the way the site is run and go elsewhere, the rest of Reddit's users will likely follow suit, just like they did when Digg imploded."

Users fled Digg because it made a really bad experience for the average person going to the site. Moderators are a minority and can easily be replaced. As long as the average user experience is un-changed, Reddit will remain popular.

When a large company replaces the management team, most people are un-fazed unless it actually effects them in some way.

The moderators made the mistake of using the nuclear option. A bad strategy in the long-run.

Another simple solution is to make it so the moderators can move a sub-reddit to private, but if the community has over a certain amount of subscribers, it's pushed up to a paid employee before it is activated.

This removes 90% of the mods power with very little effort. Most might not even notice until they try to changing the sub-reddit to private, which for the most popular ones, is rare.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#102

Post by amyjess »

kedean wrote: post #79
amyjess wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are some posts that are auto-deleted based off of keywords during some of the more turbulent times in reddit. You got a source for that?

I don't know of any time the admins have done it, but some subreddits have been known to do it: http://www.dailydot.com/news/reddit-technology-banned-words/

I was specifically asking about times the admins did it.

And, for the record, I have no problems with the /r/technology mods implementing such a filter. I want to read about technology, not politics. I actually unsubscribed from /r/technology some time before the filter was put in place (it was one of the very few defaults I'd unsubbed from, actually) because I was sick of it being overrun by political content.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#103

Post by darkstar999 »

nanny wrote: post #25
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you deliberately haven't been reading anything or what, but it wasn't just in reaction to the firing. This is just the straw the broke the camel's back.

People keep saying things like this, but what exactly was on the camel's back in the first place? "Bad communication"? Can you give me any specific, concrete examples?

Bad communication.

Mods feel like they are volunteering for a for-profit company yet treated poorly.

Recent top-down decisions that aren't the "reddit way".

A temporary(?) CEO who doesn't seem to "get" reddit, or at least is not the right person for the job.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#104

Post by paulhauggis »

001sky wrote: post #77
paulhauggis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Reddit management and that it's just a bunch of angry children complaining without cause." Anyone that makes these sort of decisions based on absolutely no evidence besides that she was fired, is childish and should not be a moderator. "The mods in question are adults and professionals, and they've clearly and succinctly explained their grievances with Reddit management." They might be physically adults, but emotion…

They fired the relationship manager for the AMAs. The way the did that harmed/ruined some relationships. The 'how' is as important as the what in that case, so your comment seems bizarreley off base. This is a wholy different issue that the dust up a month ago. Thats why a petition for the CEO's resignation has 200,000 signatures. The incident 1 month ago promted onlt 10K or so, so this latest issue is a 20x increase…

"The 'how' is as important as the what in that case, so your comment seems bizarreley off base."

You forgot the 'why'. Why was she let go? Reddit, the company, was paying her salary and they have the right to let her go if they feel she isn't doing her job. You don't even know the whole story. You are defending the mods based on biased and one-sided information.

"Thats why a petition for the CEO's resignation has 200,000 signatures"

This can easily be manipulated online, so I don't even know if I can trust it.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#105

Post by luso_brazilian »

amyjess wrote: post #88
mason240 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They shut downs of other subs was overwhelmingly supported by the users.

No, it was supported by a loud and vocal minority of witch-hunters. Most people just want to use reddit normally.

That really echoes the response by Ellen Pao herself in the New York Times article [1]:

> But Ms. Pao says that the most virulent detractors on the site are a vocal minority, and that most of Reddit users were not interested in what unfolded over the past 48 hours.

That may be true as the "lurkers" main interest is to consume the information made available by voluntary work of the contributors and moderators) and they, of course, don't benefit in the short term from the blackout.

But it is important to remember that this "vocal minority" is the part of the audience that contribute the most to the success of the site, and they > do it for free.

And, being charitable and assuming that the demands of these volunteers are valid, the shut down was a minor inconvenience to the passive audience but one that can bring change and improvement in the long term.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/technology/reddit-moderato...

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#106

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

slg wrote: post #81
embik wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power mods to treat their users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing their users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong. That's not how I observed the situation honestly. A lot of subreddit mods got flooded with "shut down"-requests and some decided against it, some followed the mass. It wasn't really a hostage-takin…

>The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power users to treat the majority of users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing the majority of users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong. Does that fix the problems with the above sentences? Regardless of who was ultimately behind it, the shutdowns were a "I'm taking my ball and going home" move at the expense of…

Actually it was a reaction by the Reddit community to management idiocy.

As such, it was entirely justified.

You don't seem to understand how this works. Reddit does not own the community. Reddit hosts the community, and in return the community provides content for Reddit.

The community has already moved from another provider, and if Reddit carries on with more management idiocy, it will move again.

Social is littered with the crumbling ruins of corps that believed they were too big to fail, but which fell off the world after Doing Stupid Shit for too long.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#107

Post by coldpie »

darkstar999 wrote: post #103
nanny wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep saying things like this, but what exactly was on the camel's back in the first place? "Bad communication"? Can you give me any specific, concrete examples?

Bad communication. Mods feel like they are volunteering for a for-profit company yet treated poorly. Recent top-down decisions that aren't the "reddit way". A temporary(?) CEO who doesn't seem to "get" reddit, or at least is not the right person for the job.

Literally none of these are specific or concrete.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#108

Post by ChrisPebble »

imjk wrote: post #32

"We feel strongly that this incident is more part of a reckless disregard for the company’s own business and for the work the moderators and users put into the site. Dismissing Victoria Taylor was part of a long pattern of insisting the community and the moderators do more with less." I think this really gets to the heart of it. The moderators of the site only learned of the termination after a celebrity flew out to…

Ignorance more than callousness appears to be the sin here. From snippets of communications posted with the mods it looks like they weren't really aware of what Victoria did for the mods.

Since the community is their "product" I find it disconcerting that they're not more familiar with the details of how these relationships work and what Victoria actually did. I would actually find it more comforting if they were aware of all of this and made a rational business decision that may have been seen as callous, but they appear to have had very little clue as to what was actually going on. That doesn't bode well for future business decisions if they really don't understand their product.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#109

Post by darkstar999 »

coldpie wrote: post #107
darkstar999 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad communication. Mods feel like they are volunteering for a for-profit company yet treated poorly. Recent top-down decisions that aren't the "reddit way". A temporary(?) CEO who doesn't seem to "get" reddit, or at least is not the right person for the job.

Literally none of these are specific or concrete.

"Bad communication" - they fire Victoria without telling IAMA moderators

"Mods feel like they are volunteering for a for-profit company yet treated poorly." is very concrete and specific

"Recent top-down decisions that aren't the "reddit way"". - banning of "hateful" subreddits such as /r/FatPeopleHate

"A temporary(?) CEO who doesn't seem to "get" reddit, or at least is not the right person for the job." - that is very specific and concrete

What else are you looking for?

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#110

Post by theklub »

ScootyPuff3000 wrote: post #66

And why is this website that makes 1/20th the revenue of many of those "Cat Meme" sites (with 20x the staff) so important?

Its really not important at all. Just a lot of people use it and its kinda going down in flames. Pretty funny to watch honestly. The AMA section was a great advertising tool for Reddit IMO, they def should take better care of that one area.
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