Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum • Hacker News Board

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

#161

Post by basch » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:09 PM UTC

digitalzombie wrote: post #152

basch wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is falling on me as tone deaf. Most people who frequent the site dont care at all about the plight of the moderators. Moderators are not elected, they arent forcefully drafted, they dont step down when the community dislikes them. They are landowners who got there first, followed by a lot of cronyism/nepotism. It's an old boys club. They do a lot of hard work for the site, but they would be easily replac…

> But everyone knows they wont actually step down, because they crave the power they have accumulated, and are using the veneer of "we do this because we love the community" to generate a populous outcry that they know will gain them even more power. I was a moderator and I left... Also League of Legend mod left not too long ago, he had other responsibility and being a moderator was taking a toll on him and LoL is a…

if every iama moderator stepped down, new ones would assume the mantle

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

#162

Post by heyheyhey » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

embik wrote: post #61

amyjess wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the shutdown of /r/iama was necessary so the moderators could regroup and figure out how to do their scheduling and coördination from now on. 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 . And your claims of censorship are, quite frankly, di…

> 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…

> It wasn't really a hostage-taking, the shutdown has / had widespread support among the user base.

Don't believe this for one second. Like many others have said, it was mostly a vocal minority. /r/pics has 8+ million subscribers and you think a majority of those subscribers wanted it to be shut down?

I'm honestly surprised the mods have the power to shut down a default subreddit.

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

#163

Post by Nadya » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #136

munificent wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people who frequent the site dont care at all about the plight of the moderators. They care about the quality of the comment they see on the subreddits they follow. That transitively means they really care about the plight of the moderators. They just don't know it. > Moderators are largely faceless human spam filters. On the well-moderated subreddits—which are increasingly the largest ones—they do a hell of a…

>they really care about the plight of the moderators no they dont. its like henchmen in a movie. if some fall more will take their place. its a thankless task. they dont care at all about the individual, they just care that the group functions. the group will function without the individual as long as there are reenforcements. >in many cases, the userbase may go elsewhere before the subreddit finds its feet again. pr…

>no they dont. its like henchmen in a movie. if some fall more will take their place. its a thankless task

I find most people who say things like this have 0 moderating experience, or at least no experience handling communities larger than 100 (or even 1,000) people.

Administration connection with moderators is important. If it's lacking, people willing to moderate will go to sites with better tools and better access to administration. There are "alternative Reddits" popping up, such as voat.co, to fill that position.

Mods aren't as easy to replace as people think they are. Finding someone who fits and follows the community culture, is able to act as a mediator in case of community conflicts, and enforce the rules with as little bias as impossible is actually quite hard and a moderator unable to do this can easily kill a community.

There is a fine balance in the relationships between lurkers::creators::mods::admins.

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

#164

Post by basch » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

ChrisPebble wrote: post #150

basch wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article is falling on me as tone deaf. Most people who frequent the site dont care at all about the plight of the moderators. Moderators are not elected, they arent forcefully drafted, they dont step down when the community dislikes them. They are landowners who got there first, followed by a lot of cronyism/nepotism. It's an old boys club. They do a lot of hard work for the site, but they would be easily replac…

Fair points, but the comment "because the moderators volunteered" made me cringe. I have a great deal of respect and sympathy for mods because I've helped moderate other forums and the task is both rewarding, unrelenting, and filled with ceaseless drama. Even though they volunteered I still give them a lot of credit if they're running a successful board. It takes a lot. I'm really intrigued to see if you're correct a…

im not talking about you, im talking about the majority of the userbase who just want imgur pictures. most content consumers dont care about the mods.

and im not saying I dont respect the work the mods do, but what I will say is that there has been quite a circlejerk of support with very little contrarian view being upvoted.

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

#165

Post by vidarh » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:11 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #111

ChrisPebble wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 awa…

Devils advocate, that is partly Victoria's fault. If your managers don't know what you do all day, I don't think it is surprising that you are fired. Yes, it is a sign off bad management, but it is also a sign off an employee not communicating up to management. EDIT: The downvotes seem to indicate I wasn't clear. I'm not saying the Reddit management team thought Victoria wasn't doing any work. However, it was clear t…

If your managers thinks your're not contributing, then their first step should be to ask you, and ask your co-workers what it is you're doing, and to figure out if there's something that needs to be improved.

If their first impulse is to fire you if they think you're not really doing anything, then they're not doing their jobs.

EDIT: And this is part of the reason why I prefer to live somewhere with tolerable worker protections. E.g. in large parts of Europe it would be illegal to fire someone in this hypothetical situation without going through a proper process of issuing warnings and consulting with the employee to ensure the facts of the situation are on the table.

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

#166

Post by ObviousScience » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:13 PM UTC

paulhauggis wrote: post #104

001sky wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You like many people seem to not realize something that the other side is saying: WE KNOW REDDIT HAS THE RIGHT TO FIRE THEIR STAFF, AND NO ONE IS COMPLAINING BECAUSE REDDIT CHOSE TO RESTAFF.

Now, go back and read the all caps like five times, because people keep trying to say that to you, and you keep shouting about how reddit has the right to fire people.

People are upset because reddit corporate did a shitty job of managing reddit corporate, and it caused reddit corporate to fall through on several plans they had made with the public and other parties.

This particular instance of shitty management and execution on the part of reddit corporate is just the latest in a long string of bad management, and people finally got sick of it.

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

#167

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:15 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #153

bduerst wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a cognitive bias. The assertion from the admins was pretty clear regarding the harassment of individuals and threats of violence, but rather than acknowledge their prejudice, some have tried to make it into a first amendment issue. On a privately owned website.

There is no public ground on the Internet. Everything is owned by someone or some corporation. Our ideas about free speech will have to adapt to that reality, or they will be lost entirely.

[deleted]

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

#168

Post by pvg » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #119

nanny wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider that it might not have been an option? That maybe it was an unexpected termination, and they didn't have a way to know about or contact the people arriving from out of town? You don't have enough information to speculate like that.

OK, $FamousPerson shows up at reception asking for an employee who has recently been escorted off the premises with their possessions in a black plastic bag (been there, got the video and t-shirt). You sort of know that random $FamousPeople showing up is part of $BusinessAsUsual. You have just realised that you have apparently no procedures whatsoever for booking appointments for personal visits to the building (e.g.…

Do you see any famous person bitterly complaining and starting petitions because their AMA fell through? It was probably quite inconvenient for the few people who got affected by this at the time but it hardly merits a subreddit let alone sitewide meltdown.

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

#169

Post by secstate » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:17 PM UTC

darkstar999 wrote: post #98

theklub wrote: post #82

I can't believe people take reddit so seriously. Its amazing to me.

Some people have been on that site for 10 years.

That's fine, but it's effectively a giant forum with volunteer moderators. I feel like it can best be described as the social equivalent of trying to steer a boat that's really 30,000 small boats all tied together.

They have volunteers with the ability to simply turn off huge traffic parts of their site? How is this a for-profit company?

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

#170

Post by pbreit » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:18 PM UTC

steve-howard wrote: post #96

embik wrote: post #46

What really baffles me is the way reddit management handled this situation. There were many things they simply fucked up - They did not install the new AMA team properly (hell, the subreddit mods did not know about it), they reacted childish to the shutdown (something along the lines of "popcorn tastes good" - one of your biggest communities just shut down because you failed to do basic management, in what universe i…

"Popcorn" as a metaphor for drama is a daily in-joke at SubredditDrama, where that comment was posted. What kn0thing didn't count on was that a lot of readers had never been there before and instead took it at face value.

By that description, I think everyone understood the sentiment exactly.