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

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

#231

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #53

zedpm wrote: post #3

Maybe this will be enough to silence the folks on here who insist that nothing is wrong with Reddit management and that it's just a bunch of angry children complaining without cause. The mods in question are adults and professionals, and they've clearly and succinctly explained their grievances with Reddit management. This piece doesn't touch on some of the other issues that have angered users, particularly the matte…

> Maybe this will be enough to silence the folks on here who insist that nothing is wrong with Reddit management and that it's just a bunch of angry children complaining without cause. Why can't it be both? The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that it is.

What evidence?

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

#232

Post by danso » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #190

keithpeter wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith has a considerable staff who would have managed the situation with their customary grace and good humour. Piss off Prince Philip however and you could be in for a hard time. http://i.imgur.com/ICSz7Xp.jpg Image of a now de…

Wow. I thought maybe it was just one comment, but Alexis really has been doing a job on reddit's PR. Why wouldn't you be more open an honest with people running the best known feature of your site? In the end, the mods ditched reddit for actually handling AMAs, so I guess that's a good thing. Plus it'll mean reddit simply won't have monetization options as far as commercializing r/IAmA.

Having celebrities is more than commercialization. It's legitimacy...I've never liked (most) of the celebrity AMAs, but saying that you had President Obama logged in, however nominally, goes a long way to counter the perception that Reddit is just a place for Coontown and The Fappening.

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

#233

Post by squeaky-clean » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:12 PM UTC

peeters wrote: post #125

joosters wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As the article explains, the issues aren't to do with Victoria herself. In that respect, why she was fired doesn't matter. Note that the story is not a campaign to bring her back personally. Corporate Reddit should have had a plan in place when they got rid of her, but as it became clear, they hadn't thought about it at all. That's what the mods were complaining about.

> As the article explains, the issues aren't to do with Victoria herself. In that respect, why she was fired doesn't matter It absolutely matters. If it was something egregious and for cause, the company probably wouldn't have a choice but to terminate her on the spot. There are a lot of scenarios where they also wouldn't be able to disclose why she was terminated. If that's what happened, yes the company made poor c…

If a single person is necessary for maintaining one of the most important parts of your website, you need a plan to handle their absence. It doesn't matter if she was fired, or if she quit, or got hit by a bus. A single person leaving your company should not be able to cause a breakdown of this scale.

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

#234

Post by Yhippa » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:14 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #160

VonGuard wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree that Reddit is an old boys club. But this is how all online communities seem to work: age = power and respect. How would you solve this problem? It's been like that since newsgroups. It seems to be just a human tendency.

slashdot randomly assigned the task of moderation to logged in users. that moderation was then metamoderated. it was just part of your duty as a logged in user to contribute a little metadata about content. http://slashdot.org/faq/mod-metamod.shtml

Not sure why this got downvoted. IMO this was probably one of the best ways I've seen moderation done on comments online. When you got a chance to metamod you took it seriously since there was no guarantee that you would consistently get it.

That worked great for a vertical focus. Not sure how it would work with as big of horizontal focus as reddit.

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

#235

Post by dublinben » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:14 PM UTC

spodek wrote: post #63

Never surprise your team. This incident looks like it comes from inexperienced, counterproductive leadership, as do the several incidents leading up to it and that will follow. Or maybe authoritarian. Several days after a firing, people are complaining in the NY Times that they are still surprised. Not surprising your team is one of the top principles I've learned in teamwork. If, as a manager, your firing someone su…

>Never surprise your team.

It's never been more clear that the managers of Reddit Inc. do not consider the moderators of their most popular subreddits to be part of their team.

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

#236

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:15 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #115

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…

This actually reminds me of when Unidan was shadowbanned. Unidan was a super-popular redditor who loved educating people about science, and he would pop up everywhere and deliver useful information written in a way most laymen can understand. People loved him. He got banned right after getting in an argument with somebody, where he was being really aggressive and heavy-handed. A lot of people flipped out and claimed…

The fact that Victoria was canned accounts for maybe 10% of the outrage. The other 90% is the way the firing was done (uncommunicated, disruptive, and all around poorly handled), and is what led to the annoyance boiling over.

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

#237

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:17 PM UTC

evan_ wrote: post #182

zxcvcxz wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you tell your boss about the code you don't commit?

The code you don't commit is guaranteed to be bug-free, something you can't say about the code you do commit.

I am so reluctant to code now thank you.

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

#238

Post by kevdigital » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:17 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #118

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…

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…

I've had the same thoughts through this ordeal. If it's such a burden go ahead and stop being a mod. There's plenty of users that would gladly take your place. Yet I've not heard of any doing so.

Letting Victoria go probably sucks since she helped coordinate so much. But that kind of chaos or disorganization happens in any company I've worked for when a key employee is let go. Large corporations with paid employees don't always get this right. So to me Reddit's actions were no surprise, once the decision is made the employee is notified and shown the door.

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

#239

Post by logfromblammo » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:20 PM UTC

slg wrote: post #132

munificent wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If your managers don't know what you do all day If your managers can't tell what you do all day when they merely need to go to reddit.com/r/IamA and see dozens of upvoted posts from celebrities whose top comment says, "Victoria is here helping me...", then I don't think you can really blame her for that.

I don't expect my boss to dive into my commit logs to figure out what I am doing. I instead tell him.

Devil's advocate here. If your boss doesn't check your commit logs, you should tell him what you're doing, and tell him that you're also doing things that you aren't actually doing.

I expect my boss to know that some people engage in dubious ethical practices to advance their own careers.

After all, if it were my job to do my boss's job, couldn't my boss be my boss's boss instead?

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

#240

Post by Karunamon » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:21 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #194

amyjess wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually reminds me of when Unidan was shadowbanned. Unidan was a super-popular redditor who loved educating people about science, and he would pop up everywhere and deliver useful information written in a way most laymen can understand. People loved him. He got banned right after getting in an argument with somebody, where he was being really aggressive and heavy-handed. A lot of people flipped out and claimed…

And at a minimum, it'd mean that reddit is poor at handling communication. Most likely that they aren't paying attention past, just stepping into things now and then. Who the hell bans Unidan just like that? You couldn't put some checks into your bot?

Vote manipulation is a serious, big, huge, possibly the single biggest no-no on the site.

The difference between a post never making it to the front page and making it to position #1 can be as small as one or two votes when the post is new. Unidan selfishly crowded out other content for his own, and the ban was fully justified.