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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

#291

Post by bduerst »

makomk wrote: post #198
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.

Part of the problem was that there was no transparency and almost anything can count as "harassment" - for example, I've seen journalists accuse people of harassment because they've searched their name on Twitter and found people mocking some of their more ill thought-out articles. If you actually dug into the details it was obvious why the admins banned /r/fatpeoplehate, but few did and those details didn't make the…

Key distinction for sure, but how would transparency impact the people affected by the prejudice?

If you had evidence of harassment and violent threats against individuals and factored it into your decision to close a 150,000 community, would you release the information about the evidence?

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

#292

Post by dredmorbius »

vidarh wrote: post #176
heyheyhey wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> and you think a majority of those subscribers wanted it to be shut down? And you think it didn't? I don't see you offering up any evidence for your position other than assuming they can't have because of the sheer number. Meanwhile we have at least some indication that there were support well beyond the moderators, in the form of heavily upvoted threads with large number of comments in support of shutdowns for many…

Meta-observation: the fact that it's difficult to divine the intent of users on a site who'se primary claim to fame is being able to divine the intent of users suggess problems with the mechanisms in which the intent of users is divined.

Pretty much the point I'm planning on making to /u/krispykrackers the /r/modnews thread.

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

#293

Post by MichaelGG »

Karunamon wrote: post #240
MichaelGG wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm saying they should have let him know first and promptly responded rather than an auto shadowban.

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

#294

Post by res0nat0r »

arprocter wrote: post #276
res0nat0r wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their backup plan was to email immediate issues to ama@reddit.com, but that didn't satisfy the nerd rage, so the users had to go into nuclear mode.

If you read the modmail leak from elsewhere in this thread it didn't satisfy mods who were trying to pick up the pieces either

Nothing short of an immediate team of people to replace her, and an entire site revamp to address their issues was going to calm any of their rage.

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

#295

Post by basch »

amyjess wrote: post #281
celticninja wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The digg exodus didnt happen overnight, I agree. But the v4 was the final nail in the coffin. It really started around the time digg banned anyone posting the DeCSS key. A lot of users started trickling away or splitting their time between reddit and digg. Reddit promoted itself as a free-speech platform at the time. Reddit self posts got posted to digg more often and more digg users came to reddit. After v4 there we…

I don't think most of reddit's content creators care one iota about freedom of speech. Most people are used to vBulletin/phpBB/etc. forums that are strictly moderated. Besides, while the admins might have previously held a hands-off attitude, the subreddit moderators don't. Most subreddits have strict requirements for what can and can't be posted to them; go look at the sidebar of a big default like /r/pics or /r/ask…

I think a fair amount of people were perfectly fine with the company promoting free speech, while also encouraging heavily moderated subs like /r/askscience. the two preferences dont conflict at all.

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

#296

Post by bduerst »

danudey wrote: post #214
slg wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 you don't know what your direct reports are doing, why the heck are you their manager? If she's spending so much of her time dealing with AMAs, surely it's worth sitting down and going over her process regularly and how it's changed over time. If her management didn't take an interest in how the system worked, that's on them. That said, it honestly seems like they didn't know or care. No one told any of the subs s…

To be fair, I don't think the full reason why they were let go was ever disclosed, just hearsay and rumors.

I've observed situations where people had to be let go immediately (e.g. deceitful resume) even though they were in some pretty critical positions that set us back after losing them.

There could have been a reason for the suddenness.

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

#297

Post by dredmorbius »

genericuser wrote: post #258
burglecut wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter if the 90 don't feel strongly. What happens when the 10 move to another site?

And what site would they move to given the current options? Reddit might as well be the only game in town now a days pretty much.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/

People have been exploring options for years. I've got a few spots / candidates myself.

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

#298

Post by dredmorbius »

vidarh wrote: post #289
genericuser wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what site would they move to given the current options? Reddit might as well be the only game in town now a days pretty much.

I remember when Slashdot seemed like the only game in town. Things can reach a tipping point very quickly.

What was the proper successor to Slashdot? Digg?

I somewhat lost touch during that period. When I came up for air, it seemed to be HN, StackOverflow, and Reddit (~2009 or so).

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

#299

Post by Lawtonfogle »

bduerst wrote: post #130
flatline wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I laugh when people complain about removal of /r/fatpeoplehate being censorship. The only reason that subreddit was such a problem is because of aggressive moderation and banning of users - i.e. censorship at the moderator level rather than the admin level.

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.

Just because the Amendment doesn't apply doesn't mean the ideals behind it are irrelevant. I could choose to exclude all individuals of a certain race from my home. No law could prevent me from doing that. But people would still be against me for the same reasons that there exists laws that prevent discrimination by government or businesses. It just seems most people do not articulate the difference between 'wrong because I like the First Amendment' from 'wrong because I like the ideals behind the First Amendment'.

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

#300

Post by Lawtonfogle »

mcphage wrote: post #222
mason240 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> They shut downs of other subs was overwhelmingly supported by the users. r/Cooking went down. They had a vote, and 209 out of 230 people voted to go dark. That sounds like an overwhelming majority! But when you realize that the subreddit has 310,000 subscribers, it means that it went dark because less than 0.1% of the subscribers wanted it to. You can't draw any conclusion of support from that.

How many of those 310,000 evens till go to r/cooking? This is like some app promoting it self based on total users instead of active users.
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