10 ms·

Reddit boss apologises after staff sacking causes 'revolt'

117 points by adzicg 11y ago

djhworld 11y ago
I'm too much of a fairweather reddit user to really have that much of an informed opinion on it really, I only I ever frequent the main programming subreddits, a few local ones and /r/games. My frontpage feed doesn't subscribe to any of the main subreddits either. As far as I'm concerned this whole "revolt" seems like it's on some other planet
- mahouse 11y ago
  On the most populated planet, for that matter.
  - brobinson 11y ago
    On the highest-revenue generating planet, hence kn0thing's priorities having "get the blacked out subreddits back online" before "work out a plan for going forward". http://www.reddit.com/r/modclub/comments/3bypwq/rmodclub_amageddon_discussion_thread/csqupsf http://www.reddit.com/r/modclub/comments/3bypwq/rmodclub_ama... Reddit really needs PR people. The administration's interactions with the community during events like these are almost comically bad.
    - mahouse 11y ago
      > The administration's interactions with the community during events like these are almost comically bad. Most of them are programmers, after all. ;P
- peatmoss 11y ago
  Same experience here. And reading a few of the comment threads on reddit to try and figure out what's going on completely cured me of feeling too sympathetic toward this revolt. The "men's rights" mix was a little strong for me. Some of those threads left me feeling like turning in my man parts.
mjklin 11y ago
It's looking to me that the Wikipedia business model is the correct one for a community site like Reddit. What are the chances of a Reddit clone surviving on donations?
- TD-Linux 11y ago
  Well, Reddit Gold is already basically donations. Have they released earnings information?
  - officemonkey 11y ago
    Well, I believe Reddit Gold saved Reddit. There were four people working in a corner of the Wired Offices before Reddit Gold. Afterward, they became a prize property.
  - dageshi 11y ago
    I see the bar fill up most days, I actually think reddit has missed an opportunity by not expanding reddit gold and doing more interesting things with it.
- datasage 11y ago
  I tend to agree with this. It would better align the goals of the organization supporting the community with the community.
- holyjaw 11y ago
  > business model I'm not sure what you mean here; are you referring to the annual donation drive? I love this model, but I know a lot of Wikipedia users who absolutoly hate the (admittedly non-invasive and pretty respectful) banners requesting donations.
  - mjklin 11y ago
    Yes, the fundraising appeals are annoying. But they keep their independence from marketers and the community has a stake in the site. They are not lying when they say "if everyone gave $5 the appeal would be over today". It's much easier for them than for a local PBS affiliate because of the huge user base. As the internet grows up, I hope users will learn to value things appropriately and not expect them for free.
anon3_ 11y ago
The irony is reddit is a community website, the content is there thanks to the users, not just the moderators. Pao has so far shown herself to be deeply out of touch with core values of reddit, I could elaborate. However, Pao or not - how can you make a community-based site like reddit profitable without betraying the fact your users are doing the heavy lifting? I could elaborate here too.
- istvan__ 11y ago
  I think profit must be driven out from communication channels if we would like to have a non-dividing, truly open community. There are proofs that profit oriented social sites do not serve the community and yields to a highly divided society[1]. Corporate interest is against community values, since there is only one dimension to take care of, increasing the profit. The Reddit situation shows this, there is much damage done already, and we are going to see a lot more. [1] http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/ http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarizatio...
- rasur 11y ago
  Then please stop teasing, and elaborate.
- rokhayakebe 11y ago
  1) Elaborate. 2) Who do you think is doing the heavy lifting at Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, any other social network?
- adzicg 11y ago
  FB is an example of a system where all content is there due to users, but it's profitable. On the other hand, at least from what I could see, FB never really promoted any kind of special culture or community ethos. based on that, at least two good ways to make a community-based site profitable would be to use it as a platform for this party profit - allow others to embed profitable apps/games/... and take a percentage of their income, and sell ads based on people's interests.
  - 11y ago
ScootyPuff2000 11y ago
Ellen Pao is the butt of jokes here in Silicon Valley. She is poison. They need to get rid of her. I hope she never works in this Valley again. (Now, Reddit (which I like) probably will never be a viable business for unrelated reasons.)
exstudent2 11y ago
She went into more detail in the NYT: > But Ms. Pao says that the most virulent detractors on the site are a vocal minority, and that the vast majority of Reddit users are uninterested in what unfolded over the past 48 hours. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/technology/reddit-moderators-shut-down-parts-of-site-over-executives-dismissal.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/technology/reddit-moderato... I think MOST Reddit users would disagree with how things have been handled and she does indeed seem out of touch with the user base. I don't see this turning around and instead see it as an opportunity for up and coming players to steal the user base (just like Reddit did to Digg).
- jgrahamc 11y ago
  I suspect Pao is right. Most people who use reddit won't care about this. It's very easy to get in a Silicon Valley bubble thinking this stuff matters. EDIT: Downvoting me as a way of saying "I disagree" is immature.
  - placeybordeaux 11y ago
    Most likely the lurkers don't care, but if a majority of mods or content producers care it could be a serious issue. Content producers are a tiny minority of the site and mods are a tiny minority of that.
    - sappapp 11y ago
      My thoughts exactly. The vocal minority are those that produce content and keep the site going.
  - zzleeper 11y ago
    True. But there is a large overlap between those that do care and those that create content, vote, comment, and are mods. Thus, you are alienating exactly the class of users that you don't want to.
  - kumarm 11y ago
shostack 11y ago
Reddit user of 8 years here. Note how the article shows them apologizing for how the transition was handled, not the firing, which there are still no clear details on. I hope they realized how much power the community holds. Reddit is fickle with a long memory, and if the winds of favor start blowing the other way, there will ALWAYS be someone dredging up the past any time you try to do anything in the future. Pao and any others involved in these decisions have done irreparable damage to their community and its trust in Reddit's leadership. Reddit's success is built on a notion of trust that few, if any social networks could ever achieve because Reddit has consistently made choices in favor of the community, not despite them. When that starts changing, so does the trust and the rest of the relationship. But maybe that's the goal and they are trying to drive out the people who care about that while retaining the users who just want cat pictures and celeb AMA's who don't give a crap about the drama or increasingly intrusive advertising (I'm looking at you Alienblue feed ads that I can't downvote enough). I'd be shocked if they didn't start selling audience data to brokers like Axciom or Neustar at some point as well. > "He said the team were also looking into ways to "improve being a moderator"." Given how things went down, I wouldn't be surprised if that implied restricting the ability for mods to make certain subs dark in the future. If you are a content portal, you can't be letting your pesky users turn off the tap whenever they want...bad for business. I always wondered why Reddit never introduced paid subscription-based subs. Let the community monetize and promote the platform, give them recurring revenue and take a cut. Suddenly you are helping your users and helping Reddit. Sure free alternative subs might be more popular for easily duplicated content, but certain content areas could do quite well. Oh well, it was great while it lasted. --EDIT-- Please don't interpret my statement about them not providing details of the firing as a presumption that they should have or that I expected them to expose themselves to liability--I'm not ignorant when it comes to how these things go down. My (perhaps not clear enough) point is that there is no real acknowledgement that she was good at executing on her job (from the standpoint of the community and our perception) and the entire way this has been handled has been in a cold corporate manner. I get they are a business, but when you run a community like Reddit, the Reddit employees who actively engage are part of that community, so it becomes an inherently personal matter, like when you have to explain to a child why you are divorcing your spouse. Sure you could just not explain it, but you increase the likely hood of deep emotional scars that never heal if you handle it poorly. As much as they would like this to be an internal situation, the community is intrinsically intertwined in this so some deeper explanation that satisfies this curiosity is more or less necessary to bring them around. Not saying that is fair to Reddit or Victoria, just stating how the mob works from my experience after 8+ years.
go1dfish 11y ago
Now it's time for them to apologize for hiring former digg admins that brag about nuking users. https://archive.is/cCxX3 https://archive.is/cCxX3 They are quite literally TRYING to build reddit v4 https://www.reddit.com/r/Upvoted/comments/352e9y/introducing_reddit_original_video/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Upvoted/comments/352e9y/introducing...
hoopd 11y ago
I have a strong suspicion that in the same way new CEOs and managers like to do 'spring cleaning' of their staffs that reddit might like for the mods with the old-reddit mentality to leave so they can be replaced with new mods more in line with the "safe spaces and monetezation" goals of the site.
legohead 11y ago
My god, what a horribly written article, and by the BBC? > Reddit went into virtual lockdown, with many of the sections made private after Victoria Taylor was fired. Sections? Private? Explain this to your users, or use better wording. > About 100 chat sections, or sub-reddits, that together have millions of readers are believed to have been shut, although are many are now again public. Just..what? "have been shut", "are many are now" > There had been no explanation of why she was suddenly sacked, said the administrators. This makes no sense. Administrators are the employees/company. So you're saying that the company just fired someone without knowing why? Maybe you meant moderators?
- mahouse 11y ago
  > Sections? Private? Explain this to your users, or use better wording. That's implying the reader knows or wants to know how the website works.
- orionblastar 11y ago
  Anything they say to the press can be used in a discrimination lawsuit. Pao is a lawyer, she knows when to keep her mouth shut to the press. It is better to say she doesn't know why Victoria was fired, than give an actual reason that can be investigated. A CEO that doesn't know what their own organization is doing is a poor CEO, but better to be seen as a poor CEO than one that has a political agenda and fires people based on discrimination principles. Pao needs to be vague so they can't use her words against her in a lawsuit. It is obvious she is trying to clean up Reddit to get better advertisers by banning subs and users and firing people whom she thinks allows certain behavior to go unpunished. I heard that some users were posting links to her husband's Ponzi schemes, and they were getting deleted. http://nypost.com/2015/03/18/users-lash-out-at-reddit-boss-for-deleting-posts-on-hubbys-lawsuit/ http://nypost.com/2015/03/18/users-lash-out-at-reddit-boss-f...
- protothomas 11y ago
  To be fair it's on the Newsbeat "magazine" section of the bbc which is intentionally more informal / gossipy and also aimed at a young demographic. Still a fairly shoddy article though I'd agree.
SirensOfTitan 11y ago
> But Ms. Pao says that the most virulent detractors on the site are a vocal minority, and that the vast majority of Reddit users are uninterested in what unfolded over the past 48 hours. This is an incredible simplification. If we follow the 90-9-1 model: 1% of reddit's user base contributes new content, 9% interacts with that content, and 90% are lurkers and consumers. The 'vocal minority' are the content creators and contributors. Reddit has hardly changed in its existence. Things like a search that works or reasonable moderator tools have been promised for years to no avail. Reddit has never had any decent product leadership, but their attempt to reign in control of content has been disastrous. Moderating content outside of removing illegal content is a really slippery slope. It's incredibly difficult to get content standards right. Reddit, as it becomes more mainstream, seems like its trying to get content standards under control, but the cost is immense and might eventually end up alienating its userbase.
- mreiland 11y ago
  Where to begin. > The 'vocal minority' are the content creators and contributors. That term, content creator. That's a bit disingenuous in this case. It's rare for anyone to create content specifically for reddit, the vast majority of this content you're talking about is re-posted to reddit from other sources. > Reddit, as it becomes more mainstream Reddit is one of the largest sites on the internet, how much more mainstream does it need to get before you stop characterizing it as "becoming mainstream"? The truth is, the company made a decision and the moderators got ansty and threw the users under the bus in an attempt to make a power play. The most virulent detractors were a vocal minority, they were the mods of a few large subreddits.
  - adevine 11y ago
    I call BS. One of the things that convinced me this (that is, how reddit treats and responds to its mods) was a real problem, and not just some "angsty mods", was the reaction from /r/AskScience. AskScience is one of the best subreddits, largely because its moderation is so good. The fact that the AskScience mods stood up in agreement with what was going on, and pointed out how non-responsive admins had been, made me believe this is much more than a "power play".
s_dev 11y ago
Reddit user of 5 years. I don't see a Digg like exodus happening yet. I recall leaving Digg and thinking with the new version that these guys were taking the piss and completely out of touch with users. Reddit hasn't gone quite that far but it definitely used to pride itself being a free speech platform and thats changed now - locking sub reddits is restricting ideas and behaviour despite what the admins say. You're only even in favor of free speech so long as you tolerate things that are mean, awful and sometimes even hateful. The bans, firing and lack of communications weren't a good idea and didn't result in a "safer" reddit. I don't think Ellen Pao is the right person to run Reddit. I think Reddit is facing the same dilemma the music industry faced when they realised that their best customers were also the ones to pirate the most music.
- shostack 11y ago
  Part of that is there doesn't seem to be a great alternative yet. Even Voat doesn't cut it. Simply different dynamics to the Digg migration. Reddit set the bar way higher and there is no better alternative yet.
- holyjaw 11y ago
  The Digg exodus was due, in part, to Digg rapid-fire iterating over new site-wide designs in an era when the web was still learning how to deal with things like asynchronous actions and dynamic (vs. static) content. One of the other major issues with Digg v4 that I can remember was the use of iFrames to ensure all traffic never left digg.com. This was also around the time of the Facebook "like" button earning prominence on most sites. Long story short, EVERY user was affected by Digg's changes and bugs. The issues Reddit faces now affect only the moderators; users only feel the secondary and tertiary affects of these conflicts. There is not yet any impetus for a mass exodus.
  - iaw 11y ago
    Excellent analysis. I suspect that the secondary and tertiary affects have a lagged but similar impact on the user base as Digg's failed redesigns.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
matchagaucho 11y ago
Reddit is just not sustainable on $8M per year in ad revenue. Urgent changes are required. Sponsored AMAs are the first of many possible monetization strategies to take Reddit to $100M per year, which in turn increase the value of employee equity. AMAs are ridiculously undervalued when looking at the quality of celebs and their monthly unique visitors. If Reddit's own internal culture is indeed blocking the evolution of Reddit as a media property, then Ellen is simply making the tough, fiscally responsible decisions. Snoop Dogg, a Reddit investor, didn't become a $135M franchise by undervaluing his content and services. Reddit shouldn't either.
- adevine 11y ago
  Totally disagree on this one, and I see in this sentiment the same thing that brought down Digg. "If Reddit's own internal culture is indeed blocking the evolution of Reddit as a media property, then Ellen is simply making the tough, fiscally responsible decisions." I call major BS, because reddit is NOTHING without its "internal culture". Anything that has a whiff of promotion or spam on reddit will kill it, at least if it's done in a way that doesn't respect its user base. For example, it was rumored that Victoria Taylor was against video AMAs for the reason that it would turn them into light puff pieces, instead of the insightful, humorous, and sometimes hard-hitting interactions that the best AMAs are.
  - matchagaucho 11y ago
    Promotions can be done natively while preserving "culture". If J.J. Abrams does an AMA to promote Star Wars this December, does anyone really care that Disney paid $200K to show an exclusive movie trailer to Reddit fans? If even 1% of Reddit users take that video viral, it'd add millions to the opening weekend box office numbers. [edit: nevermind measurable viral outcomes. The core question remains, can Reddit can maintain it's culture with native ads/sponsorship?].
    - adevine 11y ago
      This makes no sense. Why would Disney pay any money at all to show an exclusive trailer to Reddit fans, when they could just release it for free elsewhere and have it go viral all by itself? Because that is exactly what happened.
grey413 11y ago
Even if you're not invested in reddit's fate (I'm a fairweather user myself), this whole debacle has been a fascinating example of how to screw up community management, and how that in turn ruins public relations. Good community management is all about managing expectations and cultivating your userbase so that they'll support you during rough patches. Likewise, good public relations is all about controlling and influencing the narrative. Reddit-the-company, has apparently failed on both fronts. First, they shut out their core of dedicated, free volunteers, giving them literally no reason to be loyal to the company. As a direct result, reddit lost out on one of their best tools for managing the narrative. So when Reddit co. undermined their most prominent, productive volunteers by firing their staff liaison with no warning, it's no damned wonder that the moderators turned on their "bosses". Result? Instant PR nightmare, with next to zero available leverage for controlling it. The whole thing is a failure of management, pure and simple. Reddit's board should be looking for blood.
staunch 11y ago
> "I want to apologize for how we handled the transition yesterday," This is a great display of distancing language. 1. The "I" becomes "we". 2. Use of "apologize" over "sorry". 3. Specifies the mistake as one of "handling". 4. Refers to abrupt firing as a "transition".
- cmsj 11y ago
  Also, "I want to apologise" is different to "I apologise". It's understandable that people want to put as much self-sparing language in an apology as possible, but it's the worst time to do it.
  - lepht 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance
sixQuarks 11y ago
Reddit's biggest mistake was to raise $50 million at a $250 million valuation. They are now a profit-seeking enterprise that goes against the grain of what the site is all about. This is the beginning of the end.
- dopeboy 11y ago
  They were a profit seeking enterprise from the beginning - they just kept punting until that round. At some point the rubber has to hit the road. I don't have the answers but I don't think monetizing the 31st most traffiked is impossible. They have to think harder and dig deeper.
  - sixQuarks 11y ago
    I agree, they should be able to monetize it, but when the CEO doesn't know how to use the site, that's a big problem. She simply doesn't understand the user base. Reddit needs someone who understands the users and does a good job matching up advertisers that want to reach those users (in a way that doesn't feel like advertising). Perhaps only allow Reddit-approved advertisers.
pbhjpbhj 11y ago
Still no answer on the reason for the dismissal of the Reddit staff member, other than speculation that it concerned a particular AMA. Disappointed that they appear not to have even asked the question; if they had surely they'd say there was "no comment" or refusal to answer or whatever. IMO it makes a lot of difference if they were planning the dismissal for a while and screwed it up or had to react to something like gross negligence or misconduct - as the BBC was required to when Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) hit a member of the production team and the series was postponed mid-run. Would be ever so interesting to see Reddit's stats and stats on exit pages and the URL's visited outside Reddit by browser put off by the blackout. Maybe the NSA will release an analysis at some point ;0)>.
mahranch 11y ago
Powermod and poweruser here. By that, I mean I mod 1 or more large default subreddit and have been on reddit a long time. We, the mods, have been asking for tools to properly manage our communities for upwards of 4-5 years now. Pretty much as soon as subreddits were created, we were needing tools. But back then, it was less of an issue because you only had 20,000 subscribers (if you were lucky). Now, subreddits have 9 million subscribers and the tools that were promised? Non existent. Instead, they roll out things like snoovatars and redditgifts. It's literally a slap in the face and just goes to show that management is so completely out of touch with their own site that you can't help but laugh at it all. They spend money hiring media coordinators, "creative director of video", "Head of round-up" (yes, those are real positions at reddit) and sales reps instead of talented software engineers and coders to support the people who keep their website chugging along. The people who do it for free. The issue: They started focusing on profits too soon. Reddit, back when it was seeing a few million hits a month, was only a half finished product. Now it sees 170 million unique hits a month and nothing has changed. It's still an unfinished product. But after getting their $50 million investment, instead of putting some of that money back into the website to bring us the tools we've literally been begging for, they redoubled their efforts on finding ways to monetize the site. How to fix: Fire their CEO or whoever is responsible for laying out the company's current goals. They were wrong. Anyone who actually knows and understands reddit knew those goals were going to fail. Which means (or proves) whoever was in charge was operating and making decisions out of ignorance. They were making decisions without understanding their product. It would be like me getting hired as the CEO of Walmart and I just start making business decisions without knowing anything about their corporate structure or needs. It's an obvious recipe for disaster. The most surprising thing out of all of this was the realization that the management at reddit was truly and really out of touch. I didn't want to believe that to be the case because I like reddit. It's a sad thing to see something you love being run by people who just don't know their own product.
- ObviousScience 11y ago
  As someone who hasn't really had to deal with managing large communities or being in the moderator position you're in... could you give a few examples of tools you wish they'd provide for community management or ways you wish the reddit corporate team would be in better contact with the community (besides the obvious notifying when firing liaisons coordinating things)?
joshstrange 11y ago
> "At this point, however, the blackout has served its purpose, and now it's time to get Reddit functioning again," Alexis Ohanian wrote. I like Alexis, I've read his book and seen his TED talk and think he is overall a good guy. That said both this comment and the way he reacted on reddit was extremely poor. This "apology" for Pao is shit and completely empty. After years of ignoring the mods and the hard work they put in to make reddit possible they tell everyone "You've had your fun, now start making up money again". I'm not just ready to leave reddit for something like voat like I left digg for reddit but this is not the first thing reddit has done recently that rubs me wrong. Maybe this is just their Google-"Don't be evil" transformation where they do things that the community thinks are not in keeping with their stated mission but continues to use the platform because it's better than most everything else out there...
superuser2 11y ago
The point brought up on Reddit (but not posted here) in the comments is salient: if she were apologizing to the Reddit community, she would have made a Reddit post. But she didn't do that - she went through old media channels. This is in no way, shape, or form an apology to users, it is damage control with investors.

117 points by adzicg 11y ago

I'm too much of a fairweather reddit user to really have that much of an informed opinion on it really, I only I ever frequent the main programming subreddits, a few local ones and /r/games. My frontpage feed doesn't subscribe to any of the main subreddits either. As far as I'm concerned this whole "revolt" seems like it's on some other planet

mahouse 11y ago
On the most populated planet, for that matter.
- brobinson 11y ago
  On the highest-revenue generating planet, hence kn0thing's priorities having "get the blacked out subreddits back online" before "work out a plan for going forward". http://www.reddit.com/r/modclub/comments/3bypwq/rmodclub_amageddon_discussion_thread/csqupsf http://www.reddit.com/r/modclub/comments/3bypwq/rmodclub_ama... Reddit really needs PR people. The administration's interactions with the community during events like these are almost comically bad.
  - mahouse 11y ago
    > The administration's interactions with the community during events like these are almost comically bad. Most of them are programmers, after all. ;P
peatmoss 11y ago
Same experience here. And reading a few of the comment threads on reddit to try and figure out what's going on completely cured me of feeling too sympathetic toward this revolt. The "men's rights" mix was a little strong for me. Some of those threads left me feeling like turning in my man parts.

mjklin 11y ago

It's looking to me that the Wikipedia business model is the correct one for a community site like Reddit. What are the chances of a Reddit clone surviving on donations?

TD-Linux 11y ago
Well, Reddit Gold is already basically donations. Have they released earnings information?
- officemonkey 11y ago
  Well, I believe Reddit Gold saved Reddit. There were four people working in a corner of the Wired Offices before Reddit Gold. Afterward, they became a prize property.
- dageshi 11y ago
  I see the bar fill up most days, I actually think reddit has missed an opportunity by not expanding reddit gold and doing more interesting things with it.
datasage 11y ago
I tend to agree with this. It would better align the goals of the organization supporting the community with the community.
holyjaw 11y ago
> business model I'm not sure what you mean here; are you referring to the annual donation drive? I love this model, but I know a lot of Wikipedia users who absolutoly hate the (admittedly non-invasive and pretty respectful) banners requesting donations.
- mjklin 11y ago
  Yes, the fundraising appeals are annoying. But they keep their independence from marketers and the community has a stake in the site. They are not lying when they say "if everyone gave $5 the appeal would be over today". It's much easier for them than for a local PBS affiliate because of the huge user base. As the internet grows up, I hope users will learn to value things appropriately and not expect them for free.

anon3_ 11y ago

The irony is reddit is a community website, the content is there thanks to the users, not just the moderators. Pao has so far shown herself to be deeply out of touch with core values of reddit, I could elaborate. However, Pao or not - how can you make a community-based site like reddit profitable without betraying the fact your users are doing the heavy lifting? I could elaborate here too.

istvan__ 11y ago
I think profit must be driven out from communication channels if we would like to have a non-dividing, truly open community. There are proofs that profit oriented social sites do not serve the community and yields to a highly divided society[1]. Corporate interest is against community values, since there is only one dimension to take care of, increasing the profit. The Reddit situation shows this, there is much damage done already, and we are going to see a lot more. [1] http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarization-in-the-american-public/ http://www.people-press.org/2014/06/12/political-polarizatio...
rasur 11y ago
Then please stop teasing, and elaborate.
rokhayakebe 11y ago
1) Elaborate. 2) Who do you think is doing the heavy lifting at Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, any other social network?
adzicg 11y ago
FB is an example of a system where all content is there due to users, but it's profitable. On the other hand, at least from what I could see, FB never really promoted any kind of special culture or community ethos. based on that, at least two good ways to make a community-based site profitable would be to use it as a platform for this party profit - allow others to embed profitable apps/games/... and take a percentage of their income, and sell ads based on people's interests.
- 11y ago

ScootyPuff2000 11y ago

Ellen Pao is the butt of jokes here in Silicon Valley. She is poison. They need to get rid of her. I hope she never works in this Valley again. (Now, Reddit (which I like) probably will never be a viable business for unrelated reasons.)

exstudent2 11y ago

She went into more detail in the NYT: > But Ms. Pao says that the most virulent detractors on the site are a vocal minority, and that the vast majority of Reddit users are uninterested in what unfolded over the past 48 hours. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/technology/reddit-moderators-shut-down-parts-of-site-over-executives-dismissal.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/04/technology/reddit-moderato... I think MOST Reddit users would disagree with how things have been handled and she does indeed seem out of touch with the user base. I don't see this turning around and instead see it as an opportunity for up and coming players to steal the user base (just like Reddit did to Digg).

jgrahamc 11y ago
I suspect Pao is right. Most people who use reddit won't care about this. It's very easy to get in a Silicon Valley bubble thinking this stuff matters. EDIT: Downvoting me as a way of saying "I disagree" is immature.
- placeybordeaux 11y ago
  Most likely the lurkers don't care, but if a majority of mods or content producers care it could be a serious issue. Content producers are a tiny minority of the site and mods are a tiny minority of that.
  - sappapp 11y ago
    My thoughts exactly. The vocal minority are those that produce content and keep the site going.
- zzleeper 11y ago
  True. But there is a large overlap between those that do care and those that create content, vote, comment, and are mods. Thus, you are alienating exactly the class of users that you don't want to.
- kumarm 11y ago

shostack 11y ago

Reddit user of 8 years here. Note how the article shows them apologizing for how the transition was handled, not the firing, which there are still no clear details on. I hope they realized how much power the community holds. Reddit is fickle with a long memory, and if the winds of favor start blowing the other way, there will ALWAYS be someone dredging up the past any time you try to do anything in the future. Pao and any others involved in these decisions have done irreparable damage to their community and its trust in Reddit's leadership. Reddit's success is built on a notion of trust that few, if any social networks could ever achieve because Reddit has consistently made choices in favor of the community, not despite them. When that starts changing, so does the trust and the rest of the relationship. But maybe that's the goal and they are trying to drive out the people who care about that while retaining the users who just want cat pictures and celeb AMA's who don't give a crap about the drama or increasingly intrusive advertising (I'm looking at you Alienblue feed ads that I can't downvote enough). I'd be shocked if they didn't start selling audience data to brokers like Axciom or Neustar at some point as well. > "He said the team were also looking into ways to "improve being a moderator"." Given how things went down, I wouldn't be surprised if that implied restricting the ability for mods to make certain subs dark in the future. If you are a content portal, you can't be letting your pesky users turn off the tap whenever they want...bad for business. I always wondered why Reddit never introduced paid subscription-based subs. Let the community monetize and promote the platform, give them recurring revenue and take a cut. Suddenly you are helping your users and helping Reddit. Sure free alternative subs might be more popular for easily duplicated content, but certain content areas could do quite well. Oh well, it was great while it lasted. --EDIT-- Please don't interpret my statement about them not providing details of the firing as a presumption that they should have or that I expected them to expose themselves to liability--I'm not ignorant when it comes to how these things go down. My (perhaps not clear enough) point is that there is no real acknowledgement that she was good at executing on her job (from the standpoint of the community and our perception) and the entire way this has been handled has been in a cold corporate manner. I get they are a business, but when you run a community like Reddit, the Reddit employees who actively engage are part of that community, so it becomes an inherently personal matter, like when you have to explain to a child why you are divorcing your spouse. Sure you could just not explain it, but you increase the likely hood of deep emotional scars that never heal if you handle it poorly. As much as they would like this to be an internal situation, the community is intrinsically intertwined in this so some deeper explanation that satisfies this curiosity is more or less necessary to bring them around. Not saying that is fair to Reddit or Victoria, just stating how the mob works from my experience after 8+ years.

go1dfish 11y ago

Now it's time for them to apologize for hiring former digg admins that brag about nuking users. https://archive.is/cCxX3 https://archive.is/cCxX3 They are quite literally TRYING to build reddit v4 https://www.reddit.com/r/Upvoted/comments/352e9y/introducing_reddit_original_video/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Upvoted/comments/352e9y/introducing...

hoopd 11y ago

I have a strong suspicion that in the same way new CEOs and managers like to do 'spring cleaning' of their staffs that reddit might like for the mods with the old-reddit mentality to leave so they can be replaced with new mods more in line with the "safe spaces and monetezation" goals of the site.

legohead 11y ago

My god, what a horribly written article, and by the BBC? > Reddit went into virtual lockdown, with many of the sections made private after Victoria Taylor was fired. Sections? Private? Explain this to your users, or use better wording. > About 100 chat sections, or sub-reddits, that together have millions of readers are believed to have been shut, although are many are now again public. Just..what? "have been shut", "are many are now" > There had been no explanation of why she was suddenly sacked, said the administrators. This makes no sense. Administrators are the employees/company. So you're saying that the company just fired someone without knowing why? Maybe you meant moderators?

mahouse 11y ago
> Sections? Private? Explain this to your users, or use better wording. That's implying the reader knows or wants to know how the website works.
orionblastar 11y ago
Anything they say to the press can be used in a discrimination lawsuit. Pao is a lawyer, she knows when to keep her mouth shut to the press. It is better to say she doesn't know why Victoria was fired, than give an actual reason that can be investigated. A CEO that doesn't know what their own organization is doing is a poor CEO, but better to be seen as a poor CEO than one that has a political agenda and fires people based on discrimination principles. Pao needs to be vague so they can't use her words against her in a lawsuit. It is obvious she is trying to clean up Reddit to get better advertisers by banning subs and users and firing people whom she thinks allows certain behavior to go unpunished. I heard that some users were posting links to her husband's Ponzi schemes, and they were getting deleted. http://nypost.com/2015/03/18/users-lash-out-at-reddit-boss-for-deleting-posts-on-hubbys-lawsuit/ http://nypost.com/2015/03/18/users-lash-out-at-reddit-boss-f...
protothomas 11y ago
To be fair it's on the Newsbeat "magazine" section of the bbc which is intentionally more informal / gossipy and also aimed at a young demographic. Still a fairly shoddy article though I'd agree.

SirensOfTitan 11y ago

> But Ms. Pao says that the most virulent detractors on the site are a vocal minority, and that the vast majority of Reddit users are uninterested in what unfolded over the past 48 hours. This is an incredible simplification. If we follow the 90-9-1 model: 1% of reddit's user base contributes new content, 9% interacts with that content, and 90% are lurkers and consumers. The 'vocal minority' are the content creators and contributors. Reddit has hardly changed in its existence. Things like a search that works or reasonable moderator tools have been promised for years to no avail. Reddit has never had any decent product leadership, but their attempt to reign in control of content has been disastrous. Moderating content outside of removing illegal content is a really slippery slope. It's incredibly difficult to get content standards right. Reddit, as it becomes more mainstream, seems like its trying to get content standards under control, but the cost is immense and might eventually end up alienating its userbase.

mreiland 11y ago
Where to begin. > The 'vocal minority' are the content creators and contributors. That term, content creator. That's a bit disingenuous in this case. It's rare for anyone to create content specifically for reddit, the vast majority of this content you're talking about is re-posted to reddit from other sources. > Reddit, as it becomes more mainstream Reddit is one of the largest sites on the internet, how much more mainstream does it need to get before you stop characterizing it as "becoming mainstream"? The truth is, the company made a decision and the moderators got ansty and threw the users under the bus in an attempt to make a power play. The most virulent detractors were a vocal minority, they were the mods of a few large subreddits.
- adevine 11y ago
  I call BS. One of the things that convinced me this (that is, how reddit treats and responds to its mods) was a real problem, and not just some "angsty mods", was the reaction from /r/AskScience. AskScience is one of the best subreddits, largely because its moderation is so good. The fact that the AskScience mods stood up in agreement with what was going on, and pointed out how non-responsive admins had been, made me believe this is much more than a "power play".

s_dev 11y ago

Reddit user of 5 years. I don't see a Digg like exodus happening yet. I recall leaving Digg and thinking with the new version that these guys were taking the piss and completely out of touch with users. Reddit hasn't gone quite that far but it definitely used to pride itself being a free speech platform and thats changed now - locking sub reddits is restricting ideas and behaviour despite what the admins say. You're only even in favor of free speech so long as you tolerate things that are mean, awful and sometimes even hateful. The bans, firing and lack of communications weren't a good idea and didn't result in a "safer" reddit. I don't think Ellen Pao is the right person to run Reddit. I think Reddit is facing the same dilemma the music industry faced when they realised that their best customers were also the ones to pirate the most music.

shostack 11y ago
Part of that is there doesn't seem to be a great alternative yet. Even Voat doesn't cut it. Simply different dynamics to the Digg migration. Reddit set the bar way higher and there is no better alternative yet.
holyjaw 11y ago
The Digg exodus was due, in part, to Digg rapid-fire iterating over new site-wide designs in an era when the web was still learning how to deal with things like asynchronous actions and dynamic (vs. static) content. One of the other major issues with Digg v4 that I can remember was the use of iFrames to ensure all traffic never left digg.com. This was also around the time of the Facebook "like" button earning prominence on most sites. Long story short, EVERY user was affected by Digg's changes and bugs. The issues Reddit faces now affect only the moderators; users only feel the secondary and tertiary affects of these conflicts. There is not yet any impetus for a mass exodus.
- iaw 11y ago
  Excellent analysis. I suspect that the secondary and tertiary affects have a lagged but similar impact on the user base as Digg's failed redesigns.
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago

matchagaucho 11y ago

Reddit is just not sustainable on $8M per year in ad revenue. Urgent changes are required. Sponsored AMAs are the first of many possible monetization strategies to take Reddit to $100M per year, which in turn increase the value of employee equity. AMAs are ridiculously undervalued when looking at the quality of celebs and their monthly unique visitors. If Reddit's own internal culture is indeed blocking the evolution of Reddit as a media property, then Ellen is simply making the tough, fiscally responsible decisions. Snoop Dogg, a Reddit investor, didn't become a $135M franchise by undervaluing his content and services. Reddit shouldn't either.

adevine 11y ago
Totally disagree on this one, and I see in this sentiment the same thing that brought down Digg. "If Reddit's own internal culture is indeed blocking the evolution of Reddit as a media property, then Ellen is simply making the tough, fiscally responsible decisions." I call major BS, because reddit is NOTHING without its "internal culture". Anything that has a whiff of promotion or spam on reddit will kill it, at least if it's done in a way that doesn't respect its user base. For example, it was rumored that Victoria Taylor was against video AMAs for the reason that it would turn them into light puff pieces, instead of the insightful, humorous, and sometimes hard-hitting interactions that the best AMAs are.
- matchagaucho 11y ago
  Promotions can be done natively while preserving "culture". If J.J. Abrams does an AMA to promote Star Wars this December, does anyone really care that Disney paid $200K to show an exclusive movie trailer to Reddit fans? If even 1% of Reddit users take that video viral, it'd add millions to the opening weekend box office numbers. [edit: nevermind measurable viral outcomes. The core question remains, can Reddit can maintain it's culture with native ads/sponsorship?].
  - adevine 11y ago
    This makes no sense. Why would Disney pay any money at all to show an exclusive trailer to Reddit fans, when they could just release it for free elsewhere and have it go viral all by itself? Because that is exactly what happened.

grey413 11y ago

Even if you're not invested in reddit's fate (I'm a fairweather user myself), this whole debacle has been a fascinating example of how to screw up community management, and how that in turn ruins public relations. Good community management is all about managing expectations and cultivating your userbase so that they'll support you during rough patches. Likewise, good public relations is all about controlling and influencing the narrative. Reddit-the-company, has apparently failed on both fronts. First, they shut out their core of dedicated, free volunteers, giving them literally no reason to be loyal to the company. As a direct result, reddit lost out on one of their best tools for managing the narrative. So when Reddit co. undermined their most prominent, productive volunteers by firing their staff liaison with no warning, it's no damned wonder that the moderators turned on their "bosses". Result? Instant PR nightmare, with next to zero available leverage for controlling it. The whole thing is a failure of management, pure and simple. Reddit's board should be looking for blood.

staunch 11y ago

> "I want to apologize for how we handled the transition yesterday," This is a great display of distancing language. 1. The "I" becomes "we". 2. Use of "apologize" over "sorry". 3. Specifies the mistake as one of "handling". 4. Refers to abrupt firing as a "transition".

cmsj 11y ago
Also, "I want to apologise" is different to "I apologise". It's understandable that people want to put as much self-sparing language in an apology as possible, but it's the worst time to do it.
- lepht 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance

sixQuarks 11y ago

Reddit's biggest mistake was to raise $50 million at a $250 million valuation. They are now a profit-seeking enterprise that goes against the grain of what the site is all about. This is the beginning of the end.

dopeboy 11y ago
They were a profit seeking enterprise from the beginning - they just kept punting until that round. At some point the rubber has to hit the road. I don't have the answers but I don't think monetizing the 31st most traffiked is impossible. They have to think harder and dig deeper.
- sixQuarks 11y ago
  I agree, they should be able to monetize it, but when the CEO doesn't know how to use the site, that's a big problem. She simply doesn't understand the user base. Reddit needs someone who understands the users and does a good job matching up advertisers that want to reach those users (in a way that doesn't feel like advertising). Perhaps only allow Reddit-approved advertisers.

pbhjpbhj 11y ago

Still no answer on the reason for the dismissal of the Reddit staff member, other than speculation that it concerned a particular AMA. Disappointed that they appear not to have even asked the question; if they had surely they'd say there was "no comment" or refusal to answer or whatever. IMO it makes a lot of difference if they were planning the dismissal for a while and screwed it up or had to react to something like gross negligence or misconduct - as the BBC was required to when Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear) hit a member of the production team and the series was postponed mid-run. Would be ever so interesting to see Reddit's stats and stats on exit pages and the URL's visited outside Reddit by browser put off by the blackout. Maybe the NSA will release an analysis at some point ;0)>.

mahranch 11y ago

Powermod and poweruser here. By that, I mean I mod 1 or more large default subreddit and have been on reddit a long time. We, the mods, have been asking for tools to properly manage our communities for upwards of 4-5 years now. Pretty much as soon as subreddits were created, we were needing tools. But back then, it was less of an issue because you only had 20,000 subscribers (if you were lucky). Now, subreddits have 9 million subscribers and the tools that were promised? Non existent. Instead, they roll out things like snoovatars and redditgifts. It's literally a slap in the face and just goes to show that management is so completely out of touch with their own site that you can't help but laugh at it all. They spend money hiring media coordinators, "creative director of video", "Head of round-up" (yes, those are real positions at reddit) and sales reps instead of talented software engineers and coders to support the people who keep their website chugging along. The people who do it for free. The issue: They started focusing on profits too soon. Reddit, back when it was seeing a few million hits a month, was only a half finished product. Now it sees 170 million unique hits a month and nothing has changed. It's still an unfinished product. But after getting their $50 million investment, instead of putting some of that money back into the website to bring us the tools we've literally been begging for, they redoubled their efforts on finding ways to monetize the site. How to fix: Fire their CEO or whoever is responsible for laying out the company's current goals. They were wrong. Anyone who actually knows and understands reddit knew those goals were going to fail. Which means (or proves) whoever was in charge was operating and making decisions out of ignorance. They were making decisions without understanding their product. It would be like me getting hired as the CEO of Walmart and I just start making business decisions without knowing anything about their corporate structure or needs. It's an obvious recipe for disaster. The most surprising thing out of all of this was the realization that the management at reddit was truly and really out of touch. I didn't want to believe that to be the case because I like reddit. It's a sad thing to see something you love being run by people who just don't know their own product.

ObviousScience 11y ago
As someone who hasn't really had to deal with managing large communities or being in the moderator position you're in... could you give a few examples of tools you wish they'd provide for community management or ways you wish the reddit corporate team would be in better contact with the community (besides the obvious notifying when firing liaisons coordinating things)?

joshstrange 11y ago

> "At this point, however, the blackout has served its purpose, and now it's time to get Reddit functioning again," Alexis Ohanian wrote. I like Alexis, I've read his book and seen his TED talk and think he is overall a good guy. That said both this comment and the way he reacted on reddit was extremely poor. This "apology" for Pao is shit and completely empty. After years of ignoring the mods and the hard work they put in to make reddit possible they tell everyone "You've had your fun, now start making up money again". I'm not just ready to leave reddit for something like voat like I left digg for reddit but this is not the first thing reddit has done recently that rubs me wrong. Maybe this is just their Google-"Don't be evil" transformation where they do things that the community thinks are not in keeping with their stated mission but continues to use the platform because it's better than most everything else out there...

superuser2 11y ago

The point brought up on Reddit (but not posted here) in the comments is salient: if she were apologizing to the Reddit community, she would have made a Reddit post. But she didn't do that - she went through old media channels. This is in no way, shape, or form an apology to users, it is damage control with investors.