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"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

by imjk 11y ago

"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 NY to meet with Victoria and was told that the meeting was cancelled. As expected, panic ensued among the subreddit's moderators. Whether the firing was justified or not, the fact that Reddit's leadership didn't immediately see the consequences of their action on one of their most popular communities just shows their disregard. Or even worse, they realized the consequences and just didn't bother to help facilitate them. I mean these are real people with real meetings spending real dollars for the community, which is all run but volunteers, and Reddit's leadership didn't feel it was important enough to communicate with them to help avoid unnecessary consequences. I understand the frustration.

ChrisPebble 11y ago
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.
- slg 11y ago
  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 that Victoria was spending time doing things that management didn't know about. From the sound of it, Victoria saw work that needed to be done and did it. Her job responsibilities likely continued to expanded as IAMA grew. However if management truly didn't know how involved she was in that, that is a failing of both management for not staying involved in the process and her for not communicating up the extra work she was doing.
  - munificent 11y ago
    > 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.
    - slg 11y ago
      I don't expect my boss to dive into my commit logs to figure out what I am doing. I instead tell him.
      - zxcvcxz 11y ago
        Do you tell your boss about the code you don't commit?
        evan_ 11y ago
        The code you don't commit is guaranteed to be bug-free, something you can't say about the code you do commit.
        0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
        I am so reluctant to code now thank you.
        Merovius 11y ago
        If I expect this code to be relevant to my job and their evaluation of it: Sure. Why wouldn't I?
      - nostrademons 11y ago
        So I did the same when I was an employee, but I'll point out that this introduces a pretty strong adverse-selection effect. Time spent managing up is time not spent doing your job or building value for users. If managers rely simply on what their reports tell them, they select for people that can navigate internal politics well, not ones who do their job well. Over time the organization is filled with people whose attention is always focused upwards, not outwards, and then the company becomes bait for a startup. A skilled executive makes sure they have a pulse on what's going on inside their organization beyond what they're told. Relatively few executives are that skilled.
basch 11y ago
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 replaceable if the site rules didnt protect them. The moderators think they are special, the admins see them as interchangeable. Moderators are largely faceless human spam filters. It is a task that could be crowdsourced better so more people are doing less work. Slashdot had better moderation tools than reddit. When I see the moderators throw tantrums demanding more respect, it reminds me of Reagan firing every air traffic controller who went on strike, people who thought they were above being replaced. The reddit admins should fear the power they have given the moderators, and are probably brainstorming ways to reduce it. The "woe is me" cry of the moderators doesnt resonate with the majority of the userbase, because the moderators volunteered. The apathetic majority doesnt comment in situations like this, so you wont hear their voices. In the immortal words of southpark, if you dont like America, then you can get out. 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. Theyre not fooling me. https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_apologize/csu119e https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_ap...
- munificent 11y ago
  > 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 lot more than spam filtering. Moderators at subreddits like /r/NoStupidQuestions, /r/science, or many of the "Ask ___" subreddits are responsible for instilling the voice and culture of the subreddit. > When I see the moderators throw tantrums demanding more respect, it reminds me of Reagan firing every air traffic controller who went on strike, people who thought they were above being replaced. I'm not saying they couldn't be replaced. But if you do that, those subreddits will fundamentally change. And, in many cases, the userbase may go elsewhere before the subreddit finds its feet again. > In the immortal words of southpark, if you dont like America, then you can get out. I don't think reddit needs to worry much about moderators leaving. But they should really worry about content contributors leaving. The Digg v4 exodus happened virtually overnight. There's nothing magical about reddit that ensures that can't happen to them.
timr 11y ago
It's interesting that you're quoting that line as "the heart" of the piece, when it's the one line that seemed to reveal a less-than-reasonable motive: most of the rest of the editorial was about the way Taylor was fired, but this line was complaining that she was fired at all. As an outsider to this drama, it sure sounds like people are angry mainly because this person was fired, and they liked her. They're clinging to the details of the way she was fired to give some weight to that indignation.
codingdave 11y ago
I have yet to see anything that looks like disregard for reddit's business. On the contrary, everything I have seen has implied that reddit is trying to monetize the community, and the community does not like it. Of course, I don't have any inside information, so I could be wrong on all counts, but the rumor is that Victoria was fired for resisting turning AMAs into a revenue stream. I have seen other moderators complaining that they have been feeling a push to monetize their work, and have been strongly resisting it as it would hinder free speech. While the moderators are probably correct, it points more to a basic disagreement about what the site is. Most redditors feel that the site is all about community, and maintaining said community is the #1 goal. But the actual management team of the business surely needs to be looking at monetization. That is the core disagreement - it is not about recent events, it is about the fact that one side wants to monetize reddit, and the other side does not. Again, not actually knowing anything, this could be way off base... it is just my perspective as an outside observer.
- codingdave 11y ago
  Just a later note... since I wrote this, Sam Altman and others have repeatedly stated that they are not worried about monetization in the short-term. So I was way off-base...

by imjk 11y ago

ChrisPebble 11y ago

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.

slg 11y ago
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 that Victoria was spending time doing things that management didn't know about. From the sound of it, Victoria saw work that needed to be done and did it. Her job responsibilities likely continued to expanded as IAMA grew. However if management truly didn't know how involved she was in that, that is a failing of both management for not staying involved in the process and her for not communicating up the extra work she was doing.
- munificent 11y ago
  > 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.
  - slg 11y ago
    I don't expect my boss to dive into my commit logs to figure out what I am doing. I instead tell him.
    - zxcvcxz 11y ago
      Do you tell your boss about the code you don't commit?
      - evan_ 11y ago
        The code you don't commit is guaranteed to be bug-free, something you can't say about the code you do commit.
        0xdeadbeefbabe 11y ago
        I am so reluctant to code now thank you.
      - Merovius 11y ago
        If I expect this code to be relevant to my job and their evaluation of it: Sure. Why wouldn't I?
    - nostrademons 11y ago
      So I did the same when I was an employee, but I'll point out that this introduces a pretty strong adverse-selection effect. Time spent managing up is time not spent doing your job or building value for users. If managers rely simply on what their reports tell them, they select for people that can navigate internal politics well, not ones who do their job well. Over time the organization is filled with people whose attention is always focused upwards, not outwards, and then the company becomes bait for a startup. A skilled executive makes sure they have a pulse on what's going on inside their organization beyond what they're told. Relatively few executives are that skilled.

basch 11y ago

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 replaceable if the site rules didnt protect them. The moderators think they are special, the admins see them as interchangeable. Moderators are largely faceless human spam filters. It is a task that could be crowdsourced better so more people are doing less work. Slashdot had better moderation tools than reddit. When I see the moderators throw tantrums demanding more respect, it reminds me of Reagan firing every air traffic controller who went on strike, people who thought they were above being replaced. The reddit admins should fear the power they have given the moderators, and are probably brainstorming ways to reduce it. The "woe is me" cry of the moderators doesnt resonate with the majority of the userbase, because the moderators volunteered. The apathetic majority doesnt comment in situations like this, so you wont hear their voices. In the immortal words of southpark, if you dont like America, then you can get out. 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. Theyre not fooling me. https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_apologize/csu119e https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_ap...

munificent 11y ago
> 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 lot more than spam filtering. Moderators at subreddits like /r/NoStupidQuestions, /r/science, or many of the "Ask ___" subreddits are responsible for instilling the voice and culture of the subreddit. > When I see the moderators throw tantrums demanding more respect, it reminds me of Reagan firing every air traffic controller who went on strike, people who thought they were above being replaced. I'm not saying they couldn't be replaced. But if you do that, those subreddits will fundamentally change. And, in many cases, the userbase may go elsewhere before the subreddit finds its feet again. > In the immortal words of southpark, if you dont like America, then you can get out. I don't think reddit needs to worry much about moderators leaving. But they should really worry about content contributors leaving. The Digg v4 exodus happened virtually overnight. There's nothing magical about reddit that ensures that can't happen to them.

timr 11y ago

It's interesting that you're quoting that line as "the heart" of the piece, when it's the one line that seemed to reveal a less-than-reasonable motive: most of the rest of the editorial was about the way Taylor was fired, but this line was complaining that she was fired at all. As an outsider to this drama, it sure sounds like people are angry mainly because this person was fired, and they liked her. They're clinging to the details of the way she was fired to give some weight to that indignation.

codingdave 11y ago

I have yet to see anything that looks like disregard for reddit's business. On the contrary, everything I have seen has implied that reddit is trying to monetize the community, and the community does not like it. Of course, I don't have any inside information, so I could be wrong on all counts, but the rumor is that Victoria was fired for resisting turning AMAs into a revenue stream. I have seen other moderators complaining that they have been feeling a push to monetize their work, and have been strongly resisting it as it would hinder free speech. While the moderators are probably correct, it points more to a basic disagreement about what the site is. Most redditors feel that the site is all about community, and maintaining said community is the #1 goal. But the actual management team of the business surely needs to be looking at monetization. That is the core disagreement - it is not about recent events, it is about the fact that one side wants to monetize reddit, and the other side does not. Again, not actually knowing anything, this could be way off base... it is just my perspective as an outside observer.

codingdave 11y ago
Just a later note... since I wrote this, Sam Altman and others have repeatedly stated that they are not worried about monetization in the short-term. So I was way off-base...