https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_apologize/
created by ekjp on 06/07/2015 at 17:36 UTC
0 upvotes, 101 top-level comments (showing 25)
We screwed up. Not just on July 2, but also over the past several years. We haven’t communicated well, and we have surprised moderators and the community with big changes. We have apologized and made promises to you, the moderators and the community, over many years, but time and again, we haven’t delivered on them. When you’ve had feedback or requests, we haven’t always been responsive. The mods and the community have lost trust in me and in us, the administrators of reddit.
Today, we acknowledge this long history of mistakes. We are grateful for all you do for reddit, and the buck stops with me. We are taking three concrete steps:
1: https://www.reddit.com/wiki/search#wiki_enabling_legacy_search
I know these are just words, and it may be hard for you to believe us. I don't have all the answers, and it will take time for us to deliver concrete results. I mean it when I say we screwed up, and we want to have a meaningful ongoing discussion. I know we've drifted out of touch with the community as we've grown and added more people, and we want to connect more. I and the team are committed to talking more often with the community, starting now.
Thank you for listening. Please share feedback here. Our team is ready to respond to comments.
Comment by post_break at 06/07/2015 at 17:55 UTC
3477 upvotes, 11 direct replies
Is this[1] the type of communication we can expect from miss krispy?
1: http://i.imgur.com/ICSz7Xp.jpg
Comment by Conan3121 at 06/07/2015 at 20:18 UTC
3431 upvotes, 8 direct replies
Days after damage control interviews in mainstream media that stockholders and investment advisors read, the CEO of a beleaguered internet based company issues an official statement.
Boilerplate text bland statement, written by HR and vetted for plausible deniability by Legal.
Waits a day or two to post so the furore settles and the announcement has some clear air to reach investors.
Blames the episode on the Three Pillars Of Corporate Apology (hereafter TTPOCA) :
1. mistakes by the prior administrations
2. poor communication methods that we will now fix using trusted company insiders, and
3. slower than we hoped for IT development.
Added 2 bits of seasoning to the recipe with a folksy "we screwed up", and a followup hit back at personal attacks by a vocal minority of users.
As part of the product, I recognise a clear case of Big Company Behaving Badly Syndrome (BCBBS, abbreviation BS, variant type: quick profit and exit strategy).
Comment by InsidiousToilet at 06/07/2015 at 20:40 UTC
1902 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Look, I honestly don't give a damn where I read the news. Reddit is convenient because it's all gathered into one nexus of information, with each specific interest having it's own little mini-dimension that I can hang out in. If you folks continue to fuck up (as has been the trend over the years), and a better, more convenient, site shows up to replace you, I have no qualms about leaving.
Also, shitty decision with krispykrackers as "Moderator Advocate". You should probably look into the history of these people on the site, to determine their level of expertise in "advocating" for anything or anyone, let alone moderators.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 17:56 UTC*
5702 upvotes, 4 direct replies
How do you feel about this comment[1] by /u/CaptainObviousMC.
The thing is... She's absolutely right, I 100% don't care at all about this situation, reddit, or the moderators. I'm a pretty apathetic content sponge.
That fact is deadly dangerous to reddit, because the moment the content creators jump ship, I'll follow them like the fair weather fan I am, because I don't care -- at all -- where I get my content, or about which corporation or moderators are involved. If reddit compromises its content stream by having moderators jump ship, I'm out too, not because I care, but because I don't.
So she's right -- most reddit users absolutely don't care a bit about this, or the site, or really anything. And that's why she can't afford to piss off the moderators, who are the people who do care.
What's hilarious is that the reddit administration seems unable to see that most people not caring is precisely what makes the moderators caring so dangerous: they're wielding my caring by proxy, because they hold the keys to content.
Edit: If you're going to gild this comment, just give it /u/CaptainObviousMC instead.
Comment by slickdealsceo at 06/07/2015 at 19:39 UTC*
2194 upvotes, 4 direct replies
This will probably be buried in the depths of this thread, but as someone who is a steward and community advocate at Slickdeals, I thought I might be able to relay some of the insight we've garnered as we've built our community.
I was one of the original founders, former CEO, and now the Chief Product Officer and as such I've had the opportunity to put a lot of process in place, as well as help ask the right questions whenever we do things. Naturally all communities have their nuances and differences, but in the end it boils down to respect. Respect the community: honor your users and content contributors for the work and effort they do.
Often this results in us taking a tradeoff in what we call "Technical Debt vs Community Debt" where instead of creating friction for our users, we take on a technical burden instead. For instance, we launched a redesign recently, and instead of forcing everyone over, we maintained a classic version of the website, and told ourselves that we would maintain two versions of the site for the foreseeable future, and do our best to improve the redesigned version to the point that it compels people to switch ("lets make it so much better that they willingly switch").
1. Is what we're doing impacting the way the community uses the website? How does it impact all the different types of users: casual users, frequent visitors, lurkers, content contributors, power users, etc.
2. Are you moving someone's cheese? Are you changing something that users are very used to or have been conditioned to? Is there a way to transition it smoothly?
3. Does it impact the way our mods use the website? How about our editors, or other internal staff?
4. Does it impact the way our content contributors use the website?
5. Does it impact the integrity, trustworthiness, or authenticity of our brand, content or community, even if its just the perception of such?
6. Does it impact the sense of community, their sense of ownership, pride or involvement with the website?
7. Are you addressing the needs of the community, especially ones that were explicitly requested? Did you make a tradeoff? If possible, can you address both your goals and the communities needs at the same time? At the very least, do not ignore what your community is asking for.
8. What do you anticipate the negative feedback to be like or about? How will you respond to it?
9. Are you releasing a "complete" product (is it finished?), if not: what is missing and why did you choose to omit things?
10. How are you communicating these changes or reasons to the community? Did you solicit their feedback before, during and after the change? We've learned that communication is key: frequent and open communication. Users may not always agree with us, but they are usually reasonable and will at least understand it if you explain why you need to do something. One of the best ways to manage change, in my opinion, is to solicit that feedback and actually act on it quickly. You wont make everyone happy, but the fact that you listened, considered and ultimately acted lets the community know that you're listening and working -with- them.
11. What is the plan immediately after the change? Who will handle interacting with the community, collecting the feedback and making action items for them? Do you have resources set aside to quickly respond to the user feedback and fix bugs or issues as quickly as possible to minimize the risk/impact to the community?
Admittedly, we're not perfect either, but we've learned over the past years that if you're willing to engage with your community, they can be pretty cooperative and understanding, so long as you actually put a good faith effort into taking their feedback, listening to their concerns and being responsive in a timely manner. And as you probably noticed, since /u/ekjp actually communicated here, the nature of the responses overall is markedly less hostile - because once you connect with someone on a personal level they become much more reasonable.
Edit: I don't deserve the gold, but thank you kind stranger! But one more thing I'll say is that the community is vocal in threads like these because they've invested into this community and they feel a part of it. View people's feedback as passionate (even if it's harsh) because they care, and because they want things to improve.
Comment by Sunhammer at 06/07/2015 at 19:45 UTC
5242 upvotes, 5 direct replies
Communication: u/krispykrackers [3] is trying out the new role of Moderator Advocate. She will be the contact for moderators with reddit and will help figure out the best way to talk more often. We’re also going to figure out the best way for more administrators, including myself, to talk more often with the whole community.
....So you all picked the admin most legendarily *nasty* to moderators and users for this
uuuuhh
Comment by jordanlund at 06/07/2015 at 18:49 UTC*
1512 upvotes, 6 direct replies
I would just like to know the thought process behind not having a backup plan following the termination of a key employee. I don't expect anyone to say why Victoria was fired, that's none of my business, but there had to be a reason why that information was not communicated to the rest of the community and certainly the AMA participants of that day.
In his statement /u/kn0thing stated that AMAs would go on as scheduled, but the fact of the matter is that the AMAs scheduled to go on that day were disrupted due to Victoria's absence and the entire kerfuffle was created when an AMA participant was not being contacted and was forced to message the mods to find out what was going on, which triggered their reaction of "We don't know, what's going on?"
You acknowledge "mistakes were made", but I'd really like to know who made the mistakes and what their rationale was at the time for doing so.
It's sad when I'm being encouraged to think that the best case scenario is merely incompetence. Did people responsible for the firing not know there were AMAs going on that day? Did they not know who the AMAs were with and as a result were not able to reach out? Why didn't they know?
These are some pretty basic questions that need to be answered and resolved if you want to re-build trust with the community.
https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3cbo4m/we_apologize/csu6y0z
Comment by SingularTier at 06/07/2015 at 17:59 UTC
4486 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Hey Ellen,
Although I disagree with the direction reddit HQ is taking with the website, I understand that monetizing a platform such as reddit can be a daunting task. To that effect, I have some questions that I hope you will take some time to address. These represent some of the more pressing issues for me as a user.
1. Can we have a clear, objective, and enforceable definition of harassment? For example, some subs have been told that publicizing PR contacts to organize boycotts and campaigns is harassment and will get the sub banned - while others continue to do so unabated. I know /u/kn0thing touched on this subject recently, but I would like you to elaborate.
2. Why was the person who was combative and hyper-critical of Rev. Jackson shadowbanned (/u/huhaskldasdpo)? I understand he was rude and disrespectful and I would have cared less if he was banned from /r/IAMA, but could you shed some light on the reasoning for the site-wide ban?
3. What are some of the plans that reddit HQ has for monetizing the web site? Will advertisements and sponsored content be labelled as such?
4. Could you share some of your beliefs and principles that you plan on using to guide the site's future?
I believe that communication is key to reddit (as we know it) surviving its transition in to a profitable website. While I am distraught over how long it took for a site-wide announcement to come out (forcing many users to get statements from NYT/Buzzfeed/etc.), I can relate not wanting to approach a topic before people have had a chance to calm down.
The unfortunate side-effect of this is that it breeds wild speculation. Silence reinforces tinfoil. For example, every time a user post gets caught in auto-mod, someone screams censorship. The admins took no time to address the community outside of the mods of large subreddits. All we, as normal users, heard came from hearsay and cropped image leaks. The failure to understand that a large vocal subset of users are upset of Victoria's firing is a huge misstep in regaining the community's trust.
Comment by Simple_Tymes at 06/07/2015 at 18:10 UTC*
2229 upvotes, 12 direct replies
The average users don't care about moderator tools. What matters to the passionate non-mod reddit community is:
Simply, if these issues aren't addressed, then it's time to move somewhere else. If Reddit wants to turn the community into an advertiser platform (and do it in the most unprofessional, mismanaged way) then there's no sense in supporting a site that no longer shares our beliefs. Why should we trust you to do the right thing?
Edit: for Yishan and kn0wing:
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 19:33 UTC*
373 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by lolimse at 06/07/2015 at 20:32 UTC
1082 upvotes, 2 direct replies
You should also make a post over at /r/tifu.
Comment by Binky216 at 06/07/2015 at 19:50 UTC
949 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Okay, so I'm going to go ahead and ask my questions regards to the current state of Reddit. As I see it, there are a few issues that need to be addressed publicly ans specifically. These are all based on the userbase "perceptions." Not being in any loop to the recent drama, these are all just what I'm getting based on they hype going on. I'd love your response to the following issues:
1. **Censorship** - There's a fine line between making Reddit a "safe" place and making Reddit a place where you dare not ever offend. Part of Reddit's appeal is that here is a place where you can voice your opinions and hopefully find others to discuss topics with. Currently fatpeoplehate is banned, but what if someday there's an "up in arms" issue between (as only an example) the atheist and religious subreddits. Do we start banning groups because SOMEONE might take offense to the existence of specific subreddits. When do we start banning, when do we just ignore? I don't have an answer on when it is and isn't appropriate to remove groups, but I'd think it's better to put things in the hands of the individual users / groups than censoring anything site-wide. If I don't want to see fatpeoplehate, give me tools to block it completely...
2. **Trust** - There's definitely a trust issue going on. As you've stated, the person who asked the offensive Jesse Jackson comment wasn't shadowbanned, but in fact deleted the account. Perception was that Reddit Admins could and would shadowban people who offend/bother them. This tells me that you have a trust issue with your userbase as we're starting to see the Admins as the enemy, not the great folks who give us this cool place to hang out. I'd love to know how you plan to repair the users' trust issues. My opinion here is that there should be a lot more transparency on what Admins have and haven't done with regards to bans, censorship, and frontpage manipulations.
3. **Evil Reddit Management** - There's also a perception out there that Reddit's Management (not the day-to-day Admins exactly) aren't good people. Victoria's firing has highlighted this, as have apparently other Admin firings that have come to light. I agree with your policy of not speaking to specifics about personnel issues, but Reddit and you very specifically have come across as heartless with the immediateness of these firings. The "nice" people that Reddit users tend to be really don't like the idea that Reddit might not be a great place to work and we don't want to support a place that mistreats their employees. We actually want the Admins and Users to all get along and make Reddit something special. Axing a high profile, well-liked Admin like Victoria without some sort of press release is a mistake as "we" want to make sure all her hard work and kindness to "us" wasn't just completely disregarded in this decision. In short, the Admins in general seem like nice people and we want them to make sure they're treated nicely, even when a parting of ways happens.
Those are my concerns moving forward and I'd love to see responses.
Comment by cahaseler at 06/07/2015 at 17:48 UTC
2585 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Hi Ellen,
/r/IAMA mod here. First, thank you for finally making a statement about this on reddit.
Second, can you go into more detail about the direction you see for celebrity participation on Reddit in a post-Victoria age? Alexis has made some comments to us behind the scenes about your ideas to encourage celebrity participation beyond AMAs, but I'd love to have the conversation in a more public space where everyone can participate.
Comment by JonasBrosSuck at 06/07/2015 at 19:02 UTC*
1621 upvotes, 3 direct replies
so this is like a regular AMA, where real questions won't get answered? :/
edit: seems like they answered some questions
Comment by thejellydude at 06/07/2015 at 18:24 UTC
681 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Look, I'm not the most active mod of /r/funny, but I've been around for a while, and I pay attention to the backroom when things like this happen. Are you really acknowledging all the issues here? And I don't just mean mine as a mod, but those of the users. Mind explaining to me how you're going to handle:
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's hard for me to take a post like this serious when you don't address any of the issues that have been outstanding, but only the ones brought up by the recent event.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 23:12 UTC
640 upvotes, 2 direct replies
I notice it's "WE" when you acknowledge screw ups, but it's "I" when you try to turn negatives to positives and make yourself look better. Therefore, "I" don't believe a single word out of your mouth.
Comment by Muaddibisme at 06/07/2015 at 20:24 UTC*
141 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Hi Ellen,
I am certain that you realize much of the userbase (or at least enough of the userbase ) is upset enough that your words are meaningless to them. Or at least too little too late.
I don't have any direct investment in the current situation but it does effect me and all of reddit.
You and the administrative team have made several decisions starting before you came to reddit that the community has openly opposed. Yet you ignored them completely, not even addressing their legitimate concerns. Sometimes, mocking them in private (always be careful what you and your team put to ink).
This reminds me quite a bit of the windows 8 launch. No one was surprised by window 8's failure because the community had been telling Microsoft for quite some time that win8 was not what they wanted, that it was laid out in a way that they didn't want, and that it would fail if they released it. They didn't listen.
I feel that Reddit is at the same crossroads. The community has definitely been telling you how they feel and you have ignored them and in some cases mocked them. You are walking a dangerous path that will likely lead to significant brand damage at the very least.
To save what you can you need to step back from your title and salary and spend some time becoming a redditor. The community has asked you for specific items and you need to do more than post a generalized CYA message.
I realize that any changes will take time and most of reddit does as well. However, if you want the community to see your words are more than another hollow pile of crap, post your goals and how you are going to meet them, not just that you have goals. Address the specifics with specific language. Engage yourself in teh community instead of standing apart from it.
Reddit doesn't need a CEO, it needs a 'lead redditor'. Think on that for the good of us all.
Many specific items can be found in other posts in this thread and I am sure that the couple I post here are already covered but I think that starting with these is how to start.
1. End Shadowbans.
Do it today. Stop it immediately. Don't wait. If a user is to be removed from a sub or from reddit in general there needs to be a process, not teh whim of an admin.
Someone to be banned should be informed before the ban is permanent. The ban must be reviewed by another party and the person to be banned needs to be able to defend themselves.
Yes, there are people who need to be banned. Yes, admins have full control over who can do what on reddit. No, you don't owe anyone any of this. However, it only takes one wrongful ban to enrage your user base and there has already been many more than one.
The temper of an mod should never screw over a user. Put a process in place and use it.
2. Solidify rules for subs and enforce them.
The most recent of all of this is of course FPH and the fallout that ensued. I don't support FPH but it does expose a giant issue with reddit and not for the first time (merely the most recent).
If you are going to ban subs (and really posts as well) you must have a solid set of guidelines by which you judge such things and it must be applied evenly to all subs. No matter who they are or how big they are or who mods them. You simply can't have it any other way.
Either all is permitted or what is not permitted but be the same for everyone.
Again, yes reddit has the right to do whatever it wants. However, your userbase expects an even application of the rules.
3. More than words.
If you had issued an apology long ago none of this would be an issue. However, you didn't. You even went so far s to talk to others before dealing with your userbase. I saw in one of your other replies that you blamed downvoting as to why. Yet, you can make a sticky post to the front page. There really was no reason for you not to address this a couple days ago, or the FPH crap the day after it happened.
However, you didn't. Instead you allowed the pot to stew. Now your words will fall on deaf ears (eyes?) and you have already hemorrhaged users. It isn't going to destroy reddit, At least not without further blundering, but backtracking at this point will be very difficult.
You need to do more than make a couple posts.
What I suggest is that you take these threads and gather the issues the community want addressed then make a post with those items and what specific steps you will take to address them, with an expected timeline.
This will be a significant amount of work but it is back logged work whose deadline is long past.
_
I don't want to see reddit die and I don't want to see it transformed into digg or similar). You must allow your community and moderators to drive your decision, not to try to make decisions to drive your mods and community.
I truly hope that more comes of this than empty promises and CYA postings. The opportunity for you to change the communities perception is at hand but how you handle it will determine everything and so far it doesn't look favorable.
-Muad'Dib
Comment by BellyFullOfSwans at 06/07/2015 at 18:22 UTC*
4882 upvotes, 12 direct replies
Krispykrackers is the Admin who shadowbanned my first account for posting a business' phone number and called it "doxxing".
I had a 3 year old account with over 30K karma, over 10 Redditgifts gift exchanges, months of gold given and received (with years still on the books I never got back), a large friends list, etc...banned because I posted the number of a business. I didnt start a witch hunt or say anything bad about the business....I wasnt promoting the business....still, it was seen as doxxing and without anybody else hearing my case, I was shadowbanned (and not notified about it).
When I did figure out what had happened and why I was suddenly talking to myself, I had to look up ways of getting a hold of Reddit. They dont exactly have a customer service hotline (you know, like real businesses with real customers do).
That was a pain, but was able to finally reach somebody. It was Krispykrackers. Her one word reply? "Why do you think it is OK to post personal information?"
And that was it....I never heard another word, I never got an answer back from Reddit Gold about my paid-for months of gold I still had...and /u/gekokujo was lost to me over a non-issue.
There was no accountability, no transparency, and no recourse for grievance. As a Reddit Gold user at the time, I was a PAYING CUSTOMER...and as you could have seen from my comment history then (or now), I am not a troll.
Leaving Krispykrackers in charge of fixing your out-of-control staff and unfair practices is worse than letting the fox run the henhouse. Foxes arent evil, they just eat chickens. On the other hand, humans like Krispykrackers have their own sense of social justice and a license to be judge/jury/executioner with no witnesses and only the shadowbanned-mute voices of her opposition to speak up.
There is no solution as long as Krispykrackers is playing a major part. She is as big of a part of the problem as Pao herself and I can prove that (with my own experience and that of others...some involving chat logs from past controversies).
Fix the problem....dont promote the problem to a place where she will further abuse her power and your site.
EDIT - Thanks for the comments, guys. I did get a response from KrispyKrackers that is hidden in the comments below. As thanks for her response and in the spirit of fairness, it definitely deserves to be seen. I apologize for any bad formatting, but I dont think Ive linked a comment before. Also...in the comment above it says that I had "years" remaining on my Gold. Nobody has called me on that yet, but it was just a simple typo and should read "months" instead. Going to leave it up as to not appear tricksy.
Comment by the_human_porch at 06/07/2015 at 19:31 UTC
279 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Ellen,
This makes me sad.
I am not a power user, a content creator or a person in the vocal majority. What i am is a user in the silent minority. I click ad links, stick to some default subs and my gaming sub reddits. I contributed to secret santa, bought gold on various other accounts and mostly mind my own business. I am a lurker.
But i have no information out there on whats going on besides what the vocal majority and your haters have to say because you wont tell me how you screwed up. You say it but i see no ownership of whats been happening even in the past months let alone years.
So eventually people like me who wont tell you how disappointed they are will just start to leave. I am not a mod, i am not a avid content creator. But i also got the feeling i am not important, i may be one drop in the bucket but those other drops will soon feel the same way too.
All i saw the past couple of months is a badly planned, badly thought out execution of ideas that seemed to be planned to piss off reddit. With no explanation to the silent user who will pick up a pitchfork because everyone else is.
I feel like you cheated on me, and i dont know if i can continue to trust you. We need counseling badly.
Comment by Cartossin at 06/07/2015 at 20:11 UTC*
311 upvotes, 2 direct replies
This sounds very much like you're only admitting that you screwed up by not communicating your bad decisions to mods.
The real things that piss everyone off are:
You're apologizing for things that are secondary to our main concerns and basically saying you're going to keep making bad decisions.
edit: grammars
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 19:38 UTC
326 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 20:17 UTC
333 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by SinaSyndrome at 06/07/2015 at 18:38 UTC
107 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How's the search for a new CEO coming along?
Comment by kethryvis at 07/07/2015 at 00:27 UTC*
77 upvotes, 1 direct replies
This'll get buried, but hey. May as well add to the pile. Not that anyone is going to read this low.
I wrote my master's thesis on online communities, and specifically on the communication (or lack of) between online communities and the companies that run the sites they gather on. I focused on LiveJournal, which a lot of us remember for having a lot of user insurrections much like what we're seeing here.
As I wrote, I made a brief article that I titled "Top 9 things to never do to your online community." These were brief takeaways, things I noticed being repeated over and over again (as an anthropologist, I tend to look for patterns). Reddit broke SO MANY of these in this instance. In fact.. pretty much all of them.
You took this action on a Thursday, right before a long weekend, and as far as anyone can tell, didn't announce it anywhere. The more you try to hide something, the more a community will dig and dig and dig to find out what happened. And when you do it on a holiday, you've just given them prime time to do so. What do we do on our weekends but sit on your site and create content?
Several of the responses from Reddit admins sounded fairly patronizing. Don't do that. Treat your users how you want them to treat you. And remember... we can smell bullshit in a statement like a fart in a car. Don't make flowery promises. This statement isn't overly flowery.. but there's some stuff in there making my whiff detector go off. Be careful here.
This sort of goes with #1. Don't think that they won't notice when something happens, don't think they won't get upset when a wildly popular member of your staff is fired without warning or reason. Don't think they'll just sit on their hands going "well. that's a bummer." If 15 years of online communities have taught me anything, it's that they don't sit on their hands.
Mods had a really hard time getting answers. Considering they do the bulk of the work on your site, that's a really bad move.
This post is better than most "we fucked up" posts i've seen, you've given two concrete things that are already in place, and another that is promised, but could still be vaporware. You're "committed to talking more often with the community" but you don't say how that's going to happen. And your own site makes this difficult; anything you say is going to be downvoted, which means no one will see it. That's a recipe for disaster right there.
We understand that you can't go into details on why Victoria was let go. Personnel issues are highly confidential, and pretty much everyone gets that. But finding a way to address what happened and give answers while still preserving confidentiality. It's hard. But I have to think you're all fairly smart people and can figure out how to make that happen. Or at least get out in front of it before everyone throws a fit. Then YOU control the story, and aren't scrambling to respond.
Sure you're a big part of a lot of people's lives, but you're not the only place. If people get pissed off at you, they're not just going to keep it here. They're going to go to all the other places online they hang out and bitch. i saw stories on reddit, on Twitter, on Facebook, Tumblr... everywhere people hang out online, people were talking about the #RedditRevolt. That takes a minor kerfuffle and turns it huge, fast.
You're the current "thing" but the "next thing" is already on the horizon. Don't think you can do what you want, especially if it's outside the communities ideals, and they'll still stick around, or you'll attract the ones that will agree with you. Replacement doesn't work. Because once you have a reputation for not listening to your users, that'll stick, no matter who agrees with you or not.
This is the most dangerous attitude to take. You don't seem to be doing it.. yet. I just hope you don't ever do so.
Comment by spank859 at 06/07/2015 at 20:33 UTC
86 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Ellen, you say the vast majority of users don't care about the drama. You are wrong. When the people who are opposing you are doing a damn fine job the rest of us are just chipping in here and there. We don't have to all go apeshit when the message is clear and cut and not being disagreed about. We want you the fuck out. Your only goal is to monetize and our goal is to not monetize. There is no way to bring in sponsors and not lose the key element of this site. Real news with no paid for biased. Yes we like cat pics but for a lot of us this is our news outlet that we don't want becoming FOX or CNN. There is no way to do that with some corporation paying the bills. This is not going to end well for you either way unless you gracefully bow out and let us keep our site the way we fucking like it. You know the way that brought all these people here. The way we became a major opinion in everything. GO AWAY
