221 upvotes, 16 direct replies (showing 16)
I was stupid. I’d been talking with mods all day on subreddits I thought were restricted (only approved submitters can post, but anyone can view), not private (only approved people can view) and based on all the positive feedback I’d gotten, thought the tide was turning with the entire reddit community. And then I made glib comments that were on public subs in a bad attempt to be playful and have since edited the worst offender to acknowledge how stupid it was and remind myself to not be that dumb again.[1] Ultimately, to 99% of our users, my comment history just showed a guy being stupid, and I’m sorry for that.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 20:44 UTC*
269 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It seemed like no one had any clue (AMA participants, users, moderators, even admins) as to what was going on so I'm confused as to what you mean when you say you were prepared to handle the AMAs for that day.
If you were unprepared and failed to think about the logistics of the AMAs before letting Victoria go, just admit it.
Edit: Also, could you please clarify the timeline of your plans to handle the AMA process.
At various times a team, a specific individual, and no one have all been listed as being the corporate liaison for AMAs. You've said you planned on taking over the AMAs, and then have said Reddit won't be.
Which is it? Was that always the plan or has it mainly been decided hastily in reaction to the community's concerns?
I would be relieved to hear this has all been incompetent scrambling than that the admins had just planned to handle it this poorly.
Edited for grammar.
Comment by classicrando at 06/07/2015 at 21:57 UTC*
31 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Although I probably would not have done better myself, I have to say that the things enumerated in the post (and in your parent comment) are not simply "mistakes". They are deeply ingrained symptoms of start up culture hubris that people have correctly pointed out as being similar to the situation with digg. The idea that
it's all free, we can do what we want at any time without considering the great unwashed masses because they should just be happy with the fact that they are getting stuff for free and we are working hard and we, not the visitors, are the smartest guys in the room and if there is a bad reaction we can just sit tight and eventually they'll all come around just like they do when google massively f's up gmail and then just sits back waits for the dust to settle*
Well, that is not "mistakes", that is not having to care because 99% of the time if there are fuckups the diffuse "corporation" will absorb the blame and it won't hurt the bottom line.
People came to reddit because of what they thought was the attitude and philosophy of the people running the site - they did not come and expect a lack of "mistakes".
They are not upset because of "mistakes" they are upset about an apparent change in attitude and philosophy. Continuing to focus on "mistakes" rather than the herd of elephants in the room makes people worry that the underlying attitudes, philosophies and strategic directions and goals of the business are no longer aligned with what the users of the website want.
Unfortunately, it seems like you all can't be forthcoming with explicitly stating what the new attitudes, philosophies and directions are or you'll risk losing your user base.
This is the dilemma faced by businesses that grow up, they start very open and "don't be evil" and then when the man comes to start collecting, they can't tell the users what is actually happening without breaking the social contract they made back when they could afford to operate in a more idealistic way. I don't see any solution, you'll have to keep feigning concern what the users want and build facades that appear to fix the "mistakes" while behind the scenes scrambling to sanitize to monetize.
Comment by bitcrunch at 06/07/2015 at 21:04 UTC*
374 upvotes, 8 direct replies
Victoria was more than an employee to you - she was a loyal friend. You made a glib comment on a public subreddit that mocked the fact that one of your friends lost her job. You went to her very small, intimate, family wedding less than six weeks before. You've hugged it out and had late-night conversations. You were *friends*.
And then her loss of her job was "popcorn"?
That was not just a glib comment, but one made that mocked your friend's situation, in public, to millions.
I believe you have been a good person, but I don't think you've been acting much like one recently.
(Edit)This is true: https://twitter.com/kickme444/status/616846773097664512
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 22:47 UTC
20 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You clearly couldn't have handled the AMAs that day.../u/karmanaut and the IAMA mods had no idea what was going on, which is pretty much why they blacked out. Did you think that all of us users weren't paying attention, or something? What kind of a non-answer is this? We KNOW that you weren't prepared. Just answer the question.
Comment by JBlitzen at 06/07/2015 at 23:36 UTC*
24 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Gee, if only you had an employee who could help guide your interactions with the site's users, and ensure that we're all hearing one another properly, rather than being victims of egregious miscommunication and technical failures.
Oh wait, you *did* have such an employee.
And now you want celebrities and people in the news to have better luck managing their relations with the Reddit community *than its own fucking board members had*.
Le sigh.
Comment by thebedshow at 06/07/2015 at 22:45 UTC
22 upvotes, 0 direct replies
"We were prepared to handle the AMAs that day"
This is 100% a lie, the new email address wasn't given until hours after the confusion already occurred. Very likely created once you realized you fired someone who's job you didn't understand.
Comment by Splendor78 at 07/07/2015 at 01:39 UTC
13 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Holy shit. If even you can't figure out how reddit works or how to communicate effectively on this platform we might as well just pull the plug. I can't imagine how I would feel reading this if I were an investor.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 20:57 UTC
25 upvotes, 1 direct replies
We were prepared to handle the AMAs that day, but we did a terrible job communicating the transition.
I just read another comment were you said you *won't* handle AMAs at all.
Comment by MagicScotsman at 07/07/2015 at 18:20 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
No, your shouldn't have emailed the mods "as soon as it happened".
This was a big fucking thing, and they needed to know prior so they could prepare for the situation.
Just because you say y'all were prepared for the AMAs that day, did THEY know that? You know, the people who are in AMA?
No they didn't, because you twat jackets have no clue how the community works anymore.
You absolute morons fired two people who actually have a shit about the community, and are now trying to play catch up after the outrage.
Comment by joelstean at 07/07/2015 at 00:50 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If you're so out of touch with the use base you should just resign.
Comment by rexlibris at 06/07/2015 at 21:18 UTC
30 upvotes, 0 direct replies
popcorn tastes good
Comment by Amonette2012 at 09/07/2015 at 12:44 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Right, so you can see why no one trusts you as far as they can throw you know. As a professional community manager myself I can honestly say I've never seen anyone screw the pooch quite as badly as you have or quite so publicly. You need to resign. No one is going to have any faith in this site with a bumbling failure like you running anything - you've lost everyone's confidence because of your completely unprofessional behavior.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 23:50 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
popcorn tastes stupid.
Comment by jordanlund at 06/07/2015 at 21:27 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Thank you for trying to address my concerns, sorry it's going against the zeitgeist.
Comment by [deleted] at 06/07/2015 at 23:20 UTC
-8 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You're still getting down voted to hell on a lot if things, but the general atmosphere has turned the corner, and you have created the sense, at least for me, that reddit knows a userbase is something to be earned, not assumed.
From a former Digg user, who was surprised how quickly I was proud to be part of reddit, thank you. You're probably the only admin who could do this
Comment by halfar at 06/07/2015 at 20:36 UTC
-18 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You're so cute when you're flustered, mosby-lookalike-senpai.
^(damnit notice me senpai)