73 upvotes, 4 direct replies (showing 4)
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 fsm_vs_cthulhu at 07/07/2015 at 11:13 UTC
5 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Excellent speech! Great use of soapbox! 10/10 would read again.
And it seems like plenty of people did read this far.
Comment by [deleted] at 07/07/2015 at 07:04 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Because once you have a reputation for not listening to your users, that'll stick, no matter who agrees with you or not.
I don't think she realizes it yet, but it only took them 3 days to murder their whole brand. I'm not sure what's been done can be undone at this point.
Comment by Podspi at 07/07/2015 at 00:52 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I'd love to read some more academic material on online communities. I'd understand if you weren't interested in posting your own research (since that would blow any semblance of anonymity you might have) but if you have any suggestions I'd be grateful.
Comment by challenge4 at 07/07/2015 at 00:30 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It was a good soapbox speech, bonus points for sticking the landing
