Comment by [deleted] on 15/05/2015 at 04:16 UTC*

I appreciate that you clearly put a lot of time and thought into this. Thanks for caring about reddit enough to bother! I stand by this data, and genuinely don't feel that we're spinning it.

By the way, you mention that we're "trying to validate something that is clearly unpopular." I suspect your definition of "clear unpopularity" is based on ... public commentary. This is a great example of why surveys like the one we ran are helpful. People can express opinions and concerns that they feel might be unpopular. When there are patterns in that data, we take notice.

There are a few things to consider when addressing product issues - severity and size. One might prioritize a less prevalent issue which causes horrible things to happen, over more prevalent and less severe issue (say, visual appeal.) Hence, while there might be a lower number of people who answered the question about why they wouldn't recommend reddit, or are extremely dissatisfied, its pretty important to us to know what about reddit would make them feel that way.

For that reason too, we wanted to get the opinions of more than those who follow the blog; we *want* to hear from the lurkers, and those who hadn't created accounts. What was holding them back?

Keep in mind that we asked all respondents what they dislike about reddit. Out of ~16k total responses, we got ~10k responses to that question. Even relatively satisfied users (those who put down 6 or 7 for overall satisfaction) can have things to dislike about the site. And the top issue was community, at 25%.

*On recommendations** Your interpretation that 93.5% of people would recommend reddit is simply incorrect. We did not ask whether people would or would not recommend reddit - we asked if they had in the past (asking about actual behavior is much better than predicted behavior), and provided two options for "no." It's an important distinction.

The overall number for people who had recommended reddit is 75%.
17% answered that question with "No, but I might"
6% answered with "No, and I probably won't."

This is all in the spreadsheet. I suspect you may have only looked at the "No, and I probably won't" number alone, but not at the question itself (first row.)

*On the lack of the words "hate" and "offensive"** Had we asked about hate and offensive content specifically, that would likely add in another sort of bias, a la "Now that you mention it, I suppose I *have* been harassed." Those words appeared, unprompted by us, in open ended responses. Again, those responses were questions generically asking what they didn't like about reddit, and follow-ups to why people were extremely dissatisfied, and wouldn't recommend it. That so many felt so intensely about it (severity) and also that it was the top issue across those questions, speaks pretty strongly.

*On selection bias (the fact that people who opt-in to surveys are different from people who take other surveys)** It is certainly true that selection bias affected this survey, as it does all surveys. Some people just don't take surveys. There has been much discussion as to whether the opinions of these people are vastly different from the populace. We'll just never know. Were we to post the survey on the reddit blog as suggested here[1], I agree that it would get a certain set of reddit users. I disagree that they would necessarily be representative of active community members. It would simply represent those who read the blog. If you look at the data on how people use the site, a number of them just browse (and have been doing so for 3+ years), or just look at one or a few subreddits. We care about their experience, even if they don't care about the official reddit blog.

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/35yrgw/what_reddit_learned_from_their_march_2015_survey/cr9paft

*On incentivizing users to participate in surveys** Providing incentives (usually money) will increase response rate, but won't really affect quality. It's also less effective over time, and we intend to continue doing surveys like this over time. Here's a good pdf.[2]

2: https://iriss.stanford.edu/sites/all/files/EDGE/SingerOctober.pdf

*On response rate** This was a pretty long survey (thanks again to those who made it through), promoted through an ad. Online ads typically have a pretty low conversion rate. The response rate was actually a little higher than what we'd expected, and we're happy with it. Also, "Choosing not to participate," as you put it, is different from "had better things to do," wanted to read a post instead, or good old ad blindness.

Comment by abc03833 at 24/08/2015 at 14:23 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

The possibility of selection bias is 100%, based on the facts uncovered in /r/Blackout2015

Comment by calf at 15/05/2015 at 11:02 UTC

-32 upvotes, 2 direct replies

"50% of people who wouldn’t recommend reddit cited hateful or offensive content and community as the reason why."

I beg to differ: First, although their statement does zoom in to get a large statistical number, it is still *correct* (it is a statistically precise statement); moreover, there are good reasons for focusing on this segment. First, a small core of non-recommenders provides information by proxy on non-users' general views/attitudes towards the site: they are the big fish that the administrators are interested in.

Second, it demarcates the extent of the problem, if you apply the intuition that besides this minority segment there is a spectrum of less unhappy users whose experiences could be helped, or in other words a networking effect tends to propagate instances of harassment. I think these several considerations shed some light on why this slice is more critically important.

I'm unable to follow the flow of your second argument, which ends with ".........". Non-endorsement versus dissatisfaction do not have to align to provide useful information.

So is it damned lies, or not giving their general claims the benefit of doubt? It's certainly important to question the rigor of the survey and the quality of the inferences, but looking at your reasoning I didn't something that would suggest to me it's a bad idea to curb online harassment at the level of individuals. So do you think my criticisms of your analysis were accurate?

note: Anyone replying to this comment, I expect you to have read both mine and the original posters' in full. If there is anything that was not clear on my part, I will happily explain. I hope this to be a focused discussion of statistical interpretation of the administrator's assertions. I will not be very tolerant of low-quality responses.

Comment by beenwaitingforthisda at 24/08/2015 at 19:00 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

followed that guy's lead (tkms) and made a donation to the Tug McGraw Foundation in your name. http://www.tugmcgraw.org/

Comment by ecclectic at 15/05/2015 at 15:29 UTC

-11 upvotes, 0 direct replies

This is the main takeaway I got from the blog post:

This change will have no immediately noticeable impact on more than 99.99% of our users. It is specifically designed to prevent attacks against people, not ideas.

And, everything else aside, I strongly suspect that that will bear out to be truthful.

Maybe it depends on where you spend your time, but when I was a regular user and then moderating small communities, I didn't see any major problems with reddit, it seemed like a fun place, but then I started getting involved with some larger communities, and moderating an aspect of a default, there is so much shit that goes on that most reddit users don't see because moderators trying to do their communities the service they agreed to and removing the more objectionable content.

While people may not actively object to certain behaviors, if they were directed against them, it changes things a lot. Freedom of expression is a double edged sword in reality, and there's no reason that it shouldn't also be in an online forum. As you said, there are other options that aren't large enough yet to have to actually take issues like this seriously, and trolls are free to flock to them, but reddit is reaching a size and position that they need to take a responsible stance in their approach to this sort of behavior if they're going to progress.

Will that mean they will lose some of their userbase, sure, but will it be a meaningful part? Not likely.

Comment by [deleted] at 17/05/2015 at 01:41 UTC*

-15 upvotes, 2 direct replies

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Comment by [deleted] at 15/05/2015 at 10:15 UTC*

-6 upvotes, 1 direct replies

[deleted]

Comment by [deleted] at 15/05/2015 at 14:10 UTC

-36 upvotes, 0 direct replies

[deleted]

Comment by u-void at 18/05/2015 at 21:02 UTC

-14 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Whats with this recent trend of attacking Reddit? I don't understand why you people give a shit, the alternative to the initial post above is them not giving a shit, and not changing anything.

They changed something instead of *not* changing something, and it gets attacked.

If you all don't like Reddit then go elsewhere.

Comment by [deleted] at 15/05/2015 at 18:15 UTC

-23 upvotes, 3 direct replies

Wait, so are you implying that most of reddit's users LIKE doxxing, harassment and hate speech? Is that what you're saying?

Comment by phunphun at 15/05/2015 at 14:28 UTC

-28 upvotes, 3 direct replies

So you're arguing that instead we should… let harassment such as via brigading et al from /r/SRS /r/redpill /r/KotakuInAction and so on continue?