Reddit: Feedback, Okay. Apologies, Forget It
August 18, 2023
Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.
Do Reddit execs even understand what they did wrong in the first place? ArsTechnica reports, “Too Little Too Late—No Apologies as Reddit Halfheartedly Tries to Repair Ties with Moderators.”
A child telling a neighbor, “Don’t put your trash in my family’s garbage can, understand.” Good work MidJourney and no alerts to talk with the correctness group.
Writer Scharon Harding summarizes the recent conflict between the platform and its hard-working but unpaid moderators:
“Reddit went forward with its API pricing changes on July 1, resulting in many third-party Reddit apps closing and some cautiously attempting paid-for models. Since then, some longtime users, including moderators and communities, have exited Reddit, with some encouraging community members toward other social platforms, like Lemmy and Discord. … Reddit’s hasty implementation of API fees and its belittling of protests (both internally, reportedly, and to the press) and complaints are frequently cited by mods Ars has spoken to as elevating the protests beyond a debate on what the formerly free API should cost. Reddit has dug itself into a sizable hole that it will likely be unable to crawl out of through typical methods.”
And yet, it tries. Harding points to a (now missing) post in which a Reddit employee discussed the company’s efforts to repair the relationship, like new weekly feedback sessions and other communication channels. Notably absent are actual concessions to moderators or anything resembling an apology. Harding shares a couple moderators’ responses to the supposed olive branch. First:
“Akaash Maharaj, an r/equestrian mod who also participates in Reddit’s Mod Council, told Ars he doesn’t think the recently outlined efforts will mend broken relations on their own. That’s because the problem wasn’t a dearth of communication channels but, rather, corporate leadership showing consistent ‘contempt for the advice it has received during those communications.'”
Then there is the simple desire from Alyssa Videlock, moderator of multiple subreddits, some of them quite large:
“When asked how Reddit could restore its relationship with moderators, her answer was simple: an apology.”
But such humility may escape these tech wizards turned managers. Their high school science club method emerges like lava from a volcano in Iceland. Many little creatures are vaporized. People may be inconvenienced. New land may be formed. But management decisions can be controlled; their downstream consequences, like lava, cannot.
Cynthia Murrell, August 18, 2023
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