We apologize

[u/ekjp]

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:

Tools: We will improve tools, not just promise improvements, building on work already underway. u/deimorz and u/weffey will be working as a team with the moderators on what tools to build and then delivering them.

Communication: u/krispykrackers 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.

Search: We are providing an option for moderators to default to the old version of search to support your existing moderation workflows. Instructions for setting this default are here.

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.

[u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/[deleted]]

So anyway why did you go on to give detailed statements to thirdparty newsfeeds first, before speaking to us? The place with the tagline 'the frontpage of the internet'? The people you slighted in the first place? Hell even buzzfeed got info before this statement from you...

Edit: Ellen responded to me, but I anticipate she will be heavily downvoted so here's the reply

"It was hard to communicate on the site, because my comments were being downvoted. I did comment here and was communicating on a private subreddit. I'm here now."

[u/rfbandit]

Thank you for finally apologizing on here, instead of through media interviews. Should've come to your community first, instead of the press. But you also miss the point. You say a majority of reddit users don't care. But, those of us who create content for the lurkers care. Acting flippant isn't a good way to get us on your side.

[u/BellyFullOfSwans]

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.

KrispyKracker's response

[u/[deleted]]

How do you feel about this comment 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.

[u/AdamKeiper]

Dear Ms. Pao –

In the interest of transparency, I wonder if you might answer a question or two. Setting aside any personnel matters that you understandably cannot discuss, would you please confirm or deny the claim made several days ago that Reddit, under your leadership, wishes to undertake "a bunch of highly commercial things around AMAs"? Is that characterization correct, partially correct, or entirely incorrect? And, while still eschewing any discussion of individual personnel, would you say that your colleagues — the administrators of Reddit — have largely shared that goal, or has there been substantial pushback and disagreement?

Thank you.

[u/CaptnRonn]

A few things beyond a PR statement that would restore my faith in the admins:

1. Stop shadowbanning users - It was a tool made for spam bots, not to silence dissent. The mere fact that a perfectly legitimate user can be shadowbanned without their knowledge is ridiculous, and it has been happening more and more in the past few months/year

2. Stop subreddit favoritism - You want to have anti-harassment rules? Great. Enforce them in every. sub. equally. Other meta-reddit subs have to use np links. Why does SRS get away with being able to post direct links with obvious brigading?

Also, u/ekjp, as much as I would like to think that things are business as usual with you as CEO, you have made some very questionable statements regarding free speech and sexism in tech from a position that is seemingly vacant in logic. The fact that you feel you must talk to major news sites before actually acknowledging your userbase is troubling to say the least. You have done nothing to earn my trust or support, and in fact have done several things to reinforce the opposite. So... prove me wrong?

Edit: Yes I am now aware that my knowledge of np links was wrong. Thank you for informing me everyone. Not going to edit the post as the point still stands. Enforce rules across subs equally.

[u/DoctorDank]

Edited from 2022: LMAO at the cesspool that Reddit has become. Can't say anything against your protected classes (gays, trannies, people of color) or you get banned.

Freedom of speech my left nut.

Original comment:

Your second to last paragraph is spot on.

These are just words.

You haven't actually instituted any reforms yet. To be honest, this just feels like corporate newspeak. You're just telling us what we want to hear. I think you'd ve a better response if you actually instituted the reforms you speak of, instead of just talking about how you're going to do them.

Because talk is cheap.

But, at least you acknowledge that the way you went about dismissing Victoria was utterly tone-deaf, and very disrespectful to the (unpaid, hard-working) moderators who relied on her in order to make their subreddits the very best.

Oh wait no, you totally didn't do that either. You just say you're acknow ledging a "long history" of mistakes, without actually acknowledging them at all!

More newspeak.

So, I don't really know what to make of this "announcement." Guess we'll just have to wait and see if you put your money where your mouth is, won't we?

Edit: much thanks to u/alloutpenguinwar for guilding my comment!

Edit 2: for those of you telling me software development takes time? No shit. I know that. That doesn't mean reddit inc couldn't have laid out at least some sort of timetable, as opposed to nebulous promises of mod tools being available in the future. And yes, you can have timetables for software development. Happens all the time. So sorry, that's not a legitimate excuse for, well, anything.

[u/cahaseler]

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.