Over the last week one of the most popular websites on the web has been in a battle with their users. Reddit is a content and user content driven site. Consequently upsetting the users that made the site a success is never a good idea.
I won’t go into to many specifics, but it has got to the point where there is a 200,000 + strong petition for the CEO Ellen Pao to step down. Moderators have closed subreddits and content providers have left in protect for other sites. In fact some many users have left to go else where that similar sites are crashing from the influx of ex-pat redditors. I’ll let the BBC catch you up on the events of the week here.
So what are the classic screwups that have taken place. Here are my top 5 reasons why.
Reddit is a different type of a content site than a newspaper or something like Netflicks which are top down driven. The owners hire and buy content and provide it to users. Reddit is bottom up driven content. Users provide the content that other users come to view. The owners/staff of reddit provide the forum for this to take place, much the same as youtube does.
If a group of people are providing you with free content to make millions on. Maybe you should concentrate on making their job easier and collaborate with them. In this case reddit ignored the very knowledgable and usefully feedback from these groups. The ignored them. Then dismissed there grievance and then tried them like idiots who didn’t matter.
Quote “…Most redditors don’t care about what we are doing..’
Keep the infastructure running. Keep the wheels greased. Manage the content providers keep them happy and work on tools to help them. Seems reddit had little interest in providing the content providers and moderators tools to improve things. Infact things have grown as big as they have despite reddits management rather than because of it. Now they users who did the work are pissed…oops.
This won’t work with your wife or husband and it sure as hell didn’t work with the reddit community either! Infact the reaction was somewhat thermo Nuclear as well.
I wouldn’t be surprised if that petition hits 250,000 and there are tears. 250,000 upset people is a lot for country let alone a business relying on its users for content.
I hate seeing something so loved by myself going down, but it as things unfold it is not such a surprise. Hopefully reddits management can piece things back together and get the content providers back. Currently the only thing keeping a lot of users around is the fact that any alternative reddit styles sites are in a constant state of overload and can’t be accessed because their servers can’t handle 5million new users a day.
