I think the best illustration of old reddit is what happened when the mobile version called the upvote and downvote "like and dislike". People were outraged! The downvote is not a disagree button! The admins apologized for the oversight and fixed it. If you broke the reddiquette, people would quote it at you.
Nowadays, say the downvote is not a disagree button and you'll be flooded in downvotes.
Then and now, the community resisted changing what it was about. And that's why I think spez has an impossible task because this time, we can't just flood reddit with a bunch of well-behaved users that will change the trend.
Some bean counter probably thought they could save on community building as a "useless expense" and now it bites them in the ass. Just look at the immediate post-Victoria situation. Guests who flew to meet Victoria faced a closed door in New York because she was the only employee there and their fired her. She was Communications Director and they had no idea at all what that entailed.
I'm very curious about what they're going to do. spez doing weekly or semi-weekly AMAs might actually go a long way to making things better, but really only if he's honest and doesn't try to avoid the answer. Which might not really be able to happen, what with Reddit,inc being a much bigger company than the days of yore.
I think the best illustration of old reddit is what happened when the mobile version called the upvote and downvote "like and dislike". People were outraged! The downvote is not a disagree button! The admins apologized for the oversight and fixed it. If you broke the reddiquette, people would quote it at you.
Nowadays, say the downvote is not a disagree button and you'll be flooded in downvotes.
Then and now, the community resisted changing what it was about. And that's why I think spez has an impossible task because this time, we can't just flood reddit with a bunch of well-behaved users that will change the trend.
Some bean counter probably thought they could save on community building as a "useless expense" and now it bites them in the ass. Just look at the immediate post-Victoria situation. Guests who flew to meet Victoria faced a closed door in New York because she was the only employee there and their fired her. She was Communications Director and they had no idea at all what that entailed.
I'm very curious about what they're going to do. spez doing weekly or semi-weekly AMAs might actually go a long way to making things better, but really only if he's honest and doesn't try to avoid the answer. Which might not really be able to happen, what with Reddit,inc being a much bigger company than the days of yore.