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Reddit

Reddit CEO vows to resolve community issues after revolt

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By Seb Joseph | News editor

July 4, 2015 | 3 min read

Reddit’s interim chief executive Ellen Pao has apologised for the way it dismissed one of its team after its community members shut down hundreds of the online message board’s most popular sections apparently in protest.

The outages, which rippled across the site on Friday (3 July), were reportedly in protest to the dismissal of Victoria Taylor, who oversaw the site’s popular “Ask Me Anything” interviews and was also a key contact for its moderators.

“I want to apologise to our community for yesterday,” Pao told Time. “We handled the transition in a way that caused some disruption, and we should have done a better job.” She added that the company’s management should have notified moderators earlier about the change in personnel but declined to comment further on Taylor’s exit.

Nearly 300 individual discussion areas were closed in the wake of Taylor’s exit, reportedly impacting Subreddits that ranged from technology to art. Community members rather than Reddit staff moderate Subreddits.

Alexis Ohanian, one of Reddit’s co-founders and its chairman, said it has appointed long-time Reddit user and emploeee Kristine Fasnacht to act as its dedicated point of contact with moderators. He revealed the plan was to have an email alias available to moderators who need to contact Reddit employees but admitted that this had not been clearly communicated after Taylor’s departure.

“Unfortunately, we did not announce the transition right after that happened,” he said.

The outages spotlight the wider issue of the lack of support the online message board gives to its moderators.

In a statement posted on Reddit, Pao said the company is ‘breaking some of the ways moderators moderate. We are going to figure this out and fix it.”

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