What should we do to reduce the risk of a Reddit-like crisis?

Question

Sometimes the owners or overseers of a community need to remove someone popular -- suspend a top user, boot a popular moderator, or fire a key employee. As we've seen, sometimes this causes an immediate, vehement, and very public reaction, and you have a public-relations fiasco on your hands. Not only are you losing community members (and the benefits they bring, like ad dollars), but perhaps more importantly, your reputation is taking a huge beating on the Internet.

If my community needs to sanction someone and we think it's going to be unpopular, what steps can we take to reduce the effects of the backlash? Usually there are confidentiality concerns, so we can't share everything (or sometimes much of anything). What should we say up front, and should we respond to the complaints that immediately show up on social media or stay far away from that? (Probably it depends -- but on what?)

This is not a problem I currently have; it's a problem I hope I never have. But if I do, I won't have the time then to come to Community Building and ask for an answer.

Answer 1

The first step here is one that I can't help you with: know your rights, responsibilities, and expectations. If you're running a site, or if you're part of a team, know what's expected of you, and what you're legally bound to do. The actions you can take are limited by this, full-stop. Beyond that, any verbal/written agreements and expectations you've set up need to be respected.

The general steps to dealing with a significant change like this are as follows:

• Determine the information you're allowed to share. Don't necessarily stick to what's written down; ask people if they're okay with certain information being released. For instance, if you're dropping a moderator, make an attempt to work with them to determine what they'd be okay with making public. Document this discussion thoroughly.

  Any information can be made public with the consent of the involved parties, so if you'd like to talk about something with your userbase, just ask if it's okay to make public. Chances are, you'll be able to provide more information this way.

  Lastly, remember that information about what you can't say is just as valuable as information about what you can. If you tell people, "we asked, and it's not something we can make public," they'll at least know you're trying to keep them in touch and informed.

• Organize notes on which groups are allowed to know what. It will be much better in the long run if the information you deliver is both as consistent and accurate as possible to each group.

• Prioritize your lines of communication. If you've been running things smoothly, chances are you already have one or more lines of communication open to various groups within your community. Prioritize in your head which groups need information first.

  If you don't currently have solid lines of communication open, there's no time like the present. Do so immediately, because failing to do so means tensions will build with no outlet.

• Do what you can to notify people in advance, in order of communication priority. The more warning people have, the less likely a change will come as a shock. Recognize that this communication is two-way - others are going to have concerns about what's happening, and thoughts on what needs to happen. This isn't just you telling people what's going on; other people are affected, and are looking to you to lessen the impact.

  Sometimes, though, sudden changes are unavoidable, which means...:

• If you think it's going to be a while before you can talk, tell people just that. As an example, in the reddit case, much of the tension could have been alleviated by saying "Yes, there are changes, but we're not ready to talk about them publicly yet."

• Recognize that, no matter what you change, someone is going to walk away dissatisfied. This is key: every change is met with some resistance. You, as a neutral moderator, need to recognize not only what the resistance is, but who it's coming from, and why they might be resisting. As things evolve, it's important to identify information that might alleviate concerns.

  If you spot a hole in information that might alleviate tensions, go back to step 1. Organize information you can share, then share it with the relevant groups in order of priority.

I won't claim that this is complete, and I'm fully open to suggestions on steps which should be included. However, the core of the philosophy is: keep people as informed as possible, but recognize that you won't be able to keep everyone informed continuously, so prioritize groups and keep them as informed as possible.

Generally, humans (in a stable community) are very understanding; you just need to give them something to understand.

Answer 2

I've been a user of reddit and various Stack Exchange sites for a while now, and I've been following the reddit "Amageddon"(sic) thing with interest, and I did wonder whether Stack Exchange could have a similar incident.

Keep in mind that the firing was a huge straw (straw bale?) that broke the camel's back; it brought a number of long-standing issues users and moderators on reddit have with reddit admins to a head. A couple of those issues I don't see Stack Exchange as having:

• reddit has very poor moderator support, including outdated and inadequate moderator tools, while Stack Exchange provides powerful tools that are continually improved (as far as I can tell, since I'm not at moderator level on any Stack Exchange sites).
• reddit admins have promised communication, improved tools, etc. for literally years and failed to make good on those promises, while promises made here on Stack Exchange have always been met in reasonable periods of time (as far as I know).

What can you do to prevent a fiasco like what we're currently seeing on reddit? Set up a plan now for when this happens, and assume it will be needed. A few steps I think are wise to take:

• Learn what you can and cannot say about why someone was fired ahead of time.
• Have someone in place to take over before the firing is done. This means that nobody should be a "single point of failure" in your organization.
• Figure out how you will handle a community backlash before it happens, so you're not panicking and responding unwisely while you're under pressure.
• If you don't already have a formal community liaison, get one (or more than one--remember, no single point of failure). Always keep communication lines open, and listen if long-term users are starting to complain about lack of communication. (This most recent event on reddit should not have come as a shock to the admins that run the site, and it's telling that it surprised them.)
• Consistency, including keeping your promises (which you seem to be doing fairly well at already, but it's still worth stressing).

Answer 3

As an Encyclopedia Dramatica SysOP and forum moderator my advice would be:

• Always be sincere to your userbase
• Don't treat them like children
• If appropriate, do a full disclosure

Honesty is really the best policy.

Additionally, reddit / 4chan, etc. are really unique communities, since they have been built from the ground up by young people and are now trying to monetize their userbase.

Stack Exchange websites are basically a "niche" community. Reddit's userbase is extremely varied.

Answer 4

Let's take the example of Stack Exchange: I think there is no risk of a "Reddit-like" crisis on Stack Exchange. The reason is that Reddit is rather unessential, whereas Stack Exchange has become an everyday work tool for many. In absence of viable alternatives, people will always come and play by the rules, whether they agree on how the site is run or not, because they need. If your community provides value, I think you can simply run it just the way you please.

So my piece of advice is "keep on providing value". I believe big omni-aggregators will always rise and fall, those who produce tangible value are more likely to stay around and have definitely more power over the multitude of the users, even the 'key' ones for that matter.