Feedback Lost — Reddit
A Concise Case Study of A Gated System
Every human interaction creates some level of feedback by default. But often we allow that feedback to be filtered or controlled by individuals within our business. When feedback is gated, information is suppressed and lost.
In a time when data and feedback are so highly valued by most businesses, it is difficult to find examples of suspended systems of any scale or prominence. They simply fail long before they get to that stage.
Fortunately, at least for our purposes today, we have web start-ups buried in the recesses of a giant, private media conglomerates to provide us with some well-known examples… of suppressed systems. The tyranny of the gated system is actually quite well document.
As you read this article, think about your own products and services. Have you suppressed feedback by creating gatekeepers? Do you understand the real issues that they create? Well here is a great example to learn from:
The Moderator
Moderators or Mod exist in any number of online forums and platforms. They are the online equivalent of something between a mall cop and casino security. They serve to assure that the community is following a limited, but necessary, set of ground rules designed to keep the forum safe from those who entertain themselves by harassing or cheating others.
Creating Monsters
The presence of a moderator does not created a gated system, you also need some walls. Walls, in this case, is a metaphor for several areas of bad governance that turn moderators into monsters.
One of the first ways to create them is to allow your moderators to create their own rules. Sadly, this is something that all moderators inevitably do unless you specifically set rules to stop them. Even then, these limitations may not be sufficient. You need not look far to find examples of police, politicians, and even mall security who opt to create their own rules.
The second component of a wall is that it prevents you from seeing the other side. This lack of transparency is essentially a positive feedback loop on feedback itself. By not know what your monitors are doing and enforcing, your lack of feedback leads to additional lack of feedback. There are clear rules of law enforcement, government, and even mall etiquette; but inventive members of these groups often adjust their roles without anyone being the wiser.
This phenomenon is all the more common when authority can be localized. Localization is a great thing for the public, but a huge handicap to your organization or team. Localization allows those who don’t like the actions of these monster moderators to simply move on. Good for them, more feedback lost for you.
A while back I wrote an article when Corsair’s Publishing first ventured onto the reddit platform. It was clear from the beginning that there were numerous challenges. It took a while to realize the biggest one. Reddit is the land of gate keepers. Monster moderators who build feudal kingdoms on their anything but transparent platform.
Known as redditors, they are allowed to right their own rules. They change them at will and remove dissenting voices. Even better — Reddit has given them a gate. Anger the wrong redditor and you are summarily banned from their domain. Note — I’ve now been banned from several.
This has led most to simply move to an ever broadening array of new subreddits that allow some freedom but suppress the audience to which people have access. That has been followed by general attrition, a phenomenon that they cover with bot traffic and multiple account creation. Reddit is well known for faking things. And then there is Voat.co, whose sole mission seems to be to right the injustice of reddit.
Lack of feedback inevitably leads to a lack of participation and audience. Whether Reddit will eventually fold under the dictatorial array of monster moderators and their gated system, only time and feedback will tell…
Feedback Lost is an ongoing series provided by Corsair’s Publishing. We seek to provide engaging content that is both thought provoking and entertaining. Other articles on related topics can be found within our other Medium publications.
