Reddit backtracks, removes chat room feature after just one day

[Shawn Knight]

What just happened? Reddit’s attempt to strike while the iron is hot backfired in this instance. Rather than fully vet the chat room feature with a beta test among a large subset of communities with an opt-in clause, the platform rushed the feature to market and ticked off a lot of users / mods in the process.

It took roughly 24 hours for Reddit to rethink its latest move and ultimately roll back the new chat room feature it debuted earlier this week.

In a statement issued to The Verge, Reddit confirmed that it has indeed disabled the Start Chatting feature in order to reassess its rollout plan and evolve the product to meet the needs of its community. The spokesperson added that issues and concerns voiced by users and moderators over the last 24 hours led to the decision.

In announcing the new feature, Alex Le, Reddit’s VP of product and community, said many users – including some that don’t always share feedback in comment threads – were using the feature and enjoying it. “My humble request is that you please try the feature out and consider the potential it has to help like-minded people connect with one another,” he added.

Le said in a subsequent update that they moved too quickly to bring the update to general availability. They also weren’t clear enough with regard to how chats would be moderated and which communities would be excluded due to abuse potential.

Le promised to share more details about the misstep soon but for now, all you really need to know is that the feature has been rolled back 100 percent.

Masthead credit: Uracha chaidaroon, Tetiana Yurchenko

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/85066-reddit-backtracks-removes-chat-room-feature-after-one.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

A chatroom failing when millions of people simultaneously sign on during the most hateful verbal social climate in human history?

I'm shocked.

 

[mbrowne5061]

It wasn't the idea of the chats themselves, but their moderation that was the problem. Chat rooms either have continuous, quality moderation - or the devolve into cesspools pretty quickly. And moderation of a forum is much less time intensive than moderation of a chat room - chat rooms do not scale well.

 

[Hexic]

A chatroom failing when millions of people simultaneously sign on during the most hateful verbal social climate in human history?

I'm shocked.

I left Reddit after many years. It's full of morons stroking each other's political ego with zero logic or research.

Bring back the glory of 4chan. Reddit isn't even close to what that was back in the day.

 

[Danny101]

You can know a site or page by it's moderation. Moderation can be suspect in and of itself. It usually shows a bias and against spirited debate. Sure, there are trolls, but often an unpopular opinion gets treated as such. A majority belief isn't a harbinger of truth.

"Because it is so unbelievable, the truth often escapes being known."

Heraclitus

 

[Danny101]

So why haven't we been sheltering in place prior to Covid-19?

 

[candle_86]

You can know a site or page by it's moderation. Moderation can be suspect in and of itself. It usually shows a bias and against spirited debate. Sure, there are trolls, but often an unpopular opinion gets treated as such. A majority belief isn't a harbinger of truth.

"Because it is so unbelievable, the truth often escapes being known."

Heraclitus

My favorite is moderators who enforce rules with an iron fist for the page but when you look at their posts they break the rules on every post.