Reddit Inc has been having a rough year in dealing with its very vocal community, and now interim CEO Ellen Pao has issued a public apology to redditors for the company’s lack of communication with users.

Pao’s apology follows the company’s sudden removal of “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) organizer Victoria Taylor on July 2, which left the moderators of several subreddits unable to contact some of the high-profile people who were scheduled to conduct an AMA in the near future. In response, the moderators of r/IAmA, r/Books, and others temporarily shut down their subreddits until a solution could be worked out.

Other subreddits also began locking down their forums in protest of Reddit’s increasing lack of communication and support for moderators, who are essentially unpaid volunteers responsible for the day-to-day operations of Reddit’s communities. Several of the affected subreddits boasted millions of subscribers, and the site blackout was so widespread that Reddit’s interim CEO, who is widely blamed by the community for the recent controversies, was forced to take notice.

Pao’s apology

“We screwed up. Not just on July 2, but also over the past several years,” Pao wrote in a post on Reddit today. “We haven’t communicated well, and we have surprised moderators and the community with big changes. We have apologized and made promises to you, the moderators and the community, over many years, but time and again, we haven’t delivered on them.”

She added, “When you’ve had feedback or requests, we haven’t always been responsive. The mods and the community have lost trust in me and in us, the administrators of reddit. Today, we acknowledge this long history of mistakes. We are grateful for all you do for reddit, and the buck stops with me.”

Pao outlined three areas in which Reddit intended to address users concerns, which includes providing moderators with better tools, more communication from the company, and access to more search options.

“I know these are just words, and it may be hard for you to believe us,” Pao said. “I don’t have all the answers, and it will take time for us to deliver concrete results. I mean it when I say we screwed up, and we want to have a meaningful ongoing discussion. I know we’ve drifted out of touch with the community as we’ve grown and added more people, and we want to connect more. I and the team are committed to talking more often with the community, starting now.”

Too little too late

Whether or not Pao’s apology is sincere, there seems to be little chance that it will make much of an impact on the community’s opinion of her. Some users created a Change.org petition asking that Pao step down, and in less than a week the petition has gained nearly 200,000 signatures.

There have also been several subreddits created solely for criticizing and ridiculing Pao such as r/ellenpaohate and r/paomustresign, and some redditors have taken to referring to her as “Chairman Pao.”

A roughly 330 word apology and the promise to give more tools to moderators seems unlikely to change that.

Photo by Christopher.Michel