Something that is good for someone, may not be good for someone else. This applies to Reddit, when it introduced the 'Start Chatting' feature.
While social media networks are benefiting hugely from users who simply want to talk and chat. Their messaging products have been the solutions for many of the users who wish to communicate. But when Reddit wanted to feel at least a glimpse of that feeling, things go bad.
Reddit wanted to introduce a chat root tool, where it would randomly sort users of popular subreddits into small, private group chats. R
As useful as it should have been, users need to visit a popular subreddit that has the feature enabled, to use it.
There, users should see a button labeled “Start Chatting” beneath the community’s description.
Clicking on that will make Reddit in randomly matching the user with a small group of up to seven other users who are also in the subreddit.
Using the Start Chatting feature, the group can engage in a private chat room for discussion or anything they want.
In the original announcement, mjmayank from Reddit said that:
"Redditors can visit a community and click on the ‘Start Chatting’ prompt, which will then match them with other members of that community in a small group chat. In our testing, we’ve already seen some interesting use cases for Start Chatting, such as meeting new people within conversation-oriented communities, discussing cliffhangers from the latest episode in our TV show communities, or finding others to game with online. We’re excited to see other use cases emerge as more and more redditors get access to this feature."
Reddit claimed that users' reactions and feedback to early tests of Start Chatting were positive. And this is why it was confident with the launch.
However, there were frustrations that came soon after the feature was introduced.
This is because Reddit is never a platform with chat as a focus.
First, the feature took many of the site’s users by surprise.
Not all Reddit users follow everything Reddit has, so the appearance of a chat feature did confused some. Then, Reddit moderators flooded the comments of the announcement post with even more confusion and frustration.
Many started worrying that the chat tool, which gave moderators no control or visibility into, could create the kind of abuse they work hard to keep out of their online communities.
Other moderators overseeing subreddits that reach vulnerable groups, such as survivors of abuse, were concerned that their groups could be targeted by trolls or scammers.
Making things worse, moderators had been given no prior notice about the roll out of the feature, and had no ability to opt out.
“As Moderators, we are unpaid volunteers who work to build a community which reflects our values and vision,” wrote a moderator of r/AskHistorians. “In the past, we have always been promised control over shaping that community by the site Admins, and despite missteps at points, it is a promise we have trusted. Clearly we were wrong to do so, as this has broken that trust in a far worse way than any previous undesired feature the Admins have thrust upon us.”
Following the outcry from its moderators and due to the negative feedback, Reddit reverted the update, and disabled the chat feature just one day after launching it.
"Reddit’s users, moderators and communities are at the core of every product decision we make, and our intention in rolling out ‘Start Chatting’ was to give Redditors a new avenue to connect with each other during these difficult times. Given the issues and concerns expressed by our users and moderators throughout the last 24 hours, we’ve made the decision to disable Start Chatting so we can reassess our rollout plan and evolve the product to meet the needs of our community.”
“We are committed to transparent and direct communication with our users, and will use this opportunity to seek community input, collect additional feedback, and build an experience that adds value and supports our communities," the company said.