Subject: Reddit

From: Michael Roston <michaelroston@trueslant.com>

Date: 9/10/09, 11:17

To: Paul Tassi <paultassi@gmail.com>, bart brouwers <brewbart@gmail.com>, Justin Gardner <justinpgardner@yahoo.com>, Ryan Sager <editor@ryansager.com>, Allison Kilkenny <allisonkilkenny@gmail.com>, Austin Considine <austinconsidine@gmail.com>, robin dorian <rdorian@nyc.rr.com>, marc herman <herman.marc@gmail.com>, Jeff Hoard <Jeff.Hoard@gmail.com>, Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>, Jeff McMahon <jmcmahon@uchicago.edu>

CC: coates@trueslant.com, Kashmir Hill <kashhill@trueslant.com>, katie@trueslant.com

Hey,

So we're getting murdered on Reddit. Nothing from TrueSlant.com is appearing on the major verticals on the site - Politics, Economics, Business, WTF, etc. Several of our contributors have been flagged on several occasions this month in the 'ReportTheSpammers' vertical. And the result is that our content is frequently not making it to the major pages - automated scripts appear to be removing our content before it can get anywhere. It doesn't appear to be tied to our individual accounts, just our URL.

Generally, when someone has oversubmitted, their account has been shut down. Instead it seems like the blowback is hitting all of us. While we averaged somewhere in the range of 3,000 to 5,000 pageviews a day from Reddit last month, we're down below 2,000 a day so far this month. It's a worrisome trend.

We're letting all of our contributors who submit there on a regular basis know this, so we can ask you to change up your behavior in the hopes that the knot can get unwound.

So I'd like to ask you to:

1. Submit your own content at most twice a day.

2. Only submit new content - don't go back into your archives and find old posts to pump up your UV count.

3. Only submit your more substantive content - avoid what they call 'blogspam.'

The usual rules also apply: comment on other Reddit posts, submit content from sites other than True/Slant because it makes it look like you're not only promoting yourself.

My hope is that this is episodic and will blow over after a week or two. But there is clearly a small minority that's out to get us and the moderators have taken note. We're going to try and work some backchannels here in the hopes of smoothing things over. We'd like to avoid a tragedy of the commons kind of situation where Reddit is concerned.

In the meanwhile, we'll continue searching for other venues for your content, and we'll reach out to other outlets where we have contacts when we can.

Thanks,

--
-Michael Roston
Senior Producer
TrueSlant.com