u/michaelnovati replied · · edited ★ FEATURED
I'm happy to respond to this point by point, but **if this is real, the timestamp is accurate, and it's one of the leaders (i.e. Eric K or Will)** then I'm going to reconsider recommending anyone go to Codesmith instead of just pausing that recommendation like I did when the new changes came out. Why? 1) they are directly admitting to being involved with this subreddit, and 2) they are continuing to be defensive and vaguely dismissive instead of providing specific examples, and it doesn't sound like anything has changed.
MY PERSONAL RESPONSES:
1. **Most importantly this post is clearly admitting to being extremely involved on this subreddit after being fairly dismissive of that in the past.**
- I became a moderator like three days ago-ish, it wasn't announced anywhere, and the Codesmith person is already aware, so they are clearly paying attention to Reddit closely
- "We've had grads do AMAs" - which is fine, but those people said that Codesmith didn't ask them to do them or was involved or aware or encouraging of them, but it sounds like Codesmith was directly involved, or maybe this was just phrased poorly, but it sounds like Codesmith was very supportive of positive alumni doing AMA regardless?
- If this person is that involved in Reddit, then I think it's reasonable other people are suspicious about Codesmith's involvement in the sub, since not a single Reddit account has claimed to be a representative of Codesmith officially
**2. What are the lies? A lie is something someone knows is false and states it as true.** Maybe other people are lying but I'm certainly not. I make a lot of opinion statements and if I state something more objectively, I try to give sources of where it came from, even with links to that source. I repeatedly, on every controversial post, ask people to openly discuss with me anything they believe is not correct and show a responsiveness and willingness to backup my words with action. I don't know what the lies are. If this is about the senior advisor who keeps saying "I sold my last company to Disney" then I talked to Disney PR and two of the final employees at that company who explained a heck of a lot of details and I presenting my personal interpretation with the details of where my opinion is coming from, isn't a lie.
3. **What posts and comments have I been deleting and how do you know I did it versus any of the other moderators since the person who takes action is not visible to the public?** I haven't removed any comments from any posts this week about Codesmith that I can recall, unless maybe it was something unrelated and a racist comment. I have demonstrated myself being able to actually moderate discussion following the definition of the word MODERATE, and I have been effectively moderating so far by keeping the convos from derailing too much. Finally, we have three moderators and we might disagree on things and that's why we have a few people involved.
4. **Codesmith said it will be fine for the long term at the end of last year too. Tell that to the super loyal instructors that were just laid off when they thought everything was fine too.** I too hope the changes help and make things better, but people are legitimately nervous and this Codesmith statement is dismissing that by saying everything is fine again doesn't make people any less nervous.