Matter Anti-Matter

I started reading Joel Spolsky’s post about Management Teams earlier this week and nearly choked on my coffee when I saw this:

Very few company founders start out with management experience, so they tend to make it up as they go along. Sometimes they try to reinvent management from first principles. More often than not, they manage their startups the way that they’ve seen management work on TV and in movies. I’ll bet more entrepreneurs model their behavior on Captain Picard from Star Trek than any nonfiction human.

Coincidentally, I’d recently written a post about the strength of Pinterest’s customer support, which ended with this thought:

I often joke that when making tough calls as a Community Manager, I ask myself what Captain Picard would do (cotroxell can attest to this). I think this is exactly what Picard would have done. 

When Spolsky lamented the tendency for inexperienced managers to invoke Picard, my mind immediately raced to my now-condemning blog post. Of all the captains on all the starships, why Picard? Why??

I figured I should probably read the rest of Spolsky’s post. As it turns out, Spolsky gets many of the big ideas right, but a lot of the details wrong. 

As an anecdote to what he thinks of as top-down Picardian management, Spolsky proposes the upside-down pyramid:

Stop thinking of the management team at the top of the organization. Start thinking of the software developers, the designers, the product managers, and the front line sales people as the top of the organization.

It’s an interesting suggestion, that by flipping everything upside-down you can solve many of the issues that top-down management inherently breeds. Management teams, he argues, should think of themselves more as Administration. Their job is to ensure that the real experts can do what they do best. 

Spolsky then goes into how the University Department is an excellent example of the upside-down pyramid at work, where administrators support a core team of knowledge workers and enable them to do what they do best:

Think about how a university department organizes itself. There are professors at various ranks, who pretty much just do whatever the heck they want. Then there’s a department chairperson who, more often than not, got suckered into the role. The chairperson of the department might call meetings and adjudicate who teaches what class, but she certainly doesn’t tell the other professors what research to do, or when to hold office hours, or what to write or think.

But as anyone who has ever worked in a University can attest, this upside-down pyramid is paralytically inefficient, and more often than not leads to frustration within an organization. Not the greatest example, as many commenters were quick to point out. At the heart of it though, I agreed with the spirit of what Spolsky was trying to convey: do not stand in the way of your team’s abilities. 

After reading the rest of the post, I kept returning to Spolsky’s opening analogy that looking to Captain Picard is a frequent mistake among rookies. And while Spolsky may be an expert on building companies, I just so happen to be an expert on Captain Picard. 

The reason so many inexperienced managers might envision themselves as potential Picards is not because they think it’s important to know what chair you occupy in the chain of command, but because of how Picard relates to his fellow crew members. He is compassionate, always puts his crew’s needs ahead of his own, and leads without ego. Though he respects the rules of the world he lives in, he questions those rules rigorously and never accepts them at face value. He’s driven by a pursuit of knowledge and a desire to better the human race, not by a thirst for power or need for recognition. And when a painful or difficult decision needs to be made, he accepts full responsibility for the consequences.

(Oh, and he’s also a badass archeologist, secret undercover agent, flautist, skilled shuttle pilot, private investigator, a fighter and a lover.)

In short, Picard is the very example of what Spolsky was trying to illustrate through his failed University analogue. He is the manager who leads by supporting others, and who does not stand in the way of his team’s growth and success. 

And while Spolsky laments managers that become “ultimate decision makers,” he overlooks the need for an ultimate decision maker within specific contexts. In other words, sometimes you have to go into command mode in order to move forward, make tough calls, and get through the day. Or defeat the Borg. 

When it comes to community management at least, there is no finer example than Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Every company would do well to pay more attention to Picard. If you’re not sure where to begin, I recommend Season 5. 

Recently, Pinterest was asked by officials from Mitt Romney’s campaign to change the name on the account of a user who had created a satirical board poking fun at Romney’s, how shall we say, epicurean tastes. 

While it’s clear the Pinterest team appreciated the commentary and creativity that Eric’s board brought to their site, when it comes to setting a precedent for the rest of Pinterest’s community, things like fake accounts and impersonation swing both ways. It’s not long before you have more fake accounts pinning items and proliferating ideologies that may not be so easy to stomach. 

Here’s the message their Community Manager sent to Eric:

From: Enid Hwang
Date: Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 9:51 AM PST
Subject: Pinterest: “MittRomneyGOP” username
To: Eric Spiegelman

Hi Eric,

I’m Enid, the Community Manager at Pinterest. As you might have guessed, I’m writing regarding your username “MittRomneyGOP.” We were recently contacted by officials from Mitt Romney’s campaign because they feel it’s very misleading and they’re requesting that it be changed to “fakemittromney.”

We actually really appreciate political commentary on Pinterest - and I know your account is clearly satirical - but we’re a young company so we don’t have a feature/process in place for “verified accounts” (such as Twitter) which would make the purpose of your account immediately obvious to any user on the site.

If you don’t mind changing your username, let me know. Or, you can just go ahead and make the switch yourself at: https://pinterest.com/settings. We’ve been brainstorming alternatives and unfortunately we feel changing your profile picture or adding a byline on your “bio” section on Pinterest may not be sufficient because that information isn’t included with all pins that propagate through the site.

We’re also really open to discussing the issue more with you, so you can reach me directly at [REDACTED] if you have any questions.

I’m sorry for the trouble and again, don’t hesitate to call if you’re concerned about this!

—
Enid

What’s especially interesting is that Pinterest prohibits impersonation within their Terms of Use. They could have simply suspended Eric’s account, but they opted to work with him to arrive at an understanding as to why the change was necessary. 

Eric’s response to Pinterest initially implored them to consider his First Amendment Rights, and not yield to the pressure of Mitt Romney’s team.

From: Eric Spiegelman
Date: Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:14 AM PST
Subject: Re: Pinterest: “MittRomneyGOP” username
To: Enid Hwang

Hi Enid,

Obviously I understand your concern. And I can imagine as a new company (one that’s really doing a great job), you’d prefer not to have hassles like this. But at the same time, you’re a publishing entity that’s more or less open to the public, and I can’t in good conscience change my parody at the request of the subject of that parody. It should be obvious to the Romney campaign that nobody sees this as official, and that I am exercising my Free Speech rights in making fun of Gov. Romney’s utter tone-deafness when it comes to matters of privilege and class inequality.

That being said, I understand that you are well within your rights to delete my account. But I really hope you choose not to.

You have a wonderful service in Pinterest, and I wish your team all the best, however you proceed with this.

Best,
Eric

In response to this, Pinterest offered a compromise:

From: Enid Hwang
Date: Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 10:24 AM PST
Subject: Re: Pinterest: “MittRomneyGOP” username
To: Eric Spiegelman

Hi Eric,

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly: We have no intention of deleting your account. It’s satire and it should stay! We’ll change the username (this doesn’t affect your boards, pins, or anything else about your profile settings) and we feel that’s sufficient. Once we institute verified accounts this, and any future issues, will be taken care of universally. That’s our responsibility so sorry again for having you caught in the middle of it.

I really appreciate your note (and compliments!) and thanks so much for your understanding,

Enid

While Eric initially was not satisfied with this either, he eventually apologized to the Pinterest team, recognizing that their decision had nothing to do with politics:

Pinterest is a site suddenly hitting the mainstream in a big way and I’m sure they have plenty to deal with, without some asshole like me using their platform in a way that isn’t exactly what they had in mind for it. I have a lot of admiration for what their team has achieved and I am sorry if I have at all distracted them from their pursuit.

These kinds of delicate situations arise every day when you have a passionate user community. Some battles you can win, others you can’t. In this case, Pinterest’s team opted for a compromise — something they were under no obligation to do — but which clearly made all the difference in the final outcome. 

Compromise will not always work, and the bigger a site gets, the harder it will be to handle every case with such personal care. But one of the most important things a Community Team does is remind users that behind all those necessary rules and regulations are real people who, more than anything, care deeply about their users.  

I often joke that when making tough calls as a Community Manager, I ask myself what Captain Picard would do (cotroxell can attest to this). I think this is exactly what Picard would have done. 

Last weekend, after being inspired by a gorgeous, delicious meal I had at a new local restaurant called Bistro Petit, I decided to write a review on Yelp.

I’ve never submitted content to Yelp before. I use it as a guide, mainly when I’m trying to find some place to eat, but I’ve never gone so far as to create a user account and participate in the community. 

What led me to cross over from being a passive consumer to a an almost-participant (more on this in a minute) in the Yelp community? I’ve had many fabulous (and not-so-fabulous) meals before at many restaurants, and while I could have written reviews for any number of them, I never did. Reviewing something, for me at least, takes time. And when there’s only so much time in a day, it’s hard to take that leap and join another community. Nothing out there made me feel like I needed to participate. 

The reason I sat down and wrote a review on Yelp for Bistro Petit is because I felt like I’d made a positive connection with the not a place of business, but with the people who own it and run it. After my dining experience, the owner/chef seemed like someone who really, truly cared about the food he was serving, and a Yelp review could be a nice way to say “Hello! I liked your restaurant very much and wanted to go the extra mile to let you know by writing this review for others to see.”

That was my first mistake. For me, it wasn’t about just liking the food. It was about liking the experience and the people, and wanting to somehow communicate that with others. These are all highly editorial, personal motivations, which let me to my second mistake.

I treated my Yelp review like a real food review, which is how I’m used to reviewing restaurants. I went through each dish I ordered and described its contents, and the experience of eating it. I might have gotten a bit carried away gushing about the heavenly mix of kimchi and saffron that served as the base for my bouillabaisse. In the end, my review came out pretty long, and when I posted it, I thought, “Holy shit that’s really long. Woops!” But, I’d also spent a good 45 minutes writing and figured, what the hell, if somebody wants to know what aromas added to my enjoyment of a pan-fried striped bass, they’ll read on. If they couldn’t care less, they can skip it. I purposefully opened with a general recommendation/summary of my experience in the first two lines, thus giving those who don’t like to get carried away by food writing a convenient out.

A few days later, I noticed that my review had been filtered out by Yelp’s review filter. Their filter aims to get rid of the riff raff, the unreliable narrators that threaten to undermine the integrity of their business model. It’s a real problem, to be sure. There are unscrupulous businesses that pay mercenaries to write fake reviews, and those fake reviews are more threatening to a business like Yelp than any disheartened first-time reviewer that let herself get carried away by a good meal. Fake reviewers make it possible for businesses that are least deserving of customers to fake their way into legitimacy, and they create a hostile environment where it’s possible for businesses to target competitors with faked negative reviews. It’s a mess, and I don’t envy the Yelp team whose job it is to deal with the perpetrators that slip through and the he-said/she-said accusations that I’m sure come flying into their support desk.

How does Yelp’s review filter work? They’ve got a video that explains it here. They don’t offer any detail about the review algorithm, but it’s safe to assume that it uses data from tracking hundreds of thousands of entries and looks for specific data points that give you a high % chance of being a fake reviewer.

I’m only guessing, but I assume I tripped their sensors by:

• Creating an account for the first time.
• Submitting a review within an hour of creating the account.
• Submitting a 5-star review.
• Submitting a review that exceeded their average review length by too many characters.
• Using key words that are likely to appear when someone has been paid to write something that sounds authentic. 

So basically, if you’ve been hired to write fake reviews of restaurants, then you probably try to sound authentic by overcompensating with fancy food adjectives that might help prove you were really there. 

Unfortunately, that means Yelp’s review filter also squashed my passionate, overly-indulgent review of one of best meals I’ve had in a long time. My review still exists, but it’s not visible unless you click through to the filtered reviews on the bottom of the page. 

There is no way for Yelp to reverse the decision manually, as they’ve given their algorithm all the power. Well, either that or they’re blaming the algorithm so that their support team doesn’t have to fight with people all day long — an understandable, albeit frustrating, necessity. As someone from Yelp’s support team told me via Twitter, “since our inception we’ve always been a community review site, not a drive by one. Unfort not everyone out there is above board & the filter is an impt measure we have to take to ensure Yelp is actually a useful place.”

According to their FAQ, Yelp will release reviews back to the public once you’ve proven your human-ness by writing more reviews, spending more time in their community, and acting less, well, like me. 

My job involves a lot of theorizing about what might get lost when you remove human judgment from community moderation and rely wholly on automation and algorithms. In this case, you can see that a first-time user of Yelp could very easily resemble a fake first-time user because both are newcomers to the community and aren’t that familiar with the conventions. And even if Yelp were to teach new users how to be good community members (Don’t write too much! Don’t use crazy flourishing adjectives!), they’d also be coaching fakers in how to be better at faking it.

It’s a reminder that to really build an online community, you have to employ moderation, and you end up losing something no matter what approach you take. Unfortunately, the amount of friction I experienced as a first-time reviewer, and the homework I’ve been assigned (writing more reviews in order to release the first filtered review) just doesn’t seem worth it at this point.