[JohnMaloney]

One very important point that William fails to mention about his email to us - he spent the time to track down every Tumblr employees email and sent it to the entire team. It was way over-the-top, and yes, discouraging to the team.

The idea that David Karp, who I've work closely for eight years over two startups, is arrogant and doesn't care about the community, is completely off base. And anyone who knows David will agree. He's a exceptional guy and huge talent.

"Go away" was reactionary, and there was probably a better way to message, but David was defending our team who are working incredibly hard to rectify the performance issues/challenges.

And we as a company are taking extraordinary measures to rectify them. We care immensely.

Mr. England - calling out the age of an employee, help me understand why that was necessary and honorable? Seriously.

Lastly, our Creative Community team focusing on Fashion Week is clearly a very different group then our Engineering/Ops team focusing on performance and infrastructure.

[rationalbeaver]

"One very important point that William fails to mention about his email to us - he spent the time to track down every Tumblr employees email and sent it to the entire team. It was way over-the-top, and yes, discouraging to the team."

Assuming that is true, your comment deserves more attention. It changes the situation significantly.

[catshirt]

Surely. After having read this response I pivoted (had to) my reaction. The original post clearly intends to have the reader believe "go away" is a poor off-the-cuff defense to "your site is down". Which especially given the down time is a bad defense. That said, at this point I'm much more likely to believe "go away" is a valid defense to harassment.

[wtildesley]

Please explain how emailing (some) of tumblr's staff to express my disappointment with the level of service can be classed as harassment?

[space-monkey]

It's not legally harassment, but it's definitely not calm, rational, productive communication either.

[davidu]

Go build something instead of complaining. Seriously.

[catshirt]

(had to make a pivot joke, that is)

[JohnMaloney]

Yes it does - and William can confirm this was the case

[JamieEi]

Meh, it means that the guy sending the email is a bit loony. It doesn't excuse responding in kind. Karp and Tumblr are a big deal. They should set a higher standard for themselves.

[rhizome]

I see, so the user is merely "loony," for mass-emailing the entire Tumblr headcount with his screed, but Karp is a mean and incompetent boob who should be replaced and [your favorite punishment here] for responding naturally to that situation? Karp's sentiment wasn't directed at all users, he was telling a loony to not be so loony, but loony man can't recognize the social cues involved and so generalizes Karp's response to the entire universe of Tumblr users. Loony.

[Wolf_Larsen]

Its not about standards. If this guy was at your doorstep whining like that, what would you do? I would get irritated and lash out also.

Its about implementing strategy for that.

"And this right here folks is why a startup is so extraordinarily stressful, why PR agencies exist, and why a squeaky wheel gets the grease." - Ramanujan http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2151989

[wtildesley]

His comment is not true. As I've already stated I emailed only those who I thought would respond to my concerns. I never expected to receive an email from David directly.

[starpilot]

You bypassed their provided means for customer service and sent a presumptuous email. Sorry, that entitles you to nothing, even if you are a paying customer (unless direct developer support was part of anything you purchased). Don't crash the party expecting to be welcomed with open arms, or even gently escorted out. Karp could have used more tact, but as far as etiquette goes, he was totally in-line with responding to your message how he did.

[aditya]

And who exactly did you send the email to?

[Wolf_Larsen]

Then it seems that David had the morale of his team as a priority over some customer who described himself as "Yours Truly Disappointed". Not a bad choice in that context.

William's email was meant to make people feel bad. Look at the first sentence: "I am writing this email to you to express my recent disappointment with Tumblr". Instead of feeling bad, David got irritated. Thats the second best choice (don't let people make you feel bad for building gnarly web infrastructure, ya know?).

The best choice would be to ignore the email and let someone without emotional attachment handle it. Sometimes, though, you can't fight the urge to slap down the Wah-wahs.

The original article, by the way, is just trying to paint David Karp as an arrogant, unlikeable person. There are mounds of unreferenced personal attacks in there.

[clojurerocks]

Im sorry but rather being respectful to the problems that hes having as a paid premium user all youre doing is being condescending and downright rude to the guy. Personally if i was the guy id stop using your company.

You know if you had treated him with respect and actually discussed the problems with him and apologized and just simply said youre working on it and sorry for the problems. Youd probably have a happy customer for life. Instead you have people that have nothing to do with the situation making it much much much worse then it could have been. Not a very good business move frankly. I mean they teach this stuff in entrepreneurship 101.

[rhizome]

Have you ever worked for a business that has had site problems? Let me tell you, when you are trying to fix something that can't be fixed in two minutes, some guy emailing the entire company saying "i hate u and u have no export functionality," when Tumblr indeed has a lot of export functionality, then "go away" is perfectly appropriate.

[jonpaul]

If you guys cared immensely, you would respond to my support requests. If you wanted to monetize, maybe you would setup a premium offering. I know that I would gladly pay $50/month to ensure that my blog doesn't have the downtime that it's had in the last few months. I've stated this many times before.

[dools]

I'll give you a blog for $50 a month if you want :) decalcms.com

[drewolanoff]

I've been a Community Manager/Director for years, and have seen these scenarios a lot.

Honestly, there is no reason for David Karp to be frontline on these types of communications. If David has something to say about issues, or feedback the company is getting, y'all have a place to do it...Tumblr. Not a personal email.

That is why you have a Community staff. And that staff should feel the pain of the user...even if they're persistent or "annoying" to you. Remember, this guy would not be contacting you if he didn't care.

Getting people to care about your service should not be treated as an annoyance, it is a milestone, and a success.

With one remark, that was wiped away. I'm sure David has way more important things to focus on, like keeping Tumblr up and running.

[wtildesley]

John, first of all I didn't email your entire staff only the people who I thought would respond to my concerns. I never expected to receive an email from David directly. Secondly, It wasn't hard to 'track down every Tumblr employees email' your email addresses are quite easy to figure out, take yours for example '[e-mail]' and your employees are featured on your about page.

I would also like to point out that after I sent the email I tried to have a discussion with David directly but unfortunately he ignored my emails.

[aristotlenova]

John, I agree with you 100%. If a user somehow hunted down the emails of every developer on my team and sent off an email to them complaining and whining about stuff, I would be very put off by it and that would be WAY over the top. I think Mr. Karp however should not be the one responding to William and whoever should be responding should have some training on how to deal with really idiotic users in a calm and rational way.