Reddit CEO Ellen Pao has apologized for the drama of recent days and pledged to take “concrete steps” to improve communication and foster a better overall experience for moderators of the hugely popular site.

“We screwed up,” Pao wrote in her statement. “Not just on July 2, but also over the past several years. We haven’t communicated well, and we have surprised moderators and the community with big changes. We have apologized and made promises to you, the moderators and the community, over many years, but time and again, we haven’t delivered on them. When you’ve had feedback or requests, we haven’t always been responsive. The mods and the community have lost trust in me and in us, the administrators of reddit.”

“Today, we acknowledge this long history of mistakes,” she added. “We are grateful for all you do for reddit, and the buck stops with me.”

Pao explained that the Reddit management team will take three “concrete” steps to do better in the future. First, she pledged that Reddit will actually improve its moderator tools, “not just promise improvements.”

Second, she said Reddit has created a new position called Moderator Advocate. This person, u/krispykrackers, will act as the liason between moderators and the Reddit management team. “We’re also going to figure out the best way for more administrators, including myself, to talk more often with the whole community,” Pao explained.

And third, Pao said Reddit plans to allow moderators to default to the old version of search “to support your existing moderation workflows.” A list of instructions for setting old search as the default are available here.

“I know these are just words, and it may be hard for you to believe us. I don’t have all the answers, and it will take time for us to deliver concrete results,” Pao said at the end of her statement. “I mean it when I say we screwed up, and we want to have a meaningful ongoing discussion. I know we’ve drifted out of touch with the community as we’ve grown and added more people, and we want to connect more. I and the team are committed to talking more often with the community, starting now.”

Last week, popular subreddit pages, such as r/Gaming, r/IAmA, r/funny, r/books, r/science, r/music, and r/history, were taken private by their moderators in a deliberate message of solidarity to the site’s management. Game-specific subreddits, such as those for Fallout 4, Destiny, and Grand Theft Auto V, were also affected by the blackout.

At the heart of the issue was the dismissal of the employee u/chooter, who was known internally as Victoria Taylor, without explanation. Among other things, she coordinated Reddit’s hugely popular Ask Me Anything (AMA) ongoing feature. As part of this series, celebrities, politicians, and other pop culture figures took questions directly from fans. Barack Obama and a man with two penises were among the participants.