So... apparently Reddit is imploding.

[Scars Unseen]

I don't know who this person is, and yet all of reddit seems to know her.

I feel left out.

It kind of makes sense that you wouldn't know who she is if you aren't directly involved in the site since her job seems to have been to make things run smoothly for /r/IAmA. You'd only notice her if she wasn't doing her job. You know, like if she suddenly got fired or something.

It's such a bizarre move by Reddit Admins. She was arguably the most important person to Reddits third largest sub. It's like they went up and knocked out a load bearing pillar of Reddit without telling anyone who should know beforehand. And somehow they're shocked at the backlash.

This was my impression as well. Without knowing the reasons behind the firing I can't speculate, but it seems like the person they fired was relatively essential to one of Reddit's most popular and important subs. Seems like you'd want a transition plan in place before turfing someone like that.

Reddit's biggest failing here was relying on a single person for such a vital function in the first place. That's pretty mom-and-pop of them, and they deserve all of the problems they're having for that reason alone. Forget about firing her. What if she had quit? What if she had caught the flu? What about vacations? From everything I've read, this is just one more example of the neglect Reddit the company has shown towards Reddit the site, and it's probably sheer luck(and the dedication of their unpaid mods) that they haven't had this sort of collapse before.

 

[Kathinka]

First the no-PC subreddit banning, and now this crap..

Apparently, Pao fired her after an AMA with Rev. Jesse Jackson where he was called out on some crap he said and did. It was considered "racist" (spoiler: it wasn't in the slightest.) So in the true spirit of social justice run amok, she was made into the scapegoat and shitcanned.

 

[Random Gamer]

I'm not sure how long my popcorn will last, but that's also my main reaction.
I've always found Reddit's format awful and the fact moderation rules and whims change from sub to sub without any serious coordination, and with mods being close to demi-gods inside their own sub to be just plain stupid and awful.

Whatever, that's pretty much stupid on their part. She couldn't be easily replaced, she had helped hundreds of celebs with AMAs - meaning she knows enough people to retaliate when she'll want to -, and they just dump her without a 2-minutes warning. Which also means all the planned AMAs are in jeopardy.

Actually, this makes me wonder if the Jesse Jackson AMA mess, or any other claimed reasons are real. I wonder if there wasn't some incoming AMA that was big and very controversial, and some influent people had a keen interest in seeing it closed down. Just a hypothesis of course, I've no idea which AMA she was supposed to help with.


Captcha: gimme pizza
Sure, might help when I'm out of popcorn...

 

[GladiatorUA]

Reddit's biggest failing here was relying on a single person for such a vital function in the first place. That's pretty mom-and-pop of them, and they deserve all of the problems they're having for that reason alone.

She wasn't the only person responsible for r/IAMA, she just played an important role in the process.

Reddit administration wanted to go more commercial, IAMA didn't. Capcha: dollar signs.

BTW, r/IAMA is back. [https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3c0hcz/welcome_back/] Now "independent" from reddit administration.

Some people want to crowdfund a Victoria's wage, which is nice on one hand, but it just makes "reddit" money and people are still pissed off.

IAMAgeddon seems to be drawing to an end. Reddit is not dead. Not yet at least. Perhaps next time.

Upd. Old admin sheds some more light on the situation behind the scenes. [https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3bzleu/an_old_reddit_admin_speaks_his_mind/]

 

[Asita]

First the no-PC subreddit banning, and now this crap..

Apparently, Pao fired her after an AMA with Rev. Jesse Jackson where he was called out on some crap he said and did. It was considered "racist" (spoiler: it wasn't in the slightest.) So in the true spirit of social justice run amok, she was made into the scapegoat and shitcanned.

Got a source on that as a contributing factor here, or is it speculation at this point?

 

[Kathinka]

First the no-PC subreddit banning, and now this crap..

Apparently, Pao fired her after an AMA with Rev. Jesse Jackson where he was called out on some crap he said and did. It was considered "racist" (spoiler: it wasn't in the slightest.) So in the true spirit of social justice run amok, she was made into the scapegoat and shitcanned.

Got a source on that as a contributing factor here, or is it speculation at this point?

Someone posted it on reddit, and the thread got removed. So I suppose no credible source, call it a popular theory.
I was there for that AMA, I can believe it. But it could also be bogus.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

/r/pics that went dark as a protest go hijacked by admins and re-opened.

This is happening to quite a few of the ones that closed in protest from what I've read, and of all this nonsense going on, that's what sticks in my craw. It's got this Orwellian flavor of squashing protest to "keep up appearences".

 

[Dandark]

It sounds like she was fired because she didn't want to go along with Reddit's plan to commercialize AMAs and turn them into paid adverts. Not even surprised at this point, Pao and Reddit as a company seem to find new blunders to make everyday.

A lot of people want to move to Voat but it doesn't have the server capacity and is essentially DDOSed by Redditors trying to migrate everytime something like this happens.

 

[LordLundar]

/r/pics that went dark as a protest go hijacked by admins and re-opened.

This is happening to quite a few of the ones that closed in protest from what I've read, and of all this nonsense going on, that's what sticks in my craw. It's got this Orwellian flavor of squashing protest to "keep up appearences".

Ehh, there's debate on that. There's some claims it was SubRedditDrama making the hijacking claim and the mods opened it themselves. With everything going on (the AMA from a former admin was suspiciously deleted with no explanation amongst others) it's hard to figure out the truth.

One thing's for certain, this is a far cry from over.

 

[Somekindofgold]

One thing's for certain, this is a far cry from over.

According to this

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kiLwQ-v2ocwS2lof9liwc_IWNV3a5XGWKEdDPTpsWtg/edit#gid=0

Over 7 million users were affected by the darkening when all those subreddits went private in protest. That is a lot of pissed off people wondering why they cant (couldnt) access their favorite subreddits.

I mean fuck the AMA mods have severed ties with the admins and will no longer allow them to be a part of the AMA process. If the admins push for AMA control it'll be extremely messy.

And it also seems that the blackout was used to take down r/Kappa, a fighting game subreddit that became known for its fundraising ability to send players to tournaments all across the place and the usual criticism for having 'toxic users'. Those guys sent fighting game players without sponsorships to compete in loads of tournaments, with them gone thats a blow to the fighting game community.

You just cannot sweep that under the rug. The embittering of the userbase against the admins just progressed massively with this move. Pao told the NYT's that the people upset about Victoria's firing are a 'vitriolic minority', but in saying this she is ignoring the fact that 7 million people were affected by this and will want to know why. Who knows what will spark the powderkeg.

 

[Nikolaz72]

One thing's for certain, this is a far cry from over.

According to this

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kiLwQ-v2ocwS2lof9liwc_IWNV3a5XGWKEdDPTpsWtg/edit#gid=0

Over 7 million users were affected by the darkening when all those subreddits went private in protest. That is a lot of pissed off people wondering why they cant (couldnt) access their favorite subreddits.

I mean fuck the AMA mods have severed ties with the admins and will no longer allow them to be a part of the AMA process. If the admins push for AMA control it'll be extremely messy.

And it also seems that the blackout was used to take down r/Kappa, a fighting game subreddit that became known for its fundraising ability to send players to tournaments all across the place and the usual criticism for having 'toxic users'. Those guys sent fighting game players without sponsorships to compete in loads of tournaments, with them gone thats a blow to the fighting game community.

You just cannot sweep that under the rug. The embittering of the userbase against the admins just progressed massively with this move. Pao told the NYT's that the people upset about Victoria's firing are a 'vitriolic minority', but in saying this she is ignoring the fact that 7 million people were affected by this and will want to know why. Who knows what will spark the powderkeg.

The petition to remove her is already at 1% of that and counting towards the 2% mark. An actual petition where you have to go write your name and address and email on it, something which takes effort that few websters like to exert.

If that's an 'insignificant minority' I don't know how many people Pao thinks would need to want her gone in order for her to actually leave.

Then again she has been (allegedly) quoted (By a fired admin in a very much quickly deleted thread 'accessible via archives') that she said that they'd have to pry the position from her cold dead hands.

Originally she was not really meant for this sort of position and was only made CEO until they could find a suitable replacement for the last one that left very suddenly. She's done a shit job and has no intentions of leaving because this is her only chance of paying off the massive debt that she and her husband has obtained from anything from fraud (husband tried to steal money from seniors via insurance fraud) to failed discrimination lawsuits (pao)

Why anyone thought she was right for the job is beyond me. Considering she and her husband has been involved in so much shit and controversy why go for her and not any of the other capable CEO's out there? There must be some.

 

[The White Hunter]

Hmm r/ffxiv is still up and still much better than the official forums so meh