Reddit drama enters 2nd phase. Default subs go dark.

[AnnaMolly]

I pretty much only lurk and look at tits on Reddit so I don't really care too much about the drama. Something was said earlier in the thread, quoted from Reddit, about the Administrators not communicating well with Moderators. I always assumed there was a subreddit that mods had access to where admins could communicate and make announcements, if this isn't the case, I don't think that person understands how annoyingly impossible it'd be for the admins to personally speak to every mod of every sub, every time shit went down. Last I remember there were like four admins and who the hell knows how many mods.

[Thunder]

but it is necessarily poor decision making for the longevity of what reddit is supposed to be

[6souls]

I pretty much only lurk and look at tits on Reddit so I don't really care too much about the drama. Something was said earlier in the thread, quoted from Reddit, about the Administrators not communicating well with Moderators. I always assumed there was a subreddit that mods had access to where admins could communicate and make announcements, if this isn't the case, I don't think that person understands how annoyingly impossible it'd be for the admins to personally speak to every mod of every sub, every time shit went down. Last I remember there were like four admins and who the hell knows how many mods.

They do have their own sub, but the Admins waited until the day was almost over to get in touch with the mod community, well after subs started going dark.

[AnnaMolly]

They do have their own sub, but the Admins waited until the day was almost over to get in touch with the mod community, well after subs started going dark.

What exactly caused them to go dark? Boycotts?

[Salodin]

I pretty much only lurk and look at tits on Reddit so I don't really care too much about the drama. Something was said earlier in the thread, quoted from Reddit, about the Administrators not communicating well with Moderators. I always assumed there was a subreddit that mods had access to where admins could communicate and make announcements, if this isn't the case, I don't think that person understands how annoyingly impossible it'd be for the admins to personally speak to every mod of every sub, every time shit went down. Last I remember there were like four admins and who the hell knows how many mods.

People aren't screaming and hollering for nothing. The admins are at fault for this and many other things.

[Tekki]

but it is necessarily poor decision making for the longevity of what reddit is supposed to be

This.

I reddit, a lot.

Victoria was a cornerstone to all of the AMAs, and arguably the AMAs added the most value to the site. And when I say value to the site, I mean for the users, the people being asked questions (for their benefit or own entertainment) and for the site (it gave them a ton of traffic).

That doesn't mean reddit will stop doing them, I'm sure they will have a replacement soon. Its just a toxic way of taking care of the situation. Then again, we don't know why she was let go.

Just as another popcorn piece, the moderator for RedditGifts was let go today as well. This was something I participated in last year, and though was one of the coolest collective feel good things reddit did.

When all this dust settles, I don't think much will change. Ya, you will see a decent exodus to Voat.co if it can get it shit together, or other sites. But if you go to the subreddits that actually provide content to its users thats not directly driven by "reddit" like /r/mmo subs and above all /r/sports subs they are still active and the mods don't care whats going on with reddit right now.

Fun fact: /r/nfl provides more gold v subscribers then any other subbreddit. (Its also the single biggest reason I go to reddit)

TLDR: Shit will pass, reddit will still be fine. Still not a good way of handling the situation on reddits part.

[tyven]

I doubt /r/Kanye and /r/sneakers users are going anywhere so hopefully I will make it out of this okay

[Salodin]

As much as I like the new management getting their comeuppance, why should any one care that one person got let go? Sure they went about it terribly, but it's only one person. Anything she did could be replaced by another person, and in a timely manner at that.

[Krandor]

If you read up on how important and well liked that one person is, it makes alot of sense

[Tyrath]

As much as I like the new management getting their comeuppance, why should any one care that one person got let go? Sure they went about it terribly, but it's only one person. Anything she did could be replaced by another person, and in a timely manner at that.

Except it wasn't. Its part of the issue. They fired her without any backup ready to go. AmA was left hanging as were several other subreddits. Not to mention its just another strike in a long list of poorly handled situations by the admins.

If you read up on how important and well liked that one person is, it makes alot of sense

It really is NOT about a well liked person being fired. Its the manner in which it was handled.

[Salodin]

I'm sure she's very well liked, always smiling in her pictures. She still does nothing another person couldn't do with even a little training. If you wanted to monetize reddit and your leader for ama wasn't playing ball, why wouldn't you fire her and bring some one else in?

[Obsidian]

A pretty good summary of what happened and why.

I personally think it's hilarious that the mods of r/IAMA feel like they're entitled to be made privy to the staffing decisions of a company they are neither stakeholders in nor employees of, and threw a fit over a situation they have no information about.

[Salodin]

What I'm saying is, she is proof that the job can be done by one person, two or three if they aren't as good as her. Why would they not do what they want to do because of this one person? Reddit already proved a couple weeks ago that it doesn't matter if they do a little pruning around the edges, every one still comes back for their crack. This time will be no different.

Shit, you got people in threads saying to hit them where it hurts and stop buying gold, and then those threads themselves get gilded. The community is too fragmented and most people don't give a shit who's running the amas as long as they're entertaining once in awhile and all they had to deal with is a little ad box on the corner of the screen.

[Tyrath]

I personally think it's hilarious that the mods of r/IAMA feel like they're entitled to be made privy to the staffing decisions of a company they are neither stakeholders in nor employees of, and threw a fit over a situation they have no information about.

If you can't treat volunteer workers with respect and understand that they do your work for you, why should they keep doing that work? This all comes down to reddit admins treating their userbase like shit.

[Thunder]

I'm sure she's very well liked, always smiling in her pictures. She still does nothing another person couldn't do with even a little training. If you wanted to monetize reddit and your leader for ama wasn't playing ball, why wouldn't you fire her and bring some one else in?

why she was fired isn't yet public, is it?

Doesn't really matter, too much is private to really draw answers to a lot of whys and hows. One thing's for sure though... reddit's on its long decent down the shitter in exchange for money

[Jakson]

To tack on to what Salodin said: the frustration is that the admins could have made a post that would have made its way to the appropriate mods fairly easily, but they didn't and, as a result, a lot of the work that mods, many of which put many unpaid hours into creating content for the site, was rendered useless. The administration wasted a lot of people's time and effort without saying something beforehand.

In addition, the reason that it's big that a lot of the default subs went dark is that most (all?) of the money reddit operates on is funded via users (they buy an extra special internet point, "Gold," and give it to posts they like). So when a lot of the default (biggest source of revenue) subs went dark, it, theoretically, slowed down the rate at which people were buying gold and gilding posts because they couldn't access the subs that they were most likely to buy gold and gild in. Default subs going private ("dark") meant an interruption in the revenue stream for reddit.

One guy said that some of the reason Victoria left/was fired was that AMAs, especially the high profile ones, were just PR for whatever movie was coming out on Friday, and Victoria didn't like how so many people that came in to do the AMAs didn't ever actually answer the tough questions - that they'd either find a user asking just the right question, or a shill would, and then give that canned response. Whether this was true, and/or it caused a mutual "parting of ways" is up in the air until Victoria gets around to saying something. Now that Victoria is gone, a lot of people mods can't contact the people set to do AMAs, and there isn't a lot of infrastructure for the people set to do AMAs that don't already know how to use reddit.

They've now forced some or all of the default subs open, and people are buying gold and gilding again.

Edit: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CI9iYW7VAAAzzJN.png

[Thunder]

What I'm saying is, she is proof that the job can be done by one person, two or three if they aren't as good as her. Why would they not do what they want to do because of this one person? Reddit already proved a couple weeks ago that it doesn't matter if they do a little pruning around the edges, every one still comes back for their crack. This time will be no different.

Shit, you got people in threads saying to hit them where it hurts and stop buying gold, and then those threads themselves get gilded. The community is too fragmented and most people don't give a shit who's running the amas as long as they're entertaining once in awhile and all they had to deal with is a little ad box on the corner of the screen.

bruh, you don't get it. The community is huge, why do they come to reddit? The AMAs are cool, but a very large majority of people who go to reddit are not hardcore posters. Piss off and drive away the core community (mods, other volunteers, and the hardcore posters) and the rest of the fuckers wont go to reddit because it'll be dead and boring. You can replace and pay mods, but you can't do that with the core community

Reddit will for sure not give much of a shit about whatever happens after this dies down and a few people leave, just like fatpeoplehate. But be aware, the shitty decisions wont stop and eventually everyone will be driven away.

Reddit is all open source material. Reddit doesn't provide a product or service. Reddit is only -something- because it has a userbase. Pissing off your userbase in reddit's situation is a really stupid business decision unless you're preparing to start ceasing control over to advertisers in one way or another

To tack on to what Salodin said: the frustration is that the admins could have made a post that would have made its way to the appropriate mods fairly easily, but they didn't and, as a result, a lot of the work that mods, many of which put many unpaid hours into creating content for the site, was rendered useless. The administration wasted a lot of people's time and effort without saying something beforehand.

In addition, the reason that it's big that a lot of the default subs went dark is that most (all?) of the money reddit operates on is funded via users (they buy an extra special internet point, "Gold," and give it to posts they like). So when a lot of the default (biggest source of revenue) subs went dark, it, theoretically, slowed down the rate at which people were buying gold and gilding posts because they couldn't access the subs that they were most likely to buy gold and gild in. Default subs going private ("dark") meant an interruption in the revenue stream for reddit.

One guy said that some of the reason Victoria left/was fired was that AMAs, especially the high profile ones, were just PR for whatever movie was coming out on Friday, and Victoria didn't like how so many people that came in to do the AMAs didn't ever actually answer the tough questions - that they'd either find a user asking just the right question, or a shill would, and then give that canned response. Whether this was true, and/or it caused a mutual "parting of ways" is up in the air until Victoria gets around to saying something. Now that Victoria is gone, a lot of people mods can't contact the people set to do AMAs, and there isn't a lot of infrastructure for the people set to do AMAs that don't already know how to use reddit.

They've now forced some or all of the default subs open, and people are buying gold and gilding again.

oh look, this victoria lady might not have been happy with mindless plugging of shit instead of honoring what reddit's supposed to stand for

[bluefan]

I like going to Reddit to just keep up with a few trends, but it was no secret how shitastic their administration staff are. Mods have been asking admins for what they're starting to do now for years and are reluctantly doing it after their more popular subs went dark.

Their admins are just incompetent.

[Salodin]

"Their" user base doesn't care who the mods are, as long as they get their kittens and gifs on the daily. No one even gave a damn about this firing until subreddits went dark; once Pao fixes that problem then the users will continue to post their things, things will get up-voted and gilded, and life will go on with or with out the current mods on our favorite subreddits. It's the users who posted things, and they have no reason to stop earning their fake internet points even if some people got shifted around.

[SephYuyX]

Slaodin sucks, but it's true that the users will forget in a week because they're idiots.

That pao cunt needs to get kicked out though.