Front Page Subreddits Go Private in Response to Firing of Reddit Admin

The admin in question, Victoria (/u/chooter), is still posting, and gives every indication that it was not an expected nor voluntary departure: https://www.reddit.com/user/chooter

/u/karmanaut, one of the most prolific moderators, gave some insight into why this is such a big deal: https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bw39q/why_ha...

> We had a number of AMAs scheduled for today that Victoria was supposed to help with, and they are all left absolutely high and dry (hence taking IAMA private to figure out the situation) She was still willing to help them today (before the sub was shut down, of course) even without being paid or required to do so. Just a sign of how much she is committed to what she does.

> The admins didn't realize how much we rely on Victoria. Part of it is proof, of course: we know it's legitimate when she's sitting right there next to the person and can make them provide proof. We've had situations where agents or others have tried to do an AMA as their client, and Victoria shut that [...] down immediately. We can't do that anymore. Part of it is also that Victoria is an essential lifeline of communication. When something goes wrong in an AMA, we can call and get it fixed immediately. Otherwise, we have to resort to desperately try messaging the person via Reddit (and they may not know to check their messages or even to look for these notifications).

In fact, it seems that they actually cut off active IAmAs in progress. https://twitter.com/edfrenkel/status/616653911835807745

If there's anything to be learned here for the larger technology crowd, it's this: There are human single-points-of-failure just like there are in hardware. And if you can't avoid having a SPOF, don't kick it in the face out of nowhere and expect the world to continue chugging along like nothing happened.

you think? :) yah it seems either to have some immediate reason or an ignorant one.

Felt I should share this. There are a number of really good established alternatives with great mods and admins for those who wish to branch out and check out something new:

www.snapzu.com - Excellent content and friendly community. Has a unique XP/Leveling system and ability to post content into multiple subs.

www.empeopled.com - Gives you more influence based on the amount of up-votes you've received. Use influence to steer future of the site.

www.theneeds.com - Good content but a lot of it looks automated, possibly using bots. No discussion so you lose a lot of that community feel.

www.hubski.com - Classic alternative, been kicking it around for 4-5 years, but still little activity. Community is small but nice.

www.spreadit.it - A dark themed reddit alternative that is similar to reddit and easy to use. Content and community is lacking however.

Note: I didn't mention the voat boat because I felt they have a little too much hate/racism on there.

Did I? Can't /r/science keep on functioning without AMAs through an intermediary in New York that's supposed to read questions and type answers for the supposedly smart scientists doing those Q&A sessions?

I get that reddit is trying to run a successful business, but I don't think the staff is well served by assuming that the users will be happy little community-created-content worker bees no matter what they do. Users DGAF about the business.

All of the admins that were any good at interacting with the community are on the "reddit alum" section of the admin list (read: former employes). And more often than not, the staff doing the high-quality and visible community management was strangely the sysadmins and programmers.

Edit: not strange at all, I just realized that they were probably the only admins that were legit users too. Which would explain why I'd lump pre-sale spez and kn0thing in with people who actually interacted, they posted with their real usernames while also running all the sockpuppets making the site look alive.