Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#11

Post by paulhauggis » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:02 PM UTC

This article makes it seems like the moderators actually work for Reddit, which isn't the case. This is the problem, actually. Because it's not a paid position, the company can't use that as leverage in situations like this. The moderators essentially have nothing to lose.

Even in the article, it states that it was shutdown because of the abrupt termination of Ms. Taylor. Anybody that makes these sort of emotional decisions shouldn't be anywhere near a position of power.

If I were the CEO of Reddit, I would be making it my next goal to slowly take away the power away from these moderators.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#12

Post by wnevets » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:02 PM UTC

splitbrain wrote: post #4

gesman wrote: post #2

>> ...We are disheartened by the dismissal of Victoria Taylor, who was one of the most high-profile women at the company — and in the technology field. We hope Reddit recruits someone with the talent and necessary background to fill her position in a similar capacity... May I propose a good candidate? Victoria Taylor.

Does anyone know why she was fired? Few things get you fired immediately, so I guess it's something quite bad. As much as I agree with the IamA moderators about shitty decisions at Reddit, their owners might deserve credit for not disclosing whatever Victoria did to get fired.

This is probably just a rumor but I recall reading it she wasn't comfortable with the monetization strategy of that subreddit

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#13

Post by nanny » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

When you consider exactly how much information we have to go on, I think people are overreacting by immense proportions.

Do we even know why Victoria was fired yet? Maybe she was about to blow the lid off a vast internet conspiracy. Or maybe she's actually the bad guy, and she went crazy and tried to destroy the office. We just don't know, and we might never know.

Besides, what is reddit corporate supposed to do when they want to fire an employee? Message the mods and say, "Oh, btw, we're going to fire Victoria in a couple days and Xyz will take over her duties, just thought you'd like to know."? That's simply out of the question, and not enough people even thought about this scenario.

The responses to this event are entirely unjustified, because there is no information at all to base a reaction on.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#14

Post by Zikes » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

splitbrain wrote: post #4

gesman wrote: post #2

>> ...We are disheartened by the dismissal of Victoria Taylor, who was one of the most high-profile women at the company — and in the technology field. We hope Reddit recruits someone with the talent and necessary background to fill her position in a similar capacity... May I propose a good candidate? Victoria Taylor.

Does anyone know why she was fired? Few things get you fired immediately, so I guess it's something quite bad. As much as I agree with the IamA moderators about shitty decisions at Reddit, their owners might deserve credit for not disclosing whatever Victoria did to get fired.

Rumors abound. The most prominent rumor is that it was because of a bad public reaction to a Jesse Jackson AMA. Some leaked info from a supposed disgruntled Reddit admin says it's because Ellen Pao pressured Victoria into pushing an NDA + promise of a cut of future sales resulting from AMAs on the AMA subjects, which Victoria disagreed with a little too loudly.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#15

Post by ihuman » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

splitbrain wrote: post #4

gesman wrote: post #2

>> ...We are disheartened by the dismissal of Victoria Taylor, who was one of the most high-profile women at the company — and in the technology field. We hope Reddit recruits someone with the talent and necessary background to fill her position in a similar capacity... May I propose a good candidate? Victoria Taylor.

Does anyone know why she was fired? Few things get you fired immediately, so I guess it's something quite bad. As much as I agree with the IamA moderators about shitty decisions at Reddit, their owners might deserve credit for not disclosing whatever Victoria did to get fired.

No one outside of the company knows right now. To protect her privacy, they said that they are not going to publicly say why. All the current explanations are just rumors and speculation.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#16

Post by kenrikm » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

gesman wrote: post #2

>> ...We are disheartened by the dismissal of Victoria Taylor, who was one of the most high-profile women at the company — and in the technology field. We hope Reddit recruits someone with the talent and necessary background to fill her position in a similar capacity... May I propose a good candidate? Victoria Taylor.

We're not really sure what she was fired for, she may have actually done something really bad that warranted her removal. If not and it was just a case of management being out of touch with the community then it would seem that the backlash would be justified. We don't know the full story so it's hard to say at this point.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#17

Post by emodendroket » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

splitbrain wrote: post #4

gesman wrote: post #2

>> ...We are disheartened by the dismissal of Victoria Taylor, who was one of the most high-profile women at the company — and in the technology field. We hope Reddit recruits someone with the talent and necessary background to fill her position in a similar capacity... May I propose a good candidate? Victoria Taylor.

Does anyone know why she was fired? Few things get you fired immediately, so I guess it's something quite bad. As much as I agree with the IamA moderators about shitty decisions at Reddit, their owners might deserve credit for not disclosing whatever Victoria did to get fired.

They claim they wanted to change the positions they had altogether so maybe not.

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#18

Post by Someone1234 » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:03 PM UTC

splitbrain wrote: post #4

gesman wrote: post #2

>> ...We are disheartened by the dismissal of Victoria Taylor, who was one of the most high-profile women at the company — and in the technology field. We hope Reddit recruits someone with the talent and necessary background to fill her position in a similar capacity... May I propose a good candidate? Victoria Taylor.

Does anyone know why she was fired? Few things get you fired immediately, so I guess it's something quite bad. As much as I agree with the IamA moderators about shitty decisions at Reddit, their owners might deserve credit for not disclosing whatever Victoria did to get fired.

I believe she claimed she did't know why it occurred. But she has barely said a word about it. Reddit has actually terminated a lot of their own employees in the last year or so, so actually in this case her getting suddenly let go isn't that strange. Reddit seems to be trying to move IAMAs into some kind of team structure (ama@reddit.com, etc).

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#19

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:04 PM UTC

zedpm wrote: post #3

Maybe this will be enough to silence the folks on here who insist that nothing is wrong with Reddit management and that it's just a bunch of angry children complaining without cause. The mods in question are adults and professionals, and they've clearly and succinctly explained their grievances with Reddit management. This piece doesn't touch on some of the other issues that have angered users, particularly the matte…

[deleted]

Re: Why We Shut Down Reddit’s ‘Ask Me Anything’ Forum

#20

Post by _dark_matter_ » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 4:05 PM UTC

nanny wrote: post #13

When you consider exactly how much information we have to go on, I think people are overreacting by immense proportions. Do we even know why Victoria was fired yet? Maybe she was about to blow the lid off a vast internet conspiracy. Or maybe she's actually the bad guy, and she went crazy and tried to destroy the office. We just don't know, and we might never know. Besides, what is reddit corporate supposed to do when…

I don't know if you deliberately haven't been reading anything or what, but it wasn't just in reaction to the firing. This is just the straw the broke the camel's back.