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

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

#171

Post by worklogin » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:20 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #40

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…

No, the shutdown of /r/iama was necessary so the moderators could regroup and figure out how to do their scheduling and coördination from now on. The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power mods to treat their users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing their users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong . And your claims of censorship are, quite frankly, di…

>The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power mods to treat their users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing their users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong.

Reddit is a free chat site with a decentralized power structure (in theory). Reddit can be useful, and I know there are supportive subs there, but /r/gaming and /r/science going down for a day was not harmful. People probably got a bit more sun that day.

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

#172

Post by pbreit » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:21 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #119

nanny wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider that it might not have been an option? That maybe it was an unexpected termination, and they didn't have a way to know about or contact the people arriving from out of town? You don't have enough information to speculate like that.

OK, $FamousPerson shows up at reception asking for an employee who has recently been escorted off the premises with their possessions in a black plastic bag (been there, got the video and t-shirt). You sort of know that random $FamousPeople showing up is part of $BusinessAsUsual. You have just realised that you have apparently no procedures whatsoever for booking appointments for personal visits to the building (e.g.…

Based in schedule and timing should we be able to figure out who $FamousPerson is/was?

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

#173

Post by derptron » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

amyjess wrote: post #40

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…

No, the shutdown of /r/iama was necessary so the moderators could regroup and figure out how to do their scheduling and coördination from now on. The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power mods to treat their users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing their users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong . And your claims of censorship are, quite frankly, di…

So you're a fat SJW that advocates censorship of entire subs because of a few rule breakers. Gotcha. Hope you realize that there are many more "hate" subs that continue to operate unabated. I am picturing you frothing at the mouth while messaging admins begging any remaining subs that you disagree with to be banned. That's what you do, right?

Picking and choosing what subs to censor is the disturbing part here. And no, just because you agree with a sub getting banned doesn't magically make it not censorship. Both unpopular and popular views can be censored.

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

#174

Post by worklogin » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

heyheyhey wrote: post #162

embik wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power mods to treat their users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing their users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong. That's not how I observed the situation honestly. A lot of subreddit mods got flooded with "shut down"-requests and some decided against it, some followed the mass. It wasn't really a hostage-takin…

> It wasn't really a hostage-taking, the shutdown has / had widespread support among the user base. Don't believe this for one second. Like many others have said, it was mostly a vocal minority. /r/pics has 8+ million subscribers and you think a majority of those subscribers wanted it to be shut down? I'm honestly surprised the mods have the power to shut down a default subreddit.

Subscription numbers on a default sub are useless.

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

#175

Post by keithpeter » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:23 PM UTC

pvg wrote: post #168

keithpeter wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, $FamousPerson shows up at reception asking for an employee who has recently been escorted off the premises with their possessions in a black plastic bag (been there, got the video and t-shirt). You sort of know that random $FamousPeople showing up is part of $BusinessAsUsual. You have just realised that you have apparently no procedures whatsoever for booking appointments for personal visits to the building (e.g.…

Do you see any famous person bitterly complaining and starting petitions because their AMA fell through? It was probably quite inconvenient for the few people who got affected by this at the time but it hardly merits a subreddit let alone sitewide meltdown.

$FamousPeople over here never complain in public. But, you know, the temperature changes. Small signals &c. Perhaps it is different in US.

I personally have no big interest in this but Steven Hawkins is a National Treasure and we do need to present a positive view of science to the yoot.

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

#176

Post by vidarh » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:25 PM UTC

heyheyhey wrote: post #162

embik wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power mods to treat their users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing their users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong. That's not how I observed the situation honestly. A lot of subreddit mods got flooded with "shut down"-requests and some decided against it, some followed the mass. It wasn't really a hostage-takin…

> It wasn't really a hostage-taking, the shutdown has / had widespread support among the user base. Don't believe this for one second. Like many others have said, it was mostly a vocal minority. /r/pics has 8+ million subscribers and you think a majority of those subscribers wanted it to be shut down? I'm honestly surprised the mods have the power to shut down a default subreddit.

> and you think a majority of those subscribers wanted it to be shut down?

And you think it didn't? I don't see you offering up any evidence for your position other than assuming they can't have because of the sheer number.

Meanwhile we have at least some indication that there were support well beyond the moderators, in the form of heavily upvoted threads with large number of comments in support of shutdowns for many subreddits.

It's very possible that the majority didn't support the shutdowns, but that support went far beyond the moderators is a fact easily ascertained by looking at the threads.

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

#177

Post by jonlucc » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #119

nanny wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you consider that it might not have been an option? That maybe it was an unexpected termination, and they didn't have a way to know about or contact the people arriving from out of town? You don't have enough information to speculate like that.

OK, $FamousPerson shows up at reception asking for an employee who has recently been escorted off the premises with their possessions in a black plastic bag (been there, got the video and t-shirt). You sort of know that random $FamousPeople showing up is part of $BusinessAsUsual. You have just realised that you have apparently no procedures whatsoever for booking appointments for personal visits to the building (e.g.…

OT, but is there somewhere I can read your story of having been told to to F$$k off by Royalty?

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

#178

Post by derptron » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

flatline wrote: post #62

amyjess wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the shutdown of /r/iama was necessary so the moderators could regroup and figure out how to do their scheduling and coördination from now on. The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power mods to treat their users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing their users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong . And your claims of censorship are, quite frankly, di…

I laugh when people complain about removal of /r/fatpeoplehate being censorship. The only reason that subreddit was such a problem is because of aggressive moderation and banning of users - i.e. censorship at the moderator level rather than the admin level.

That's cute that you believe that.

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

#179

Post by hoopd » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

derptron wrote: post #173

amyjess wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the shutdown of /r/iama was necessary so the moderators could regroup and figure out how to do their scheduling and coördination from now on. The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power mods to treat their users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing their users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong . And your claims of censorship are, quite frankly, di…

So you're a fat SJW that advocates censorship of entire subs because of a few rule breakers. Gotcha. Hope you realize that there are many more "hate" subs that continue to operate unabated. I am picturing you frothing at the mouth while messaging admins begging any remaining subs that you disagree with to be banned. That's what you do, right? Picking and choosing what subs to censor is the disturbing part here. And n…

This isn't how we behave here.

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

#180

Post by drzaiusapelord » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:26 PM UTC

derptron wrote: post #173

amyjess wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the shutdown of /r/iama was necessary so the moderators could regroup and figure out how to do their scheduling and coördination from now on. The shutdowns of the other subreddits were petulant moves by power mods to treat their users as pawns and hockey pucks. They were punishing their users because they were in a power struggle with the admins. That's wrong . And your claims of censorship are, quite frankly, di…

So you're a fat SJW that advocates censorship of entire subs because of a few rule breakers. Gotcha. Hope you realize that there are many more "hate" subs that continue to operate unabated. I am picturing you frothing at the mouth while messaging admins begging any remaining subs that you disagree with to be banned. That's what you do, right? Picking and choosing what subs to censor is the disturbing part here. And n…

>So you're a fat SJW that advocates censorship of entire subs because of a few rule breakers.

Name calling isn't appreciated here. You'll find that HN is even more curated than reddit. Please keep these reddit attitudes at reddit.