Pao said that the company had appointed Kristine Fasnacht as liaison with Reddit administrators – the official employees who work for the company – and the scores of volunteer moderators who oversee subreddits.
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“At this point, however, the blackout has served its objective, and now it’s time to get Reddit functioning again”, he wrote. I know many of you are still upset.
Her sacking resulted in “moderators” of sub-reddits (topics like technology, art, etc and are controlled by moderators who are self-appointed) holding the site hostage with shutdowns.
Social news service Reddit is facing a revolt from its moderators following the dismissal of talent director Victoria Taylor.
However, Taylor’s employment recently ceased, with the circumstances surrounding her departure unclear. The move unleashed a fury of frustration among moderators – the unpaid volunteers who manage the site’s communities. Several Reddit users have posted that Taylor was let go without warning – a story that has spread through the site like wildfire and cause widespread outcry on the site. We’ve had situations where agents or others have tried to do an AMA as their client, and Victoria shut that shit down immediately.
“Without her filling this role, we will be utterly overwhelmed”, Reddit moderator /u/karmanaut wrote. Moderators are able to set rules for subreddits and set them to private if they want.
“We have been really blindsided by all of this”, Karmanaut said. We will need to go through our processes and see what can be done without her.
The moderators started out by making the popular r/IAMA subreddit private, which means only moderators can access it. This was followed by shutting down other subreddits like /r/AskReddit, /r/Books, /r/science, /r/Music, /r/gaming, /r/history, /r/Art, /r/videos, /r/gadgets, /r/todayilearned, /r/Documentaries, /r/LifeProTips, and /r/movies.
“The admins [Reddit employees] have refused to provide essential information about arranging and scheduling AMAs with their new ‘team, ‘” according to a post on the AMA subreddit welcoming back visitors.
Taylor said she was “dazed” by the termination and “hopefully” will remain in the PR field, but there’s been no further word from her or site co-founder Alexis Ohania on just what happened.
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Heated discussion about the Reddit management’s abilities and understanding on its communities continues at the InTheLoop subreddit, while a constantly updated list of the subreddits affected is available at SubredditDrama.
