Reddit is in revolt—again.Yesterday afternoon, moderators from such popular subreddits as r/IAmA, r/videos, and r/gaming all began making their forums private to protest the unexplained reported dismissal of Victoria Taylor, a Reddit employee who helped run the site's wildly popular Ask Me Anything threads..AmAs are threads where Reddit users can ask notable figures questions about themselves and their careers or experiences, and are also an increasingly important promotional tool for celebrities and artists with big projects in the pipeline.Taylor acted as the liaison between prospective AmAers and the forum, helping them navigate the AmA process and sometimes transcribing answers. She was well-liked among the site's users, and her abrupt dismissal has angered a lot of moderators. R/IAmA, r/videos, and r/gaming are now closed to everyone but moderators and a select few individuals.This is a big traffic shutdown for the "front page of the Internet," which Reddit is often called. A thread explains the issue further: "[The moderators] felt that they, along with the other subreddits that host AmAs, should have been warned beforehand, if only so that they could have someone or something in place to handle the transition."Taylor's only public acknowledgment of the fracas is a tweet sent yesterday thanking people for their "good wishes and support," and a Reddit post saying she felt "dazed."This is one incident in a string of conflicts between forum moderators and Reddit management. Another recent clash was over what some mods perceived as censorship, after management closed down several forums that posted objectionable content for violating its new anti-harassment policies.The main point of contention in the Taylor case, from the moderators' perspective, is a simple lack of appreciation and communication. "The way the admins failed to communicate with AMA's mods and left them without a way to contact the people that were going to do them illustrates the disconnect between admins and the moderators they depend on…A little communication can go a long way," reads a statement on r/todayilearned.Update: Reddit responded to our request for comment, sending us the text of a post by founder Alexis Ohanian, which states in part: "First, I'm sorry for how we handled communicating change to the AMA team this morning. I take responsibility for that. We should have made a post…announcing the transition."The fact is, Reddit is a privately held and managed company, and they can make personnel decisions at their own discretion. And though moderators have the right to protest perceived mistreatment of someone they saw as a colleague, they are potentially doing real damage by limiting a part of the Internet that is, for many, a crucial resource.Taylor could not be reached.Update: Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian has released a statement through a private subreddit for moderators:First, I'm sorry for how we handled communicating change to the AMA team this morning. I take responsibility for that. We should have made a post to r/DefaultMods announcing the transition and contacted the affected mods teams right after it happened and clearly articulated how there would not be a disruption with scheduled AMAs and those communications would now happen via AMA@reddit.com as we find a full-time replacement.
That said, I would like to accomplish two things immediately:
Get the blacked out subreddits back online
Your message was received loud and clear. The communication between Reddit and the moderators needs to improve dramatically. We will work closely with you all going forward to ensure events like today don't happen again. At this point, however, the blackout has served its purpose, and now it's time to get Reddit functioning again. I know many of you are still upset. We will continue to work through these issues with you all, but redditors don't deserve to be punished any further over an issue that is ultimately between Reddit and the moderators.
Work out a plan for going forward
In the short-term, we will use this forum to discuss how we will improve being a moderator on reddit. I'll personally be in here asking and listening. There are a couple of changes we can make immediately to improve our relationship:
· u/krispykrackers, a well-trusted employee and community member, is now going to be point person for moderator issues. This should help alleviate the immediate pain, and we'll continue to evaluate how it's working going forward.
· We will continue to dedicate resources to AMAs specifically to help manage the workload. Moderating AMAs are a uniquely heavy burden because it requires a lot of coordination between the external guests and the moderators, and Reddit will always be involved. Our process won't be perfect overnight, but we will refine it over time with the moderators (especially r/IAMA, r/science, r/books the most prolific communities for AMAs).
Longer term, we are building tools to help you all do your jobs more effectively (anti-brigading and better modmail/tools are already in progress). We will build these with your input and incorporate more transparency. We have many ideas, and we would like to hear yours. We will keep you all in the loop as our plans crystallize into actual tools.
