

/r/IAmA set to “private” after Victoria is let go from Reddit - puredemo
https://reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bw39q/why_has_riama_been_set_to_private/csq204d

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Shivetya
Seriously thinking this was a result of the Jesse Jackson interview. Likely
the new Reddit is going to cater to celebrities and politicians in such a way
that the idea of AMA isn't going to be unfiltered anymore. I would expect them
to sell AMAs that are wholly staged/filtered/etc just like any political press
conference. With the upcoming elections its to be expected, the slant of the
current reddit is very obvious and its a new SJW paradise of late.

~~~
minimaxir
What's odd is that it was the Jesse Jackson AMA that was the straw that broke
the camel's back, so to speak. There have been _far_ worse AMAs than that.
(e.g. the infamous Woody Harrelson Rampart AMA)

/r/amadisasters has a good list of them:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/amadisasters](http://www.reddit.com/r/amadisasters)

EDIT: Response from Alexis:
[https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bw39q/why_has...](https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bw39q/why_has_riama_been_set_to_private/csq6ekp)

~~~
jug
I remember Microsoft's AMA. I agreed with many sentiments but felt sad for
Microsoft PR in the end. If this was the final straw of "mishandled AMA's"
(seriously? what does AMA stand for again? don't go there if your kind of
celebrity status / personality can't handle this elegantly), I think it had to
do with the sensitive nature of religion. I don't doubt Jesse Jackson's team
have capacity to put some pressure on reddit. Ugh. Then again, just
speculation. Part of the problem is that they aren't speaking.

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arprocter
When default subs suddenly go private you know some crazyness is happening...

ETA:
[https://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3bwgjf/riama...](https://np.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/3bwgjf/riama_set_to_private_over_mod_firing/?sort=new&limit=500)

~~~
minimaxir
AskReddit only went private because they had legit organization issues with
her gone. The other subreddits apparently are going private in solidarity.

~~~
toufka
/r/science

/r/gaming

/r/movies

/r/askreddit

/r/iama

/r/law

/r/history

/r/art

all closed for now

~~~
arprocter
Interesting to see how long they stay shut

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DanBC
[https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bw39q/why_has...](https://np.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3bw39q/why_has_riama_been_set_to_private/)

The secret popcorn groups have some more details, but it'd be interesting to
see what actually happened.

EDIT: I'm interested because people here were saying that AMA was going to be
the only thing to save Reddit, and that Reddit would start selling AMA
opportunities.

~~~
minimaxir
> _I 'm interested because people here were saying that AMA was going to be
> the only thing to save Reddit, and that Reddit would start selling AMA
> opportunities._

/r/IAMA was the only subreddit Reddit took seriously, to the point of giving
it its own iOS app and tailored design. It's also believed that high-profile
AMAs (like Obama's AMA) are the largest driver of traffic to the site. (I
haven't checked the data, though.)

The firing of Victoria indicates either a) bad management who don't know what
makes AMAs successful or b) Reddit has alternate plans to make AMA more
marketable. The lack of notice is suspicious, though.

In the meantime, Alexis is making unfortunately snarky responses to the
firing:
[https://www.reddit.com/user/kn0thing](https://www.reddit.com/user/kn0thing)

~~~
nostrademons
Am I the only one who doesn't see Alexis's responses as snarky? Given that the
userbase is going to hate him anyway for dismissing a well-liked public figure
and that he's already admitted that they should've communicated better with
mods, I don't see what he could do differently.

I would bet on b), BTW - the only explanation I can think of for why they
would dismiss a well-liked community liaison is if they wanted to monetize
AMAs and she objected.

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seehafer
Reddit seems engaged in a test to see how far a company built on a community
can attack that community's leaders before everything falls apart at the
seams.

~~~
reagency
And vice versa.

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scintill76
Will we get all the juicy details in "I am Victoria, ex-AMA liaison. AMA."?

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rhgraysonii
Some of the AMA can be found on Archive
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150701154352/https://www.reddi...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150701154352/https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3brf9s/i_am_rev_jesse_jackson_ama/)

~~~
simple1
You can also read the most popular AMAs at
[http://amatranscripts.com/](http://amatranscripts.com/)

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alexanderh
Shameless plug for Voat.co and the subVERSE that has been tracking all of
these happenings in great detail, if you are interested in more information:
[https://voat.co/v/MeanwhileOnReddit](https://voat.co/v/MeanwhileOnReddit)

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searine
/r/Science is gone too.

Reddit is biting the hand that feeds it...

~~~
toufka
PLoS, the open-access science publication, was putting on an excellent series
[1]. Given Victoria's role in that, her loss puts that significant scientific
outreach in jeopardy. A sad casualty. It was fantastic to see the front-lines
of cutting edge research getting asked, answering, and otherwise motivating a
lot of really interesting public discussion. Even if they repost all that old
discussion (all those links on the blog currently don't work), it won't be
trivial to fill Victoria's role in the upcoming AMAs, if they hold them at
all.

[1] [http://blogs.plos.org/plos/2015/06/update-on-plos-science-
we...](http://blogs.plos.org/plos/2015/06/update-on-plos-science-wednesday-
redditscience-ama-series-upcoming-featured-plos-authors/)

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jscheel
It seems like Reddit keeps creating news for all the wrong reasons.

