[Nadya]

Victoria being let off ruined a lot of currently planned AMA's - because she played such a huge part in it all.

It's like firing the person who wrote a language your company uses internally with little to no documentation: absolutely everything is going to go to hell until someone comes in, learns what and how things were done, and can replace that person.

With no word as to why she left or was fired - it screams something political or a massive disconnect with the userbase. AMA's on Reddit are a pretty huge deal. It's a large part of Reddit's popularity - such that even the POTUS has had an "AMA" on Reddit. So when you disrupt how they work and give absolutely no word as to why the person who played such a large part in many AMA's being scheduled, planned, and hosted: you're going to step on a lot of toes.

I read one story of a person flying to New York for an AMA. He had to change his plans and work with the person planning the AMA to schedule different interviews or sightseeing on his time because the AMA was cancelled due to Victoria being let off. That's a loss of a person's time and money with no explanation being given for why someone who was performing their job suddenly wasn't tasked with the job. I'd be pretty peeved myself. Luckily the man was very understanding it was outside of the moderator's control with Victoria being let off, but I imagine some mods aren't as lucky with their scheduled AMA's.

[emehrkay]

To me it seems clear that they've decided to dislike Ellen ( they have sub dedicated to portraying her as Hitler, for fucks sake). So whenever her administration makes a mistake their reaction is going to be bloody murder.

Yeah firing the woman without a backup plan for the scheduled AMAs or whatever else was going on was a mistake. But what does someone have to do in order to be fired in that manor? Are we to assume that Reddit didn't understand the woman's daily duties and what affect her immediate/un-planned absence from the company would be? We don't know why the woman was let go, could had been worth the potential of missing a few scheduled AMAs (or even this backlash).

[fnordfnordfnord]

>they have sub dedicated to portraying her as Hitler, for fucks sake

Hadn't seen that one. /r/PaoYongYang is good for a few chuckles though.

>But what does someone have to do in order to be fired in that manor?

Casting aspersions as to the character of /u/chooter AKA Queen Victoria is risky, and also not in particularly good taste.

>Are we to assume that Reddit didn't understand the woman's daily duties and what affect her immediate/un-planned absence from the company would be?

I've seen corporate types make what appear to be uninformed decisions which turned out to be unwise.

[celticninja]

regardless of the reasons for the firing there definitely did not appear to be a backup plan in place with regard to her AMA responsibilities.

A plan has appeared now and they seem to be portraying it as being in place prior to the firing but it seems haphazard and if it was in place it was not communicated to the people who would need to use it (AMA mods) in time for it to prevent any disruption.

[sp332]

Right, this isn't about firing the person but about the complete lack of communication with all the other people that action affected.

That said, I have to agree with most of GP's points. The amount of vitriol aimed at Pao doesn't seem to jibe with anything she's actually done.

[fixermark]

Given how open Reddit's structure is (in the sense that it gives non-employees strong moderator rights and works to make them feel part of the community), are they treading untrodden ground in walking the tightrope between keeping the community in the loop and respecting the right to privacy of their employee?

Maybe Victoria was let go because the big mean American tech industry is full of misogynists and she's another casualty in the culture war. Or maybe she was let go because Reddit can't afford to pay her. Or maybe she was let go because she profoundly screwed the company over. The fact of the matter is that the privacy door swings both ways (protects the company, but also protects the employee). We don't know and we don't have a right to know---neither do the moderators.

But that aspect of right to know is traditional. In an ecosystem with so many (essentially) volunteer staff members, perhaps the traditional rules can't be cleanly applied. I suspect the sift-out of this situation will teach people much about how to operate heavy-volunteer corporations.

[jshen]

> With no word as to why she left or was fired - it screams something political or a massive disconnect with the userbase

No it doesn't, and in most cases the company is protecting the privacy of the individual being fired. Can you imagine if she were fired for something like sexual harassment and reddit we're telling the world all of the dirty details? In all likelihood, saying nothing is what they should be doing.

[jeletonskelly]

AMA worked fine before all the organization and planning of celebrity appearances. If you're a celebrity or politician or whatever, just hop on, make a post, message a mod for verification or post something to twitter and have at it. The only reason it became so ridiculous is because the mods themselves wanted to feel important, like they were "running" AMA. If some "important" person can't use the internet, then don't do an AMA or find someone to help you. Why there needs to be an employee and all this formality is beyond me...

[jacquesm]

I suspect the added complexity is because of the care some of the more visible AMA subjects take in managing their image.