"If you were the CEO of Reddit it would go the way of Digg."
If I ran Reddit, it would be just as popular and much more profitable. The mass Digg exodus happened because their decisions ruined the content and the average user got tired of the bullshit. This has nothing to do with moderators.
"The community is what makes the site successful, and the moderators shape the community, in addition to being the chief content creators."
Are you a moderator? Do you really think the moderators create content?
Everything on the front-page is taken from other sites. The moderators created nothing. The users even posted the links..so they didn't even do that.
"but to years of serious issues and mismanagement."
Why no protests before this incident then? and why are there so many people protesting her firing?
"The first subreddit to shut down did so because it literally couldn't keep functioning without Victoria, and the rest saw an opportunity to finally voice their complaints and be heard."
Well, you shouldn't base your entire success on 1 person. A smart moderator would have multiple backups.
How do you have "multiple backups" of a full-time, paid staff position at a company you don't work for?
Perhaps the AMA mods shouldn't have let Victoria take on so much work and responsibility, but she was explicitly put in that position by Reddit-the-company. Removing her from that position without warning was a disservice to Reddit-the-community, even if the AMA mods should have been better prepared.
And no, I'm not a Reddit mod, I wouldn't even really call myself a Reddit user. I prefer HN and other niche forums for coherent discussion and imageboards for "internet culture" (and shitposting), and personally find Reddit to be an awkward hybrid of the two.
That said, this situation has the potential to bring important lessons about online communities into the mainstream, so I think it's worth correcting folks who are blaming the wrong people.
EDIT: and to clarify the dig at Digg, the Reddit mods are not the only ones getting upset. The userbase has rallied behind the mods because of their own long-standing issues, mostly regarding Reddit-the-company censoring Reddit-the-community to appeal to advertisers.
If I ran Reddit, it would be just as popular and much more profitable. The mass Digg exodus happened because their decisions ruined the content and the average user got tired of the bullshit. This has nothing to do with moderators.
"The community is what makes the site successful, and the moderators shape the community, in addition to being the chief content creators."
Are you a moderator? Do you really think the moderators create content?
Here is an example:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics
Everything on the front-page is taken from other sites. The moderators created nothing. The users even posted the links..so they didn't even do that.
"but to years of serious issues and mismanagement."
Why no protests before this incident then? and why are there so many people protesting her firing?
"The first subreddit to shut down did so because it literally couldn't keep functioning without Victoria, and the rest saw an opportunity to finally voice their complaints and be heard."
Well, you shouldn't base your entire success on 1 person. A smart moderator would have multiple backups.