Source
r/AskReddit•
parliamentlites

How is it ok for 32 bites to shut down AMA?

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ju5cf/goodbye_iama_it_was_fun_while_it_lasted/

AMA is a huge community. It doesn't seem fair one person has the power to shut down a subreddit with over 400,000 subscribers just because he thinks the quality has gone downhill. Am I wrong here? WTF?

EDIT: 32bites

Edit2: r/iama to clear that up. I apologize.

Edit3: for everyone who is telling me to "get over it", "stop whining" etc, take your own advice and don't comment the post. This is something that is important to me and quite obviously to a large amount of others.

Posted Aug 25, 2011, 4:53 PM UTC · edited

824905
Chief_Clancy_Wiggum•

Too big to fail. We need a bailout from the admin.

645
ggggbabybabybaby•

We kinda do. And in that same "too big to fail" way, it's the admins that encouraged such large investment into the subreddit. The default front page for anonymous and new users contains a slightly edited list of the most popular subreddits. It encourages the big to get bigger.

IAmA has now become the de facto for celebrity interviews and whatnot and to see it go would mean to lose all that audience gathered in one place.

127
myheaditches•

I believe the default subreddits (new users, people not logged in) are:

  • The top 10 subscribed to most active subreddits
  • Excluding some subreddits (r/atheism (done with permission from the mods))
  • Probably excludes NSFW subreddits too, though I don't think any are in the top 10.
  • Plus reddit specific subreddits (r/blog r/announcements)
31
Iced_Venti_Water•

Wait, when I'm not subscribed I see r/atheism up their, right next to trees and WTF

8
xtirpation•

The reddits at the top of the screen aren't the same as the ones you have +frontpaged. The links are there to point you to other subreddits that are popular, but their content won't be displayed be default.

27
myheaditches•

trees, wtf, and atheism are the 11th, 12th, and 13th subreddits. They are outside of the "default" subreddits shown on the front page. 1-10 plus the 2 exceptions (blog, announcements) will have their articles listed on the front page, but this doesn't mean those that aren't the default 12 are hidden from view, the top bar shows however many of the most popular there is room to display.

Here is an article submitted by spez a year ago discussing why some subreddits are excluded from the top 10. tl;dr: The top 10 is ranked by activity, some subreddits were getting malicious downvotes from people that didn't like them being in the top 10, this of course increased their activity which increased their ranking in the top 10.

8
sesh•

I believe it shows up in the top bar, but doesn't form part of the "default homepage" for non-registered and new users.

1
universl•

I think myheaditches might be thinking of the time when the admins modified the way reddit calculates the 'top' subreddits which bumped r/atheism out of the top 10 even though it appeared to be a more popular sub.

1
[deleted]•

I don't usually do this, but you should use "there" in place of "their" in your sentence above. I only say this so that you can avoid making the same mistake in the future :)

1
TealNyson•

r/atheism used to be excluded but now it's back.

I haven't messed with my subreddits, my top bar is: ALL-RANDOM | PICS-REDDIT.COM-FUNNY-POLITICS-GAMING-ASKREDDIT-WORLDNEWS-VIDEOS-IAMA-TODAYILEARNED – TREES-WTF-ATHEISM-ADVICEANIMALS-STARCRAFT-TF2-AWW-FIRSTWORLDPROBLEMS

4
raptorraptor•

I'm back, baby

3
myheaditches•

Yeah, I've been here awhile so I'm recalling facts that are no longer true. Stupid time, stop changing things to make me look like a fool.

2
phynn•

There was a huge fuss when r/christian was on there though. Eh. r/atheism and r/christian are pretty much the same thing these days... at least last I checked. :-(

1
aloneinlove•

I don't think it will be a problem if it were to suddenly disappear. The admins will have backups and I'm sure they will restore it in a heartbeat due to the sheer popularity of the subreddit.

2
ggggbabybabybaby•

I don't mean it being deleted. I mean it being deactivated and people just unsubscribing.

1
DallasTruther•

We don't need the admins for this, though. If they are a normal Reddit user, then they either

  • [Know]/[will see threads] about the situation and will seek out a new sub or two to replace it

  • Will wonder why they aren't seeing any threads about IAmA, and will try to find out what happened, and make their decision from that point

  • Will not notice the change (which is okay in my book)

  • Will notice the change, but don't know how to go deeper (also okay...to me)

Anything involving the admins' commandeering of r/IAmA is too much to ask for, when you understand their previous policies of not involving themselves in such matters.

You want the sub to stay? Sorry, find a new one, I'm sure there are plenty that are a day old that would love to have you.

-2
ggggbabybabybaby•

(Note that this is all moot because /r/IAmA is back now.)

I'm ok with IAmA going away completely and a bunch of smaller subreddits taking its place. But we're going to lose some of the magic of having a subreddit with 450k subscribers. There are good things to having a huge subreddit, it draws more publicity and more interesting people. The name is now worth something. A year from now, someone is going to think, "I wonder if reddit is still doing those IAmA things. I know the perfect someone for that." They might be able to find one of the smaller subreddits but there's no guarantee. A lot of the IAmA threads are by those that aren't so familiar with the intricacies of reddit.

1
nopantson•

It's not so hard to make a new subreddit... Or just move over to r/AMA

3
jarly•

It's pretty difficult to move 500,000 people. Even 100,000 would be a challenge. Hell, r/AMA has under 15k readers.

2
Scurry•

It had at least 5k less than that earlier today. People will move on their own.

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

-3
noPENGSinALASKA•

MODS ARE GODS!!!!

1
kcg5•

what even happened? I went to work, and when I came back, all this had gone down..

1
NotAgain2011•

has anyone offered 32bites a bribe? This is feeling like a publicity stunt to me.

0
brlito•

But it did fail, apart from the usually interesting AMAs (Kyle Gass, that ice cream truck guy, etc) people have posted we get duds like "LOL IM GURL N I ANSER ALL UR QUESTIONS LOLOLOLOL" and other bullshit.

Did you know that James Kahn, fucking James Kahn got about 3000 comments in his AMA while that other "anser all ur questionz" bitch got 6000? How the fuck could Reddit not find any questions to ask the man!?

Of course 32bites' deal is different, but r/iama's quality has gone down drastically.

-2
seandanger•

If only we had some sort of mechanism to disregard the things we didn't like while promoting the ones we found interesting and thoughtful...

10
brlito•

Yeah, Reddit finds anything with a pair of tits and a vagina "interesting and thoughtful". Remember that girl with a cancer that was more or less an STD and easily treatable? The creepy and white knight comments far outweighed the actually interesting ones.

1
IdontReadArticles•

Who cares what some actor thinks? They are boring as fuck.

5
brlito•

He's a writer, 'tard.

-1
sparr•

if they were "duds" they wouldn't get voted to the top of the page

1
brlito•

Anything involving ladies gets front page, you and I both know that.

1
sparr•

Some day I'd like to see reddit add slash-style moderation. Particularly, I'd like to be able to weight the votes of my friends, their friends, my enemies, their friends, etc differently.

1
obviousoctopus•

High noise to signal ratio doesn't justify removing valuable content.

1
MarkWalburg•

That is screwed up. Some of my favorite reading on reddit has come out of r/AMA. Sure there are a lot of bad posts, but there are really interesting ones as well. The Trailer Park Boys, ship captains, cops, military, people in prison, people with terrible diseases.

Sure, you may have to dig for these, but all of these [baring TPBs, they were just funny] things have given me truly thought-provoking reading material and responses.

It's a shame.

533
locopyro13•

r/AMA isn't going anywhere its r/IAmA

260
[deleted]•

This guy is legit. They are two separate subreddits.

/r/ama

/r/IAmA

153
LessLikeYou•

This guy is probably legit he supplied links!

54
cwo•

They're clearly traced

79
Jemeramy•

supplies

21
slashbringinghasher•

Could someone please explain to me the difference between the two? I have never understood this

37
[deleted]•

They were created at about the same time, and r/IAmA just happened to get all the initial momentum. They were both spawned by a few posts in r/AskReddit a little more than 2 years ago. Once r/IAmA got up and running, r/ama was pretty much redundant... until today :-)

40
OneWhoHenpecksGiants•

Same. I always thought the two went hand in hand. What's the point of just saying "IAmA fireman! That is all."

21
Slowhand09•

Ama is a Malay/Micronesian word for the outrigger of a proa, or the outer two hulls of a trimaran.

Iama means I am an ama. Sail me anywhere

11
MagicTarPitRide•

Yeah, but r/ama is hippy bullshit. No downvotes? What's even the point anymore?

30
Duane_•

Don't like something, don't upvote it.

There's a truncation system in place where they automatically get downvotes over time. An upvote counters it. A lack of an upvote is the same as a downvote.

2
dunchen22•

What do you mean no downvotes?

EDIT: I see. It appears they used to not have downvotes but they've enabled them now. At least temporarily.

It appears they are changing drastically in the wake of r/iama's death.

1
Atario•

It only stops the newbs from downvoting.

0
MarkWalburg•

Pfew. Thank goodness.

5
downvotesmakemehard•

IT'S

-5
[deleted]•

[deleted]

-4
CelebornX•

My complaint about IAmA wasn't about the fake threads or the shitty threads or any of that. It was about the asshole community that downvotes the hell out of something they disagree with rather than actually ASK questions, which was the entire point in the first place.

I'm glad to see it go. The concept of "Ask me anything" isn't going to go away. In fact, r/ama already exists and is the exact same thing as r/IAmA but with a better name. If IAmA goes away, a new subreddit will pop up and hopefully something can be done about educating the jerks who comment there.

107
[deleted]•

[deleted]

89
EgregiousWeasel•

That's because it's a problem throughout humanity. You either have to get used to it or resign yourself to being irritated.

59
Hamsterdam•

I disagree, DOWNVOTED.

24
[deleted]•

It's a much more manifested problem on t'internet because dickheads have anonymity and won't get punched in the mouth.

8
alittlefuckingcrazy•

Except that a large chunk of redditors think they're somehow superior to the masses, without ever realizing the unintentional humor they provide the rest of us.

4
living150•

Good point! I find this to be true about expecting people to be polite as well. I try to just be surprised when someone isn't rude instead of getting angry everytime someone is.

2
Stabintheface•

Or, you know, try to change it. Lead by example and so on.

1
SmartSuka•

I agree, I'm different from a majority of redditors on here because I believe in ghost and do paranormal investigations. Whenever I bring it up it has brought downvotes and personal attacks instead of discussion.

I found an exception though. r/nosleep. :D

12
[deleted]•

I'd love to discuss it with you. By saying there are ghosts you are making a huge claim, it defies almost every physical law which we (and all other animals) know and base our lives around.

So to say that almost that we know is wrong, you need some pretty amazing evidence, this evidence doesn't exist.

I'm going to upvote you but if you don't reply with an intelligent answer it will quickly change to a downvote.

Edit: It reads kindof like I'm trying to be an ass, but I genuinely am interested in what your response is to this, I've never heard anyone defend the paranormal properly before.

10
Cadoc•

I agree, I'm different from a majority of redditors on here because I believe in ghost and do paranormal investigations. Whenever I bring it up it has brought downvotes and personal attacks instead of discussion.

I have to admit, I found it extremely hard not to downvote this.

1
Atario•

Holy shit! Where's that guy who always asks "have you ever seen a ghost?"? Summon him, stat!

1
[deleted]•

That is because everyone who does know how to have a conversation is outside having one

9
FriendOfTheGophers•

Out...side?

14
stanfan114•

I found that if you ask Redditors to explain why they downvote a comment, they will.

I play devil's advocate in discussion here all the time so I tend to get a lot of downvotes for an unpopular opinion, and one time I knew I was going to get dv'ed to hell so I asked for a comment for each downvote, and got many.

6
[deleted]•

[deleted]

8
ancientcreature•

Why the hell did you downvote me?

0
BitRex•

It's a UI problem. Up and down should be "I agree" buttons (since that's what people use them for anyway) and only lots of "report" clicks should hide a post.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
FateAV•

You DO realize a large portion of Reddit is made up of socially awkward Engineers, Engineering majors, pseudo-intellectual jerks and people who like Reddit. None of these denominations is particularly renown for their social competence.

1
CowGoesMoo•

I blame the influx of Diggers and 4channers.

1
el_muerte17•

No kidding. There was a Catholic priest who did an IAmA a couple weeks back; one response he posted was that one of his friends told him he witnessed levitation occur during an exorcism. Didn't say he saw it, didn't make any comment on whether he believed it. Downvoted to oblivion. Regardless of what people do or don't believe, the downvote button is for burying comments that contribute nothing to the discussion, not just shit you disagree with.

69
bryshane•

Reddit is becoming more ridiculous. It's becoming as bad a youtube.

3
mechanate•

"One of my friends says he saw a unicorn fall out of a horse's ass." "One of my friends says he saw the government moving the aliens into area 51." "One of my friends saw a guy that could crush stones into pebbles with his bare hands."

By saying that and not stating whether or not you believe him, most people are going to assume that you do. There's a third reason for downvoting: The poster is making claims based purely on hearsay.

-3
el_muerte17•

The question implied hearsay, being worded similarly to "Have you heard of any strange/unexplainable occurrences?"

Even if he had stated that he believed it 100%, that's no reason to mass downvote.

Unless you're a belligerent vocal atheist with a superiority complex (as opposed to the respectful rational ones that comprise 98% of the atheist population but a minority of their Internet message board presence), you have to admit that a person believing something in line with his faith, which he's spent his life working out, is at least a little bit different than believing in random claims from an obvious troll.

Reddiquette states that the downvote button isn't meant for opinions you disagree with, but for comments that are obviously inflammatory or don't contribute to the discussion.

41
atomfullerene•

The point of an AMA is to find out what other people have to say about a topic. Do you not want to know if the person doing the AMA has said something you think is foolish, because reddit has downvoted those responses?

2
Reeonimus•

It was about the asshole community that downvotes the hell out of something they disagree with rather than actually ASK questions

Agreed. If I don't like an AMA, or a particular response, or someones question (within reason) I just keep on truckin.

4
Mojo_Nixon•

I've never downvoted anything. Upvoting what you like is a much better system than trying to "bury" something you don't like.

2
bemanijunkie•

Downvote? or spend 30 minutes crafting a eloquent response? fuck it i'll just downvote everything. =/

2
rmm45177•

I hated how cynical the community was. They assumed that every single post was fake, even if they provided evidence.

1
[deleted]•

hopefully something can be done about educating the jerks who comment there

I thought I was naive!

1
[deleted]•

The interesting ones go something like this: really interesting person posts, and then they get 3 or 4 genuinely good questions followed by one to two thousand completely retarded puns/jokes/idiotic questions.

36
WoollyMittens•

I don't see a problem with that. Why would you throw out the baby with the bath water?

15
doinit4lulz•

Because I don't like children.

14
He11razor•

pffft, they're delicious.

r/atheism.

2
jamesneysmith•

I think it's more accurate to say throwing out a tadpole with the olympic sized swimming pool water.

10
[deleted]•

This describes every aspect of reddit.

1
apostrotastrophe•

I find even when the posts are completely untrue AMAs generate the most meaningful discussions of any subreddit. Often, I don't even read what the OP writes and just get lost in the similar experiences of the hundreds of other people commenting.

5
SHE_LOVES_YOU•

I really loved the ship captain AMA as well as the Jeopardy champ and Steve Vai and all the police officers.

2
He11razor•

Like you said, there may be lots of shit submissions but there were massively good ones as well. It's pretty nuts to throw the whole thing away instead of trying to fix it.

2
readforit•

Oh man! I will miss the "I am a virgin and went to a hooker, AMA"s

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
origamiguy•

Heck, if it weren't for the SwedishMealTime AMA I may never have discovered Machinae Supremacy, my current favourite band.

1
kelling928•

How would we have found out about the haven't pooped in August guy without r/iama

1
[deleted]•

I became skeptical last year when the Dalai Lama showed up and offered to do an AMA.

1
[deleted]•

No, you people need to get over yourselves. If he wants to shut down his sub he can do as he pleases, just like if a business owner wants to shut down - thereby putting the same number of people out of work, then so be it.

1
atatassault•

To all the "create your own subreddit". You do realize that many people will do so, and it will take a long time for one single one to rise up? In fact, it may never rise up, because nobody will know which one to post to, since they're all very small (and the good AMAs may not want to waste time posting to something that isn't going to be seen by a lot of people). 32bites may have killed of AMAs for quite a long time.

192
zombieterrorist•

If r/ama can be a successful community while r/iama overshadowed it, I don't think we'll really have to worry that much about a new one picking up. Why not just go join r/ama right now?

r/trees did pretty good for itself.

99
peterfalls•

Hey, I'm just lurking in this thread because I have no idea what's going on and I'm curious.

What did you mean when you said that r/trees did pretty good for itself? Was r/trees the second weed-related subreddit, able to ascend only after some other subreddit faltered?

46
zombieterrorist•

r/marijuana had an asshole mod(i'm not sure on the specifics of what exactly he was doing to be an asshole), so the users created r/trees and it became the de facto marijuana subreddit.

82
thejosharms•

Partly true.

The r/trees sub had already been created before it was discovered the r/mj owner was a big douche. The initial push to move the community was because he wanted to eliminate the 'silly stoner posts' and keep /mj a community for discussion about legislation, reviews of smoking tech and other 'good' content. Not really a big deal, it's his right as the owner of the sub to try and shape the community, so some people split off to make r/trees for a more laid back 'whatever goes' sub.

The issue arose when he started going nuts on people promoting r/trees and that's when the whole racist thing came out. It acted as a big catalyst and pushed a ton of people to dump r/mj for r/trees.

Anyways, now you know! Hooray for pedantry!

75
Raerth•

r/marijuana had an asshole mod(i'm not sure on the specifics of what exactly he was doing to be an asshole)

He was discovered to be a racist.

20
peterfalls•

Thanks! I've been a redditor for about a year, so I didn't know any of that. You're one of the good ones, then?

5
skaterape•

In all honesty, r/trees sucks now. It's a bunch of little girls and boys taking picture of their pipes and circlejerking like the best of them.

1
hopstar•

created r/trees and it became the de facto marijuana subreddit.

No, it became circlejerk for stoners. There's almost never any actual content regarding mj laws or anything of the sort, it's almost entirely composed of stupid rage comics, image meme pics, and "Hey look at my new <insert smoking device here>" posts.

It is what it is, and if the users like it they're free to continue voting up the memes, but to say that it was an actual replacement for r/marijuana is simply false. Seriously, compare the current top 50 for both subs:

  • r/trees: 42 of the top 50 links are either imgur, memgenerator, or quickmeme picture posts. The rest are pretty much self posts talking about how high they are.

  • r/marijuana: 44 links to actual news article or blog posts chronicling legalization, health issues, documentaries, etc, with only 4 imgur links and 2 self posts.

1
lurkinnderpin•

He was a racist fuck.

1
Vusys•

r/tf2items had an asshole mod so r/tf2trade/ was made, and now the tf2 trading subreddits are fractured without one replacing the other. The subreddit system is embarrassingly bad in this regard but it's too late for it to be fixed.

3
Infinity_Wasted•

don't forget r/askme. it's there too!

1
highguy420•

Just post your AMA in r/askreddit ... they will tell you where to stick it.

17
arcadeguy•

32bites may have killed of AMAs for quite a long time.

if he actually wanted to/intended to shut it down, he just would have done it. Instead, he jumped on a soap box and is trolling the community he's been complaining about, and everyone is up in arms about it. People are feeding him the attention he so badly wants.

6
DefinitelyRelephant•

The solution is blindingly elegant:

Simply post your AMAs and AMA requests directly to r/reddit until someone gets fed up and starts directing traffic again.

2
lentic_catachresis•

Fine with me. AMAs need a long timeout.

1
Dax420•

Not to mention there are lots of news articles and online pieces written about r/IAMA and linking to the sub.

1
Mojo_Nixon•

That's how it's supposed to work.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

0
Station1337•

Good fuck that subreddit.

0
SkullFuckMcRapeAMA•

SO FUCKING WHAT

###THE OWNER OF THE SUBREDDIT CAN DO WHAT THE FUCK THEY WANT, GO TO AMA THEN

###THE ONLY REASON THE CUNT ORBIXX, THE FUCKING 15 YEAR OLD FAT PESTILENT CUNT, WANTS TO TAKE CONTROL, IS HE DOESN'T WANT TO BE A LOW LEVEL MOD ON R/AMA

###FUCK YOU

-15
[deleted]•

The trolls in IAMA are just ridiculous, though.

Yes, AMA happens to have (right now!) one of the 12 or so Americans with an IQ over 180 (5.5 standard deviations above the mean, about 1 in 20 million).

These people are pretty cool; one of them is Marilyn Vos Savant, one is Christopher Langan, nine are going around doing other smart things, and one is posting on r/IAmA with mediocre grammar and writing skills.

The "special school" he went to is also entertaining. Many parents with genius children send their kids to some secret school for geniuses. Nobody, as far as I know, has heard of any such school, which is remarkable given the existence of millions of pushy parents who hype up the highly selective colleges, high schools, and even pre-schools.

r/IAmA used to have hilarious threads by real people, like the mortician. He gave us a humorous take on a strange professional life that is very different from most people's. Now it's just a competition to tell the most outlandish lies without getting caught.

I say if the dude wants the subreddit to burn, then good riddance to it.

161
magus424•

Trolls ridiculous because moderators didn't moderate. That doesn't necessitate closing it.

74
[deleted]•

"Um, I don't feel like doing my job anymore, so I'm shutting down the whole company"

67
[deleted]•

First of all, that's perfectly reasonable when you own the company. Second of all, his "job" is completely unpaid. How many hours a week do think you could spend reading the spam that a highly trafficked website produces before you went insane?

44
Delehal•

You're right. If only Reddit allowed for multiple moderators or something.

27
[deleted]•

How many hours a week do think you could spend reading the spam that a highly trafficked website produces before you went insane?

Actually I do this everyday, owning several large websites gets to be a pain sometimes. Granted it's probably nothing like the amount of spam (troll seem to be the problem here, not spam) that IAmA generates, but that's why reddits allows multiple moderators.

2
Mezzlegasm•

That isn't reasonable. Companies have a board of directors for this reason. If a CEO tried to pull this stunt, he would be ostracized and his position would be filled. It is a fair comparison because there were 16 other moderators that should have been able to act as some sort of "board of directors". Unfortunately, reddit doesn't have that sort of mechanic. However, the lack of such a mechanic does not make his actions reasonable at all.

1
[deleted]•

they guy had a decent idea years ago to create a community where people could talk about their unique career/skill/whatever (hardly original, even on the internet, this exists in many other places) and he somehow "owns" the community and posts that grew up around that? You act like he reinvented the wheel or something.

1
nicponim•

Happy cake day!

-1
Frankeh•

How do you tell when someone's trolling for sure? You remove a thread, people will complain. You don't remove the thread, people like you complain.. No winning.

The only winning move is to not play and that's what 32bits did and I agree with him. Iama used to be a great subreddit.. It's fucking awful now and I hope it's gone for good so people can make smaller niche communities that won't get trolled by all the, dare I say it, newfags.

18
jaketheripper•

You're missing the point, /iama has been shit for small things for a long time, let it be shit, that doesn't matter, what it's good for is being huge, being big enough that celebrities are willing to spend their time answering questions, which in general is pretty awesome. Splinter /iama may make it easier for "hey guys, I'm a fireman!" posts, but there's no way in hell someone like the news anchor that was on it yesterday is going to show up to answer questions from 10k subscribers.

0
[deleted]•

The trolls are ridiculous because of the hundreds of thousands of credulous morons who are all too eager to believe every ridiculous claim that gets made.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
Neebat•

The more people respect your forum and expect to find honesty and openness, the more appealing it is to those who are neither honest nor open.

That, plus the size, made IAmA unmanageable.

I'd rather see it replaced by a collection of smaller, more niche subreddits, like maybe IAmAGameDev, IWasInAMovie, SFWAMemberAMA, IAmInTheBand or something similar.

1
Bitterfish•

Here, here. I saw that thread and said bullshit in 15 seconds. And it was still above average for the crap that's been in that subreddit recently.

19
Atario•

It's "hear, hear".

4
Bitterfish•

Thanks, TIL.

2
biggiepants•

Where?

1
hitlersshit•

How can you be so sure it's bullshit?

-1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
gp0•

Common sense

1
hitlersshit•

What, do you have an IQ of 180?

1
vlf_fata•

Once ama gets big, it will attract more of the stuff that brought IAMA down.

The smaller, more obscure subreddits produce and foster some really interesting discussion. This might be due to the nature of how some subreddits are very niche ( r/stickers, a subreddit devoted to stickers used in a graffiti manner. It isn't very active, I'm just pointing out a niche) or have a population who is very passionate about its subject matter (r/soccer)

I'm really trying to avoid the H word at this point. But most subreddits decline rapidly in "coolness" after they get discovered by the average reddit userbase. The more puns and reposts you get, the closer it gets to becoming a supernova. I'm not sad that IAMA is going to die, I'm sad for whichever subreddit gets chosen to be its successor.

10
[deleted]•

I'm not sad that IAMA is going to die, I'm sad for whichever subreddit gets chosen to be its successor.

Deep man

2
[deleted]•

r/iama certainly has some issues. Just look at this thread. Notice how none of the top comments are actually questions. Sorted by 'best', I counted 20 comments before I found one that was phrased as a question.

Still, it would have been better if 32bites passed it on to someone else, instead of shutting it down like he did.

9
[deleted]•

I feel horrible in the sexual assault AMAs when I downvote every single fucking 'I don't have a question but I hope you feel better' because that's not why they did a fucking AMA :|

2
Chief_Clancy_Wiggum•

Based on what I've seen, a huge amount of redditors have a 160+ IQ. Go figure.

5
[deleted]•

A huge amount of intarwebs 'wat is your IQ' quizzes have given a huge amount of people a hugely inflated idea of their own intelligence.

4
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
[deleted]•

The trolls in IAMA are just ridiculous, though.

Welcome to the Internet.

1
Frankeh•

100x this. I agree with you fully and support 32bites decision.

I'd rather there be a smaller new iama where people don't just troll the shit out of it.

1
theAnalepticAlzabo•

wait, there are only 12 americans with an IQ over 180? My dad claims he has one of 182. It makes sense: He is a biologist and can handle mathematical concepts that I can BARELY wrap my head around (and I have an IQ of about 140).

Ill have to ask him about that.

1
[deleted]•

*If you had an IQ test that was actually calibrated with tens of millions of people of the same age, so that your results were actually accurate on the extremes, then yes, you'd expect one person with an IQ over 180 for every 20 million or so who took the test.

IQ tests are "curved" so that your score represents your rank among the entire population. The standard deviation is fifteen, the mean is one hundred, by definition. About 2/3 of people are between 85 and 115. About 95% of people are between 70 and 130. About 99.999995% of people are below 180.

Of course, nobody actually can run a test on tens of millions of people, just to see if it's accurate at the high range. A test that is poorly-calibrated for the high range could easily produce too many (or too few) people with extreme outlier scores.

4
asshole_for_a_reason•

I went to a special school for geniuses, and it's not a secret.

1
Willravel•

Trolls are more often than not given a lot of downvotes.

1
noreallyimthepope•

I used to have an IQ of 183. Nothing special about that.

1
Infinity_Wasted•

related: "special schools" for gifted children really do exist. I tested into it by reading at a high school level. I was supposed to attend starting in 3rd grade, but my parents were never able to afford it- even with the headmaster giving a discount because he really wanted me there- or take the time out of their days to drive me there and pick me up when school got out. after getting a tour, I was very depressed when I later learned there was no way I could attend.

1
[deleted]•

Sure, there are magnet schools and such, for kids in the top 10%, or even the top 1%. I am not going to be skeptical of someone who says he went to Thomas Jefferson or Stuyvesant or something. There simply aren't schools for the top 0.000005%.

1
Syphon8•

Christopher Langan and Marilyn Vos Savant aren't... Really that smart.

0
Todomanna•

You know what's more ridiculous than the trolls? The people who feed the trolls by constantly complaining about them.

0
Tzeentch•

460k subscribers has to mean something. Reddit admins should be able to take control considering it has become an integral part to the reddit experience.

152
mtux96•

I think the better solution is just hand it over to someone else and get other mods to help out. Dude is overseeing a 465K+ subreddit by himself. He is very stupid to undertake that by himself. I've seen smaller subreddits with more mods than just 1.

r/redditthroughhistory has 12k+ subscribers with 7 mods.

I think shutting down a subreddit because 1 mod cannot handle anymore is a very stupid reason when you can just get current users to help out by being mods and take it over as oppose to just being Madagascar and shutting everything down.

61
Tzeentch•

It originally had more mods. I think he actually removed them before making this "I'M SHUTTING IT DOWN FOREVER" post.

103
mtux96•

well then changes it a bit. He should have just stepped down and let them handle it.

34
splice42•

That would let people believe that his internet dick is smaller than a firehouse. Can't have that.

81
peewinkle•

He didn't even consult the mods before removing them. They have said that they would have gladly took over/picked up the slack. Yeah, it's his subreddit and he can do whatever he wants but it's a dick move. I get the notion that he's doing it for the attention more than anything. Apparently he has been a prick in the past as well, if you read through his thread. Dick move.

23
erinbeth•

There was just a post calling for more mods a few weeks ago. I wondered what came of that.

2
[deleted]•

This is exactly what he/she did. It's a dick move.

I'm sorry but just because you thought of the subreddit, once it becomes a community you should not have dictatorial control of weather it continues to exist.

1
flyryan•

He removed all of us. We had several active mods.

29
IThinkitsFunny•

whhhhaaat?!?! how is that possible?

0
GodOfAtheism•

If you're a mod on a subreddit, you can remove anyone with less seniority than yourself. When you're the creator of a subreddit, you would have the most seniority.

3
throwaway123454321•

I mod r/annehathaway, but I also assigned 2 others to be a mod with barely 300 subscribers. But that's mostly cause I'm lazy as shit.

2
[deleted]•

It's not like the mods did anything at all in that subreddit to begin with.

1
Conde_Nasty•

I've told admins about this but they dismiss the problems with the subreddit system.

It doesn't help that admins themselves pretend like subreddits are part of reddit.com once they become popular (like when they announce IAMAs from celebrities). They could have an Obama IAMA, cause a big media hub-bub about it and 32bites could delete it if he wanted to.

I don't know about you, but that's just fucking weird. Admins need to decide that some subreddits are too big to fail and assume some hands-off control of it so that when it becomes desolated or mods leave, they can keep it around and, ahem, bail it out.

35
prmaster23•

It doesn't help that admins themselves pretend like subreddits are part of reddit.com once they become popular (like when they announce IAMAs from celebrities).

Simple truth.

17
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
[deleted]•

Obama AMA? Really?

1
alittlefuckingcrazy•

In other words, you want reddit admins to act like congressional democrats. What could possibly go wrong?

-1
[deleted]•

If the reddit admins acted like congressional republicans, they'd fire everybody, hire their incompetent buddies as contracters at triple the cost, and then cash out before it starts losing money.

1
Conde_Nasty•

thatsthejoke.jpg

1
iglidante•

Admins do not handle subreddits. Those belong to the users.

19
tfaal•

No, the users do not own the subreddits. The admins own the servers, and they ban subreddits all the time. If they've made some kind of overly-strict "prime directive" policy, it's not binding in any way. Just make an exception and put a new mod in place.

25
[deleted]•

Yeah I don't understand the admins hesitation in just taking over the subreddit.

7
Segovia209•

He made the subreddit therefor he can do what he wants with it.

Maybe they can make a deal with him or something but what do I know.

5
[deleted]•

Ha, I'm thinking of a Reddit admin who looks like Jean-Luc Picard sitting at his computer saying, "Nope, that violates the Prime Directive, can't do it."

2
memoi567•

They do not ban subreddits all the time. The only time I've heard about them banning a subreddit was r/jailbait and that was because they were worried about legal issues.

1
octahead•

It wasn't about content.

2
nfloorida•

I thought it was because of something similar to this... an inflated admin. Did I miss something?

1
[deleted]•

This is not the case, actually. They belong to the owners of reddit, and they WILL use their power if you decide to make a subreddit that breaks the law, for example.

-3
iglidante•

Well, yes, they can do things if you break the law, but if you check admin responses to questions about ownership, you'll see that they generally consider the creator of a subreddit to be the final authority.

10
Delehal•

The final authority, subject to admin discretion... which brings us back to Fa1nT's point.

1
[deleted]•

They're laissez faire about subreddit moderation as long as it isn't doing something that will get Reddit as a whole in trouble, or lead to a gigantic clusterfuck like r/jailbait's shutdown.

5
joonix•

Bullshit. It's all on reddit property, they hold the copyrights, all the IP, they run the ads, everything. Reddit owns the subreddits, clearly, people can just start and moderate their own.

An IRC channel is not owned by the operators of it. If they leave the channel, anyone can grab it. That is how subreddits should work.

-6
[deleted]•

Yeah exactly. Instead of just shutting it down why not just let people unsubscribe if they want? If it will die, let it die naturally. And not only is it a good solution but it takes zero effort!

2
shiftup72•

dont you start out subscribed by default?

So it doesnt mean that 460K people actually care about the content on iama.

1
[deleted]•

It needs a bailout. It's simply too big to fail.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
beccaonice•

I really love how in that thread everyone downvoted 32bits responses to oblivion so that none of his relevant answers could be seen. Good use of Rediquette, guys!

102
pseudolobster•

I've seen plenty of people today saying they've downvoted every post 32bytes has ever made.

You can teach people reddiquite all you want, but it doesn't mean they'll follow it. People are reactionary, vengeful dicks.

41
thedarkhaze•

The system already accounts for that so it's actually a futile move. If you mass downvote any individual the system will make those downvotes worthless.

11
[deleted]•

As opposed to the karma that has worth.

1
biggiepants•

All his posts you can still vote one have been voted to effectively zero (don't know why not more negative). You make one mistake and reddit kills your karma.

0
AgentConundrum•

A redditor is smart. Redditors are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.

4
beccaonice•

Yeah, it's dumb. Why can't they just not do that?

2
aijoe•

Immediately clicked on his name to see all of his replies shortly after I entered the comment thread. Didn't see anything relevant to adequately explaining his actions in the 6 replies. He says to trust him that the subreddit died some time ago. I don't know if that will cut it.

1
biggiepants•

I thought this was useful though.

2
[deleted]•

You've not been on Reddit long if you think people use downvotes to show anything other than disapproval.

1
beccaonice•

Only 2 years.

1
wolfuhq•

I really don't think it matters to see his response. He's already said his peace. He doesn't give a fuck. Who cares. Get another mod in and that's the end of it. 32bites thinks he is way more important than he is.

1
IGetThis•

Enough of that logic sir/madam!! We will have none of that here!

0
[deleted]•

I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it is a large community, and I can see how it might be a lot for 32bites to handle. It's a bit harder to understand why he (?) doesn't want to just hand it off to someone who will look after it. But ultimately, since it's his subreddit, it's up to him to make that decision.

I also can't help but think that maybe it is for the best. Yes, IAMA is a large community, but its size is as much of a weakness as a strenght. If you look at IAMAs from a couple of years ago, it's hard to deny that the quality is much higher. Over the last year IAMA has pretty much collapsed under the weight of bogus medical conditions, lonely attention seekers, outright liars, frauds, scams, etc.

I am hopeful that something better will emerge.

49
syuk•

Me too, I don't think 32 bites was the only mod - maybe one of the other mods has some ideas for how to reboot it.

It is a bit of a 'it's my ball and I'm taking it home' scenario, but one he is in his rights to do.

20
flyryan•

He demodded all of us.

58
danE3030•

Did he give you any warning/reasoning? How long have you 'known' the guy?

12
[deleted]•

Nope.

3
MercurialMadnessMan•

He's kicked people off the list in the past without telling them about it.

2
syuk•

:(

4
REALLY_OBNOXIOUS•

DID HE EVEN GIVE YOU A HEADS UP MAN DUDE BRO?

-10
flyryan•

Nope.

9
danE3030•

Technically yes, he is 'within his rights', but if you examine the situation the whole thing reeks of egotism. He could hand it off and never look at the subreddit again but because he 'made' it originally, he has an inflated sense of ownership.

He doesn't own the subreddit, he never did, and its kind of sad to see someone go to these lengths despite the uproar of the subscribers that made IAMA what it is (for better or for worse).

I just don't get why he won't cede power to cooler heads, and I think that is because there is nothing to 'get'.

EDIT: 32bites was @ work with no access to a computer, I guess I had it wrong. Sorry 32bites.

17
syuk•

He does 'own' his subreddit(s), I agree it might have been dealt with better - but this is how it works, spend energy improving the situation, it probably won't change unless he change his mind.

5
danE3030•

I realize he controls it, but I guess I didn't realize a person could own a subreddit. Does that mean he can generate ad revenue, etc? Honest question, not quite sure how this works.

1
TealNyson•

IAMA is easily one of the most troubled (content problems) subreddits in the top 10, along with r/atheism.

Unfortunately big subscriber base = loads of crap to wade through.

Maybe a shakeup, being put into receivership, and reopening with tighter moderation is actually a good thing.

2
TILwhofarted•

Why don't we create an AMA that requires proof of identity to be accepted?

1
[deleted]•

There have been various proposals about proof of identify, but (1) identity can be easy to fake and (2) it's time consuming to verify and (3) people would be hesitant to submit proof of identity on some sensitive topics.

1
[deleted]•

It was the poop, wasn't it? The 20-days-late poop was just too much.

1
vlf_fata•

Name me 5 AMA's that weren't a complete toolfest or fake.

I can't.

-6
Phaz•

Ken Jennings, Stephen Colbert, Opera Crew, Mike Rowe, Anthony Weiner, Danny Pudi, Fabio, Bruce Campbell, Notch, Moot, Donald Glover.

Need any more?

9
hopstar•

Sorted by "top posts of all time" - note that everything with a green dot is verified, and many of the gray dots were legit and verified via the person's twitter or facebook posts. Some of my favorites:

  • The Trailer Park Boys
  • John K, the creator of Ren and Stimpy
  • Astronaut Chris Hadfield
  • Roger Ebert
  • Kyle Glass
  • CNN Anchor Don Lemon
  • Mike Nelson (MST3K and Rifftrax)
  • several engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab
  • Joe Rogan
  • Former senator Mike Gravel

edit: sorry, this was meant to be a reply to the post above you.

3
vlf_fata•

Ken Jennings was good. Fabio's was the funniest I've read. Bo burnhams was pretty good too.

Notice how all the ones you listed were celebrities (or crew's of celebrities)

1
hopstar•

Non-celeberities, or famous people that you don't really think of as "Celebs":

  • John K, the creator of Ren and Stimpy
  • Astronaut Chris Hadfield
  • Roger Ebert
  • CNN Anchor Don Lemon
  • several engineers from NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab
  • Former senator Mike Gravel
  • Brooks Brown (Columbine survivor)
  • Mark Dean, long time IBM engineer and one of the fathers of modern PC architecture
  • One of the developers of VLC
  • One of the writers of Arrested Development

I could go on...

3
[deleted]•

How many 'I have a minimum wage job AMA' threads can they make?

I'm glad it's shutting down.

48
amadeus2490•

Every time a celebrity would post, all of the "questions" would just be a quote from something they've done, or "I just wanted to say you're awesome!!". It adds absolutely nothing to the conversation, and it isn't crap that these famous people hear millions of times a day. What's even sadder than that, are all of the confirmed fake IAMAs; people actually sit there and pretend they're someone else.

Good riddance!

40
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
[deleted]•

You had Noam Chomsky, Anthony Bourdain, Richard Dawkins, and Anthony Weiner (before the dick scandal), do video Q&As with (mostly) intelligent and unique questions, but because of a few dicks you just think we should burn the whole thing to the ground?

1
amadeus2490•

If it was only a few, I wouldn't feel that way. 98% of the threads and questions/responses from the users are just god-awful.

If a team of people want to heavily moderate it so that the quality of posts go up, that's up to them. If not, it's no big loss.

1
[deleted]•

Ok, so from now on if we want to ask a celebrity a question we should run it by amadeus 2490. Got it.

1
[deleted]•

Srsly, reddit is full of unimaginative, uncreative, meme shouters. The people shouting 'LIKE A BOSS' in real life? These are redditors.

Also 'celebrities' that posted on IAMA....like....Will Wheaton? that dude is a faggot nobody.

-4
mrwhiteyman•

I think there were some pretty good celebrity AMAs, the only ones I really read through happened to be Donald Glover and Danny Pudi's from community, because I love that show.

Also your post is very bitter and angry and it makes me sad.

5
[deleted]•

The forum is nothing but uninteresting people 99.999% of the time. Look at it now, there are no questions any sane person would want to ask these every day folks. 'I Work third shift at McDonalds, AMA' Yeah heres a question - why the fuck did you post here, no one wants to hear from you?

-2
JohnStamosBRAH•

"STOP LIKING WHAT I DONT LIKE"

-7
[deleted]•

[deleted]

27
[deleted]•

you hit it out of the park dude. It's called 'web decay'. It's what happens when the masses of casuals comes into a site. What was once a niche market for funny people, or creative people, turns into what youtube is. It happened at fark, somethingawful, 4chan, and here. The best thing that could happen to reddit is to ban all rage comics, and start enforcing quality control. No more 'fixed', 'the original ____' 'We all ______ when', 'This is me' posts.

14
[deleted]•

being a website now is like being a grunge band in the nineties.

success = death.

don't worry, soon we'll have a new web 3.0 scene and all our retarded 'communities' will be forgotten. the best we can hope for is that further down the cycles when they do nostalgic tributes they put some feeling in it. dig?

1
Orca-•

Fark's managed to maintain a reasonable level of amusing snark. Well, I find it amusing anyway.

Notsomuch with the insightful comments, but it's never been about that.

1
SuleyJoe•

To further illustrate your point, you can check on alexa what the main search queries are that drive traffic to reddit:

1 reddit 23.79%

2 reddit nsfw 1.33%

3 jailbait 0.81%

4 ass 0.80%

5 upskirt 0.51%

6 redit 0.51%

7 reddit.com 0.43%

8 rage comics 0.37%

9 f7u12 0.34%

10 reddit jailbait 0.27%

4
Infinity_Wasted•

being #3 on the list- and even 1 and 2 at times- is what saved r/jailbait from being banned by the admins outright in the beginning and middle periods of it's lifespan. it was such a traffic driver that they simply couldn't kill it at a point when Reddit was not as big as it is now.

1
[deleted]•

I would love to see an admins response to this. About a year ago they were openly claiming Reddit would not go the same way as Digg, but the transformation is almost complete.

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
zanycaswell•

If you're glad it's shutting down, why are you subscribed? And if you're not subscribed, why do you care what kind of content it has?

4
[deleted]•

and "I just got circumcised" threads. I can't tell you how many of those I've seen.

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
zombieterrorist•

It's his subreddit. He can do whatever he wants with it.

Don't like it? Create your own subreddit.

45
ElMoog•

He can, but it does not mean that he should. It's a dick move.

206
BiggiesOnMyShorty•

He's making a point. He doesn't like reddit as much as he used to a few years ago and this is his way of saying F U.

60
[deleted]•

Ragequit.

109
energybeing•

Hemad

34
Canadian_Infidel•

So he's 12 years old?

1
BiggiesOnMyShorty•

I dunno. I think it's kind of funny.

2
hoboninja•

He's a whiny little bitch and should just pass mod to someone else if he doesn't like it anymore.

0
[deleted]•

[deleted]

-2
zombieterrorist•

That I can agree with.

42
vlf_fata•

You're right that it is a dick move. However, I think the appeal of reddit is that you have an outlet to create whatever you want without too much worry of a higher being coming down and changing things around. You even get to ban people, which is a HUGE power level when you consider the average internet forum user. Your subreddit is yours, there are many like it, but this one is yours.

Reddit as a whole is feeling way to entitled to this subreddit. They seriously sound like someone is pulling the plug on their social security. The subreddit isn't yours, it will never be yours. Get over it and move on. There is life after IAMA, trust me.

18
[deleted]•

He didn't create shit. Nothing about this subreddit is original.

2
Brooklynxman•

So you think the community of IAmA wasnt using it as an outlet to create what they wanted and dint have a higher being come down and change things around by shutting it down?

-2
bearlokey•

If you create the subreddit you can do whatever you want with it. If you type up or otherwise create some content to post it is yours to post where you want. Someone deciding to shutdown something they created is perfectly fine and in no way affects the ability of the subscribers to create their content, just where they get to post it.

3
vlf_fata•

I'm not talking about the posters, I'm talking about the creator of the subreddit. The community was using it as another way to get pun threads going and circle jerk how clever they are by referencing arrested development. For every 1 genuinely good, true, non "famous" ama, there were 500 shit ones and 500 fake ones.

2
[deleted]•

He could've just given it to another mod without any hassle. Instead, he's just killing the whole thing.

-3
vlf_fata•

He could have, but he chose not to. It's his choice.

9
[deleted]•

So what, anyone can talk about how things SHOULD be, its super easy and requires no effort. Try facing reality once in a while, he was the mod and like it or not was within his rights to shut it down.

1
JoinRedditTheySaid•

Deal with it.

-1
andrewsmith1986•

Yes, it is a dick move but is he wrong to do so?

Should the admins step in and take his subreddit by force?

Should a mob be able to hold a coup?

I do not think so and I think this will do more for the community (in the long run/behind the scenes) than bad.

I am also deeply upset that it is gone though. :(

-3
fco83•

Maybe only admins should be able to kill subreddits. A mod could request one be killed, but if it is in the best interest of the community (high traffic subreddits would be a great example), instead the subreddit could be handed off to new management.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

-45
HalfysReddit•

So, do you always talk like a twelve year old or only on the internet?

6
[deleted]•

Yep. Always. And I believe he/she fancies him/herself an intellectual. Funny stuff. Got this asshole tagged, only reason why I recognized him.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

-14
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
smarchweather•

That's silly. So many people have contributed. And the website does not belong to him. He's not an owner nor is he an employee. Users may be outraged if they want. I created the health subreddit and handed it over to someone when I didn't want to continue moderating.

39
GodOfAtheism•

And the website does not belong to him.

The subreddit does though and he can do with it what he wishes. Just like you handed over the health subreddit to someone else.

37
Jilt_Soda•

He has control of the subreddit, not ownership. That control is granted by the owners of reddit and they can take it away if they want. They probably shouldn't and almost certainly won't, but they could. It isn't his subreddit, it is reddit's subreddit that he created and maintained voluntarily in exchange for the power to moderate it as he wished (including shutting it down).

I think the real division here isn't about whether the admins should hand over IAMA to somebody else or not, but rather whether the admins support the angry mob of reddit users or the heavy handed and/or selfish subreddit moderators. Either way nobody involved comes out looking good. Not the mods, not the community, and unfortunately not the admins, who are left with a shitty (if in my mind rather easy) choice.

21
GodOfAtheism•

He has control of the subreddit, not ownership. ...

While the ownership of the bits and bytes and html/css/etc. is reddits, he created the subreddit, he was the top mod in the subreddit, so except in rather pedantic terms, it's his subreddit.

They probably shouldn't and almost certainly won't, but they could.

Thank goodness for that.

I think the real division here isn't about whether the admins should hand over IAMA to somebody else or not, but rather whether the admins support the angry mob of reddit users or the heavy handed and/or selfish subreddit moderators.

Preach it brother. I sincerely hope they support the subreddit creator in this. After all, you can always create a new subreddit if you don't like how one is being run (See: r/trees/.). The big kerfuffle with r/IAmA/ is that it had a monstrous amount of subscribers.

18
[deleted]•

Can't have it both ways. Either mods get full control over sub reddits with no admin intervention or the admins can interfere with anyone subreddit for any issue at anytime and should be expected to. Pick one dickhead.

0
zanycaswell•

He doesn't support it financially and he doesn't own a copyright on the name or any of the content. How does he own it?

1
GodOfAtheism•

He created it intially. That subreddit is his plaything to do with as he wishes, except in very particular circumstances, like CSS fuckery.

1
mileswaureroad•

SO CAN HE SELL IT SINCE HE OWNS IT? NO HE CAN'T. GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE.

-4
hobbit6•

u mad?

3
PaulMezz•

You wouldn't download a subreddit.

2
zombieterrorist•

He's not an owner nor employee, you're right.

However, the admins here have said many times that these issues have arisen (r/marijuana was already given as an example, then there's issues like how r/anarchy is overly moderated) that the owners of the subreddit are free to do as they wish with the subreddit.

I'm not saying I agree with his decision, but it was his decision to make.

18
el_muerte17•

r/anarchy is moderated? I think they're missing the point...

19
[deleted]•

a lot of anarchists are fucking crazy about rules! but they like to talk about how they're not governing, it's like, some kind of meta-government that exists only to create an environment of collaborative self-government!

and then another anarchist show up to tell you how those other guys are just children, they haven't even read any weighty anarchist tomes and ipso facto therefore have no fucking clue of what they speak QED.

overall, anarchists are a lot less fun than you might first imagine.

3
Skuld•

http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/e6son/til_that_ranarchism_has_more_rules_than_any_other/

3
HardToImpress•

That was your decision, this is his. Why are you acting like you're entitled to something that doesn't even belong to you?

13
[deleted]•

It's like reading reddit without owning the servers.

8
tfaal•

The moderators of a reddit don't own it any more than its readers do. The owners are the reddit admins, and the only reasonable administrative decision in this case is to remove the disruptive user from his position.

-3
zombieterrorist•

The moderators of a reddit don't own it any more than its readers do. The owners are the reddit admins

The reddit admins disagree with you.

3
CelebornX•

So why do you think it's fair that you could just hand the subreddit over to someone else without the express consent of the r/health community?

7
[deleted]•

The point is, they probably wouldn't mind as much. It's better to allow someone else to run it then just shut the whole thing down.

2
Vic_Rattlehead•

Lousy Smarch weather...

1
NerdyMcNerderson•

This is going to get a lot of flack/downvotes, but I agree. Most of the posts in IAmA are silly anyway. Tons of silly threads gets tons of attention.

Example: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/jt08h/as_requested_i_was_in_a_people_of_walmart_photo/

Really, what is there to ask of someone who happened to be passing by when someone else was being photographed for a picture that happened to end up on people of walmart? If you look at that thread, the guy in question is the creator of Cyanide and Happiness (a popular webcomic) and yet the questions asked of him were still asinine. You'd think the community there could do better.

It's a shame because there are a few really good legit IAmA posts (i.e. Ken Jennings or Moot) but most of the threads are just circlejerks.

25
bsgb•

You're example is actually a concealed AMA with the Cyanide & Happiness creator that was mysteriously unappreciated by the mob.

11
Neebat•

I laughed my ass off when I realized what was up with that. And then I enjoyed the AMA.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
ghostchamber•

He can, but he's intentionally being a dickwad about it:

Because while yes one of issues is that I don't have enough time for the subreddit is that the community for the most part has gone to shit and dumping that burden on another moderator wont fix anything at all.

He's bitching that he doensn't have time to mod it, so his solution is to shut it down instead of handing over moderation to someone else?

21
[deleted]•

Reddit sucks really bad now. He's doing what's best for the community. I personally believe this place is beyond saving, but more power to him if he wants to try.

0
having_said_that•

how does this "save" reddit exactly?

2
[deleted]•

it removes a tumor. If you can't see why Iama is a breeding ground for shitty content you're part of the problem.

3
FuckinEpicUsername•

You said it maan.

-5
dawtcalm•

IAMA's size made it valuable and the size of that audience made it worthwhile for people to do the IAMA in the first place!
People won't be willing to do an IAMA for the next few months for a small number of users, and users won't be drawn because there are no IAMA posts.
It kills the whole point and is very counter-intuitive!

7
footstepsfading•

Don't like it? Create your own subreddit.

No. Don't create another one. There are already at least 7. Just migrate over to r/ama.

7
el_muerte17•

...except that ama is a troll heaven because downvotes are disabled.

6
Neebat•

Also does not want celebrity AMAs, which are sometimes awesome. (The one advantage would be, never having AMA requests for celebs.)

2
IdiotRedditor-•

Holy shit, if I created my own AMA subreddit, then I could be God and give myself unnimaginable power!!!!... in my otherwise miserable life... BRB!

6
Neebat•

I encourage you to try. I could create it for you if you like and sign it over. More people should try, seriously.

1
Suzushiiro•

True, plenty of subreddits that are around today are ones that came around due to the death of a previous subreddit via mod douchebaggery (most notably r/trees coming from r/marijuana.)

That said, if he didn't want to mod it anymore he should have just passed it to someone else.

5
pobody•

Just because he founded the area doesn't mean he should be allowed to salt the earth.

There should be a policy where unmoderated subreddits can have a new moderator assigned.

1
zombieterrorist•

That's what r/redditrequest is for. But this isn't a case of an unmoderated subreddit, this is a case of the creator 'closing' the subreddit.

Maybe the admins will make an exception in this case with IAmA being such a large subreddit, but history says it's unlikely.

3
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
Owwmykneecap•

How libertarian of you.

0
[deleted]•

and their website...

0
zombieterrorist•

and their policies says it's his.

It's not going away, but only because 32bites decided otherwise.

The admins said they'd take over if he wanted to step down

2
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1
FANGO•

It's his subreddit

Actually no, I'm pretty sure there's 500k subscribers, not one.

0
[deleted]•

[deleted]

0
zanycaswell•

Does he pay for the server space? Does he create the content? No, the entire reddit community pays for server space and the entire reddit community creates the content. He has no ownership rights.

-1
zombieterrorist•

Except the admins, those that actually put work into reddit and make the rules say he does.

3
ChewyIsThatU•

Not so, when things get bigger than the person, they lose ownership of it. See Zapgruder film.

-2
zombieterrorist•

Zapgruder film is not reddit.

1
[deleted]•

[deleted]

-1
zombieterrorist•

one that holds no meaning in this situation.

0
john_nyc•

the guy didn't build the thing up and spend millions of dollars...he went to create a subreddit and typed in IAmA - done.

-4
zombieterrorist•

I know how to create a subreddit, thanks.

5
john_nyc•

the issue isn't him closing a sub with 13 followers - the thing has 500,000 reddit users using it. It is a reddit property - reddit owns the servers, the code, the infrastructure, gave him a place to create it and it became on of the bigger subs on the site. Removing all mods and killing the sub should not be allowed by reddit if others want to moderate it. If no one cares reddit should make the sub available for some one else to claim or wipe it away, but in this case 500,000 care.

-4
zombieterrorist•

Those people who own the servers, code, infrastructure, and gave him a place to create it say the owner of the subreddit has full control of the subreddit (as long as its not breaking the law/TOS) so its kind of a moot point. Those 500k people can go join r/ama or create an entirely new reddit for their purpose.

3
Fookimoose•

I agree with his decision and his reasons.

40
[deleted]•

I disagree. 32bites is literally worse than fifty gay Hitlers for changing something I like. NOW I CANT HAVE FUN ON THE COMPUTER

22
pants428•

Fifty gay Hitlers? By my calculation that is somewhere between killing 300 and 550 million people, all while having one hell of a dick sucking competition.

3
Atario•

So what?

1
tidu•

He can do what he wants, but that doesn't mean he's not a power-hungry asshole.

30
user681•

How is he power hungry? He sees that Iama is now filled with idiots and retards so he wants to shut it down. I don't see how it's wrong..I mean look at the current IAMA ! and compare that to IAMA from a year ago..

18
rakista•

Just because it is 70% noise now doesn't mean that the 30% should be discounted. It takes a downvote and a scroll of the mouse to get past the noise, what is the big deal?

19
ceolceol•

Because everyone is concentrating on the noise to miss the signal?

3
rakista•

Who? Internet amateurs?

I have an RSS reader with over 6000 feeds and I can manage it, if you can't manage 2-3 dozen active feeds here on Reddit, well you are doing it wrong. My news tab alone has over 400 sources which ends up being 70-80% noise and reposts, yet I still use it everyday. Scroll button people, scroll button.

2
Atario•

Because what's the point of having power if you can't use it to enforce your own tastes on others, amirite?

1
[deleted]•

I think people are over-using the word "power hungry." There have been a few instances of mods not being nice and ninja banning people, but this isn't the case here. He created the subreddit, and it amazes me how people cry out "this is a site based on democracy!!1" and now they're crying out that the admins should do something about it. Well, which is it? Either people manage to convince him to hand the subreddit over, or he closes it. It's completely up to him.

And I'd bet money that he's getting hate messages left and right in his inbox, because that's the sort of place reddit is. No one can be decent and polite about anything. It's a shame, really.

10
Rendonsmug•

Either people manage to convince him to hand Libya over, or he brings it into sectarian war. The true definition of a democracy!

1
LostOverThere•

Allegedly, he got threatening phone calls to him at work...

1
rglitched•

He can do whatever he wants with it but it doesn't mean he isn't a douche for arbitrarily shutting down something that 470,000 people were happy enough with to have it on their front page.

-1
interrob4ng•

He isn't arbitrarily shutting it down. He has very clear reasons which he laid out in his post.

4
nikon1177•

Reddit has terrible mods, there isn't a week that goes by without something like this where a mod gets way over full of themselves and does something ignorant. I'm sick of it.

29
columbine•

I'd guess the terrible mods are probably a consequence of having terrible users in general. You know. Probably hard to find a potato in a vineyard.

27
dkinmn•

And if you do, it's probably a zombie potato.

1
[deleted]•

that is a great turn of phrase.

1
arlanTLDR•

You make it sound like they hire their mods or something. You become a mod by making a subreddit, or a mod promoting you. They don't work for reddit in the least.

5
[deleted]•

People take mods for granted, and mods are just people too. Mods aren't paid, and are human, so when someone messes up, please try not to give them too hard of a time.

This is volunteer work, and it's not prestigious or fun work either. People make mistakes.

3
ex_oh_ex_oh•

There are hundreds upon hundreds of subs. Each one with multiple mods. It's not surprising that conflict arises within such circles. To whine about it like it's a running plague is just really ignorant of how this thing works.

3
[deleted]•

So be a mod =)

1
[deleted]•

"So you run for congress!"

7
Neebat•

Except you can be a mod without anyone's vote. I'm a mod, and it's a very short form.

4
[deleted]•

Yeah. Exactly.

0
ohmanohmana•

... Do you understand why this response is completely lacking in any substance whatsoever, and does little to change the problem?

-3
[deleted]•

No, I don't understand actually. It was an honest suggestion in a direct response to solve this guy's problem with reddit mods. How is it not relevant and how does it not add to the discussion, especially since you responded to it and the discussion has been added to?

3
Vusys•

Because you can't force a subreddit owner to make you a mod.

0
CelebornX•

The IAmA community sucks. It was a great source of entertainment, but I'm glad to see it go.

Now everyone will move over to r/ama until that one blows up and sucks, too.

28
[deleted]•

[deleted]

10
CelebornX•

I don't like the community. I like the idea of the subreddit. So close the subreddit and let it start up again, but better this time.

Of course no one's forcing me to read it. But when I choose to read it, I'm forced to put up with endless amounts of assholes.

So big fucking deal. Close it down. I don't give a shit. All the assholes in the community deserve it. Shutting down IAmA is karma for every downvote given based on disapproval or disagreement.

19
[deleted]•

[deleted]

2
CelebornX•

It's funny that you use that analogy because it could easily be applied as the counter point.

"Doctor my hands hurt when I play video games."

"Don't play video games."

"Well I fucking want to play video games."

Saying don't go there doesn't solve the problem. Blowing up the subreddit and forcing it to start again actually could.

That said, I definitely wouldn't have shut it down myself as it is a dick move. But the amount of bigotry and general asshole-ish-ness in that place causes me to not really care that it's being shutdown. I'm more entertained by the drama now than I ever was about the constant whining about fake AmAs so I don't mind its death.

So it goes.

1
Atario•

I don't like the community. I like the idea of the subreddit. So close the subreddit and let it start up again, but better this time.

Translation: I don't like what they like, so they should be punished.

1
SuleyJoe•

I'll go out on a limb, you never created a subreddit in your life. Am I correct? Well it's your chance now, 450K people are looking for a subreddit to post in. Be the good guy that manages it, and you'll have the power to keep it alive for as long as you wish.

1
shillbert•

If the creator of the subreddit doesn't like it, then he can shut it down. It's really fucking simple. No one is forcing him to keep it open.

1
[deleted]•

I wish 32 bites was also the mod of TIL

22
Master_race•
13
Bring_dem•

If you expect a level of quality out of r/trees then youre doing it wrong.

5
DevRW•

Now, now. Let's not get too hasty.

If we didn't have simple, shit-funnel subreddits, like TIL and DAE, the masses would only move to another one and nothing would change.

1
[deleted]•

Because he's the mod.

18
opiebreath•

I feel like this is akin to killing your girlfriend because you don't like the direction that the relationship has taken. Dude, just leave and let her find someone else.

Though this is probably an overly dramatic metaphor for something he actually IS allowed to do, it seems dickish nonetheless.

18
nepidae•

Agreed, killing your girlfriend seems like a dickish move.

2
Canadian_Infidel•

PROPOSED NEW RULE:

You can abandon a subreddit, but you cannot shut it down or delete it. I mean even known celebrities were on there.

15
dkinmn•

HOLY SHIT CELEBRITIES!!!!

13
[deleted]•

Lame, but I LOLed :)

1
Parrallax91•

You shut your whore mouth, I got to talk to Kenny because of that reddit.

1
niggerfodder•

Why does it matter if there were celebrities there? They can churn out shit too, or send someone else to answer for them after "verification".

7
[deleted]•

[deleted]

7
MercurialMadnessMan•

Out of curiosity... Have you ever given a penny to reddit to run the site?

0
[deleted]•

What does that have to do with anything? Only gold users are allowed to talk and have opinions?

1
MercurialMadnessMan•

I don't know if you or liquidtension realize how big of a deal it is to have celebrities dealing out interviews on a forum like this. Google, Firefox, Roger Ebert, Stephen Colbert, Facebook... all interacting with users here.

Without a doubt, it has invited higher traffic, and more funding.

So, user#9038450938 might say "fuck celebrities"... but they're actually gaining a lot of popularity and money to this site. This is something that the admins want.

1
InfernoZeus•

How would you enforce that though? He could still have removed all the mods and not allowed any new posts (which is pretty much exactly what he did).

2
[deleted]•

It's not possible to delete a sub, so we got that covered. All he did was change who could submit posts, something that is already built into the reddit code.

So your new rule doesn't accomplish much.

2
SuleyJoe•

I have an even better idea. Go make a subreddit, make it popular and get the celebrities to post there. I mean you'll have KNOWN CELEBRITIES in your personal subreddit. Isn't that what you really want?

1
parliamentlitesOP•

I get the facts that sometimes there are trolls in AMA. But there's trolls in r/askreddit, there's trolls in r/funny, there's trolls everywhere! Would you just shut down two of the biggest subreddits just because of trolls, and placing posts in the wrong subreddit? (which happens all the time too)

14
[deleted]•

Would you just shut down two of the biggest subreddits just because of trolls, and placing posts in the wrong subreddit?

The answer is yes. He very much intends to. He can and he will. That is that.

19
ApprenticeStoner•

No he can't, he isn't a mod in either of those subreddits. In fact IAmA is the only large subreddit he was a mod of, and he created it.

1
[deleted]•

No, but if we were a mod of both. He would.

2
Bypolur•

Trolls in Funny aren't really an issue. I mean, it's a joke subreddit, so trolling is basically expected. As for AskReddit, yes there can be trolls there too, but they aren't as effective. If someone trolls AskReddit saying "My wife is cheating on me, what should I do?" the advice that people give can still help others who are in the same predicament.

Trolling on IAmA is far easier and has been done with great success. When I started regularly visiting Reddit I used to always hit up IAmA, but over these last few months it's just sort of meh, to me.

10
syuk•

it has been the lies, the begging and the 'heh heh - I trolled all you guys' posts that did it for me. Something new will come along with hopefully better controls maybe.

I'm pretty sure there was more than the one mod as well? Have any of the other mods spoken about what has happened?

5
pants428•

Of course there are trolls. The internet is powered primarily by trolling and posting pictures of cats.

1
papajohn56•

Why do you care so damn much, wow. Go start your own site dedicated to IAMAs and fucking move on. Grow up.

-2
parliamentlitesOP•

See edit #3 jerkoff.

2
papajohn56•

I did, and I called you out for it. If this is such an important thing to you, maybe you should get your life priorities in order. It's not normal to sit around jerking off to AMA posts, bud.

1
parliamentlitesOP•

Let's start a fight on the internetz!!

2
scaredofplanes•

This doesn't answer your question, but as someone else who likes IAmA, I posted what I feel might be a solution to the elimination of IAmA, and to some of the problems he complains about. Please read, and offer feedback. Thanks.

14
Neebat•

I think that's entirely the wrong way to slice it, because it's too damned hard to distinguish what's "easily verifiable" vs. what's not. I'd much prefer to see it split by the type of poster.

  • "IWasInAMovie" for actors, producers and such, would be awesome for people with an interest in movies.
  • "IMadeThatGame" for coders, game artists, etc. Again, comes with an audience.
  • "AskTheSFWA" for science fiction fans to talk to the writers.
  • "PublicServantResponding" for politicians.

Those are just some suggestions, and easy to moderate because verifications could be done via twitter or web page.

There could be some specifically for topics you do NOT want to verify. "IHaveAFetish"? "IServedTime"?

4
scaredofplanes•

Yeah, that sort of verification is what I was thinking about too, where the person already has a verified twitter, Facebook, Google+, website, or some such thing. Thanks for replying!

3
rmm45177•

Do you mean to make a subreddit for each of those types of posters?

1
Neebat•

Yes

1
parliamentlitesOP•

I think this looks good to me, I just hope people will actually use it, now especially after all this bs

1
DaMountainDwarf•

I unsubscribed from that subreddit when I felt like it was 90 percent uninteresting AMA's (I'm a guy that has a job AMA.) and about 7 or 8 percent fake AMA's. The only legit interesting ones I'd hear about in another subreddit eventually and check them out then.

13
[deleted]•

[deleted]

1