THE GREAT REDDIT WAR OF 2015

It's /r/Planetside all over again: /r/history mod bans critic of Zimbabwe and demands he write an essay to apologize.

Before the transition from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, Ian Smith and his government wanted to implement a system of "one-taxpayer, one-vote" - most of the population (including the black population) seemed to go for it, until Socialist Liberation Groups like ZANU and ZANLA continued to call it an oppressive regime because they knew that they would never get chosen if that system were implement. The West listened to them, and continued holding sanctions on them. Finally, Rhodesia, couldn't support it, the transition of putting a black Prime-Minister (Abel Muzorewa through nationwide elections) in power, ensuring an end to minority-rule. The liberation groups showed their true colours now, and declared they did not recognize Zim-Rhodesia. They wanted power for themselves, and continued the sanctions and the Bush War. Now look at Zimbabwe, and compare it to Rhodesia. Rhodesia is the target of decades of campaigns of smearing and sabotage from the UK, and so the truth is very marred because of it. They were not fighting to preserve minority rule, they were fighting to protect their homes from exactly what is happening in Zimbabwe right now.

Voat.co is currently under a DDoS attack. This is the second attack in the last 24 hours.
9:42 AM - 14 Jun 2015

Our provider, hosteurope.de shut down our servers due to "political incorrectness" (self.announcements)
submitted 2 hours ago by Atko
Our hosting provider, hosteurope.de has terminated all our contracts and shut down all our servers without issuing a warning or trying to talk to us. This includes my private server which was only used to host my girlfriends blog. She is a scientist. She published her research papers on that blog (pre-formatted papers to which she owns the copyright). That server contained no other data whatsoever.

The reason they gave us when they notified us that they have cancelled our contract is "...we have received significant information that the content on your server includes political incorrect parts that are unacceptable for us." and "Due to the fact that we cannot keep bond of trust to you as our customer...".

Luckily, we have managed to move our databases to a cloud platform mere hours before they shut down our servers. Ladies and gentlemen, my eyes have been opened by this. I don't know about you, but we are living in a weird world. We will have to carefully evaluate our long term options of providing a platform of free speech if we are to stay online. Your donations are what keeps us afloat. Our paypal account has been un-suspended, so you can still donate to hello@voat.co, or via bitcoin to wallet address 1C4Q1RvUb3bzk4aaLVgGccnSnaHYFdESzY.

Also, I am back in Sweden from my post-graduation vacation, currently packing my things and I will be driving (moving) to Switzerland tomorrow or day after tomorrow.

Edit: just to clarify, I have been a hosteurope.de customer for well over 5 years, always paying my bills and never hosting any illegal content.

/r/Oppression has grown and become a thorn in the side of SRS, the Admins and the power moderator clique. However, the scale of this sub and the rule of Pao has created new challenges that we moderators have no choice but to address.
Accordingly, we have audited the content and moderator practices of the popular website "voat.co" . Our conclusion is that voat's freedom is incompatible with our own freedom (as defined by reddits's rules). Therefore, it is with great regret that we are going to have to have to remove all posts and comments featuring voat.co . This is due to our safety concerns corresponding with reddit rules.
Because we fight censorship, we have established a loophole whereby we can allow direct links to some subverses. As a result of negotiations, we are pleased to announce that subverses where a "trusted" reddit moderator is in control and actively curating content are safe enough to be posted to this subreddit.
Safe List (these links are safe to post on /r/oppression)
voat.co/v/oppression
voat.co/v/undelete
voat.co/v/trees
voat.co/v/bugs
voat.co/v/introduction
voat.co/v/atkoism
voat.co/v/clayton
voat.co/v/iama
voat.co/v/introductions
voat.co/v/opendiscussion
voat.co/v/PromptOfTheDay
voat.co/v/ShortStories
voat.co/v/writingprompt
UnSafe List (these links will be removed from /r/oppression as they are not safe)
voat.co
voat.co/v/...[anything not in the safelist]
You can help us increase your freedom on reddit by indicating any subverses on voat that have a default reddit moderator in control. Please also be forthcoming about the subverses where reddit moderator alt accounts are being used as we suspect this is the majority of cases (meaning our new rule will have little impact).
If you own a subverse and have no default reddit moderators on your mod list, maybe it is time you consider adding one. While you will have to carefully monitor their censorship, this will give you more freedom to advertise your subverse on reddit.
We are an early adopter of this strategy but believe the rest of reddit will follow. We are trying to set an example to other subreddits showing them how to avoid blanket censorship of a domain.
Transparency update

In line with our announcement here are the AutoModerator rules that have been implemented :
# Banned subverse links
type: submission
~url+body (includes): ["v/oppression", "v/undelete", "v/trees", "v/bugs", "v/introduction", "v/atkoism", "v/clayton", "v/iama", "v/introductions", "v/opendiscussion", "v/PromptOfTheDay", "v/ShortStories", "v/writingprompt"]
domain: voat.co
moderators_exempt: false
action: filter
comment: This post has been removed for linking/mentioning {{match}}. We do not feature content from this subverse. You can delete and post again without the link/mention, or edit your post and modmail asking for a reinstatement
The above is /r/oppression's implementation.
Other subreddits may use this AutoModerator and manipulate it to their liking.
Thanks to /r/defaultmods and #modtalk for putting this together so quick,

submitted 9 hours ago by derram_2
[size=14][size=14]https://i.imgur.com/Lm4GNH2.png
2 admins looked over the bot before it went live.
It was throttled back two weeks ago to limit it to half of what the rules allowed for.
They keep punishing but they refuse to clarify why.[/size][/size]

/r/science - Due to an unexpected Reddit administrative personnel change /r/science is temporarily private so that we can resolve the situation, our apologizes for any disruption this may cause.
/r/gaming - no details
/r/IAMA - Due to internal administration reorganization at reddit, /r/IAmA has temporarily been made private by the moderators. We will be using this time to restructure our process for AMAs. If you have any concerns, please contact reddit at: press@reddit.com or contact@reddit.com
Ninja edit: I've been informed that /r/movies and /r/history are private, too
/r/movies - Due to an unexpected Reddit administrative personnel change /r/movies joins a group of default subreddits going dark temporarily in an effort to resolve the situation. Our apologies for any disruption this may cause.
/r/history - In light of recent developments in reddit staff change and our own troubles in getting the proper support we need from reddit as a company we are setting this subreddit private. We will open up to the public again once we have figured out what course we want to take in the future. The events of today have contributed to this decision but are not our main reason for taking this action.
This seems related to the earlier incident involving Victoria, who handles AMAs, was let go/fired from reddit.
Anyone with other subreddits that have gone private, let me know and I'll edit them in.
Edit 1: Two other subs confirmed, /r/art and /r/CrappyDesign
/r/art -I've made /r/art and /r/crappydesign private at this moment because I think a protest is in order. I used to mod /r/iama and worked directly with /u/chooter- and I've seen the decline of reddit throughout Yishan and subsequently Chairman Poa's regime. Perhaps all of this is the straw that broke the camel's back. /u/chooter was one of the best employees reddit has ever had- and we as the community need to say- we've had enough.
/r/crappydesign - same message as above.
It seems that the other subs shutting down are doing so in protest.
Edit 2: /r/askreddit is private
/r/askreddit - As a statment on the treatment of moderators by Reddit administrators, as well as a lack of communication and proper moderation tools, /r/AskReddit has decided to go private for the time being. Please see this post in /r/ideasforaskreddit for more discussion.
Edit 3:
Here's the Jesse Jackson AMA that appears to be at the root of the issue: https://archive.is/jouWQ
/r/OutOfTheLoop thread: https://archive.is/ppes2
/r/ideasforaskreddit thread: https://archive.is/PMuOJ
Edit 4:
karmanaut's answer response to the unfolding situation: https://archive.is/AZcbn
I'm currently trying to get in touch with the other mods of /r/SubredditDramaDrama to go private in protest as well.
Edit 5: /r/law is private
/r/law - We have chosen at this time to set /r/law private. Communication and support between admins and moderators has been deteriorating and basic tools such as moderator tools and modmail are sloppy at best, with constant promise for improvement never coming. Communication has also been lacking as evidenced by todays mishandled firing of Chooter. In solidarity with fellow subs, we have chosen to go private.
Edit 6: /r/SubredditDramaDrama is private
/r/SubredditDramaDrama - We have chosen at this time to set /r/SubredditDramaDrama private. Communication and support between admins and moderators has been deteriorating and basic tools such as moderator tools and modmail are sloppy at best, with constant promise for improvement never coming. Communication has also been lacking as evidenced by todays mishandled firing of Chooter. In solidarity with fellow subs, we have chosen to go private.
Edit 7: Uh, can anyone read German?
/r/de - https://archive.is/yt6W4
Edit 8: Voat confirms that it's being hit with a huge amount of traffic: https://twitter.com/voatco/status/616763048339095552
Edit 9: /r/de_iama is private
/r/de_iama: Aufgrund der aktuellen Entwicklung hinsichtlich der Entlassung von Victoria schließt sich /r/de_iama den Default Subreddits an, die solange geschlossen bleiben bis die Situation aufgeklärt ist. Wir wünschen Victoria alles gute und möchte unsere Solidarität mit ihr und den anderen Mods ausdrücken, die sich diesem Protest anschliessen. Hier könnt ihr die Situation diskutieren
Edit 10: /r/listentothis has removed the ability to submit threads in solidarity with other subs: https://archive.is/cLSUt
/r/OutOfTheLoop has a write-up on this: https://archive.is/qDc7Q
Edit 11: /r/videos is private
/r/videos - After lengthy discussion, the /r/videos moderators have decided to join several other large subreddits in 'going dark' to protest the lack of communication between the reddit staff and the volunteers who keep the site ticking over.
As a result of similar language in many of the privacy messages, I'm christening this "The Darkening".
Edit 12: /r/subredditcancer is private
/r/subredditcancer - /r/subredditcancer is currently standing with our fellows in protest concerning the current situation happening on Reddit.
Feel free to join us over at /r/RedditLoyalists
If you're on twitter, get information out using #TheDarkening.
Edit 13: /r/imgoingtohellforthis and /r/FalloutMods have gone private
/r/imgoingtohellforthis - In a show of solidarity, we've 'gone dark' alongside several other large subreddits to protest the lack of communication between the reddit staff and the volunteers who keep the site ticking.
/r/FalloutMods - Due to the way Reddit has handled recent changes in administration, /r/falloutmods has decided to join a group of subreddits going dark temporarily. We apologize to those wishing to post. Please stand by.
Edit 14: /r/starcitizen and /r/sexwithbears are private
/r/starcitizien - Due to internal administration reorganization at reddit, /r/starcitizen has temporarily been made private by the moderators. If you have any concerns, please contact reddit at: press@reddit.com or contact@reddit.com
/r/sexwithbears - Due to an unexpected Reddit administrative personnel change /r/sexwithbears joins a group of default subreddits going dark temporarily in an effort to resolve the situation. Our apologies for any disruption this may cause.
More subs:
/r/ninjago
/r/IveFappedToThis
/r/SportsBra
Edit 15:
/r/BadPhilosphy
/r/4chan
Gizmodo article: https://archive.is/GOHWU
/r/jokes stands with the other subs in solidarity: https://archive.is/jK5Pg
Edit 16:
Admin /u/kn0thing's statement regarding this: "Popcorn tastes good"
The live thread: https://www.reddit.com/live/v6d0vi6c8veb
Edit 17: /r/Falloutlore is private
Edit 18: /r/gaming4gamers is private
Edit 19: /r/PaoMustResign is private
Edit 20: /r/books to go private - https://archive.is/DVzu8
/r/ThePopcornStand stands in solidarity with the other subs
/r/netsec is private
/r/seo is private
/r/universityofreddit is private
/r/portugalcaraho is private
A mathematician who was supposed to have an IAMA today expresses his displeasure: https://archive.is/vZIOt
/r/SoundCloud is private
More articles on the situation: https://archive.is/kEVut, https://archive.is/SDxZn
Edit 21:
/r/lewronggeneration is private
/r/blackpeopletwitter is private
/r/jobfair is private
/r/lifeprotips is private
/r/squaredcirclejerk is private
Edit 22: /r/MCWT is private
Too many subs are private to list. Unless something major happens, consider this the last update for now.
Edit 23: TechRaptor article: http://techraptor.net/content/developing-popular-reddit-sub-riama-others-goes-private
Edit 24: /r/TodayILearned is private
Edit 25: /r/Music is private
We've hit /r/all guys. Welcome to the big leagues.
Edit 26: /r/AMRsucks and /r/SRSsucks are private. The owner of /r/TimandEric has handed it over to /pol/
Edit 27: /r/MineralPorn is private. Numerous small subs are private.
I need whiskey. Please send help.
Edit 28: Unidan makes an appearance: https://archive.is/v8zTM
/r/buttcoin is private
/r/Spain is private
/r/UKPolitics is private
/ggrevolt/ is currently whining that we're traitors by not shutting down. Kindly fuck off /ggrevolt/, we're busy getting shit done.
/r/askscience will not go private, but stands in solidarity with the other subs: https://archive.is/zc1ZF
/r/Horny is down.
Edit 29: /r/pics will not go private but will restrict submissions in solidarity.

TL;DR /r/IAmA, /r/AskReddit, /r/Books, /r/science, /r/Music, /r/gaming, /r/history, /r/Art, /r/videos, /r/gadgets, /r/todayilearned, /r/Documentaries, /r/LifeProTips, and /r/movies have all made themselves private in response to the removal of an administrator key to the AMA process, /u/chooter, but also due to underlying resentment against the admins for running the site poorly - being uncommunicative, and disregarding the thousands of moderators who keep the site running. In addition, /r/listentothis has disabled all submissions, and so has /r/picsand /r/Jokes has announced its support (but has not gone private). Major subreddits, including /r/4chan, /r/circlejerk and /r/ImGoingToHellForThis, have also expressed solidarity through going private. See here for a further list.

What happened?

At approximately 5pm UTC, 1pm EST, on Thursday the 2nd of July, 2015, the moderators of /r/IAmA took their subreddit, which is one of the default set, private. This means that only a very small number of people (consisting of the moderators of /r/IAmA, as well as any pre-approved users) could view and post to the subreddit, making it for all intents and purposes shut down; any other redditors would just see this page. Just after that, a thread was posted to this subreddit, asking whether anyone knew why it had happened. /u/karmanaut, top mod of /r/IAmA, responded with an explanation of why they took the subreddit private.
Why was /r/IAmA made private, then?

The situation was explained here by /u/karmanaut: the mods of /r/IAmA had just found out that without prior warning, /u/chooter, or Victoria, had been released from her position at reddit. They 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. /u/karmanaut went on to say that many of the mods affected by this do not believe that the admins understand how heavily /u/chooter was relied upon to allow AMAs to go smoothly - something which is outlined below. Without her, they found themselves in a difficult situation, which is exemplifed by what happened today:
We had a number of AMAs scheduled for today that Victoria was supposed to help with, and they are all left absolutely high and dry. She was still willing to help them today (before the sub was shut down, of course) even without being paid or required to do so. Just a sign of how much she is committed to what she does.
As a result of this, the mods therefore took /r/IAmA private, stating their reasoning as follows:
for /r/IAMA to work the way it currently does, we need Victoria. Without her, we need to figure out a different way for it to work
we will need to go through our processes and see what can be done without her.
Who is /u/chooter, and why was she so important to the functioning of IAmA?

/u/chooter(/about/team#user/chooter), featured in our wiki is Victoria Taylor, who was, until today, Director of Talent at reddit. However, her essential role was to act as liaison between reddit, IAmA, and any members of the public that wanted to do AMAs; she therefore helped to set up AMAs with celebrities, and, if they were not too familiar with computers (like Bill Murray), she may help them out, both over the phone and in person.
Links of interest:
reddit blog post announcing her hire
Victoria's AMA (cached)
Victoria was important to AMAs for a number of major reasons: firstly, she provided concrete proof of the identify of a celebrity doing an AMA, and made sure that it was not a second party purporting to be the celebrity; she was also a direct line of contact to the admins, allowing the moderators of AMA to quickly resolve an issue encountered during an AMA (the consequences of the absence of which were bad - (screenshot). Victoria also was the channel for the scheduling of AMAs by third parties, and she would ensure both that an AMA was up to scratch before it was posted, and that the person doing the AMA understood exactly what it entailed. Without her, the mods of /r/IAmA say that they will be overwhelmed, and that they may even need to limit AMAs.
Why did she leave reddit so abruptly?

The short answer: no-one, excluding a select few of the administrative team, knows precisely why /u/chooter was removed as an admin, and that will almost certainly continue to be the case until the admins get their house in order: both parties are at being professional in that they aren't talking about the reasons why it occurred.
What have the reactions across the rest of reddit been?

So far, /r/AskReddit, /r/Books, /r/science, /r/Music, /r/gaming, /r/history, /r/Art, /r/videos, /r/gadgets, /r/todayilearned, /r/Documentaries, /r/LifeProTips, and /r/movies have followed /r/IAmA in making themselves private. In addition, /r/listentothis has disabled all submissions, and so has /r/picsand /r/Jokes has announced its support (but has not gone private). Major subreddits, including /r/4chan, /r/circlejerk and /r/ImGoingToHellForThis, have also expressed solidarity through going private. See here for a further list.
Many other subreddits were also reliant on /u/chooter's services as an official contact point for the organisation of AMAs on reddit, including /r/science, /r/books, and /r/Music. So, in order to express their dissatisfaction with the difficulties they have been placed in without /u/chooter, similar to /r/IAmA, they have made themselves private.
/u/nallen, lead mod of /r/science, explained that subreddit's reasoning in this way:
To back this up, I am the mod in /r/science that organizes all of the science AMAs, and I am going to have meaningful problems in the /r/Science AMAs; Victoria was the only line of communication with the admins. If someone wants to get analytics for an AMA the answer will be "Sorry, I can't help."
Dropping this on all of us in the AMA sphere feels like an enormous slap to those of us who put in massive amounts of time to bring quality content to reddit.
In turn, /u/imakuram, /r/books moderator, had this to say:
This seems to be a seriously stupid decision. We have several AMAs upcoming in /r/books and have no idea how to contact the authors.
/r/AskReddit's message expressed a similar sentiment:
As a statment on the treatment of moderators by Reddit administrators, as well as a lack of communication and proper moderation tools, /r/AskReddit has decided to go private for the time being. Please see this post in /r/ideasforaskreddit for more discussion.
/r/Books took the decision as a community to go dark.
Much of the metasphere, a term for the parts of reddit that focus on the content produced by reddit itself, has also reacted to these happenings, with threads from /r/SubredditDrama and /r/Drama, as well as the (currently private) subreddit /r/circlejerk, which parodies and satirises reddit, adding a message to make fun of the action.
Why is this all happening so suddenly?

As much as Victoria is loved, this reaction is not all a result of her departure: there is a feeling among many of the moderators of reddit that the admins do not respect the work that is put in by the thousands of unpaid volunteers who maintain the communities of the 9,656 active subreddits, which they feel is expressed by, among other things, the lack of communication between them and the admins, and their disregard of the thousands of mods who keep reddit's communities going. /u/nallen's response above is an example of one of the many responses to these issues.
The moderation tools on reddit are another of the larger contention points between the mods and admins - they are frequently saidby those who use them often to be a decade out of date. /u/creesch, one of the creators of the /r/toolbox extension, an extension which attempts to fill much of the gap left in those moderator tools, said this:
This is a non answer and a great example of reddit as a company not being in touch with the actually website anymore. ... When a majority of the people that run your site rely on a third party extension [/r/toolbox] something is clearly wrong. ...
Another great example of how much reddit cares about their assets is reddit companion. Which at the time of writing has around 154,302 installations, is utterly broken and hasn't been updated since February 21, 2013, the most ridiculous thing? It isn't hard to fix people tried to do the work for reddit since it is open source but they simply have been ignoring those pull requests since 2013.
And honestly, I get that they might not have resources for a silly extension. But the fact that they keep it around on the chrome store while it is utterly broken and only recently removed it from the reddit footer baffles me. I think I messaged them about them about a year ago, it took them another year to actually update the footer with apps and tools they are (still) working on.
/u/K_Lobstah, another moderator, also expressed frustration earlier today in a submission to /r/self over the lack of responses from the admins concerning the issue of the new search UI, which has been strongly disliked by redditors in the /r/changelog post.
Stop throwing beer cans on our lawns while we try to mow them. Use /r/beta[1] as a Beta; listen to the feedback. Fix the things that need fixing, give us the tools we need to do even the simplest of tasks, like reading messages from subscribers.
Stop relying on volunteers and third-parties to build the most important and useful tools for moderating this site.
Help us help you.
What's happening now?

/u/kn0thing has provided a response from the admins here:
We don't talk about specific employees, but I do want you to know that I'm here to triage AMA requests in the interim. All AMA inquiries go to AMA@reddit.com where we have a team in place.
I posted this on [a mod sub] but I'm reposting here:
We get that losing Victoria has a significant impact on the way you manage your community. I'd really like to understand how we can help solve these problems, because I know r/IAMA thrived before her and will thrive after.
We're prepared to help coordinate and schedule AMAs. I've got the inbound coming through my inbox right now and many of the people who come on to do AMAs are excited to do them without assistance (most recently, the noteworthy Channing Tatum AMA).
The moderators of an increasing number of default subreddits have been making them private, in an attempt to draw the admins' attention to how they have been mismanaging the site with a substantive demonstrative act - since for many years, they've been trying to get the admins to listen normally with relatively little improvement.
Victoria was beloved by many redditors, and people are understandably upset - but remember that we still don't know why it happened. What is an issue is how this problem for the admins was handled; whether or not it was an emergency for the admins, the IAmA mod team were not given warning, and weren't informed of the alternative contact location early enough, which gave them a sizeable logistical problem - one which they took themselves private to deal with.