(Image source from: Revolt against employee sacking})

Reddit’s decision to dismiss a popular employee has piled pressure on its interim CEO, Ellen Pao. Victoria Taylor, Director of Talent and manager of the Ask Me Anything part of the site, was dismissed without explanation to the much dismay of the Reddit community.

Ask Me Anything sessions, where celebrities will answer questions posted on the site, is highly popular among the community and Taylor’s part in them was important, in so far as she provided proof of the celebrity in question and a point of contact between users and administrators.

As a result of the improper dismissal, volunteer moderators imposed a series of blackouts on around 300 of the site’s communities and an online petition was launched. “A vast majority of the Reddit community believes that Pao, “a manipulative individual who will sue her way to the top”, has overstepped her boundaries and fears that she will run Reddit into the ground,” said in the Change.org petition. “Alternative sites to Reddit.com have sprung up and have received vast amounts of traffic within the recent months.”

CEO Ellen Pao extended her apology to the community, and said “We handled the transition in a way that caused some disruption and we should have done a better job.”

Co-founder and acting chairman Alexi Ohanian said that the site had appointed Kristine Fasnacht as a dedicated point of contact with moderators to avoid similar instances in the future.

By Premji