The Kony 2012 campaign conquered Reddit last week but it barely squeaked into the top live interviews on the site.
An interview with Ugandan filmmaker Zubedah Nanfuka, who talked about warlord Joseph Kony and charity group Invisible Children, topped out at seventh among top AMAs (“ask me anything”) this week.
Number one? Patrick Burke, an NHL scout who founded the “You Can Play Project,” a campaign to end homophobia in sports.
This week’s AMA’s also included the development team behind the latest in the SimCity series, Congressman Darrell Issa (self-described “Internet defender and techie”), and a state lottery insider.
Below, we’ve compiled the top seven posts (seven being our lucky number) from Reddit’s r/IAmA this week, as voted by redditors themselves. We’ve also included a sample question and answer from each. For the complete list, check here.
A note on terminology: AMA stands for “ask me anything,” while “IAmA” is simply “I am a;” AMAA means “ask me almost anything.”
Q: What would you consider a success for the You Can Play Project? (n8wolf)
A: I will consider You Can Play a success when we can shut down. When an athlete coming out is a non-story, when we’re not losing young athletes to harassment and fear, and when athletes are judged only by what they bring to the game.
2. iama Scott Sanders, director and co-writer of “BLACK DYNAMITE.”
Q: Any plans for another movie, be it a sequel or a whole new movie? (Itispitchdark)
A:[I]’m gearing up to do a non BD movie which is coming together soon. Also we’ve been talking about a sequel our attentions have just been on the animated show, comic books, and some other tv stuff.
3. IAmA Maxis development team on SimCity. AMAA!
Q: I’ve heard a lot of concern that the game will appeal too much to casual players like Societies; how will the level of gameplay depth compare to SimCity 4? (QuickTactical)
A: We’re making SimCity, not some dopey casual game.
The most important thing is the integrity of the simulation underneath it, the stuff that represents the systems that make up a real city. I don’t want to enforce sustainable design principles in the game – I want them to emerge as natural consequences of your interaction with the simulation.
If you don’t deal with your sewage, with traffic congestion, with walkability & transit, with ground and air pollution – your city will reflect that! And there are lots of people who will want to explore the simulation and see what happens when they do. Making some polluted, congested, urban nightmare is a total win condition, as far as I’m concerned.
4. IAmA Employee of a state lottery with intimate knowledge of the industry. AMA.
Q: How easy would it be for you to ensure a winning ticket for a friend, etc. If a lotto insider wanted to, would he/she be able to successfully generate a winning ticket after the numbers are drawn? (pl303)
A: The lottery industry operates like Las Vegas. In other words, the whole thing is governed by an extreme separation of duties and access controls. Every lottery has a security division that exists for the sole purpose of catching crooks – both internal and external. It’s virtually impossible to “rig” a drawing or generate a winning wager post-draw without collusion on the part of at least five or six people. And even then, it would take a miracle to get past audits, system checks, etc.
5. IAmA Congressman Darrell Issa, Internet defender and techie. Ask away!
Q: How can you call yourself a “techie” when you authored the Research Works Act? Your bill is almost universally opposed by research scientists, and runs counter to the open-source principles that make the Internet possible. (Ilverin)
A: As most people know, the draft Research Works Act intended to standardize and harmonize government’s copyright recognition of author. It was poorly written and now Rep Maloney and I have withdrawn it. But understand, it is always going to be complex and hard to find the right balance between individual creation/invention and government/the people’s rights.
Imagine if a mother receiving public support wrote a mindblowingly successful & prize-winning book, only to have the govt claim no copyright existed because taxpayer money was supporting her? We need to make sure our inventors/innovators/artists are protected, but also need to do a whole lot more to open up publicly-funded data to everyone. That’s why I authored the DATA Act. Check it out here.
6. By request: I was an SAT essay scorer, AMA
Q: Do you ever feel guilty about giving people bad scores? Did someone ever write about their personal life and it was so sad you gave them a higher grade than they deserve? How thoroughly did you read through the essays? (tannerb924)
A: Nope and nope to your first two questions. I’m an English teacher–we’re generally pretty heartless. :-) Ok, I’m not really, but no, I haven’t.
To answer your third question, we have to average 2-3 minutes per essay with our scoring time, or the system actually flags us and makes us redo some of our training.Generally in that time, I’d read each essay twice. Sometimes three times, depending on the essay.
Q: Can you describe the Invisible Children presence in Uganda? (GotsToHaveACode)
A: There is a significant presence of Invisible Children in Uganda. A recent example of how big they have grown in Gulu was while I was there on my recent trip to film former girl soldiers with the LRA, a huge four wheel truck with the words “Invisible Children” written on the driver’s seat sped past our car. And it got me thinking that they have grown to the size of acquiring more resources to further their outreach. There is no denying that now, they are right up there with World Vision Uganda, which used to be considered the biggest player in helping children affected by war.
Image via Zubedah Nanfuka