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In Thursday’s Reddit digest, the problems with Reddit’s power structure

Reddit's own WikiLeaks scandal continues building momentum in today's Reddit Digest.

 

Kevin Morris

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Posted on Feb 23, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 9:01 pm CDT

Want to read Reddit but don’t have the time? Our daily Reddit Digest highlights the most interesting or important discussions from around the social news site—every morning.

  • No more documents leaked overnight in Reddit’s own WikiLeaks-style episode, but the scandal hasn’t lost momentum. One leaked chat log showed that karmanaut, a top moderator, moderated multiple subreddits under three different identities.  All of karmanaut’s accounts have now been removed from r/politics and r/AskReddit. While multiple accounts are permitted under Reddit’s rules, it’s now clear that moderators frown on them—at least when they’re caught unawares. (r/SubredditDrama)

  • Meanwhile, it turns out there’s more to Reddit’s version of Julian Assange, sushisushisushi, than scrounging the Web for Reddit leakage. He has some thoughtful ideas about what’s wrong with Reddit’s power structure. The issues at the heart of the scandal, in fact, do go very much beyond karmanaut and his alt-accounts. There are problems with structure of Reddit’s hierarchy, especially in the default subs. The debate between Raerth and sushisushisushi here provides the best overview of the causes and consequences of these problems. (r/SubredditDrama)

  • At long last, Reddit finds its eponymous savior: Reddit Andrews III, pastor of the Sherman Oaks Church in Elk Grove, California. (r/todayilearned)

  • Why do we die from sleep deprivation? Even sleep researchers, it turns out, don’t know the answer to that question. (r/askscience)

  • At r/IAmA, celebrity interview requests rarely work. Yesterday, redditor tinyleaf struck gold. It took less than half a day for an actor in Comedy Central’s Workaholics to respond to tinyleaf’s AMA request. Granted, Erik Griffin plays a minor role in the series, and was not one of the names tinyleaf mentioned, but, still, it’s better than the deafening silence that usually greets requests like this. (r/IAmA)

  • Reddit pays its respects to journalist Marie Colvin, a journalist killed yesterday by an artillery shell in Homs Syria, and “one of the bravest and most bad-ass women who ever lived.” (r/pics)

  • Redditor theshinepolicy has one chance to say anything to Sean Hannity. What should he say? (r/politics)

  • At long last, redditors are attempting to create a wiki-like catalog of Reddit history. (r/historyofreddit)

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*First Published: Feb 23, 2012, 11:52 am CST