For those with PR, marketing and community management experience - if you we're in a position to try and solve this, what would you do to minimize the damage and move the community on as quickly as possible?
1) Distraction. Good luck with that, but you can try to redirect the attention. Start a fire somewhere else, make a big announcement, etc. One problem with this, is there's a lot more animosity in the air at Reddit than just what relates to this specific situation.
2) Negotiate and directly engage with the community. Some variation of giving in to their demands. Console them. Either give them what they want, or make them feel like you're doing so. The users power everything of value on Reddit - there is nothing without them.
3) Stonewall them. Refuse to bend. Let the community know that this is how it is; much like what Pao did when talking about how Reddit was no longer going to be a platform for completely free speech. This approach rarely turns out well, especially given how little leverage the Reddit company has, and how easy it is to replace Reddit (relatively speaking).
#2 is the only workable option. Reddit will only follow that option if they decide the viability of the service is at risk, and they may realize that too late.
The third part of the parent's conditional: experience with running or dealing with online communities (from building and operating sites that have them, since the 1990s).
1. I would ignore most of the attacks. Don't "you'll get over it" or don't even try to moderate any of the posts/comments.
2. Most of the mods are realizing their mistakes right now, if you can see the subs who are coming back online they are just getting insulted and downvoted over and over for giving up on the black out
3. Use that + give them better tools to moderate their subs = you have the mods on your side
4. They need a martyr story, Ellen Pao is getting harassed all over the place, people trying to doxx her, people photoshoping her pictures over and over, people making bad jokes about her (racists, sexist, etc...). They need to make it look like this is a bad thing, like she's suffering, like the reaction of these people who are a minority of reddit are causing to the people administrating reddit. I think that would be good if it came from some mods of subreddits or from some rumors in random subreddits.
Seriously, I see Ellen Pao as the new Britney Spears. In a few years people will love her (if she hasn't killed herself from all of this harassment).
5.? They could fire Ellen Pao and hire someone from the community. But I doubt this would change something in the long run.
6.? They could make the whole management process of reddit more "open" like buffer does.
Eventually, things like that are doomed to happen. A company needs to fire people, needs to take decision that their users will not like so they can monetize their website, etc... It's also good to notice that things like that often goes away pretty quickly, the last drama lasted a day, I don't think this one will last more than a day or two either... Most people didn't even realize. This is an interesting topic: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheoryOfReddit/comments/3bz9pm/how_...
