As a result, we temporarily closed the subreddit to the public in order to figure out what to do next. Because IAmA is constantly watched by the Reddit community as well as the news media, we as moderators determined that the best course of action was to figure out how to proceed in private. We did not anticipate or intend for other communities to follow our lead as part of a protest. However, the support was overwhelming and echoed the sentiment our shutdown illustrated — anger at the way the company routinely demands that the volunteers and community accept major changes that reduce our efficiency and increase our workload.

We built our policies and procedures around having a professional partner at the company to substantiate, facilitate and respond to queries in a timely manner. We as a moderator team established a trusting relationship with her and relied heavily on that trust to operate the subreddit. Ms. Taylor did a great deal to make the A.M.A.s so successful: She worked directly with charities and agents to coordinate high-profile forums. She would walk participants through the basics of using Reddit, create verified accounts for them to use, and help them introduce themselves to the community. Now we are having to work around the lack of these resources, with a continued expectation of success.

The secondary purpose of shutting down was to communicate to the relatively tone-deaf company leaders that the pattern of removing tools and failing to improve available tools to the community at large, not merely the moderators, was an affront to the people who use the site.

Reddit’s interim chief executive, Ellen Pao, has said that the recent events were the result of miscommunication. “We have apologized for not communicating better with the moderators,” Ms. Pao told NPR.

We feel strongly that this incident is more part of a reckless disregard for the company’s own business and for the work the moderators and users put into the site. Dismissing Victoria Taylor was part of a long pattern of insisting the community and the moderators do more with less.

Miscommunication implies there was any communication at all or any kind of real planning in place to compensate for the loss, when in reality the moderators and A.M.A. guests were left stranded. Though company leaders have apologized publicly, they still have not fully explained the decision.

Our goal is not to cripple Reddit or hinder the community. We are all the community. And we want Reddit to remain vibrant. We have put in thousands of hours over the years toward making these communities excellent.

We are disheartened by the dismissal of Victoria Taylor, who was one of the most high-profile women at the company — and in the technology field. We hope Reddit recruits someone with the talent and necessary background to fill her position in a similar capacity. The community on the whole has also spoken quite loudly: Pay attention to the user base. Users are not simply a screaming mob. They are actually asking for reasonable support, and as moderators, we are trying very hard to do what we can to make those changes happen.