What the heck was Askville thinking?

October 25th, apparently management decided to close it down and gave the members two hours notice.

Bezos needed the money he was spending on Askville to pay for the Washington Post.

Seriously, as I understand it, he had hoped to make Askville a vehicle for driving sales to Amazon. There were some hooks in there to link to Amazon products. But Askville devolved into a discussion site, not a product site, and was likely costing them a bundle in terms of programming staff, community monitors, etc.

Basically, it was a money loser in a company used to making profits.

Oh I don’t think the new influx are that bad ;-}

I was an askville addict and found Fluther years ago. I hope you love it as much as I do. It’s not as competitive or catty as askville had become before I left. The moderation team are also users and don’t act like they’re overlords (unless augustlan gets out her whip~) but they do a great job of eliminating spam and keeping people civil.
We are really happy for the influx of jellies. Please hang out a while. Our founders aren’t in it for the profit, I bet they have oodles of money after the twitter IPO.

Does Amazon not get enough business by itself?

@jca, I imagine they do, But that doesn’t make them a charity. Any good business tries to maximize profits.

The point isn’t whether they make profits or not – that’s irrelevant.

MY take is that Amazon was willing to allow Askville to exist if the cost was minimal. The last incarnation was an attempt to write a self-monitoring (little to no moderation) program completely in-house. They charged a handful of Amazon programmers with writing a workable program before the old programming contract ran out at the end of this year. The programmers failed, and the site was shut down.

I, for one, shed a tear at Askville’s death, but now I’m relieved that it’s gone. Fluther is such a better place, and Askville just got more painful and less fulfilling as time went on.

Whatever the reason for the abrupt demise, the way it was handled displayed an appalling lack of class in its complete disregard for the community and the relationships established within it.

I agree, Stanley. There was at least one wildly inappropriate post at the very end, so I understand that they didn’t want to provide moderation in that atmosphere. However, given that they had the blocking feature, I don’t know why they couldn’t have left the personal accounts active for at least a day or two. Given people the chance the find other ways to connect. Luckily, we all seemed to have an email or two, and we’ve networked to make contact with each other.

It was almost a ‘Hope the door hits you in the arse on your way out!’ exit. Shameful.

It would have been nice to have had a day’s notice though so we could have answered e-mails and said “goodbye, farewell, so long” to the people who didn’t come over here. I didn’t even know it was shut down until after the fact when I read a posting on Facebook that said it was now history. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted – if we forget about everything that happened after that first change.

The programming staff at the end was down to the nub. It was overwhelming.

A9 is the contracted company that supports the Amazon site itself, and A9 was in charge of Askville. They did not have the resources to support it anymore- especially after they literally removed the links to Amazon products which to me, never made any sense.

A9 mods and software developers were given the option of accepting a generous exit package, or to take other jobs associated with Amazon.

I think most if not all stayed but one or two may still be investigating other possibly more secure opportunities. After all, they are living where there are the most software engineering jobs in the US.

My only gripe is that the mods could not be honest with us and virtually lead us on right to the end. That’s not good business sense.

Sorry that you lost your Q&A home. Welcome to Fluther!

I too was really sad and shocked when they closed down all of a sudden. But now I really thank them for doing so, or else I would be still stuck there answering ‘Kindle’ and ‘Am I pregnant’ questions. I must say Fluther is far better than Askville.

@Smitha Blood type. You forgot the baby’s blood type questions. Aye, yi yi!

@ibstubro LOL! How come I forgot that! It was just flooded with teenagers. I still remember the question” Can your baby get pregnant if you have sex while pregnant?”

@Smitha I’ve never considered this… how is babby’s babby formed??!!

@glacial There were too many “Babby” questions. Thank God here they are strict about writing standards, the kids never had the patience to pay attention to grammar or spellings. “i am a pos my x is a neg can we have a oneg babby????”

It was sad. I don’t understand why they didn’t let us know sooner. I think we all deserved more than what we got. SMH

I had a great time on Askville with a few people that I followed on a regular basis. Sorry it’s gone. However I had already become a member of Fluther several years ago, so I guess this is where I’ll be spending most of my time.

@Adirondackwannabe Two hours notice? Cheap fucks.

But I’m glad it happened, cuz now we have cool new members. :D

@Symbeline :)

Their copyright expired. I think the short notice came from they planned to just let it run out, then lost track until the last hours of when that would be. I guess that means it’s up for grabs.

@Jonesn4burgers I think the short notice was deliberate.

I believe the developers thought they could pull if off until the Great Spam Attack, and not only were they fighting a losing battle, but it was consuming all their time. They threw in the towel, stopped all efforts and waited until D-day, then posted the “question” about 4 hours until the plug was pulled at 5 p.m. on Friday evening.

I think that there was malice of forethought, and that the developers and moderators had already been notified and re-assigned. Alex and Genelle were the only two present at the end, and someone said Genelle no longer responds to her email account.

@ibstubro Sergio remained and was present and posting to the end. It was not just Alex and Genelle, and nobody was simply fired – they were given options of an exit package or to take other positions that may or may not be as good or better. If some or any left, it was by their choice.

I hope Genelle was NOT the the A9 member who referred to the occasion as the end times and came in with Fish logo – that would be unlike her.

I can’t see why Genelle would respond to emails when being the arbitrator is no longer her job. She was courteous and tried to add a bit of balance and fairness to the place but it’s no longer her responsibility. I would imagine it was bloody exhausting and I sure would not have continued unnecessarily.

Yes some of the small staff continue to communicate with old members but in my case, after explaining the situation they chose to continue communication but not focusing on AV or A9 but on other shared interests.

@MadMadMax Sergio was not present at the end. It’s not important, it’s not germane to my post and it’s not provable, in any case. I was looking for him, as we’d had a fairly steady dialogue.

“I can’t see why Genelle would respond to emails”
and
“some of the small staff continue to communicate with old members”
are contradictory statements.

What happened to the mysterious “single programmer” that you were in contact with? Did they hare him a staff after Askville’s demise?

Sergio was discussing the posts between A9 and us up to the end. I was there and we ended our conversation over personal email.

There is no mysterious programmer. I just don’t want to bring up a person and discuss them on another site. Doesn’t seem appropriate.

Thanks

Thanks for the running dialog you two. It goes a long way toward making sense of an event that left me wondering about shifting standards in common courtesy.

Sadly, I never got MaryAnn’s email address so we literally lost touch forever. I really liked MaryAnn; we had some things in common.

The place actually WAS a community. I suppose nothing forces you to that realization like burning it to the ground. MaryAnn was indeed a cozy comfort, and I suspect that she too will eventually stumble across this place. It’s really interesting how things work. I googled askville, and among the references was the invitation from the stalwart Vulcan who lives here. It was a lighthouse, enabling my hapless arrival. But now the light is out, the invitation has disappeared. I googled “askville” half an hour ago and there’s no trace of the Vulcan, but there is a quote from a post on “Yahoo answers” by someone named POPPET, and I couldn’t believe how genuinely happy I felt at seeing it. Go figure. Goldie told us to come here years ago.

I think I remember POPPET from my time at Askville before I migrated here in 2008.

Yes, @stanleybmanly, I think poppet might be registered at Fluther, too, but doesn’t fancy it. I’m in email contact with LouLou, but she refuses to join Fluther because of bad experience with Askville…both participation there and the closing.

Poppet, Carla and Lula all have happy social lives via Facebook. I’m too old scholl for Facebook, I like privacy.

I was a Fluther member and active participant about the 2nd incarnation of Askville. I ended up dropping them both. When I came back to Askville before the last incarnation, I tried Fluther as well, but it seemed awfully dark, serious, and inside-secrety. I think perhaps the death of Askville and the subsequent influx of Freshmen Flutherers has turned out well for all.

Yes I see that she is here. I should have checked first. I’ve been puzzling over my joy at seeing her, and now decided that you can’t help but be fond of anyone with the chutzpah to openly defend Texas in a public forum. A toast to Poppet. Another excuse to drink.

@ibstubro – Please tell Lou Lou I said “hello.”

Will do, Hippy. I need to take the time to write her a note. Last I looked in, she was spending all her time shopping on-line. Yikes!

Then she definitely needs to find a social outlet. That shopping on-line hobby can be expensive!!

Yes, @TheRealOldHippie. How right you are! We have sold more than one estate because someone got hooked on QVC. Not 2 cents to rub together, but a house full of new-in-the-box stuff.