I'm the mod in question. The subreddit is not official – and not forgotten. I track the Reddit posts via RSS and intervene within hours if necessary, as I had to just the other week when one account quite rudely violated rule 2 during the sale. Happens often. It's neither a scam nor a hoax, but the party is over here in the forums, so people are encouraged to join it.
Mostly, it's just offline time with nice ebooks – I've been on quite the reading frenzy these past few weeks, let me tell you. You could say holiday, I guess, though I do work in between, but other than for work the computers are staying off currently.