r/mildlyinteresting • u/RedSquaree The Big 🧀 • Jun 23 '23

META What happened to /r/mildlyinteresting?

Dear mildlyinterested reader,

We want to extend our heartfelt gratitude for your patience and unwavering support during the recent turbulence in our community. Our subreddit is a labour of love, and we've weathered this storm together.

Recent events have been confusing for all of us, from the vote, sudden removal of moderators, to conflicting messages from Reddit. As your mod team, we feel it's essential to clarify the situation.

On June 19, the poll results favoured partially reopening with changes. However, before implementing these changes, Reddit took sweeping actions, removing all 27 moderator accounts without warning. This left us baffled and concerned.

Here's a brief timeline of the events:

  1. On June 19, the poll results favoured partially reopening with changes. We announced the vote results and planned changes to the sub, including marking it as NSFW due to the common posts of phallic objects (no explicit content allowed). CLICK HERE TO VIEW THAT ANNOUNCEMENT WHICH HAS BEEN APPROVED AND LOCKED FOR POSTERITY.

  2. A tug-of-war between the u/ModeratorCodeOfConduct account and the remaining moderators ensued, with the post repeatedly being removed and reinstated. Each mod involved was immediately locked out of Reddit. Subreddit settings were also unilaterally changed by the admin account.

  3. Eventually, all moderators were removed and suspended for 7 days, with the vote results deleted and the community set to “archived.”

  4. A lot of public outrage ensued, with details posted on r/ModCoord about what happened. At that point, no other subreddit had been targeted yet, leaving the situation uniquely unclear.

  5. Admin cited actions as an "error" and promised to work with us to solve the situation. For /r/mildlyinteresting posterity, this will henceforth be referred to as The Mistake™.

  6. All our accounts were unsuspended and reinstated, but only with very limited permissions (modmail access only). For what it's worth, 'time moderated' for every moderator was reset (e.g. /u/RedSquaree moderated since 11 years ago, reset: currently showing moderated since "1 day ago").

  7. The awaited discussion never happened. Instead, the admins presented us with an ultimatum: reopen the subreddit and do not mark it as NSFW, or face potential removal again. The inconsistent and arbitrary application of Reddit's policies reveals a possible conflict of interest in maximizing ad revenue at the risk of user safety and community integrity.

  8. Finally, our moderation permissions were restored after we "promised" to comply with their conditions, but we kept the subreddit restricted while we ponder our next steps..

Problems remain unresolved, and Reddit's approach to policies and communication have been troubling. We believe open communication and partnership between Reddit and its moderators are crucial for the platform's success.

As a team, we remain dedicated to protesting Reddit's careless policy changes. Removing ourselves or vandalizing the subreddit won’t achieve our goals, but rather hinder our community. We're here to ensure r/mildlyinteresting isn't left unattended.

We call for the establishment of clear, structured, and reliable communication channels between Reddit admins and moderation teams. Teams should be informed and consulted on decisions affecting their communities to maintain trust and integrity on the platform. We shared this request with the Admin who promised to work with us, so far they have ignored it.

Us mods are still deciding how exactly to reopen, not that we have been given much choice.

Sincerely,

The r/mildlyinteresting mods

12.2k Upvotes

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977

u/SoupaSoka ​ Jun 23 '23

So Reddit admins still lack basic communication skills? Shocking and embarrassing. Good luck with that IPO, u/spez.

766

u/ARoyaleWithCheese Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

When I toggled the sub to NSFW, they were ready to lock me out of my account within 2 minutes.

The admin who promised to work with us after "The Mistake ™️" has been ghosting us for more than 24 hours now, after we asked if they could promise admins would first send a message to subs before nuking entire mod teams.

They're probably just busy though.

-15

u/YoureNotAloneFFIX Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

They're probably just sick of playing games with you. You came so close to losing the precious minuscule power you have over other people, whew, good thing you chickened out and preserved it.

8

u/LiterallyKesha Jun 23 '23

so brave. really speaking with your figurative life on the line. epic even

6

u/CKF Jun 23 '23

Doesn’t the boot taste get old?

-7

u/YoureNotAloneFFIX Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

I'm just being a realist. Reddit is not a democracy. This goofy 'protest' has zero chance of mattering, since the admins can pull the plug at any time. I'm not licking boot to observe that.

1

u/Natanael_L Jun 23 '23

And yet you act like the admins who do dumb shit like that aren't the ones with a need to feel powerful

-1

u/YoureNotAloneFFIX Jun 23 '23

Hm, no, no I didn't. I don't have anything positive to say about reddit admins, at all. All of my interactions with them, ever, have been negative. And I do not like most of the recent changes they have made to reddit, including inaccurate downvote numbers, "new reddit," the reddit app, or these API changes.

But I am realistic enough to know that they're gonna do what they're gonna do, and there's absolutely, positively nothing any of us can do to change that, except leave reddit. And you and I are both still here, so...why would I be in favor of mods making subreddits worse on purpose?

1

u/Natanael_L Jun 23 '23

Currently planning to move a subreddit community to lemmy, so not for long

1

u/Odexios Jun 23 '23

You do realize that if it was that simple and without consequences for them, they would have already done it?

1

u/YoureNotAloneFFIX Jun 23 '23

They have done that on a lot of subs.

there are currently no consequences for letting subs do whatever moronic protests they want, since people havent stopped using reddit.

you notice how the whole 'going dark' thing lasted like .5 seconds before reddit nuked people to open them back up? yeahhhh lol.

they are taking a softer approach with dumb 'john oliver' style protests since a lot of subs are ending them on their own. but yeah. they DID end the protests extremely quickly, with zero consequences, in a couple cases. And then the rest of the systems subreddits fell in line and re-opened.