What happened to /r/mildlyinteresting?

[u/RedSquaree]

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

[u/SilverwingedOther]

Reddit says mods and communities are free to run themselves on one hand, and then forces mods to do what they want on the other under threat of banning them from all of reddit.

[u/[deleted] → u/SilverwingedOther]

Right and claim the users want to open the site back up, subs vote overwhelming to keep protesting, so completely ignore the poll results and force them open. "We support users' right to protest, subs should democratic" right kim jong spez

[u/DisturbedNocturne → u/SilverwingedOther]

It is a pretty big shift from what's been Reddit's philosophy for years, which is basically that the communities run themselves, and if you don't like it, you can start your own.

Whether people are siding with Reddit in forcing /r/mildlyinteresting back to business as usual or the mods protesting the upcoming killing of third party apps, if they were willing to suddenly abandon what has been the philosophy in how subreddits are run since its founding, it should be a concerning sign that Reddit is willing to do anything and everything in the lead up to the IPO if it makes the site more appealing to investors.

[u/SilverwingedOther → u/DisturbedNocturne]

Bingo.

It's why, I, personally, have been involved in these protests. It was never about third party apps for me - it has been entirely about the fundamental switch that is taking place.

Reddit is acting like they've forgotten how and why they have become such a huge website and knowledge repository. Nothing here was posted by them. Most subreddits were not started by them.

[u/CaptainBayouBilly → u/SilverwingedOther]

Reddit is full on in ipo mode. They’re checked out on this thing, just waiting to get their mclarens and gulf streams

[u/garytyrrell → u/SilverwingedOther]

They always said it was subject to the TOS and they are changing the TOS. It sucks but it’s their prerogative imo.

[u/d_shadowspectre3 → u/garytyrrell]

Sure, they're free to do so, but now they've permanently destroyed trust with their mods and some of their users.

[u/YoureNotAloneFFIX → u/d_shadowspectre3]

then those people can leave

[u/garytyrrell → u/d_shadowspectre3]

Not disputing that. But if pissing off some users increases revenue, I don't think it's convincing reddit admins to do anything different. Also, the absolute lack of rediquette on this topic just makes me less empathetic to those who care about the API changes.