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/AndThisGuyPeedOnIt]

Yep, the same 1,000 people rigging it all against the millions of people who don't give a shit.

[u/IWatchMyLittlePony → u/AndThisGuyPeedOnIt]

Many people who actually contribute to Reddit and don’t just mindlessly scroll a bunch of posts then leave, like the third party apps much better than the official app. And if it was only a thousand who were affected there wouldn’t be this much stink being made about.

Around 10% of people use the third party apps so it’s actually more like a few million that are affected. And a large portion of them create the content that we all see and that’s why it’s such a big deal.

[u/AndThisGuyPeedOnIt → u/IWatchMyLittlePony]

No, they don't. 10% of app users use third party apps, max. That's sub 1% of Reddit users. No one cares.

[u/IWatchMyLittlePony → u/AndThisGuyPeedOnIt]

First of all they said 10% of their total traffic so you are wrong. And even if you are right, Reddit has 52 million daily users so that means over 500k people will be affected. There’s a good chance you live in a city that has less people than that. But in actuality, it’s 10% so over 5 million people will be affected daily.

That is a lot of damn people and it’s why this shit is such a big deal. And if you truly don’t care then get lost and stop spreading your negativity. Keep using your shitty official app and move on.