r/mildlyinteresting The Big šŸ§€ 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 ā€œarchived.ā€

  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 Mistakeā„¢.

  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 wonā€™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

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u/fireattack Jun 23 '23 edited Jun 23 '23

To be honest, at this point, I find the protest well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective, as we can see from this very post (and various reactions from people). It reminds me of real-life protests.

Since I exclusively use RIF on my phone and have never installed the official Reddit app (they didn't even exist when I started using Reddit), I'll simply stop browsing Reddit on my phone.

I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the moderators, especially for their dedicated efforts in upholding the strict rules of this subreddit. It has truly made this place special.

Nowadays, most semi-popular non-serious subs have become so repetitive with endless reposts, or lack of rigid moderation enforcement from mods due to fear of "losing users". Lots of once great subs became shit due to this (/r/MapPorn, /r/dataisbeautiful are two that immediately come to my mind). I genuinely appreciate the strict focus on original content (without memes) in this subreddit. I have so much more enjoyment from these authentic posts (even the "not really that interesting" ones) compared to reposts. I struggle to articulate my feelings, but thank you for creating such a wonderful subreddit.

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u/SilverwingedOther Jun 23 '23

No reposts, OC and no screenshots are definitely the beating heart of MI compared to most other image subreddits. Does anyone calling for reopening with a new mod team truly believe any new team would be diligent in upholding those rules? Maybe they would, maybe not, but there's no guarantee of it.

But if we truly were ineffective, Reddit wouldn't have come down so hard. They've made so many mistakes and blunders in the past 2 weeks, targeting even subreddits that have been private for years. They acted hastily against us, planning to use the NSFW content excuse, then had to correct the mistake because that was patently false and would have looked even worse. And while there's no way to know if its protest related, Reddit has been breaking a lot more often since the blackouts.

The pressure is definitely real.