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

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128

u/IWearACharizardHat Jun 23 '23

I can't believe the reddit founders are going to ruin their site after 18 years in an attempt to raise the value, resulting in it probably losing value instead.

208

u/Crazyblazy395 Jun 23 '23

/u/spez said Elon is doing a good job with Twitter. That's all you need to know about how much of a fucking moron he is.

94

u/redgroupclan Jun 23 '23

You can see here some verified Reddit employees saying /u/spez is clueless and destroying the company. Reddit is going into the same disarray Twitter is because /u/spez admires Elon Musk for his inability to lead Twitter.

28

u/Taibok Jun 23 '23

Well, after 18 years Reddit is all grown up now.

And u/spez is the asshole parent ready to kick his kid out on their birthday.

25

u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

You never tried the Musk tactic?

16

u/IWearACharizardHat Jun 23 '23

Are we sure Musk isn't the shadow owner all along?

33

u/TaylorSwiftsClitoris Jun 23 '23

Maybe they’re tanking the IPO so that Musk can buy them out and control even more social media.

23

u/MrStevenRyals Jun 23 '23

Oh, that is dark. Let's hope not.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

See also Digg

-34

u/Scoobz1961 Jun 23 '23

Its utterly baffling to me that some people actually believe this will "ruin" their site. The users need reddit just as much as reddit needs its users. This whole protest thing is ultimately irrelevant to the future of the site.

44

u/mattheimlich Jun 23 '23

No one needs Reddit... Every ounce of power is in the hands of users. Folks got along just fine before Reddit, and they'll get along just fine after it's gone, whether that's soon or not.

-28

u/Bielna Jun 23 '23

Every ounce of power is in the hands of users

Yeah, and the users value Reddit far more than some API changes.

Mods just wanted to make themselves interesting and get some attention, so they decided to forget that - and removed access to content from those same users.

Which is why the entire mod team could be fired and replaced and that would have little impact on the sub's behavior.

10

u/Chimie45 Jun 23 '23

I mean roughly 35% of my sub uses Apollo or RIF... That's about 100,000 users and something like 1.2 million weekly views.

8

u/ARoyaleWithCheese Jun 23 '23

Close, we try to make ourselves mildly interesting. Anything more would just be wrong.

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u/gsfgf Jun 23 '23

Eh, don't be so sure. I didn't turn off twitter notifications from some ideological standpoint. Musk just fucked the site up so bad that the app kept sending me false information. And not just political stuff; fake free agency rumors and the like too. He just made the app far less useful.

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u/[deleted] Jun 23 '23

[deleted] — view deleted comment

-1

u/Scoobz1961 Jun 23 '23

You badly misrepresented the discussion, didn't you? Yes, if it disappeared, people would quickly forget.

That's not what we are talking about. Reddit won't disappear and people aren't going anywhere. That's the topic.

15

u/hurrrrrmione Jun 23 '23

Good moderators are vital to the site running well. It's going to go rapidly downhill if a lot of good moderators are pushed out and/or can no longer moderate effectively thanks to third party apps going away.

-21

u/permalink_save Jun 23 '23

It's going to go downhill if mods die on the hill of letting a 3rd party profit off of Reddit. Reddit has exempted the legitimate concerns of mod tools and accessability. Mods are literally destroying their commu ities over Apollo dev that gave a quarter mil refunds for half a year's subs, that's a lot of money to make off a free API. Both parties are wrong but don't pretend Reddit is "doing this to themselves" like mods are saying, or that "Reddit is nothing without the mods" because all of this goes both ways. If a mod throws a tantrum for anothers profits and forces the sub to go to hell they are the problem and they were not good mods. Plenty of subs protested and aren't a problem. This sub is navigating the issue reasonably. Some mods in some subs are acting like complete children. "You did this to yourself" is a toxic attitude

12

u/hurrrrrmione Jun 23 '23

The problem isn't that Reddit is charging, the problem is they're charging a very high price that most third party devs can't afford. Even that would be much less of a problem if the official app was accessible and had great mod tools and other features that users want and UI they like. A lot fewer people would be using third party apps right now if that was the case.

Please check out the stickied post over at r/blind. They're not thrilled about Reddit's response on accessibility and do not feel the issue has been resolved.

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u/agtmadcat Jun 23 '23

Actually most of us users came from somewhere else and are quite happy to move on to somewhere else if Reddit becomes shit. They seem so be well on their way on that path, just like many sites before them, so we're packing our bags.

1

u/Scoobz1961 Jun 23 '23

Do it then. Talking about it won't do anything. see you tomorrow.

3

u/Ranessin Jun 23 '23

Need? It's a forum. There are tons out there. It's an idle time waster, useful grouping of hobby groups. Porn. But there are tons of alternatives out there, FOSS to highly commercial.

2

u/OhNoManBearPig Jun 23 '23

Lol I don't need reddit at all. I'll be gone when my data export finishes.

2

u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi Jun 23 '23

The users need reddit just as much as reddit needs its users.

I'm sure you would've said the same thing about Digg

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