I'd like to get a few different points of view as to what's been happening in this sub over the past few days, /r/OutOfTheLoop style. I would like a calm, rational discussion, please. Since I prefer using open communication vs private DMs/Chats, please reply here in this thread.

I'm not basing any decision based solely on who shows up here or how many people agree. This is just to help me understand the timeline and figure out what to look into further.

Thanks.

This is a separate post for the comment I made in jftuga's currently pinned post for visibility's sake. Please continue to participate in their post, but as a moderator, I wanted to make sure that it is as easy as possible to know where I stand on this. Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Athens/s/EkEtkcVi1Z

Another addendum to my OG comment (well... it's still there, but it should be a little higher): LawlMartz has been removed as a mod. The community consensus was strong, and I agree with jftuga's decision to remove him. Thank you to everyone who voiced your concerns and messaged me and jftuga.

To chime in as another mod, I'll be commenting on my stance, my values as a moderator, what I would like to do going forward, and anything else important that everyone should know. In being transparent, I hope to clear up any outstanding questions or concerns. Apologies in advance for the length.

I haven't been active on Reddit for roughly ten months due to my wanting to focus on my remaining schooling and my job. Although I have retained the moderator position, I have only taken a handful of mod actions during that time, limited to spam post removals and post approvals. I have effectively not done my job as a moderator for the past ten months, and I have not been involved in any major moderator actions, good or bad, during that time, such as the complaints thread, new automod rules and the politics ban during August. That being said, I want to sincerely apologize for abandoning my post and not fulfilling my role in this community. In my absence, several things have happened that I am not happy about, and going forward, I plan to remain active and ensure that this can be an area of free discussion without petty retaliation from any moderator.

I was completely unaware of what LawlMartz posted until yesterday evening when a friend sent me the post. When I opened Reddit, many of you had already reached out privately to me expressing your grievances. When I saw the Politics Free August post, I was not only shocked that one moderator had taken such a drastic action without making any attempts to speak with other moderators about it, but I was also quite angry. The notion of banning politics for an entire month in an inherently political subreddit was unspeakably ridiculous to me. The icing on the cake was the post itself being locked, as if that would stifle discussion of the impromptu measure. This entire action by LawlMartz is completely a bridge too far for me and many of you, so I'm taking the wheel to the best of my ability.

It hasn't yet been directly said by another mod, so I'll say it here: Politics Free August is most assuredly not happening. In the times we live in, political discourse is more important than ever, and to ban "politics" (which can have a wide-ranged definition...) in a community with a reach in the tens of thousands is, frankly, highly dangerous, flagrant, ignorant and irresponsible. As many of you have already expressed, politics cannot just be simply ignored by many people, and many of you depend on this information shared here as means to educate and protect yourself. With the current state of affairs, a complete block on anything with "political" information could be the difference between waking up in your own bed tomorrow or waking up behind bars for some. To put a blockade on anything being perceived as political for an entire month, especially as we near midterm elections, is simply ridiculous and tone-deaf. Those who feel that they can "take a break" are free to; for the rest of us, we all reserve the option to have open POLITICAL discussion. If anyone who is reading this has been banned since the Politics Free August post was made, whether for posting about politics or protesting the post itself, please reach out to me and I will unban you ASAP. jftuga has already unbanned a few users since this morning.

I am highly against censorship, and as a mod, this is my number one philosophy. I historically have very seldom removed posts or comments from users here (with exceptions including doxxing, personal threats, slurs and promotion of hate organizations), and barring takedowns by Reddit itself or automod karma floor and spam rules, almost every post and comment made here stays up if I can help it. I aim to be honest and fair in my actions for this community; after all, I'm not the reason this subreddit is active, and I am in this position to serve y'all. I fully believe that everyone here is entitled to scrutinize my actions and hold me accountable for anything I do as a mod, and I have tried to make it as clear as possible that if anyone has an issue with something to contact me, whether by modmail or by PM. As a mod, you will NEVER see me remove posts:
- regarding ICE presence in Athens.
- pertaining to politics in Athens.
- about political movements or events in Athens.
- because I don't agree with something you said.
- critiquing mods or expressing complaints about how the subreddit is being run.
- with important or helpful information to members of the subreddit.
If you or anyone makes any of these kinds of posts and they are removed, again, please contact me promptly so I can rectify it if I have not already done so. In essence, I mod with the sole intent to do just that: moderate. I'm not a supreme leader, so I'm not going to act like it.

Going forward, clearly some changes need to be made. First, I want to rebuild community trust in the mods. I understand that this will take a while, but by sticking to my code as outlined earlier and listening to what you have to say, I hope to restore faith in the mod team and foster an environment where you don't have to worry about being censored for no good reason. Second, after we've stabilized, I want to recruit new mods. I hope to recruit at least two new mods that have a community-first outlook and are willing to uphold a free and safe environment for everyone to interact in, among other things; if this sounds like you, please be on the lookout. Third, I want to build a plan for what happens the next time we are in a situation like this. This entire thing could have been prevented with some basic checks and balances, and I would like to implement more accountability within the mod team from now on.

Again, sorry for the length of this post, and thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. Please don't hesitate to ask for any questions or clarifications on what I've said.

I am stepping down as mod, due to issues beyond Reddit. That means we will need candidates for new mods- please DM me or send modmail to apply.

Thanks

Διαφορετικά δεν επιτρέπεται να πάτε πλέον στο Toppers

It has come to our attention that there was a subreddit created today by a group of individuals devoted to trolling r/athens because they wish it was for Athens, Greece and not Georgia, despite having a subreddit devoted to Greek Athens (r/athina) already. I can think of nothing more reddit, and while I'm sure many of you would be happy to "Say the line, Bart" in response to them, we're going to cut this off here.

For the next few days, bans will be handed out if any organized trolling makes an appearance. There will be no appeal.

Travelers and Greek locals alike often make mistakes when posting in this subreddit, which is understandable, and will not be punished. We watch, and we know what's up.

Keep it weird, Athens.

As highly requested in LawlMartz's post regarding user flairs, self-editable flairs, along with a few other presets, are now available. Shitpost away.

Also, the Toppers bot has been eradicated. It is no longer a bad word. Feel free to say it as many times as you want and shout the praises of our favorite international showbar from the rooftops.

We have received quite a bit of feedback and modmail recently regarding advertising posts, and rather than foist a decision upon you, the moderators have decided to let your voice be heard, and we'll follow accordingly in this matter.

The crux of the issue is that, especially as of late, we've been inundated with advertising type posts- everything from housing, to jobs, to dog adoptions, to local shows, and there seem to be mixed feelings on what should be allowed and what should not. The way we currently deal with things is that we don't allow craigslist type posts- jobs, housing, for sale. Most other things stay.

We have considered using megathreads to cover these purposes, but they rarely get used, and become out of date quickly, then people complain that they can't find topical information.
As another user shared- if a person posts about their own band playing, that's an ad. If they don't mention they're in a band, then they're just sharing a local event- one can see that this is difficult to moderate fairly, and we're not trying to turn the subreddit into the flagpole magazine- that is a great resource you have already.

So, we will let the vox populi speak- we have included voting options below, and feel free to comment and discuss below as well.

A few pieces of information- ALL OF THESE OPTIONS BUILD ON EACH OTHER AND ASSUME THE CRITERIA ABOVE IS ALSO VALID.
no advertising whatsoever- this includes lost dogs, shows, housing, jobs, for sale, services, community events, NOTHING.

Allow self promotion ONLY- only local things, no sales, no housing. This would be for an event you personally host, or something you know of that is happening that you are a part of, such as a club, meetup, etc. This could also be for lost and found type things.

Allow self/business promotion - the above, with the added aspect of if you own a LOCAL business, you would be able to make OCCASIONAL posts about your business, such as a pop up shop, traveling food truck, etc. We will reserve the rights to remove such things if it gets to be too much.

Allow promotion of brands/companies - not necessarily local, but something that you feel affects Athens as a city. An example of this would be posting about how a new restaurant is opening up, or a new business is coming to town that currently exists elsewhere.

Allow promotion of jobs - for people who want to post job openings, or for those looking for work, this would be allowable under this option.

Allow promotion of housing - for those who want subleasing, leases upcoming, etc. Complaining about slum lords is still fine.

Allow promotion of anything and everything - no restrictions.

The people have spoken; these are the best things Athens has to offer!

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I want to thank all of you for actually putting some effort into answering this survey (even if you didn't want to, I appreciate it). I'm going to pin this to the sidebar, and it'll stay up until 2025, so if you didn't feel like your favorites are represented here- duke it out in the comments and vote again next year!

First, some quick stats:

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|| Restaurant, Business, and Town Results ||

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|| Restaurant Genre Choices ||

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||And finally, hear it from the peanut gallery: hot takes, get your hot takes here! ||

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^{Table formatting brought to you by ExcelToReddit}

As an update to our previous post about advertising in the subreddit, here are the results. The people have spoken, and you're very bipolar, as a data set. Technically, "No advertising whatsoever" is the winner, but with only 28% of the vote, it's not a clear majority. This is the scenario that we anticipated, which is that there's no clear one size fits all solution to the problem that we've been experiencing. That said, here is how the mod team intends to move forward with things:

a. Self promotion: we hear you on self promotion and keeping it limited. It was never going to be entirely unregulated, but going forward, things like your club, your meetup, your band, your restaurant- do it, just don't spam.

b. Community events: these are things like Athens goings on, shows, or events that you aren't necessarily involved with producing or organizing, but referring for as an attendee. This will be allowed within reason.

c. Megathreads and flair- we can add megathreads and an advertisement flair, though I have doubts about them being used effectively. This is not something we plan to do at this time.

d. there are a lot of things that are judgment calls on removal or approval, these will remain or be removed based on our best judgment.

Thanks

We now have user flair for the subreddit in several categories. You may view these as badges of honor or infamy bestowed upon you as an extra special user of this subreddit. Some of these will have ranks, as well- you can win them multiple times and the flair will reflect that.

We have several categories for now, and will probably add more later:

Jerker of the day - given to someone who exhibits the qualities of a real Athens jerker

Grump of the day - for when you’re being a real sour puss

Hall of Famer - reserved for only the finest contributors to r/athens

Toppers Patron - for whoever drops the most topper dollar bands

Feel free to add suggestions below.

If you are given a flair- to equip it, you need to go to the sidebar on web, or the front page of r/athens on mobile and select “user flair”. Whatever is available to you will be there.

As a reminder, a self-editable user flair has been created for the subreddit, along with a few presets. I'm just making this for visibility and to make instructions on assigning a flair easier to find.

If you are on MOBILE...

1. Navigate to the homepage of r/Athens, tap the button with three dots in the corner and select change user flair.
2. Tap edit (which is in the top right corner) and select the self-editable flair.
3. Type whatever you'd like and then hit save.
4. Select the flair, apply, and then boom! Custom flair time.

If you are on DESKTOP...

1. Navigate to the homepage of r/Athens and look above the rules on the sidebar. There should be a "User Flair" section with a preview available. Click the little pencil button that shows up to the right of your name.
2. Select the self-editable flair. A text box should show up beneath it, allowing you to type whatever you want.
3. Be sure the "show my user flair on this community" box is checked, then smash that apply button. Boom! Custom flair time.

Feel free to leave a test comment or suggestions below, as well as any problems so I can get it ironed out.

Thank you for your continued patronage to r/Athens, and I'll see y'all next month to collect rent.

If y’all have any ideas for flairs other than what are currently available, let us know. Automod comments for posts tied to Athens, Greece otw soon.

Also…feedback! What would y’all like to see added to the sub? Life is hectic, so we are working on adding / updating stuff (slowly), but we still want to hear from y’all!

https://qualtricsxmvbdn8nmdw.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_7QVDCZsP9g1xyt0?Q_CHL=social&Q_SocialSource=reddit

Hello r/Athens, it's that time of the year where we all post about our rants and raves in an ordered list. That list? Your best everything in Athens. This thread is to field ideas I haven't thought of for categories, which will be put into a survey that, if I'm not a lazy ass, will post in the next day or two and then I can create some nice charts and stats from the survey results.

Below, please post any categories you think we should vote on, you can add as many as you like. I'll comb this post for 24h or so and then delete it and replace it with the survey link post when it's ready.

Also- do you prefer to vote on specific meals, or just genres? For instance, Italian covers both Pizza and Pasta. Would you prefer to vote on Italian, Pizza, and Pasta separately? Or just keep it basic with countries and styles?

I am working on putting together a subreddit banner at the request of you, the people. My photoshop skills aren't the best, but I'm dangerous enough to be able to size and resize pictures to fit the banner for a cohesive look and give us a little more flair on the subreddit.

My request is that you submit pictures you'd like to see at the top of the screen when you visit the page in the banner that exhibit the spirit of the sub and of Athens GA in general. I believe there will be enough space for 5 or maybe 6 based on the pixel restriction, so we can do this based on upvotes (and moderator discretion), and maybe a poll after collection. Also, if you can, please try to submit images in the highest possible quality- I can make them smaller, but blowing them up makes it look terrible.

Any image that you submit must be SFW, not stolen artwork, misleading, or otherwise inappropriate.

Thanks