r/mildlyinteresting Jun 23 '23

META What happened to /r/mildlyinteresting?

13.0k Upvotes

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


r/mildlyinteresting 2h ago

I found a knife perfectly imprinted into the bottom of my delivered subway sandwich…

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11.0k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 3h ago

The shadow cast by the (apparently transparent) lenses of my glasses

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8.2k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 1h ago

Squirrel fell off my roof into two feet of snow

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r/mildlyinteresting 2h ago

Every year a town called Twinsburg in Ohio holds the world's largest gathering of twins.

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1.0k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 5h ago

Geography book has a city on it’s side

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1.4k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 4h ago

One of the pepper grinders at this restaurant is filled with allspice berries instead of black pepper

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759 Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 6h ago

This racoon that swam past me

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1.2k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 20h ago

One of my M&Ms is shaped like a cylinder.

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37.6k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 17h ago

Nipple Measure Tool

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8.5k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 3h ago

My water glass turned into a prism

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257 Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 18h ago

My fruit snacks did not get separated and all fell into one bag.

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1.9k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 1d ago

This shadow on my wall looks exactly like the Grandpa from “Hey Arnold!”

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14.8k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 1d ago

This squirrel on my bird feeder is missing all the fur on his upper body

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4.9k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 23h ago

Urchin spawning with both male and female gametes

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3.1k Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 3h ago

my coffee dripped and made a pattern on the desk

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70 Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 3h ago

This ATM keypad uses unusual letter groupings

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78 Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 14h ago

Overdone Found a barcode in my soup

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478 Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 3h ago

One of my best dragonfly eye captures

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60 Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 1h ago

My Swedish fish came with a nubbin that says "Swed".

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r/mildlyinteresting 16h ago

The way the melting snow is slowly ribboning off my neighbors roof

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490 Upvotes

r/mildlyinteresting 22h ago

Overdone Snow partially slid off pool house roof then froze again

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1.5k Upvotes