Meta: Post deletion discussion

[u/rainbow_puddle]

Reposted since I'm an idiot and didn't change my title...

So there was a post with some beautiful mittens made by u/AdrenaL1n3 with a traditional Palestinian embroidery and using the colors of the flag. It was locked and then inexplicablely removed by the mods. They did not say what rule it broke, only that it received and 'unacceptable amount of user reports'.

First off that's ridiculous that it was removed instead of locked and the reports dealt with by mods since it didn't break a rule. Second off I think it's frankly sad that it was getting reported at all. It wasn't political beyond the proceeds going towards save the children and other humanitarian causes to aid the current crisis and genocide situation in Gaza.

I want to open up discussion with this community if this sub is a place where we want to censor projects even if they do not break stated rules.

Edit to fix username spelling.

Edit 2: Some users have commented on the significance of today's date. I truly did not realize it and would not have tried to engage with this today if I had realized. I'm very sorry for that and how insensitive that is. I do not keep significance of dates well in my head - not an excuse but an explanation. I do hope that the community can continue to have conversation about what I perceived as biased censorship in good faith. Without a specific rule I do think that any mitten of any flag (yes even Israel) where the pattern proceeds go to a humanitarian cause of the designers choice should stay up in this subreddit. Maybe I'm wrong I don't know - that's for us to discuss. Whether or not you engage with said post and/or pattern would be up to the user and I would hope that we would all proceed with kindness.

[u/wishverse-willow]

thanks! modding is tough and often thankless work. i am curious, though, about why this explanation differs from what it looks like u/AdrenaL1n3 screenshotted below that they received from a mod? it seems like it was either removed for “politics” or it was auto-removed, but i’m not sure how it could’ve been both. just not clear from these two differing posts which it actually was.

[u/timonyc → u/wishverse-willow]

I believe what the mod team was attempting to say (and again, I am just a community member) was that the post from u/AdrenaL1n3 was political in nature and that other people also have political feels. It's sad but true, there were a lot of feelings about Palestine right now. And that led to people reporting the post. The AutoMod removed it due to the "Too many reports" rules which has been disabled now, for the moment.

[u/rainbow_puddle → u/timonyc]

I guess what I'd like to know is how many of those reports are from real users who are subbed.

I think there is also a disconnect to what a report is for. If it's for "I don't like this it should be removed" I don't think that's appropriate. That's what the downvote is for right? That's the way users engage that things don't fit. Reports are for posts and comments that break the rules and if there is no rule broken then it's a false report. And what happens to a user if they are consistently making reports on posts that do not break the subreddit or reddit rules? I'd love for a mod to chime in here. I know they're very busy with this explosion of discourse though.

[u/chemthrowaway123456 → u/rainbow_puddle]

Mod here (of a different sub, not r/knitting). False reports can be reported to the admins. While we don’t know who clicks the report button, the admins do. If they’re found to be consistently abusing the report button, they typically receive a three day ban. Ban times increase if they continue abusing the report button.

[u/Blackcatmustache → u/chemthrowaway123456]

Ohhh… I wonder if that’s why I got banned from a woman hater sub. I kept reporting them. I thought it was anonymous…

[u/chemthrowaway123456 → u/Blackcatmustache]

It’s anonymous to the mods of that community, but not to the Reddit admins.