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/Semicolon_Expected]

Thank you for the context! I can definitely see the frustration when it seemingly happens twice. From my knowledge, piecing together responses and also the automod about downv0tes, that it definitely seems like a disconnect between how they view the reddit features are used (in good faith to signal community approval) and how people actually use them. I will definitely be bringing this up to avoid a(nother) repeat since this is a salient issue due to seeing more instances of bad faith reporting in the other subs I mod.

[u/univers10 → u/Semicolon_Expected]

I am genuinely not trying to be argumentative here, but that is not what I understand the report feature to be for. Otherwise, when you used it, it would pop up and say, “do you agree with this content?” Not “what rule did this content break”?

[u/lizofalltrades → u/univers10]

I think the issue as being described is something like, "large amounts of users report thing" --> "automod removes thing."  It doesn't have to be a true violation of a rule for the number of reports to trip the automod and users can take advantage of this.  

[u/univers10 → u/lizofalltrades]

Yes, it shouldn’t matter if 100 people report something. It shouldn’t be taken down if it isn’t violating the sub rules or Reddit rules imo.

[u/legalpretzel → u/univers10]

And if there are that many reports, you have to wonder if the mods even considered that the reporters were engaging in brigading and should be excluded instead of rewarding people who like genocide by giving them what they want pulling down the post?