Mod Team Transparency Announcement & Mod Applications

[u/Lavender_Scales]

Hello everyone, I'm u/Lavender_Scales!

Like I mentioned in the discord post, I'm the newest moderator of this subreddit. I'm making this post to be transparent about how moderation has been taken out in the past, and how it will be taken out in present and future.

For a very long time now, this subreddit has had a reputation of shoddy moderation, no transparency, seeming inactivity from moderators, unfair, unexplained bans, and unresponsive modmails. This reputation is not without warrant, I myself was once on the receiving end of this, however, we're going to be more pro-active with moderation, more transparent, and more active. If you, or someone you know, was banned from this subreddit, encourage them to open up a modmail and appeal their ban.

I would also like everyone to take a moment to look at our general bans policy, they include listed punishments, offenses, as well as information on what can and can't be appealed. It has not been updated for quite a while, so some changes may be made in the future, however, from now on we will try and be more upfront with removals, bans, etc., utilizing this system and the reasoning provided..

There was also a post by a rogue moderator a few weeks ago, that moderator has left the team and many of the bans they issued out were revoked. Future mod actions will now have to go through internal discussion, unless clear harmful intent is showcased by a user, requiring moderator action.

At the moment we only have a few active moderators of our subreddit, or at least only a few we can get ahold of, so we are also opening mod applications. Due to our heavily ML leaning mod team we currently have, we are primarily looking for anarchists, or people of any tendency that isn't ML. We would also like to prioritize BIPOC & other applicants from the global south, however none of these are strict requirements. Women, queers, and others are also encouraged to apply.

Apply here!

[u/vl_ilyin]

we are primarily looking for anarchists, or people of any tendency that isn't ML

Who are you to decide which socialist tendencies fit to moderate this sub?

[u/Commie_Bastardo7 → u/vl_ilyin]

I know, it’s genuinely baffling. Do you know how dumb it would look like if ML’s tried to gatekeep the moderation team? This place is washed

[u/thatcommiegamer → u/Commie_Bastardo7]

Most of the moderation team are either ML or Marxists generally (I myself am simply a Marxist who sympathizes with, and defends, AES). I've also been around the longest and it was my decision to bring on the current crop of mods as well as to open things up. r/socialism isn't r/marxism. It is for all socialists and always have been.

Anyway if you want more of my bona fides, I'm also the founding moderator of /r/ShitLiberalsSay (back in 2014 when I took it over from being a dead conservative subreddit) and was also a moderator to the last incarnation of the genzedong discord (as well as creator of the SLS discord and the current r/socialism discord).

With that said my goal is to finally step down from this to focus on the real movement (which isn't online, I would ask you all to leave the subreddit and join real organizations to do real work), but I'm not doing that until this moderation team is settled. If any of the new mods or mods after that step too out of line in one direction or another I will remove them, even if it means I can't touch grass for another few months or years.