• Source: /r/2012Watch
  • Posted: Jan 20 2012
  • Author: dannylandulf
  • Topic: /r/lgbt mod melt down.
  • Note: Summary post used in lieu of posting all comments individually.

On Jan. 14, 2012 the mods of /r/lgbt (rmuser and SilentAgony) announced the decision to change the moderation style and tone of the the sub. The main theme of the announcement was that steps were being taken to remove perceived transphobic comments and trolls of all lgbt issues. The announcement was well received and although some didn’t see the need for stricter moderation, all seemed well.

Buried within the announcement, however, was the decision to label users with /r/shitredditsays style flair. Prior to the announcement, posters had been labeled earlier in the week…some for fairly innocuous reasons such as this or this.

Day 2: Highly upvoted threads calling for the ending of the red flair started popping up…only to be removed by the mods. Concurrently, the mods started telling anyone who disagreed with them their opinions were not valid while threatening bans and deletions to anyone that disagreed with them.

In response, the mods of another lgbt community (/r/gaymers) announced they had formed the new sub /r/ainbow as a splinter group for lgbt redditors that didn’t support the new tone of the moderators.

Day 3: SilentAgony creates this post trying to reign in the backlash over the new policies, while stating they would not ‘back down’ on their stance. Within the post SA retained the right to red label users.

Although they had been, as some complained, slightly overly-aggressive while dealing with dissent up to this point…things started to ‘get real’ in this thread. SA deleted and threatened bans to almost anyone who disagreed.

Under the increased pressure and growing unpopularity of the new rules…the mods caved late in the day on the issue of flair but they became increasingly abusive towards people simply for disagreeing with them.

Elsewhere, SilentAgony and Laurelai, a frequent defender of the /r/lgbt mods and current mod of /r/transgender who felt the need to be constantly hateful even to people just looking for information, teamed up with /r/shitredditsays regulars to create /r/rainbowwatch in order to ‘document the bigoted and privileged things said in the LGBT community, specifically subreddits like /r/gaymers and /r/ainbow’. Members of monitored subs found this amusing.

Day 4: Calls for the mods to step down became frequent. They were all promptly deleted as soon as a mod discovered them while the mods become evermore abusive to dissenters. Laurelai frequently jumped in to support the mods with the usual grace.

Continued in comments…