[Mod Post] A statement on yesterday's Chooting

Good morning, evening, day, or night.

As you may have noticed, we have made the sub public once again. Although there are many posts around reddit and a number of news articles explaining yesterday's events, we wanted to make a statement in AskReddit because we believe the users should be kept in the loop and be given every opportunity to do so.

Yesterday morning, we learned that Victoria was let go of reddit and were understandably unhappy. She has been a huge asset to reddit, r/IAmA or otherwise. While her departure mainly affected subs that host AMAs, it spoke to a bigger issue the mods have been dealing with for a long time; this was just the straw that broke the camel's back.

In the recent months, mods have been getting increasingly upset over the admins not keeping us or the users in the loop as much as we believe they should have. We have noticed cases in which they will announce a new policy but ignore requests to further explain those rules, for example. There has also been an issue with getting the admins to assist mods when it's most important. If a user is doxxing someone, the mods can send a mod mail to the admins but there is a chance it will take hours to get a response, if at all. In order to operate to the best of our abilities, we need support from the admins. We need to count on getting reasonably timed responses; we need clarification on the site rules; we need communication, and we don't think that's too much to ask.

We can't begin to express how amazing it has been to see how many news articles have been written about this and how well received this message has been by the users. We know users and mods don't always see eye to eye but it's good to know we can when it matters. This response has led to the admins issuing a statement and agreeing to make some changes. They have not spoken to all the issues we would like to have addressed, but it's progress and they have agreed to give us better tools with which to work; however, what they have offered thus far is just part of what we need to do this work well. We have been given a timeline and we hope they keep that timeline. We understand delays happen, but we're not willing to go back to the way things had been; our situation was getting worse and the help we were getting from the admins was not sufficient.

Going forward, we hope to get a better relationship with the admins, although tensions will likely be high at first. We want this to be the best website it can, and unfortunately that means putting our collective feet down to object at a certain point. Closing subs is obviously not something we like doing, but it does effectively show our disapproval. We appreciate the admins have been receptive to change and seem to be listening to our concerns. We hope they follow through with their agreed upon changes.

We, at AskReddit, also want to hear your feedback for what you would like to see in this sub. If you have questions about the sub or rules, please always feel free to mod mail us. If you have a suggestion for a rule change or anything of the sort, feel free to suggest a change in r/IdeasForAskreddit. We're always open to new ideas and want to provide you with the best experience here.

In closing, we want to give a special thank you to Victoria. Few people are so genuinely nice to everyone and you are a superhero. Your hard work in AMAs made a lot of peoples' experiences better and made you an integral part of the website. Your presence will be missed throughout reddit but we wish you the best of luck in your new job, wherever that may be.

-The Mods