r/VoteBlue • u/TheNewPoetLawyerette • May 05 '20
Update on the removal of moderators and a plea for blue unity in 2020
Hello all. I'm a new mod added as emergency response when this sub unfortunately lost the bulk of its team. I was selected due to my experience with moderating reddit, my typically active presence in the communities I moderate, and, to be transparent, my acquaintance with the head mod here through a community where moderators share resources with each other. A few days ago I informed some users that I have reviewed the mod logs, in addition to being given access to the private mod discussions from prior to my addition to the team, and I promised that I would share my opinions -- with evidence -- of what I found there. I apologize it took me a while to come through on that promise; real life got in the way (I had some highly important legal work to attend to, advocating for a client's release from prison in New York to protect them from COVID-19).
I know many of you will not find this to be an unbiased take, but I hope that you all will evaluate what I'm sharing for yourselves.
What I found was serious:
modding based on personal feelings and ideological bias.
Some mods began treating progressive figures as inherently divisive and positive progressive messages, even those written by sitting Democratic politicians, were seen as attacks on the party itself
The current top mod of the splinter sub even expressed in private messages with the top mod here that the culture change on the team was evident, and the source of the change was clear. This discussion took place just days prior to the demodding of the mod who was the primary source of dissent against allowing progressive voices in the sub for fear of fomenting "anti-Democrat" sentiment.
The top mod here remains adamant that he wants the old team to return, as it is obvious how valuable their contributions were to the sub. It is only his desire to keep this sub a "big tent" that has precipitated his actions, and that should not be an insurmountable issue. All of the former mods are good mods and they are all capable of moderating in an unbiased way; I've also seen plenty of more "centrist" divisiveness actioned. I don't mean this post to imply that the old mods wanted to get rid of progressives, only that unfortunately the informal policies started to tend in that direction, and that the mod discussion about it favored removing progressive voices for questionable reasons.
I mod several subs with a so-called "absentee head mod," and while I understand the frustration with being overruled by someone who doesn't have a measurable active presence, what I think is missed by this argument is the importance and purpose of having someone in a leadership position who endeavors to keep the purpose of the sub in check. Take, for example, the criticisms of the Sanders campaign for having people who seem to encourage the divisive nature of some Sanders supporters; many say that Sanders would have been better off to remove those people from his campaign to better encourage the message of inclusiveness that the Senator himself tries to encourage. It could be called a failure of Sanders' leadership to allow campaign staff to rail so hard against the democratic establishment. Asking a capable and experienced head mod to step down merely because he is not as active as the mods below him fails to address the legitimate concerns with the direction moderation was taking here, and eliminates failsafes against the perversion of a sub's message.
Creating a splinter sub only achieves in dividing the activism that ALL mods on the team helped build and foster, and eliminates the highly important visibility of this much larger sub. Especially because it is an election year, I entreat the old mods and the contributors who followed them to return to this larger sub and continue giving their activism a larger audience. Interpersonal conflict is not as important as making sure people vote blue.
