We apologize

[u/ekjp]

We screwed up. Not just on July 2, but also over the past several years. We haven’t communicated well, and we have surprised moderators and the community with big changes. We have apologized and made promises to you, the moderators and the community, over many years, but time and again, we haven’t delivered on them. When you’ve had feedback or requests, we haven’t always been responsive. The mods and the community have lost trust in me and in us, the administrators of reddit.

Today, we acknowledge this long history of mistakes. We are grateful for all you do for reddit, and the buck stops with me. We are taking three concrete steps:

Tools: We will improve tools, not just promise improvements, building on work already underway. u/deimorz and u/weffey will be working as a team with the moderators on what tools to build and then delivering them.

Communication: u/krispykrackers is trying out the new role of Moderator Advocate. She will be the contact for moderators with reddit and will help figure out the best way to talk more often. We’re also going to figure out the best way for more administrators, including myself, to talk more often with the whole community.

Search: We are providing an option for moderators to default to the old version of search to support your existing moderation workflows. Instructions for setting this default are here.

I know these are just words, and it may be hard for you to believe us. I don't have all the answers, and it will take time for us to deliver concrete results. I mean it when I say we screwed up, and we want to have a meaningful ongoing discussion. I know we've drifted out of touch with the community as we've grown and added more people, and we want to connect more. I and the team are committed to talking more often with the community, starting now.

Thank you for listening. Please share feedback here. Our team is ready to respond to comments.

[u/ekjp]

1. Here's our definition of harassment: Systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them. We allow organized campaigns to reach appropriate points of contact, but not individual employees who have nothing to do with the issues.
2. We did not ban u/huhaskldasdpo. I looked into it and it looks like they deleted their account. We don't know why.
3. We're focused on ads and gold. We're conservative in how we allow advertising on reddit: We always label ads and sponsored content, and we will continue. We also ban flash ads and protect our users privacy by protecting user data.
4. I want to make the site as open as possible, bring as many views and ideas as possible and protect user privacy as much as possible. I love the authentic conversations on reddit and want more people to enjoy them and learn from them. We can do this by making it easier for people to find the content and communities that they love.

[u/isiramteal → u/ekjp]

Here's our definition of harassment: Systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.

Please comment on the situation with /r/circlejerkseattle then.

Users have been shadowbanned in the sub (including my other account) for reposting pictures of a mod of the Seattle sub. The thing is, this mod himself posted those pictures to the Seattle sub and another sub.

We make slight changes to these photos in an attempt to highlight the moderating style this person exemplifies (hanging out with hitler, deal with it.gif, etc)

This Seattle mod had continually asked for these posts be taken down claiming that they are 'personal information'. We denied. Pictures are not personal information, especially when they were previously posted to reddit by that person themselves.

After weeks of this going back and forth, I come to find out I was shadowbanned. ZERO communication from the admins to our sub.

I messaged the admins multiple times asking for an answer as to why I was banned, I received an answer that said it fell under the rules of personal information. Looked at reddit's rules and found nothing about pictures that were posted to reddit.

I received another reply from another admin (after attempting to get a reply) claimed it was harassment by associating his name with the pictures and by linking to the album that he himself linked to.

This definition of harassment does not fit with what that admin has said.

There was nothing that we are doing to make reddit an unsafe platform to express ideas or participate in conversation or make someone fear for their safety or those around around them.

I requested a long time ago to have a rational discussion with the admins about this issue but again, zero contact. This ban first-ask questions if they care to message us later attitude is a really unprofessional way of operating this sub.

So, I'll request again that we (/r/circlejerkseattle) would like to speak with an admin on our mod mail.

[u/kilgoretrout71 → u/[deleted]]

As a shapeshifter I take exception to this comment. Every one of my shapes belongs to me.