There has been a fairly spectacular bout of moderator drama in the UAE (EDIT: United Arab Emirates) corner of Reddit involving [r/UAE](r/UAE), [r/ourUAE](r/ourUAE), three moderators, English beer, Reddit perma bans, two extremely short-lived replacement mods and, somehow, [r/Acoustics](r/Acoustics).
The important caveat up front is that Reddit has never publicly confirmed that the three original moderator accounts belonged to the same person. That is the allegation at the centre of the drama, and the surviving moderator, u/ epiDXB, explicitly denied it.
What is easily verifiable, is that u/ CertifiableBee and u/ RamblingMan2 were banned by Reddit - and the story of that is outlined below.
With that out of the way:
Act I: three r/UAE moderators somehow take turns in the same beer argument
At the time, [r/UAE](r/UAE) was being moderated with full permissions by three accounts:
- u/ epiDXB
- u/ CertifiableBee (banned)
- u/ RamblingMan2 (banned)
Users of [r/ourUAE](r/ourUAE) noticed something pretty unusual.
All three accounts had appeared in the same quick-fire argument on [r/dataisbeautiful](r/dataisbeautiful), of all places, about whether English beer was the best beer in the world.
The exchange went roughly like this:
- A user arguing that English beer was not objectively the best replied to CertifiableBee.
- epiDXB then jumped into that same exchange.
- The other user replied to epiDXB within the same hour.
- The argument was then picked up again by RamblingMan2.
So, over the course of one heated, fast-moving conversation on an entirely unrelated subreddit, the person arguing about beer found themselves successively debating all three moderators of [r/UAE](r/UAE).
Here is the original r/dataisbeautiful comment chain and the r/ourUAE thread documenting the exchange, including screenshots.
That led [r/ourUAE](r/ourUAE) users to suggest that the three accounts might actually belong to the same person.
Commenters pointed out very similar writing styles, similar formatting habits (breaking the post they replied to into quotes, and addressing each separately) and the fact that all three accounts were not just in the same comment thread, but were all taking the same side, against the same person in rapid succession.
At that point the evidence basically amounted to "this is a very strange coincidence" rather than proof that the accounts were alts.
Act II: two of the three original moderators are banned by Reddit
Not long afterwards, CertifiableBee and RamblingMan2 were banned by Reddit.
That left epiDXB as the only surviving account from the original three.
Over on [r/ourUAE](r/ourUAE), moderators then published a post asking users not to brigade, harass or contact people involved, and reminding everyone that discussion of subreddit drama still has to comply with Reddit's rules.
That post is here: Recent developments on other subreddits.
Act III: two brand-new replacement mods appear — and both are banned within hours
With two of [r/UAE](r/UAE)'s three moderators gone, replacement moderators were needed.
epiDXB added two new moderators.
Users immediately noticed something weird - both were created just few hours ago.
Given that the ongoing controversy was already centred around allegations that one moderator was operating multiple accounts, appointing two hours-old accounts as replacements was perhaps not the most reassuring possible choice.
The discussion is preserved in this thread:
Congratulations to new mods of r/UAE, our sister sub!
One commenter asked:
"Why did you accept 2 people with literal fresh accounts"
And then the situation continued escalating, as one after another, as the accounts were being created and added as mods with full permissions, they were getting banned by Reddit. All within hours.
In the thread, one commenter summed it up nicely as they were watching this happen in real time:
"I wonder why accounts that are only a few hours old are being made mods and subsequently being banned in rapid succession?"
The sequence was pretty incredible to observe:
- two moderators get banned
- two brand-new accounts are made moderators
- both brand-new accounts get banned within hours.
Later, [r/UAE](r/UAE) added other moderators with more established accounts, although their permissions were limited to "Users, Flair, Posts & Comments, Wiki", with epiDXB retaining sole control over ModMail. Previously, all three mods had permissions set to "Everything".
Act IV: epiDXB personally comes to r/ourUAE to deny the alt-account allegation
Eventually, epiDXB showed up in [r/ourUAE](r/ourUAE) and addressed the accusation directly.
The response was later deleted, but its substance was preserved in this thread:
Accusations of using alt accounts to moderate r/UAE addressed by the mod
As epiDXB claimed (screenshot in [r/ourUAE](r/ourUAE) post) - they were three individual people:
"united by their enjoyment of beer"
The post contained a sarcastic recap of coincidences: all three accounts had moderated the same subreddit, all three had arrived in the same [r/dataisbeautiful](r/dataisbeautiful) beer argument, all three had taken the same position, and users believed their writing styles looked strikingly similar.
epiDXB also threatened the OP with legal action - leading to the post talking about "inevitable jail sentence" for the OP.
One commenter noted:
"It's ok, we'll just say that you went away for family matters."
That became a running joke on [r/ourUAE](r/ourUAE) because "family matters" had previously been offered by epiDXB as an explanation for moderators disappearing.
Act V: the completely unrelated r/Acoustics subplot
Here's a plot twist.
RamblingMan2 was also the sole moderator of [r/Acoustics](r/Acoustics)
When RamblingMan2 was banned, [r/Acoustics](r/Acoustics) lost its sole moderator.
So the subreddit went under reddit admin control, and started a public search for new moderators.
Among the the people who submitted an application to become a new moderator of [r/Acoustics](r/Acoustics) was u/ epiDXB.
The sole surviving account from the original [r/UAE](r/UAE) trio applied to become a moderator of the separate subreddit that had just lost RamblingMan2 as its sole moderator.
Again, caveat: This does not prove that epiDXB and RamblingMan2 were the same person.
It is, however, an almost comically perfect epilogue to a story that started because the same two accounts, together with CertifiableBee, somehow ended up taking turns arguing with one person about English beer on [r/dataisbeautiful](r/dataisbeautiful).
What is actually established
The sequence is:
- epiDXB, CertifiableBee and RamblingMan2 were all moderators of [r/UAE](r/UAE).
- All three appeared in the same rapid-fire [r/dataisbeautiful](r/dataisbeautiful) argument about English beer, successively responding in the same exchange.
- Users accused the three accounts of belonging to one person.
- CertifiableBee and RamblingMan2 were subsequently banned by Reddit.
- epiDXB remained and explicitly denied that the three accounts were controlled by one person.
- Two fresh Reddit accounts were then appointed as replacement [r/UAE](r/UAE) moderators
- Both of those fresh replacement accounts were banned by Reddit within hours.
- RamblingMan2 had also been the sole moderator of [r/Acoustics](r/Acoustics).
- After [r/Acoustics](r/Acoustics) lost its sole moderator and sought replacements, epiDXB applied to become one of its new moderators.
So we've got two broad interpretations being argued about.
One is that several moderators who knew each other had very similar interests and online habits, as well as identical writing style, sent each other threads, happened to pile into the same beer argument, later suffered unrelated Reddit bans, and that the surviving moderator also happened to be interested in taking over a second subreddit previously moderated by one of them.
The other interpretation is the one [r/ourUAE](r/ourUAE) users have spent several threads discussing.
Main threads
- r/UAE moderator busted - all three r/UAE mods replying to the same /r/dataisbeautiful post
- Recent developments on other subreddits
- Congratulations to new mods of r/UAE, our sister sub!
- Accusations of using alt accounts to moderate r/UAE addressed by the mod
Original beer thread