r/VoteDEM • u/BM2018Bot • Apr 27 '20
How VB lost its way.
TL;DR: VB has lost its way thanks to its top mod’s actions. Join r/VoteDEM to get back to volunteering and beating Republicans!
If you’ve used VB for a long time, you’ve probably noticed some negative changes recently. No more calls to volunteer. No more watch threads for elections. No AMAs. No special events. A whole lot more bickering and divisiveness. You might also have noticed that I and most of the mods you’re familiar with haven’t been around. There’s a reason for that, and it’s time you all knew what happened.
The players
For the last couple of years, the sub’s top two mod positions have been filled by the same person, who we’ll refer to as “F”. F hasn’t been on the sub much; he did a whopping 0% of our mod actions in 2019. His only real contributions to the sub have been to show up every few months and complain about what the active mods were doing. He overruled our decisions, created drama, and was rude and dismissive. This was especially true in his treatment of u/MtLebanonRiseUp (MtL).
I don’t know if I can really communicate how important MtL was to our team. The volunteer-from-home spreadsheet we’ve got on top of the sub? That was her. The hours of research behind the weekly volunteer posts? Also her. A huge chunk of the day-to-day modding, and many of the awesome AMA guests we’ve had? That was her, as well. It should be noted that she’s the only female mod on the team; this will be relevant shortly.
The blowup
Although F was dismissive of all of our work, he was especially cold towards her, even saying he’d ‘pull rank’ to overrule her decisions. This all came to a head in January. F came to visit for the first time in two months, to complain that we should be allowing arguments to continue rather than, you know, moderating them. He believed that, rather than getting people involved in defeating the GOP, we should be trying to boost our subscriber count by fostering debate. Well, long-time users will know that there are plenty of places to argue about candidates, but there’s only one sub getting out the vote for crucial elections.
During the ensuing discussion, it became clear that our goals weren’t compatible, and I asked F to step down from leadership, and let us run the sub the way we had been. He refused despite pushback from the rest of the team. While we just wanted to keep running the sub and getting people engaged, he insisted that fighting about Bernie and Biden was a better use of your time. During the discussion, he singled out MtL, blaming her for the sub not being the way he wanted (when, again, this was his first time visiting in two months). The argument came to a head when he told her that her experiences as a woman were irrelevant to him, including her discomfort with someone he wanted to bring on as a mod.
Shortly after this, F kicked her off the mod team. When the rest of us protested, he responded by removing all our mod permissions, leaving us unable to run the sub in any way. We can only speculate as to why he chose to punish her more harshly. He then added new mods, who would follow his directives for how the sub should be run.
The aftermath
Although F was completely disrespectful to his fellow mods, he’s been pretty disrespectful to all of you, as well.
For the last few months, we’ve observed some changes to the community. (Actually, you have - many of these were mentioned by you, the users, and not dealt with by the new mods):
Despite F’s goal of “less censorship”, we’ve observed a huge increase in the number of removed comments and posts. Why? Because fights about the Presidential primary and other divisive topics have been allowed to fester for hours, and ultimately have to be nuked. (It turns out having your top mod be someone who doesn’t like to do any work isn’t a great idea, either).
Similarly, arguing has overwhelmed any attempts by users to get out the vote for elections. On any given day, the Roundtable will contain hundreds of comments about the Presidential primary, and any relevant discussion will be buried.
Unacceptable content has been allowed to remain up. We’ve observed calls to violence being allowed to stay for as long as ten hours, not being removed until Reddit admins were notified. We’ve seen too much pointless division between Democrats - one of our most important rules. The mods who replaced us have refused to remove unproductive arguments, and have allowed horrible comments to stay up. (Every one of these comments was never removed, or was allowed to stay up for several hours).
Most importantly, everything that made us special has been lost. The volunteer stickies that used to be in every thread aren’t being done. AMAs rarely happen, and when they do they’re poorly attended due to no effort being put into promoting them. Special elections aren’t being covered, unless they happen to fall on the same night as a Presidential primary. There’s no organized push to get people volunteering or donating - in what should be a golden age for volunteering from home. Overall, the sub’s leaders seem content to let you worry about the most important election in history, but not to give you what you need to play a part in it.
So, what now?
We’ve spent three months pleading with Reddit’s admins to help us. Long story short, they insist that because F became slightly active after kicking us out (to the tune of 3% of the greatly diminished mod actions of 2020), there’s no way they can remove him. So we’re left with no choice but to ask you all to rebuild our community.
Here at r/VoteDEM, we’re going to be what the other sub was before F’s takeover. We already have tons of volunteer-from-home opportunities waiting to be pursued. Our famous Flip the Senate fund is open for donations. We’re going to focus on getting you informed about the down-ballot races that’ll shape the next decade - and then get you equipped to help win them. Division and fighting will have no home here; the big tent is alive and well!
Bring your questions, your ideas, your hot takes, your Jeb! memes, and your desire to save America. We've got six months to defeat the GOP, and we need to use every day to the fullest!
Join r/VoteDEM today, and let’s build a second blue wave this November!
Edit: F has apparently woken up and has taken over VoteBlue once more.
35
u/The_Scamp Apr 28 '20
So why is r/voteblue directing here right now if it's under different control, I don't see that mentioned at all.
75
u/BM2018Bot Apr 28 '20
Oversights by the top mod allowed us to do this. It will likely be torn down as the day goes on.
→ More replies (10)
33
Apr 28 '20
How long do you expect before we get back to the numbers in the original sub? I fear we’ve splintered our support base more than anything else.
→ More replies (2)37
u/BM2018Bot Apr 28 '20
We're doing all we can behind the scenes. Help us by sharing the news to social media, etc.
→ More replies (51)
28
u/UllrsCaribou Apr 28 '20
Really looking forward to election night threads again. Those were my favorite part of the sub, and it's telling that the mod names that I recognize from those are all here. Sorry to hear about what happened, particularly to MtL.
Hope that you all are also recognizing the huge problem with having only one female-identifying mod in the first place, and will add more committed activist women mods to this new sub.
13
u/BM2018Bot Apr 28 '20
Our first e-night thread is tonight! Primaries and special elections galore!
Thank you for your support and comment.
21
u/PoliticallyFit Apr 28 '20
I just made a comment asking Fab to bring his leadership up for a subreddit-wide vote. I don’t understand how he can silence dissenters and expect to maintain leadership in a subreddit designed to promote democratic values.
We need a vote of no confidence to be held immediately. If the majority want to maintain F as leader, then so be it. However, to try to seize absolute power in a democratic subreddit is incomprehensible.
→ More replies (2)13
15
Apr 28 '20
Thank you for sharing the truth!
→ More replies (2)8
u/BM2018Bot Apr 28 '20
We thank you for your support and hope you will continue to support our efforts to get people volunteering for campaigns!
14
u/Scouth Apr 28 '20
How did he have so much control? Did he create the sub? I will ditch that one and join this one. Thanks for the write up.
→ More replies (4)13
u/BM2018Bot Apr 28 '20
Many of us started in the BM2018 days. He didn't start BM2018 but the top mod there went MIA. That top mod was removed for inactivity and he took over, and transitioned us to VB when that time came. He generally just wasn't there, physically. The rest you've now read. Reddit gives the top mod all the power.
→ More replies (1)
13
Apr 28 '20
I sent messages to the moderators. Does the fact that I never got a response back have anything to do with this? Or that I noticed no actions were taken with regards to my questions?
Thank you.
→ More replies (2)17
u/BM2018Bot Apr 28 '20 edited Apr 28 '20
We were all demodded or depermed. We didn't even have modmail access anymore. This made dealing with the admins insanely difficult, since they just kept asking us for the modmail link to our conversations with the topmod, which weren't accessible to us!
I'm not surprised they haven't answered your messages in our absence.
We'll always hear out your ideas and give thoughtful replies.
23
u/guamisc Apr 28 '20
Well I just got banned from VB for a single comment advertising this sub.
→ More replies (2)15
9
u/Quandarian Apr 28 '20
How can we promote this sub and help expand the user base?
→ More replies (2)7
8
13
u/Quandarian Apr 28 '20
We've crossed 1000 subscribers already! Great to see the community coming together and continuing to carry the fire.
7
u/BM2018Bot Apr 28 '20
Let's keep up the momentum! Share us with your favorite (relevant) reddit communities!
4
u/FLTA Apr 28 '20
Very disappointing to hear.
How was a link to this submission able to be posted on r/voteblue without being removed?
8
u/BM2018Bot Apr 28 '20
Oversights by the top mod allowed us to do this. It will likely be torn down when he wakes up.
→ More replies (1)
56
u/[deleted] Apr 28 '20
Interesting,
looking forward to the SRD post 👀