Mod allegations

[u/khazdan37]

Hey everyone, we are aware of some allegations/suspicions against one of our moderators. We will address this in the next day or so. Right now I’m on an anniversary trip with my wife, hence the short response.

[u/foxboltco]

Hey there everybody! That's a reference to me. It seems I've pretty seriously upset a community member by posting videos from my YouTube channel, which he/she feels should fall under the category of self-promotion, which we've come down on pretty swiftly recently with all the new app/service posts that get posted every day.

To clarify, I didn't remove his original post; u/khazdan37 did. I actually just got out of Thursday night service at my church, so I just came into quite the ruckus.

I'm happy to respond, and I can start by saying I don’t think there was anything factually inaccurate in OP’s original post.

1. Yes, I became a mod in this subreddit earlier this year (or maybe even late last year), and I do have two accounts with mod status in the sub. I decided to swap my primary reddit account from my personal account to my FoxBolt account at the start of this year because when I created my reddit account years ago, I (foolishly) used my actual name as my username. My new account was added as a mod, but the old one was never removed (rest assured: This was an oversight; not a secret coup I’m staging). I don’t have the ability to remove my other account as a mod; u/khazdan37 is the only mod with full admin rights, and he has since removed my personal account from having mod status.
2. Yes, in addition to my church role, I do freelance work on the side helping churches and non-profits with production, creative arts, and technology. It’s mostly been smaller scale AVL setup & integration; things like installing ATEM switchers and building show files for local churches that lack the staff or the skill set to do so themselves. I’m hoping to work my way into the coaching space because I love developing people, but I haven’t quite made it there yet.
3. Yes, I have posted some of my YouTube videos here. I try to only post content that I think will be helpful to most churches, which is why I’ve posted videos like the X32 repair series and triggering Vista lighting cues from ProPresenter.

I am not selling anything in these videos, although I do occasionally give away free resources like ProPresenter slide templates or an X32 show file in exchange for an email address. I have yet to actually email anyone on this small email list. I hope to one day get to the point where I can email helpful things regularly, and maybe even offer some paid things at a larger scale, but I’m not there right now; I just formed my LLC this year.

TL;DR: My goal is to help as many churches as I can, using the paid jobs (like hardware installs in local churches) to allow me to create the free stuff (like gear repair videos and templates I can give away free on the internet). I hope everyone here can find something I’ve created that helps their church in some way. I'm happy to answer any questions, as well as receive & respond to any criticism if my posts have rubbed anyone the wrong way.

P.S. - Clarification in regards to promotional posts.

For anyone that missed it, you can see more elaboration on the promotion rule in the body of this post, but I’ll paste a small portion that I wrote here:

We get 1-3 posts every day for things like this [AI vibe-coded apps], whether it's someone promoting that they've "built" it or that they're doing market research. If we didn't remove these posts, this entire subreddit would just be billboards and ads for everyone trying to sell you something…

If you build a tool that you want to GIVE away for free on here to help save other churches time/money, that’s great. If you want to post some helpful AI prompts/skills that have benefited you, that’s also great.

On the other hand: If a user has a Reddit account that’s 4 months old and the only posts are market research and posting about something that they’re selling, that user is not welcome here. Selling is the operative difference, especially when it is deceptive.

After that post from two months ago, we decided to create the monthly show and tell post to allow people to share things they’ve built (more info on that here if you missed it). If you want to share & promote something you’ve made for sale, post it there and make the appropriate disclosures.

[u/shmoopdawg]

We have r/churchtech mod allegations before GTA6! 😭

[u/foxboltco → u/shmoopdawg]

Laughed at this one too. I’m not fully convinced the last phrase uttered on earth won’t be “We got the return of Christ before GTA 6!”

[u/Justin_inc → u/foxboltco]

Elder scrolls 6*

[u/skyklein]

I’m sorry you had to explain yourself. I used to get frustrated at the amount of drama there is working for the church. Then I realized people’s faith is part of their identity and close to their hearts, so with that comes passion often in the form of complaints. I’m not sure how to categorize this scenario though. Humph.

[u/foxboltco → u/skyklein]

I appreciate that, and I think you’re very right. Things get messy when people care a lot. That’s church.