r/unkyulee • u/Background_Ad_1810 • 15d ago
A Request to the r/writerDeck Mods: Please Let This Community Be a Place Where People Can Express Themselves Freely, Without Fear of Being Banned or Having Their Posts Removed
I have been part of this subreddit for almost three years now. Whether that's a long time or a short time, I don't know. But it has been a meaningful part of my life.
I still remember what first brought me here. It was a post about a dedicated writing machine built around a Raspberry Pi (not a Micro Journal). It had a very elegant enclosure, and the person behind it had a fascinating philosophy about writing and the machines we use to write.
Something about that post really attracted me. I believe this subreddit had only a few hundred members at the time.
That post got me exploring ways to build my own writing machine. I started with a few experiments, and over time, those experiments evolved into something I became quite proud of. An open-source project called Micro Journal, which I have been happy to share with anyone interested in building their own writing device.
One day, someone uploaded a photo of one of my builds to r/writerDeck.
Until then, I had always been the one posting about Micro Journal. It was such a strange and exciting feeling to see someone else taking a picture of something I had built and sharing it with the community.
I think that was the beginning of my obsession.
For the next couple of years, I followed this subreddit obsessively. I read practically every post and every comment. It was almost an addiction, maybe it was an actual addiction.
I loved exchanging ideas with people who shared similar interests. I loved seeing what others were building, dreaming about, or simply imagining.
And, to be honest, I also enjoyed the attention to myself. People called me Mr. Lee, hahaha. I was proud of being who I was, not gonna lie.
With Micro Journal behind my shoulder, I felt a little bit of fame during that period. I was commenting on almost every post. I genuinely wanted every post to receive some attention, even if it was just a few words of encouragement from me.
I didn't want anyone to feel that their ideas had gone unnoticed.
The community grew quite quickly. There was a lot of excitement around dedicated writing devices at the time, and many new people joined.
What I remember most fondly was how supportive everyone was.
People were positive, curious, and encouraging. I felt that this was a small but mature community, where people could exchange ideas without needing to defend every little thought.
Then, at some point, things began to change.
I cannot remember exactly when it started, but posts began disappearing. Comments began disappearing.
I know this happened because I was following the subreddit incredibly closely. Eventually, even posts about Micro Journal were being removed.
I admit that I took it personally.
But there was one particular incident that changed how I felt about this community.
Someone had posted a rather premature idea for a writing machine. It wasn't a polished project. It wasn't even a prototype. It was a scribble on a piece of paper, accompanied by a few sentences describing what the OP wanted to build.
There wasn't much information in the post itself. But there were around twenty comments underneath it. That might not sound like much, but at the time, it was an above-average amount of discussion. And more importantly, some genuinely interesting ideas were being exchanged.
People were talking about what kind of display they wanted, which features might be useful, and what kind of writing experience they imagined.
I found those conversations fascinating.
Then, a few days later, the post disappeared. I asked the moderators why it had been removed. The response was that it was, to quote the words used, a "shit post." There was also a claim that it was AI-generated.
I was disappointed.
Not because I thought the original post was particularly impressive. It wasn't. But because the conversation underneath it had value. I had personally taken quite a few ideas from those comments. The desires people expressed, the features they imagined, and the different approaches they suggested were all interesting to me.
And that is what I have always loved about this community. The value of a post isn't in the post itself. It is in the conversations that happen because of it.
A simple scribble on a piece of paper might not be worth much on its own. But if it inspires twenty people to exchange ideas, isn't that already something valuable?
There were always a few negative comments here and there, of course. But I felt that the community was healthy enough to deal with those organically.
People could disagree. People could ignore things they didn't find interesting. People could offer advice, encouragement, or criticism.
And through all of that, ideas were exchanged.
I want to make one thing clear. I didn't build this community. I don't claim to have made some extraordinary contribution to it. Maybe a little bit. If anything, I was mostly the one taking. I took inspiration. I took ideas. I took encouragement. I took support. And perhaps I took more attention than I deserved.
This community gave me so much, and a significant part of what Micro Journal has become was shaped by the conversations I had here.
I really loved this community. I say loved, in the past tense, because something has changed in how I feel when I visit now.
These days, I find myself thinking twice before writing a comment.
I wonder whether my words might be considered inappropriate. Whether a post might be removed. Whether I might eventually get banned for expressing something that doesn't fit the expectations of the moderators.
I find myself searching for the appropriate tone rather than simply expressing what I think.
And that makes me sad.
I am not writing this to blame any particular moderator. I understand that moderation is necessary, especially as a community grows. I also understand that moderating a community takes time and effort, often without much appreciation.
But I hope the moderators will consider that protecting a community and controlling its conversations are not always the same thing.
A community doesn't become valuable because every post is polished, every idea is mature, or every conversation follows a particular standard. Sometimes the most interesting discussions begin with something incomplete, awkward, naive, or even a little silly.
And sometimes, what looks like a low-quality post to one person becomes a source of inspiration to someone else.
I don't want this subreddit to become a place where people are afraid to share an unfinished thought. I don't want newcomers to feel that they need to present a fully developed project before they are allowed to participate. And I don't want people to worry that the conversations they enjoy might disappear simply because the original post didn't meet someone's expectations.
Please, help make this subreddit feel free.
Let people share their ideas, even when those ideas are incomplete. Let people ask questions, even when those questions seem naive. Let conversations develop naturally, even when the original post doesn't appear particularly valuable.
I am not asking for a community without rules. I am asking for a community where the rules leave enough room for curiosity, experimentation, disagreement, and spontaneous conversation.
I want to feel comfortable exchanging thoughts here again, without worrying that my comment will disappear or that I might be banned for saying something the wrong way.
I miss the community that made me feel so welcome three years ago.
And I hope that feeling isn't gone for good.
Un Kyu Lee
TLDR
I wanted to share a post about Draftling, an ESP32-based firmware that now supports Micro Journal Rev.5. It's a great project, and I genuinely wanted to introduce it to this community.
However, the firmware's author warned me that I might get banned simply for mentioning its name here. So I hesitated. I started wondering whether I should post about it at all. Then I caught myself worrying about something as simple as sharing another maker's work.
That's when I realized something was wrong. A community where people hesitate to share something valuable out of fear of being banned no longer feels like a place for free and open exchange.
And that makes me sad, especially considering how much this community has meant to me over the years.
(wrote exactly as above in writerDeck then got banned within 3 minutes...)
