Reddit will remove private communities’ edits unless they are reopened

Reddit has told moderators of still-private protest communities that they will lose their modified status by the end of the week, according to messages it has seen. the edge. If a moderator tells Reddit that it’s interested in “active moderation” of the subreddit, the company says it will “consider your request.”

This is the full message, which we’ve confirmed to have been sent to moderators on at least two subreddits:

After sending a modmail on June 27, 2023, the mod team indicated that you did not want to reopen the [name of subreddit] Community. This is a courtesy notice letting you know that you will lose your moderator status in the community by the end of the week. If you reply to let us know that you would like to actively moderate this community, we will consider your request.

In the threads we’ve seen, the moderators on each of the ModCodeofConduct subforums have told that they Do They want to reopen, but said they’ll need Reddit to make changes before they do.

“We don’t see any reason to reopen because I don’t think we’re the bad guys here,” says Youssef, the r/Firefox moderator who received the message, the edge in a letter. “Reddits have had the opportunity to come to terms with the protest for weeks now, and they haven’t.”

However, although r/Firefox was private when we first published this article, it was It has since reopened – although now it’s a red panda focused community rather than the Mozilla web browser. Those who know the subreddit and have been here for a long time know that it has been actively moderated for years in order to maintain a positive environment. wrote in a post. We don’t want to let a subreddit fall into the hands of someone who might undo the good work we’ve done or even foster an anti-Mozilla community here.

All old technical posts will remain available so search for browser-related help will remain available, but from now on and until reddit admins appropriately respond to our concerns, the only new submissions allowed will be those featuring the lovable, fuzzy little animal from which the subreddit received its name. Indirectly: Red panda! Also known as fire otters. At some point after that, the moderators said, browser-related posts will be allowed again.

Reddit’s announcement that it will remove the mods comes after an escalation of messages from the company this week suggesting it may take action against them. On Tuesday, Reddit moderator account (Employee) ModCodeofConduct asked some moderators of private subreddits (a designation that means the community is only accessible to authorized users) to notify it within 48 hours if they plan to reopen their communities.

But when some responded, the official took on a much more aggressive tone. “This community is still closed to him [millions of] Members cannot continue” after the deadline, ModCodeofConduct wrote in one message he saw the edge. “This community will not remain private beyond the time frame we’ve allowed to confirm plans here,” the official added. ModCodeofConduct also argued that going private in protest is a violation of the Broker Code of Conduct.

Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt declined to comment.

Although more than 8,000 communities went dark earlier this month in protest of impending changes to the company’s API pricing, many sub-forums have reopened since then; according to 1 trackerAbout 2,300 remain private or restricted in some way. Some, like r/Firefox, have reopened with a twist.

Update June 29, 10:25 PM ET:r/firefox has reopened.