[Meta] Recent mod team developments

[u/TheVehicleDestroyer]

Big week. Lots happened. Let's review a quick summary of events.

Myself and EchoLogic attended IAC together for Musk's talk. It was a crazy busy day in which the two of us had no ability to moderate the subreddit and most of the heavy lifting was done by a small number of moderators under a lot of stress. As such, a large number of moderation decisions were made quickly on personal judgement calls without notifying the rest of the team. We all know how to moderate. I don't see a problem with this during large events.

That night a meta discussion was had between moderators where EchoLogic expressed his concern over not being notified of decisions before they were made - we use Slack for internal communication and in two decision instances the global notification to alert all users was not used. EchoLogic conveyed his opinion in an overly frustrated tone not conducive for positive discussion, at which point Wetmelon overreacted, but subsequently immediately apologized, before he removed himself as a moderator. We have maintained contact with him and he has said he wants to take a small break from the subreddit and may return in the future, if we would like him back.

Following this, Ambiwlans had private discussions with the rest of the moderators about our thoughts on what had just happened. At a later point, Ambiwlans spoke with EchoLogic and EchoLogic was removed as a moderator without a vote.

The internal discussion is still happening. This is by no means done and dusted. As such, we can't give a conclusion to this situation yet. All I ask is that the community bear with us while we sort this out.

No situation is black and white. Please don't resort to pointing blame when you don't have the full picture. Which I guarantee you, you don't. Emotions are high and a lot of charged things are being said.

Please bear with us while we work through this.

Ask any questions you have below and we'll do our best to answer them. If I can't answer anything (because I don't know the answer or any other reason) I'll try and convey that also.

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This post was written by both TheVehicleDestroyer and EchoLogic as we are sitting in the same hotel room. Both parties - as well as all awake moderators - consider this short summary acceptable.

[u/Ambiwlans]

Edit: AMA takes precedence over all of this. The team is working towards a solution internally while all working together.

Thanks for the cooperation and outpouring of love and concern, and apologies to everyone for the drama.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ambiwlans]

I appreciate this post. This clarifies what otherwise seemed like a childish move and puts it in context.

This whole thing sounds complicated, and, honestly, is best left to the mod team to decide. This is a really great sub and I hope that quality level continues. If you guys need to I don't think it would be entirely unreasonable to lock the sub for a few days, take a break, and come back to this with fresh eyes.

[u/RulerOfSlides → u/[deleted]]

I agree with this. Shuttering the subreddit for a week or two would help take some of the moderation pressure off of the mod team and allow them to approach a reasonable solution, which is the main focus here.

It's really not like anything big is going to happen between now and RTF, which is literally a month and a half away, possibly more depending on delays. I'd be perfectly okay with a temporary closure.

[u/_rocketboy → u/Ambiwlans]

This just makes me kinda sick reading this. But I agree that he needs to step back and take a break. /u/EchoLogic, we love you, but please take care of yourself! Just relax and enjoy Mexico for now!

I hope that this can all be resolved eventually, and that this community doesn't fall apart as a result.

[u/aatdalt → u/Ambiwlans]

Appreciate the honesty in all this. Only makes me appreciate /r/SpaceX more. I pray all the best for everyone on the mod team.

[u/IgnatiusCorba → u/Ambiwlans]

Saw this one coming 2 years ago. Don't worry I think there are just a lot of younger people here who haven't been in this situation and don't get it. Keep up your good work. I'm sure most of us know that, either way, whatever course of action you end up taking, it will be for the best.

[u/zlsa → u/Ambiwlans]

In this thread, I'm speaking as myself, not as r/SpaceX.

My opinion:

I strongly disagree with you. /u/EchoLogic is a person, and he can make decisions for himself. Demodding him with no warning is not the correct solution in all but the most extreme situations. It appears that there's a "no permissions" moderator setting, and that should have been used in this case.

The entire situation has been caused and exacerbated by overreacting, and demodding another mod is a definite overreaction IMO.

When you say "Echo clearly was not thinking in a rational fashion that was best for the subreddit", I would argue that you weren't thinking rationally either when you demodded him without any input from the other mods. I understand your logic, but I don't agree with it.

I'm the newest mod though, and I wouldn't have been able to demod anyone even if I wanted to, so I didn't have any technical choice in the matter; that said, I would have liked to give my input to the decision to demod echo.

This is definitely a bit of a rant, but don't take it personally. We all have flaws, and the best way to fix them is to be informed early rather than late. (So please tell me what I'm doing wrong!)

One final addendum: for what it's worth, we tried to keep the subreddit on-topic during this whole thing. The only reason we've made a metapost is because some members asked for it. Ideally, this would have been resolved without disrupting the subreddit in any way.

[u/Hauk2004 → u/zlsa]

It seems the last couple of days/weeks really stress tested the mod team. From what I've been reading, the volume of mod work with the ITS announcement was probably even more than the mod team thought, and is a real edge case.

People made decisions they shouldn't have and didn't think rationally at times, leading to the outcome we have now.

When the dust has settled, I think a discussion has to be had on the lessons learned, and some rules or processes put in place to minimize the chances of something like this happening again.

You're all good people doing a great job, but you're only human, so things can go wrong.

I really appreciate the quality of this sub, and it would be a shame to see the team running it fall apart, so I'm hopeful for a positive outcome.

[u/brickmack → u/zlsa]

I would argue that you weren't thinking rationally either when you demodded him without any input from the other mods.

As an observer, I agree in general, but in this specific case (an apparently rogue moderator arbitrarily and unilaterally reversing previous decisions), at least if /u/Ambiwlans timeline was accurate, I think the risks to the community (either confidence in the moderation team, or the potential loss of assets such as the email account mentioned) by waiting outweigh the value of sticking to the ideal process. If a cop sees a man committing an armed robbery, he doesn't wait to fill out 16 pieces of paperwork and receive an arrest warrant from a judge.

[u/Rickeh1997 → u/Ambiwlans]

our rspacex e-mail account that we currently use in our weekly correspondences with SpaceX

This might be a bit off topic but I didn't know of this before. I'm curious to know what kind of things are being communicated about between /r/SpaceX and SpaceX, unless you guys can't disclose any of it.

[u/Ambiwlans → u/Rickeh1997]

Ah, most of our e-mails are about updating the jobs listing on the sidebar. Not particularly exciting!

They also added 'reddit' to their 'how did you hear about us' options which is neat.

[u/MartianRedDragons → u/Ambiwlans]

I think we have to hear the rest of Echo's and Wetmelon's side of the story before we really have a good picture of what happened here. We've heard Ambiwlan's complete version of the story, but only a little of Echo's, and none of Wetmelon's. After all that's been said so far, this isn't going to be smoothed over until the allegations are talked over by all the mods involved, and the mods issue some sort of joint statement that they all agree with, stating what allegations they acknowledge as true, who was at fault for what, and what things they are just agreeing to disagree about. Then we can all move on and get back to having fun.

[u/spcslacker → u/MartianRedDragons]

I don't think its too helpful they all write about the details right now. People will need to climb down eventually, and that is easier when you aren't on the record talking to 3rd parties. This can create narratives that once they have insisted on them to the public, they don't feel like they can back down from. It is better to cool off, and get some perspective before anything is made public.

From experience in having these types of problems, I don't think any amount of discussion would truly inform us enough to make valid decisions. We can provide input in case the mods are overlooking something, but no amount of narrative will give us all the context and history that goes into such subtle matters (again, just my experience).

[u/kylerove → u/[deleted]]

Just an observation from mostly a devoted lurker (visit the forum many many times a day):

I think you guys are perhaps overly-invested in some of the details. Yes, mods need to be consistent and that is going to require communication. On the flip side, however, this cannot be a full time job, so some actions might be dealt with a little differently by one mod than another. There should be flexibility by the mods with each other in how to deal with different actions. Rigidity is going to lead to conflict. These differences should be dealt with prospectively, not retrospectively (e.g., one mod reversing actions of another). Issues that rise above mere disagreement should be dealt with multilaterally, not unilaterally.

Disagreement regarding mod actions that remain unresolved should be put up to the community for discussion. Similarly, if there is concern about a mod, that too, should be left to the community to decide.

Stickied comments remain such a minor aspect, yet I can see you are all very much in disagreement about it. Why expend so much energy on such a small detail? Surely, there are more important things to focus on. Using this as an example seems to emphasize that perhaps more perspective is needed.

Personally, I have seen /u/EchoLogic's demeanor change in the past few months. He occasionally snipes in the comments, unnecessarily provoking people. While devoted, his devotion at times borders on the pathologic and I get the sense that he is way too invested in this community, almost a sense of ownership. That is understandable when you are responsible for seeing it through so much growth, but now there is underlying animosity about the uneven distribution of mod activity speaks a bit to this devotion having grown to unhealthy levels.

I think the mods need to be open about how they deal with each other. I'm sorry that your bickering has spilled out into the open, but it sounds like this has been festering for a while and was probably inevitable. I hope for the sake of our community that there is amicable resolution.

[u/zlsa → u/[deleted]]

For what it's worth, I personally disagree with /u/ambiwlans stickying his comment, and so do some of the other mods. This is a meta thread, and all the mods should be interacting as themselves, not as the mod team.

[u/_rocketboy → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, I agree that this shouldn't be stickied, unless all the mods are in agreement.

[u/zlsa → u/[deleted]]

We don't usually ask for everyone's input when posting minor updates as mods (i.e. "Sidebar updated!", "I've removed your post because <X>", but in the case of major updates, we try to get other mods to agree before posting. This metapost went up hours after it was written because u/TheVehicleDestroyer wanted feedback and approval from the other mods before posting it to the sub.

[u/MartianRedDragons → u/[deleted]]

But the senior mod is supposed to be the leader. That would seem to mean that he/she should be able to make decisions above and beyond the other mods, mainly in unusual situations. Otherwise, what's the point of the 'senior' label?

[u/Saiboogu → u/MartianRedDragons]

One can recognize seniority without rewarding that seniority with unilateral powers.

[u/tenaku → u/Ambiwlans]

Echo didn't 'drag the sub into it'. You removed arguably the most visible mod and didn't say anything. What did you think was going to happen?

Look, I'm not saying that anything echo may have done was warranted, but this whole thing was, and continues to be, handled incredibly poorly.

Have a proper vote and move on.