Ask HN: Reddit removed my permissions from my own legal, non-abusive community
We have had some issues with abusive commenting like many other places, but we've kept a good handle on it, with a combination of automoderator and manual moderation.
We had to add other mods over time, especially during election season and through covid and the riots, to keep up with the volume. Some have been helpful and respectful, and others have just given me nothing but abuse and criticism. Perhaps it was a mistake to keep them on, but they were good at their work otherwise.
Well, after a snafu (my fault, admittedly) reddit has now taken away my permissions as mod, effectively removing me from my own community that I started.
What was my mistake? I didn't post something illegal, nor anything abusive. I merely removed other mods, temporarily, and added an auto-moderator rule which warned users when their posts were reported.
This was reported to the admins through ZenDesk, and suddenly I'm caught in the middle of a "power struggle", I guess, to gain control of this subreddit.
Just a note to anyone wanting to start a community on this platform, you can spend years growing it (to 250K+ at this point) and then one day it can just be taken away from you with no recourse.
We are now waiting on a "decision" from the admin team, and I don't know what to expect as the outcome, but it seems even if you are not breaking any of the rules, you can suddenly discover that you've been removed from the community you started and maintained for years.