Thoughts on the current sub drama

(I preface this by saying I understand it has been less then 24 hours since the post that started this whole situation was posted. I 100% understand and agree that the mod team should be given and needs to be given the time to properly discuss the issue)

A short summary for those who do not know of which I am referring to: early yesterday the mod team announced a cosmere re-read for the community. A wonderful idea, however the person who will be running it, u-participating, has a confirmed history in another sub of mod abuse. Specifically, banning people who commented opinions they disagreed with. That is, of course, textbook mod abuse. Another user made a post calling out this fact, and the communities reaction was overwhelmingly negative. We made it very clear we did not want this person to have mod privileges.

The mod team of course responded, and they both at the same time did a wonderful job explaining the safety valves they have in place to prevent mod abuse while at the same time, every single mod but 1 did not in the original post acknowledge the actual issue the community was having: we were not worried about the aforementioned safety valves, we did not want the new mod to have been given the powers in the first place. This is where the mod team failed: instead of actually reading and acknowledging the actual issue we had, their comments all focused instead on the fact that they had rules against mod abuse. Their comments came off as if they’d already made their decision and instead of actually listening and taking our concerns seriously, they were going to move forward whether or not we agreed.

This post is not meant to bash, degrade, or insult the mod team: they do a thankless job and are a very, very large part of why the Cosmere is one of the best communities to be a part of. The point of this post is to highlight how in this one specific instance, the way the issue was initially handled left a lot to be desired.

U-participating should not be given any form of mod power. It does not matter that it Is only for the re-read threads, it does not matter that the rest of the mod team will ensure no mod abuse will happen. What matters is that u-participating should not have mod privileges after they have proven that they are capable of abusing their powers. If the mod team and community wants someone to host a re read, it should be someone else who has not broken the trust between mod and user.

Again, mod team, thank you for what you have done and will continue to do. I simply hope during your private deliberations you all will consider heavily the opinions of the members of the sub and do what is best for the community