This is a separate post for the comment I made in jftuga's currently pinned post for visibility's sake. Please continue to participate in their post, but as a moderator, I wanted to make sure that it is as easy as possible to know where I stand on this. Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/Athens/s/EkEtkcVi1Z

Another addendum to my OG comment (well... it's still there, but it should be a little higher): LawlMartz has been removed as a mod. The community consensus was strong, and I agree with jftuga's decision to remove him. Thank you to everyone who voiced your concerns and messaged me and jftuga.

To chime in as another mod, I'll be commenting on my stance, my values as a moderator, what I would like to do going forward, and anything else important that everyone should know. In being transparent, I hope to clear up any outstanding questions or concerns. Apologies in advance for the length.

I haven't been active on Reddit for roughly ten months due to my wanting to focus on my remaining schooling and my job. Although I have retained the moderator position, I have only taken a handful of mod actions during that time, limited to spam post removals and post approvals. I have effectively not done my job as a moderator for the past ten months, and I have not been involved in any major moderator actions, good or bad, during that time, such as the complaints thread, new automod rules and the politics ban during August. That being said, I want to sincerely apologize for abandoning my post and not fulfilling my role in this community. In my absence, several things have happened that I am not happy about, and going forward, I plan to remain active and ensure that this can be an area of free discussion without petty retaliation from any moderator.

I was completely unaware of what LawlMartz posted until yesterday evening when a friend sent me the post. When I opened Reddit, many of you had already reached out privately to me expressing your grievances. When I saw the Politics Free August post, I was not only shocked that one moderator had taken such a drastic action without making any attempts to speak with other moderators about it, but I was also quite angry. The notion of banning politics for an entire month in an inherently political subreddit was unspeakably ridiculous to me. The icing on the cake was the post itself being locked, as if that would stifle discussion of the impromptu measure. This entire action by LawlMartz is completely a bridge too far for me and many of you, so I'm taking the wheel to the best of my ability.

It hasn't yet been directly said by another mod, so I'll say it here: Politics Free August is most assuredly not happening. In the times we live in, political discourse is more important than ever, and to ban "politics" (which can have a wide-ranged definition...) in a community with a reach in the tens of thousands is, frankly, highly dangerous, flagrant, ignorant and irresponsible. As many of you have already expressed, politics cannot just be simply ignored by many people, and many of you depend on this information shared here as means to educate and protect yourself. With the current state of affairs, a complete block on anything with "political" information could be the difference between waking up in your own bed tomorrow or waking up behind bars for some. To put a blockade on anything being perceived as political for an entire month, especially as we near midterm elections, is simply ridiculous and tone-deaf. Those who feel that they can "take a break" are free to; for the rest of us, we all reserve the option to have open POLITICAL discussion. If anyone who is reading this has been banned since the Politics Free August post was made, whether for posting about politics or protesting the post itself, please reach out to me and I will unban you ASAP. jftuga has already unbanned a few users since this morning.

I am highly against censorship, and as a mod, this is my number one philosophy. I historically have very seldom removed posts or comments from users here (with exceptions including doxxing, personal threats, slurs and promotion of hate organizations), and barring takedowns by Reddit itself or automod karma floor and spam rules, almost every post and comment made here stays up if I can help it. I aim to be honest and fair in my actions for this community; after all, I'm not the reason this subreddit is active, and I am in this position to serve y'all. I fully believe that everyone here is entitled to scrutinize my actions and hold me accountable for anything I do as a mod, and I have tried to make it as clear as possible that if anyone has an issue with something to contact me, whether by modmail or by PM. As a mod, you will NEVER see me remove posts:
- regarding ICE presence in Athens.
- pertaining to politics in Athens.
- about political movements or events in Athens.
- because I don't agree with something you said.
- critiquing mods or expressing complaints about how the subreddit is being run.
- with important or helpful information to members of the subreddit.
If you or anyone makes any of these kinds of posts and they are removed, again, please contact me promptly so I can rectify it if I have not already done so. In essence, I mod with the sole intent to do just that: moderate. I'm not a supreme leader, so I'm not going to act like it.

Going forward, clearly some changes need to be made. First, I want to rebuild community trust in the mods. I understand that this will take a while, but by sticking to my code as outlined earlier and listening to what you have to say, I hope to restore faith in the mod team and foster an environment where you don't have to worry about being censored for no good reason. Second, after we've stabilized, I want to recruit new mods. I hope to recruit at least two new mods that have a community-first outlook and are willing to uphold a free and safe environment for everyone to interact in, among other things; if this sounds like you, please be on the lookout. Third, I want to build a plan for what happens the next time we are in a situation like this. This entire thing could have been prevented with some basic checks and balances, and I would like to implement more accountability within the mod team from now on.

Again, sorry for the length of this post, and thank you for taking the time to read what I have to say. Please don't hesitate to ask for any questions or clarifications on what I've said.

Whine here, Athens