r/formula1 and the Canadian GP weekend

Hello everyone. We want to provide you all with an update about the protest and the community as we head in to the weekend of the Canadian GP.

Initially we announced that we were joining the thousands of other communities and moderators for a 48-hour blackout, lasting from June 12th to 14th. We did so, to fight for accessibility features Reddit has ignored since launching their app in 2016, for the large-scale moderation tools thousands of communities rely on and for common decency and respect when dealing with the huge, volunteer workforce, that has kept the platform going, while Reddit has profited off our work since the launch of the platform.

Our hope was, that the blackout would bring Reddit to the table, to have open and honest discussions about the issues we face, and how Reddit’s recent actions actively work against the common goal of providing the best possible environment for our communities.

Unfortunately, this did not work.

Reddit, and especially Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, aka Spez, have through statements and leaked internal memos, made it clear that this protest is “noise” and indicated they simply had to wait it out.

On Tuesday, June 13th, we announce that we had decided to extend the original 48-hour blackout indefinitely as a response. We did so, because we had seen no attempts from Reddit to engage in constructive and good-faith conversations about our reasons for joining the protest. In fact, quite the opposite.

Reddit left us no choice.

Yesterday, June 15th, shortly before noon (CEST), Reddit reached out to us and invited us to a meeting, scheduled for Monday, in which we would have a chance to present our arguments and discuss a road to reopening r/formula1.

By all accounts a good sign for both us and Reddit.

However, late last night, shortly before midnight (CEST), Reddit admins posted the following update publicly:

“If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will invite new, active moderators to keep these spaces open and accessible to users. If there is no consensus, but at least one mod who wants to keep the community going, we will respect their decisions and remove those who no longer want to moderate from the mod team.”

Shortly thereafter, Reddit began sending out messages to mod teams, containing the following:

“If there are mods here who are willing to work towards reopening this community, we are willing to work with you to process a Top Mod Removal request or reorder the mod team to achieve this goal if mods higher up the list are hindering reopening. We would handle this request and any retaliation attempts here in this modmail chain immediately”.

That is despite CEO Steve Huffman stating on multiple occasions, that Reddit supports communities right to protest: “We are not shutting down discussions or unilaterally reopening communities”. “And we allow the protests. We don’t have problems with protests. I think it’s important.”

The fear of not being part of the communities we’ve worked very hard to cultivate, some of us for more than 10 years, is now a very real prospect. And one that we are not immune to. As with anything else is life, losing years of hard work and progress poses very real and deep personal conflicts and hardship, that has affected every member of this team since we made the tough decision to initiate a blackout.

We are also not immune to the frustrations of the members of the community, who want nothing more than to return to r/formula1 and enjoy the race weekend.

So as a gesture of good faith, r/formula1 will reopen for the weekend, albeit in restricted mode. Automated threads for discussion of the weekend’s on-track events will be available, but no other posts will be allowed.

We hope Reddit will take this gesture as an invitation to engage in constructive and open discussions about resolving the conflict.

After the race weekend, we will reassess the situation and determine next steps.

The r/formula1 mods