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Introduction
Greetings everyone, /u/RedKrypton here,
This is a joint statement of both Owlcat and the old and new active mod team concerning recent changes. To get into the thick of it, some of you may have noticed a recent reshuffling among the mod team at /r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker. We want to address the community to clear up the reasons behind this change.
TLDR: The order and size of the mod team has changed, because inactive mods have been removed. While Owlcat now holds the top mod spot, this is effectively a cosmetic change and the day to day operation of the sub has not and will not be affected.
Background
As you may know, on Reddit, when you are a moderator, you are only able to affect other mods who are below you in the list.
Last summer, we've had a terrible incident where during the reddit API situation, when the long-inactive founder of the subreddit suddenly re-emerged and proceeded to abuse his mod powers by unjustly banning users. When confronted by the modteam, including a reversal of his unjust bans, he went rogue and booted all other moderators, including Owlcat Liaisons, refusing to communicate and single-handedly deciding to restrict the sub into read-only mode. Not stopping at that, he did the same for r/OwlcatGames, which he happened to inherit after an ex-Owlcat employee resigned.
After a few days, through a complicated chain of requests to Reddit administration by both Owlcat and the mod team, we were finally able to revoke his mod rights, restore the deleted mod team and reopen both subs, but damage was done. Since then, there was another case with one of the inactive top mods suddenly reappeared to misuse their powers without consulting the rest of the team with another potential crises on the horizon. While the latter case was thankfully quickly resolved, it highlighted a fundamental issue of rogue legacy mods.
Situation
To prevent situations like this in the future, a few months ago, Reddit introduced a feature that automatically marks mods who don't participate in the life of the sub, as inactive. Recently, they've also added a possibility for the inactive mods to be reshuffled by the existing top active mod, who currently is Mr. u/OwlcatStarrok. He is the Community Manager you no doubt know well at this point.
Following this opportunity, all inactive mods were moved down the list. /u/Kand04 has approached each of them, offering to stay in the team or confirm their resignation (treating lack of response as such). After this is done definitively, we will re-evaluate if we still have the manpower required for the workload and may be looking for additional mods.
Future
In light of all these events, we've discussed the future of the sub with Owlcat. While Owlcat prefers to keep the top mod position that was inherited by their representative after these situations, in order to prevent rogue mod issues in future, they do not intend to change any policies or interfere with the daily management of the sub. They will remain in direct contact with us to provide advice, assistance or opinion when it is needed, post news and pop up in comment sections as they normally do, while the mod team will continue to operate as it always did.
Legacy
This whole situation is also highlighted a final issue for me personally. In February 2021 I de facto took over as top moderator for this subreddit after it was abandoned by the previous mod team. I ran the sub alone for months, but I was lucky to receive the support of other users that made running the sub easier and allowed for the changes we still enjoy to this day. /u/janglehand provided the new CSS and still helps maintain it to this day. I am very thankful for his cooperation and he stated he will stay on the team. Then there is /u/Kand04, the moderator that put all others out of work, including me. He is incredibly fast in his mod actions and always has been reasonable and level-headed. Finally, there is /u/OwlcatStarrok, our Liaison, with whom the modteam and I specifically have had a good partnership that I think enriched this subreddit.
The issues over the past months and my de facto and de jure removal from the top mod position made me realise I no longer have as much time as I used to look after the subreddit. I will continue to help out in the moderation of the sub, but my role will be more of one of a figurehead top mod, but anyone can contact me regardless if there are issues. I love this community and I hope it will continue to thrive in the future.
Thank all of you for the great time I have had modding this community.
This Thread
The other active mods, community managers, and I will be happy to answer any questions or concerns in this thread. Feel free to tag /u/OwlcatStarrok and me.
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