Community,
This is a follow up post to the Alpha Bay related posts this past weekend. There were a lot of complaints accusing /u/wombat2combat of anti-AlphaBay bias and whether or not its appropriate for a mod of the forum to take such a strong stance. I think the complaints do have a grounding and I can see where people might see an issue with how the issue was approached. As a team, we all discussed what happened and how we could have approached it better. I don't think any of us felt there was anything ill-intentioned and that the posts were well-meaning. However, we have agreed to approach these sorts of things differently so that we avoid any appearance of favoritism or bias. I believe /u/wombat2combat had the community's best interests at heart and had grown frustrated with some mis-steps by the market.
One problem we did address as a team was re-posting content that was originally brought to our attention by another community member. This was the conversation between the penis guy and some other person about poisoning customers. This was originally sent to us via modmail before the weekend. I saw the modmail when it started and ironically, /u/wombat2combat called bullshit on it and said that it was pretty unbelievable and that he didn't believe it. I was away from the sub over teh weekend and saw he had posted this on the main sub. I got caught up and realized that the person who sent us the info had supplied more solid proof of the conversation. The problem was this person was shadowbanned and wombat felt it was important for the community to know about it. Regardless, the point of this post isn't to debate that - its to debate the approach. It has been agreed that we should not post content on behalf of anyone else except under very extraordinary circumstances. This issue was not an extraordinary circumstance and the original person should have been the one to post this - not a moderator. It was a mistake that was agreed upon and will not happen again, especially on issues that are not detrimental to the safety of the community. There might be very limited circumstances where this is appropriate, but we all agree this was not that exception. As mods, we often do get requests from the people in the community to post information ourselves. I get this quite a bit and this is definitely not good practice. More often than not, the person requests this to give weight (using our mod status) to a claim or the post. I don't believe this community member asked anyone to post for him - it was due to a shadowban and wombat felt the information should be out there. But this has been discussed and agreed that we will not report content or reports from community members except under very exceptional circumstances.
The second problem are feelings of anti-AB bias and that AB is not treated fairly by the mods here. We all have our own biases, sometimes recognized, sometimes not. The bias isn't really the problem, its how we handle it and approach subjects that deal with our biases. /u/wombat2combat is admittedly frustrated with AB and issues they have had. This is a harder one to fix, but we will do better with checks and balances and as a team, work to overcome these biases so that all markets are treated fairly. Honestly, fairly does not mean equally. There are going to be certain expectations that might be a bit different for each market. There are benefits and disadvantages of course, but its the reality. I'll give some quick examples using AB. AB has been around a long time. As such, there are going to be different expectations versus a new market.
Example 1: When AlphaBay goes down for an extended period of time, the calls of "exit scam" is not nearly as deafening as it is for a new market. This is because AlphaBay has been around a long time and as such, are given the benefit of the doubt more often than a newer market. They've "earned" that. If AB goes down for a day and the support guys are on the forums, I feel more comfortable than if a new market goes down for a day. The new market hasn't built the credibility in this area that AB may have built. Similar with Evo - remember their exit scam? They disabled withdrawals larger than a certain amount for days. Nobody really thought twice about it. They'd been around a long time. They always came back - until they didn't. Point is, in this sort of case, AB will be treated differently than a brand new market. I believe its "fair", but of course its not "equal".
Example 2: On the flip side, AB has been around a long time and should have more sophistication than a newer market. Also, given their size, an opsec slip is going to potentially more damaging than a new market that might only have a few dozen vendors. I think this was part of wombat's frustration - some of AB's mistakes isn't maybe expected for a market with such veteran status. Shit happens, but an example where the "age" of a market might cause them to be treated a bit differently than another market that's younger. Sometimes this treatment helps the market, sometimes it works against it.
Bottom line, we are obligated to treat all markets fairly. We strive to treat all markets and people in the community fairly. It might not mean they are treated equally and with the same exact measures, that's just life. Fairness doesn't mean exactly the same. But we did agree that we need to do things differently in this area so that our duties as mods and our desire to participate as community members doesn't clash. As such, it has been agreed that we will be cognizant of how we post and phrase things when we are using our mod accounts. When there is something controversial or where an opinion is proffered that might conflict with our obligation as mods, this should not be posted under our mod accounts. Remember, mods of this sub are active in the community - that's how we all became mods. That participation does not stop, nor should it, when we become a mod. As such, certain discussions should not be initiated with our mod accounts and in the future, posts that might confer bias will not be made under a mod account.
We will continually review how we are doing in these areas and will always strive to improve and be the best we can be. While I would rather not have had the community ruffled like it was over the weekend, in my ever continuing optimism, I was actually heartened to see such passion in the community! Fuck, I'll take that sort of passion - even if it is critical of us - over indifference any day! So while some see disaster, I actually see something positive. There are members of this community who love this place and will voice their opinions when they see something is wrong. Fuck yeah! I'm an optimist. Feedback like this gives us a chance to grow and improve. I'm genuinely thankful when people in teh community speak up and voice their opinions. Personally, I thank you guys because it really does show there are plenty of people who love this place as much as we do.
We do believe calls for /u/wombat2combat to step down are extreme. We revisited how we are doing things and will make changes - for the better. /u/wombat2combat is a valued member of the community with extensive knowledge. I don't want to see him go - I don't think any of us do. But I do believe we all took this as an opportunity to look at how we do things and make key improvements. We will continue to see how AB is treated - I know several actions were taken on them, we will re-visit, ensure it was fair, and adjust accordingly.
This is Part I dealing with the subject. I wanted to address it from a modding perspective and not the actual content or arguments made. The next part will discuss the specific allegations and concerns of bias. This will probably be made over the weekend or early next week.
Hope everyone is having a good week!
~Econ
Remember when Astrid went nuts and deleted all the existing mods off this sub? She (he?) PMed me during this time with "you're a good mod" and offered to instate me as basically the top mod, meaning she'd be hands-off.
Before she did anything, I asked her to tell me what the hell was going on, and to not make me a moderator yet. Within a day or two, the other moderators somehow wrested control of the subreddit from her, or possibly just convinced her to step down, I can't recall.
I'm a fan of /u/TheEconomist1, but I often wonder what could have been... ;-)