I think in light of everything that has happened since this post, including q returning and removing the last mod above /u/maxwellhill, there is no hope for the sub and nothing that can be done to save it. I think the only option is to focus on rebuilding a new sub.

/r/tech seems like the most active and where most have put their bets. Good luck to the mods there!

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Background (skip this if you want just the drama.)

When I joined /r/technology about a year ago, one of the first things I noticed was there was no real formal voting policy or procedure. This was the first default sub I was added to and thought it was kinda weird. I asked a few other mods and was basically told that's how /u/qgyh2 runs his subs--from a former /r/worldnews mod. It seemed really strange, but I had no clue just how bad that makes things in a default subreddit.

The next thing I noticed were almost none of the top mods ever did anything. They didn't reply to mod mail, they didn't really talk much in the mod sub, there was no IRC... nothing. For the longest time I didn't really question this either.

Here's where things start to go south. After /r/politics was removed as a default we started to notice more and more political posts that didn't have too much to do with technology. That had always been a bit of an issue, but it seemed to be growing. Then Snowden hit. A 100% proper technology topic that was also political. We allowed all the posts but as the story kept going we were getting mass spammed with any story about the NSA. Even if they had nothing to do with technology.

After some discussion, I put up a sticky asking that people only submit NSA stories that had to do with the technology involved or impact on technology. After a few weeks it just vanished. No discussion, no vote... just gone. Weird. I didn't really ask about it.

This goes on for another month or so with some back and forth in mod mail about what we should allow. None of the top mods: /u/qgyh2, /u/Xiphorian, /u/kn0thing, /u/maxwellhill, /u/ketralnis or /u/anutensil had anything to say. None of them had been active in moderation of the sub in months or even years. Until, max got one of his own posts removed--at which point he started his first and only thread in the mod sub... bitching about his post being removed. Finally, it comes to a head, and the increasing political spam is getting really bad (think late last summer)... one of the mods proposed a solution. The thread is basically just anu bitching and q say "why not try it?" This is how all shit gets 'resolved'. Never a vote or a clear consensus. Just 'meh, k'.

Sometime around that we also added /u/AutoModerator to deal with our mass spam issue (actual spam) and make up for the lacking moderation. At first it was fine, but as time went on it started to be used in way I and /u/klyde didn't really like. We posted some more threads, but nothing came of them. As always, the top mods were MIA, so we just rolled on.

To save some time, basically as moderation got worse and worse, the bot got more and more filters. It was a mess and no one was talking.

Recent events.

A few months ago I asked if we could add some more mods and calm down with the bot. This was met with with mostly silence and q's normal "do we need more mods?" which is q for "no."

Things kept going downhill, and we had gotten to the point that we kept having to remove rule breaking posts from the front page. /u/undelete was all up in arms, so I tried again. We got a sorta half-hearted go ahead, and started talking about a mod post. We posted the proposal for a mod post. Silence. We posted a revised proposal. Silence. We posted the application post in the sub. No one said a word about it.

It was clear from the silence that any kind of vote would not have enough consensus, so the apps just sat there with no one acting on them. This is anu and max's tactic. Every rule and policy discussion they would punt or ignore, then if we tried to implement anything they'd just say we never came to a consensus.

Tesla gate. (Drama starts here.)

I won't summarize the tesla events from the outside, but as you all know, Tesla was on the list of automod title conditions. A few weeks before this happened, I actually got pissed about the never-ending proxy war and blew away the filter list.

After it was all over, we tried, once again to get some action going on the idea of new mods. In that thread, almost nothing was said about new mods, anu just admonished Skuld for the mighty crime of actually trying to talk to the subscribers. I mean, who talks directly to pleebs, amirite? /bitter

K, we start kinda sorta reviewing mod apps. But still no one is saying anything. /u/davidreiss666 /u/Skuld and I had all threatened to quit to one another. Shit was a mess and no one was doing anything. It was clear that anu didn't want mods she didn't know (/r/worldnews), because adding even just three mods would break the stalemate. If we added mods we could vote on rules and policy. anu accused us of trying to usurp the sub from q. But really, she wanted to make sure that anyone who got added would be her and max's puppets. (IE: /u/PondLife, /u/slapchopsuey /u/Pharnaces_II and /u/reeds1999)

For my part, I kept up trying to talk to people about what happened, and what lead to the filter, and explaining why stuff was removed in /r/undelete.

Current drama

So, as expected, someone sat down and figured out most of the list. Shit blew up again, /u/TheSkyNet lost it. He was pissed about the never ending games and silence, so he reviewed all 40 apps and just modded 10 people. anu wigged, demodded them all and started PMing Sky with threats. Feeling like our hand was forced, we threw together a vote. anu, max and q didn't say a word, but, I shit you not, anu voted and tried to game votes. Since it was a google doc, she kept voting no on everyone! Classic anu.

The votes were in, and we posted up a welcome thread as well as when we would add them. Guess who said nothing? We re-add five of the 10 mods from the other day (I voted had no on about five of them), get the welcoming everyone, get our IRC on. Kickin' ass and takin' names. I cleared the unmod queue and /u/Doctor_McKay started helping review posts as they came in. A few more mods doing this, and we could kill the bot.

But, anu woke up. As she had already threatened Sky, she removed the mods, invites and us. David woke up and MDK'd her, re-added me and Sky. He wrote a post about why he made the call (max said nothing) and recused himself from the mod selection process. Sky and myself re-invited the mods that had been voted in, and all was good again.

But, max woke up. He MDK'd erry1, added anu back to her spot and proceeded to unilaterally import most of the /r/worldnews mods. A subreddit know for being well run.

At this point he also limited everyone's permissions that he felt might challenge him, including /u/ketralnis, a former admin and four-year mod of the sub. cupcake cupcake'd and removed us from the defaults--something I had perdiceted would happen last week. David, myself and Skuld quit. The new mods quit and that's that.

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At the end of the day, max and anu don't care about their subreddits or any 'freedom' like they claim. What they care about is that every sub has rules that are so general that they can post anything they want to it. Doubly so, if it's a hot reddit topic. That is their only motivation. Q, for his part, is just asleep at the wheel and doesn't give a shit.

This is every post to /r/tech_mods. It should back up my timeline (I wrote this from memory, so might be a bit off on some stuff) as well my claims of inactivity by most of the mods.

This I'm including because it was requested.

I'll edit this with updates and things I may have forgotten, as they come to me.

EDITS

1. One of the things I forgot to mention, but not sure where it fits. It's worth noting that in the past year /r/technology has gone from two-million subscribers to over five-million. In that time, we lost four mods. The five mods added, at best would have put us back to a year ago.

2. It seems TheSkyNet, after briefly making /r/tech_mods public, has resigned or been removed.

3. /u/davidreiss666 has some more links that should add more context and info to the happenings.

4. This is a pretty late edit, but I just remembered one more thing. When anu and max added their /r/worldnews mods and re-added us, they added those mods to /r/techmod2, without inviting the rest of us. They are the top mods of /r/tech_mods, so position wasn't an issue. They wanted a place to collude the direction of the sub with only their /r/worldnews mods. They didn't even tell us about it.

5. Well, it was a good run, but I was banned for 'reasons'. And the post was removed because /u/MillenniumFalc0n and /u/stopscopiesme have started charging for SRD access.