I have been told that my habit of drawing attention to specific moderator actions is the justification for my bans from /r/politics and /r/worldnews ( I have been unbanned from /r/WTF )

As such, effective immediately I will cease pointing out specific moderators or actions and discussions publicly on reddit. (/r/ModerationLog will continue as is, and other posters are still welcome and encouraged to post whatever they like in /r/PoliticalModeration )

I'm not convinced that this will matter, I maintain that my bans are unjustifiable, more based in personal animosity than practical concerns; and I fully expect to remain banned from /r/Politics and /r/WorldNews regardless of what do(n't) do. (see /u/cheney_healthcare and the countless others banned for ancient criticisms of the /r/politics mods)

Although pessimistic, I am still willing to give the moderators the opportunity to demonstrate their true colors as I have in the past.

When I first took an interest in the moderation of /r/politics my research methodology admittedly had the effect of introducing my own cognitive biases and certainly this has affected by perception of the moderators and their decision making. If these perceptions were formed unfairly; then I am truly sorr

This is the biggest benefit of /r/ModerationLog , it is entirely content and ideologically neutral in the detection and reporting of removed posts.

They do deserve another chance now that the monitoring is fair (but so do I).

The tools are there. If reddit's moderation is important to you, please follow /r/ModerationLog and bring attention to any action you feel is unfair.

For me to continue to do so at this point is likely counterproductive, but for others the exact opposite is true. Most active redditors know my opinions on these matters by now; I can't singlehandedly make reddit's moderation transparent or fair. I've done what I can; but it can't be a solo effort.

I am going to continue to work for better moderation and more transparency on reddit (particularly with regards to political matters) but my approach will change. I have become quite a controversial figure on reddit; and am afraid that this may be detrimental to the goals of /r/PoliticalModeration

So I will now instead focus on the creation and promotion of an alternative political sub-reddit that will be entirely bot moderated. My hope is that I can get /r/politic

In addition I will be stepping down as moderator of /r/PoliticalModeration as soon as suitable stewards are found. My involvement in this sub-reddit has been used as an excuse to suppress it's promotion; and this is unfair to everyone who values the sub-reddit.

Additionally I have always believed it to be essential that the moderators of /r/PoliticalModeration not moderate any political sub-reddits so as to avoid potential for bias. (a restriction that will disqualify me once I spin up /r/politic or another sub)

Thanks for all of your messages of support and appreciation; they really mean a lot and help offset the hostility, down-votes and insults I receive from reddit's default mod community on a continual basis.

Please do not see this as a surrender, it's simply an evolution in strategy.

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One more thing:

Moderators of /r/politics have requested that I disable /r/ModerationLog for that sub-reddit

It may be selfish of me, but I did make an offer for what it would take to shut down the bot, the mods declined; all I asked was for an unbanning and public apology.

If I'm still banned from /r/politics and /r/worldnews on August 1st, I will publish the full source code of /r/ModerationLog under a BSD license to github. This will make it effectively impossible to shut down (and also IMO provide a pretty good framework for the development of other unrelated bots).