Subscribers of /r/ParadoxPlaza

As you likely know, /r/stellaris is a part of the /r/paradoxplaza network, run by a a joint group of the user that created the subreddit, and the paradoxplaza mod team. We like to think we're a good team, that we work hard to make each subreddit an inclusive, well-maintained and, most importantly, an open forum for the discussion of the games that Paradox make.

The merger between /r/stellaris and the /r/paradoxplaza network was two-way - We invited the mods of /r/stellaris (/u/Manicaeks and /u/Shalaiyn) as moderators into ParadoxPlaza, and in return we'd help moderate this new sub, create the CSS / Sidebar / Theme etc, and that'd be that. We'd have new mods, Stellaris would be looking great before the game was released, and we get more subreddits for the same community under one roof. And, for a time, this is how things worked out. It was a happy compromise and one with a bright future.

We had a breakdown within the moderation team a few months ago. A political discussion went awry and /u/manicaeks ended up proceeding to use a variety of racial and homophobic slurs before demodding /u/Meneth from /r/stellaris. Unfortunately, due to the way Slack works, after he was (initially temporarily) kicked we weren't able to get the Slack messages themselves, but we do have a message that Meneth recieved from the Moderator after the event that shows he continues this behaviour on Reddit.

Now, we're a mixed team. We have members from all over the world and with different backgrounds and beliefs, and quite frankly, this sort of behaviour is not welcome. We laugh and joke, we're not all ultra-PC types who don't condone this between friends.

This situation of /r/Stellaris being half-in/half-out of the network continued until about a month ago when Manicaeks changed the rules of the subreddit and dropped all references to the network from the sidebar, including removing links to other paradox game subreddits if he thought that they were in the network. Nothing was actually said to the rest of the network moderators about this move, and we continued to moderate the subreddit as if it was still part of our network

Then, the last straw - a link to the his site selling vaping supplies. This is both against reddit's rules, and our rules. No advertising, no making money from moderating, and keeping content in appropriate subreddits.

It had nothing to do with Stellaris - or gaming at all - and it's a breach of the community's trust. He hastily removed the link and pretended not to know about it when the community noticed and asked about it (/r/Stellaris post or Archive link. The revision history of the /r/Stellaris sidebar (Direct link - Archive) proves that he made the change (Direct Link - Archive, it wasn't there before that revision Direct - Archive and it was removed in the next revision after the community called him out Direct - Archive.

Separately, /u/sirkthemonkey tried to bring /u/Meneth back into the /r/stellaris mod team (since we thought that it was still part of network). /u/Manicaeks removed Meneth again and asked another moderator to pass on a 'warning' to Sirk. /u/Manicaeks also confirmed that he no longer considered /r/Stellaris part of the network so several moderators quit at that time. Because of the behaviour of the man (begrudgingly) in charge of the subreddit, and the advertising in the sidebar to his website, we're all leaving. We will try to move /r/stellaris to /r/stellarisgame. We understand this can cause a split in the community - but we want to keep Stellaris as a Subreddit because it's a project many of us are interested in personally, and we do not wish to give the head mod of this Subreddit any more power (a man who has admitted to being in it for his own benefit)

TLDR: Top Mod of /r/stellaris went nuts, posted ads to his personal business, and we can't get him out. We're all out. /r/stellarisgame