We've certainly had an eventful couple of days. This is going to be a long one; apologies in advance.

I wanted to provide you all some transparency over the recent events concerning the transition that occurred with the /r/IowaCity moderators. In short, after much deliberation, /u/Buzzabuzz52 has been removed from her moderation post on this subreddit. To understand why, we need to take a few steps back.

 

PART ONE: Background

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For those that are just joining us, let me catch you up.

This subreddit was founded 7 years ago by /u/dangerousbone. As far as we can tell, Bone has been afk for at least 5 years (may he rest in peace). A number of moderators have managed in his stead since then, with the most recent being /u/scsoc. Beyond that, I honestly don't know.

Around three months ago, Buzz created her Reddit account. Initially posting on Askreddit & ShowerThoughts, Buzz first arrived at our sub with a post titled Murdered by Mission Creek Festival. Not sure what weapon they used...

She continued participating in the sub, both on topic (e.g., County Fairs; Irving Weber) and maybe not so on topic (e.g., I was just eating a bowl of cheerios and wondering if...; or Iowa City Cops; or Amish Caskets; or So I went to Iowa City Fairway; or Who remembers when...)

As the number of posts increased, the comment sections became contentious between Buzz and the rest of our community. As a result, about a week ago, Buzz's posts began to garner instant downvotes on everything she posted. In response, a number of our community members showed their support of Buzz through a post titled Ill admit it, I appreciate BuzzaBuzz's posts on this subreddit.

The mod situation aside, our community does have differing opinions about Buzz's posts. A lot of thought was given about the post's discussion, and is the primary reason I've worked with her up to this point; we will get to that in a moment.

After that, when people started to avoid commenting on her posts she would comment on her own and reply to herself. (e.g. Wake Up Iowa City). Which lands us at her first defining moment:

 

PART TWO: Laundromania

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On Friday, June 23rd, Buzz posted an off-topic post about a local laundromat, in a post titled Laundromania. As an example of an off topic post, it quickly heated up in the comment section with one community member asking the mod, then u\scsoc, to ban Buzz. Buzz's reaction was not positive, returning comments back at u\gatorbodine.

Laundromania led to one of the few direct conversations between Buzz and u\Scsoc. u\Scsoc's requests for her to temper her post frequency and keep content on topic were ignored. To which u\Scsoc returned "It's not my job to protect your feelings."

Ultimately, and for a reason we may never know, u\Scsoc transferred sole moderator privileges to an certainly unexpected individual, u\buzzabuzz52. He also removed himself from his moderator position before Buzz had accepted, leaving the sub potentially unmoderated indefinitely. It was at this time the Laundromania post was shared with SubredditDrama, garnering about100 upvotes and 41 comments.

 

PART THREE: Escalation

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As a newly gilded moderator of our community, Buzz took the opportunity to introduce herself it a post titled New Moderator of Iowa City Reddit, saying, among other things:

I want everyone to know that I will be moderating fairly for all members on this sub.

She proceeded to use her new power to remove three dissenting comments on the thread, including one by TheRealJohnAdams, and Gatorbodine's original post calling for her ban.

Community response was swift and impassioned (e.g., through a post titled RIP r/IowaCity, time for an exodus). In addition, u\Brecol001 (who is now a mod), the person responsible for leading the subreddit meetups, began the process to fracture our community base in a post titled IC Social - New Sub!

It was at this point I stepped in. Having met both u\brecol001 and Buzz at our most recent meetup, I reached out through pm offering assistance to Buzz. We met at Java House the next day and discussed improvements for our community, methods for handling her PR predicament, and laying the foundation for our moderating principles and rules for the sub. These included a mutual agreement that I would moderate reports on her posts, and she would mine in return. It was at this meeting I convinced her to invite me, leave, and allow me to invite her back to moderate our communities subreddit (becoming de facto lead moderator; see u/dangerousbone explanation, above).

During our meeting, Buzz was adamant about creating a safe space free from bullying and harassment. Particular users were brought up that had targeted her and suggestions of bans were proposed by Buzz. This led to a conversations about the dangers of censorship and the need for having open discussion with individuals you disagree with. Our community was upset, confused, and potentially scared. It was not clear at the time if these values resonated with Buzz.

This was also the point at which I convinced her to invite /u/brecol001 to become a moderator as well, someone I had known for even less time than she had. My first impression of u\brecol001 was that he was a responsible, but also independent, third party we could add to the team. It was important to me we decentralize power as much as possible.

 

PART FOUR: The Survey

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In the words of Buzz, at this point "I [thought it was] best to look forward, don't you? [...]". I quickly crafted a new moderating post titled Iowa City Subreddit - Moderator Situation Update, had Buzz approve the wording, and stickied it.

To recap, within 24 hours 1. u\Scsoc stepped down as lead mod and transferred lead mod power to Buzz. 2. I reached out to Buzz to offer assistance and met with her in person 3. Buzz made me lead mod and u\brecol001 was also made mod. 4. With input from Buzz, we posted a moderation team announcement to catch the community up.

It was my intent to allow Buzz to remain a moderator, keep her posts and comments in check, and move forward. As lead moderator, I now had veto power and the ability to undo smaller missteps on her part. Buzz continuing as moderator was not a popular opinion as our survey would reveal, but I wanted to give it a good faith effort.

The community announcement ended with an anonymous survey 13 of you took the time to fill out. 12 of the thirteen 13, in one way or another, called for the removal of Buzz as a moderator, or at least temper her posting. My personal favorite was the "More current events" comment; Thanks for that stranger.

Survey Results
Remove Buzz from the moderating team. She should not be a mod. She does not have the self restraint, objectivity, or distance from the sub to be an effective moderator. It's pretty clear that this sub is a big part of her life and given how low the daily traffic is, a micromanaging mod with a victim complex will kill things very quickly. I just moved to Iowa city and have only been participating in this sub for a few weeks but it is immediately clear that she has some issues that will be taken out on community members. The community made their fears and displeasure abundantly clear in the response to her mod announcement.
Please remove buzzabuzz52 from the moderation team. It's not appropriate for her to be in the position she is in given her post history to the subreddit.
Keep posts relevant to new and upcoming Iowa city changes. Constant business reviews are what yelp is for, and this isn't a place to advertise your craft. This page should be a discussion for the now and future of Iowa City. Laundromat reviews are for yelp, questions about drinking cereal milk are for AskReddit. Please keep in mind what this sub is supposed to be
New moderators should be chosen with care, and only after consistent and positive engagement in the subreddit over many months. Appointing a moderator after they spend a week spamming a region specific subreddit with posts that are either a] largely unrelated to the region specifically, or b] are vapid regurgitations of a previous day's topic [what's fun in IC 6/22, what's fun in IC 6/23, what's fun in IC 6/24, etc.] is an insult to those of us who have read and participated in the subreddit consistently for many months or longer.
Remove buzzbuzz52
More current events
Remove buzzabuzz52 as a moderator.
Don't turn the sub into a nanny state by over-moderating. Reddit is democratic by nature. Let the system work. Have very clear rules and be transparent when action is taken. Don't flood the sub with inane posts about every miniscule thing you can think of.
Buzz needs to leave. She's an actively harmful member of the community
Demod Buzz. She's not fit to be a moderator. If anything, she's too controversial to be a mod right now anyway.
REMOVE BUZZABUZZ52 from MOD TEAM. He can barely operate Reddit as a normal user, there is no need to make a spammer a moderator. That is pure asinine.
Please just ban buzzabuzz already!!
Please only allow posting directly related to IC and UI. Other postings and ramblings should be removed for there are thousands of other subreddits that are better places for these. I come to IowaCity subreddit for IC and UI related news, topics, and discussions and I go to other subreddits for everything else, hence why there are subreddits. In other words, please direct buzzabuzz52 to casualconversation

 

PART FIVE: Breaking Point

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Yesterday, we received a Report from a user on one of Buzz's recent posts titled Passionate about Iowa City Music. Based on this report, this post was determined to be off topic. As a result, it was removed.

This post, in its current form, is not best suited for our community. After being contacted by Buzz to discuss why the post was removed, I responded with ideas on how it could have been done to make it acceptable. For example, the post doesn’t have links to local musicians or their music. It doesn’t have an interesting story or a discussion generating question. I also reminded her "We agreed we would be fair in judging content, and [I was told by you] it was my job to review reports on your posts"

Among the ensuing messages I received in response, two things Buzz said suck out:

What I think needs to happen is the threats by the bully leaders running around chasing me told to knock it off. Given an incremental ban after a warning if they don't stop the harassment. That thread calling for a mass exodus should have been removed immediately and I would have given them a warning had it been the first violation but it wasnt going thread to thread with harassment shouting the same crap. It should have been a ban. Those shouting they're leaving should be allowed to. It won't collapse the sub. [...] Link

and

[...] Do right by all, not a handful. I'm an advocate for others for a reason. I've seen how they are treated and it's not right. Voices are being quashed that shouldn't be. Maybe read comments by those people instead of just the haters. Who's trying to destroy the sub? Why allow bullies to dictate what to do? They can demand until they turn blue. Link

It was at this point I met with our other moderators, sharing this information. The survey feedback, feedback we've been PM'd, and comments on recent posts since the transition of power were all considered and monitored going into today's post. It was determined Buzz was not fit to remain a moderator on this subreddit.

As of today, /u/Buzzabuzz52 has been removed from her moderating post.

 

Where do we go from here?

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Reddit is a very large and diverse place with small communities dedicated to sharing in mutual experiences, hobbies, and geographical locations.

Our vision for this sub is for posts with some combination of current, local, original, and informative content. Posts that stand on their own before any comments have been made. While the occasional light-hearted and off-topic posts may be acceptable at times, they are always accepted at places such as /r/CasualConversations and /r/ShowerThoughts.

In addition, at the suggestion of /u/malus545, we will be testing out bi-weekly/monthly off-topic stickied posts for informal, casual discuss to take place in. The exact frequency, content, and shape of these posts is TBD, but we would like to find a compromise with the wants and desires of our entire community. Brent, IOIFH and I have a lot of exciting improvements in the works that we look forward to sharing with you soon.

Please give us your feedback in the comment section, below.

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TL;DR /u/scsoc's experiment failed :)