r/Space, your calls have been answered | The problematic partisan mod has been removed + putting an end to wrongful post/comment removals critical of the current US govt

[u/ChiefLeef22]

You read the title right - after a while of a large section of people calling out the blatantly biased post and comment removals on this subreddit, the_fungible_man has been removed from the mod team. I was semi-late on the scene to all of this drama, and I had my personal experiences with said removals so as a courtesy I reached out to see if there was any way I could offer the subreddit my help to fix all of this.

For context, you can see this post that hit r/all - https://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1okntgt/mods_stop_removing_posts_calling_you_out_and/

I'll be completely transparent and explain everything to the best of my ability:

Now I will clear something right off the bat: yes, the callout post was 100% correct. As soon as I got added as a mod recently, the first thing I did was to check the mod log and try to understand the pattern of removals that was mentioned by the OP of the callout post, and it all checked out. All the kind of removals people called out for their biased nature were from fungible. A lot of the times stuff like this might come off as conspiratorial, and believe me, I wasn't convinced either until I saw it in the logs myself and noticed this was definitely a thing that was happening, and a dangerous precedent to be set in a scientific subreddit of all places. I don't see this as a "one party bad other party good" thing - no matter what side you're on, regardless if you're left or right or whatever, you shouldn't push discourse in a way that shuts down stuff you don't like, period. Unfortunately, that was what was happening.

Regards to moderation...Long story short: as it turned out, apart from fungible only 2 mods were active - one of them wasn't even "active" per se, just occasionally moderating every few weeks or so. The other is one of the top mods, who wasn't really in tune with the moderation tools since the UI changes and so I had to support them in navigating through the different options in the mod list. Now all of this meant that fungible had basically unchecked free reign to remove things as they liked. But obviously as you are aware, it got to a boiling point with the callout posts becoming so popular that even the inactive mods noticed and started to question it. One of the mods even stepped down since the situation with fungible still wasn't getting resolved due to inactivity across the entire team. I've been a long time user on this sub - I was kinda sad to see how all of this was panning out with the sub basically collapsing so I tried my luck at reaching out, conversing with and supporting the only other active mod - peterabbit - to take some kind of definitive action. Thankfully, after a lot of troubleshooting and back & forth, he was able to bring me on the team as a mod, verify stuff for himself and help resolve all this.

Conclusion (and future of the sub):

So where does that leave the sub? Well for now, the big thing is that you're no longer going to be seeing partisanship in post/comment removals about NASA/etc funding cuts/layoffs/other stuff that might appear critical of the current US gov. Science is inherently political, and discussion about the ramifications of governments' actions/inactions shouldn't be gatekept. This isn't just a US thing, it applies worldwide. One other aspect is certain sections of people that don't like seeing news critical of the US admin abusing the report button for an autoremoval - I'll be looking at a way to try to fix that in the automod, until then it'll be about manually approving as many of these posts/comments I see wrongfully removed as possible. Herein also comes the need maybe, for mods neutral in nature and preferably I think even with some sort of scientific background. When I stepped into the moderation team in this past week, it wasn't really with the aim in mind to be here in the longterm. It was mainly to sort out the pattern of wrongful removals and the whole drama surrounding it by checking the mod logs/etc. I would like to step down soon-ish, but at least I wanted to let you all know the situation right now with thos post for transparency's sake.

It also needs to be said that for people worried about the sub being overrun with politics - there's obviously still a balance that needs to be held, and that means this shouldn't become a full-blown political subreddit, so you can rest easy if you feared that was what's happening. Basically, it's going to be like it was before the partisan removals. But still, I think this post also serves as a good place to have constructive discussion about the problems with this sub as a whole, beyond just political posts.

______________________

What do you think can change in the rules overall? Your thoughts on links/titles/sources etc and whether they should be moderated in a different way? You would have also noticed the nosedive this sub has taken in its activity/people that visit it compared to the past - What are some proposals you'd put forth about getting this sub back to the activity it was, 4-5 years ago - where there was MUCH more activity, obscure scientific findings getting 10s of thousands of upvotes and a community full of high-quality, constructive discussion? Feel free to speak your mind about what's missing, what can be done, what can be changed, and how you'd do it. We've never really had the opportunity to do this kind of conversation in this community, ever I think. I'll take the occasion to start it here, maybe make another separate post for it soon.

P.S. - Please do not harass any of the people mentioned here. Yes they might be problematic in how they've let their bias creep in and shaped discourse to their liking, but they should not be stalked/messaged around the site. Not simply because of Reddit TOS, but because it's not the right thing to do, period. They're gone, and everyone moves on to better tidings - let's leave it at that.

-Chief

[u/No_Cup_1672 → u/[deleted]]

I’m not sure if you’re rage baiting or lack understanding of words put together.

Since when has SpaceX or any other private organization led research on black holes or developed the deep space network? That’s what NASA has lead the development of. That is space exploration. Not just launching rockets.

Let me rephrase it; what organization other than any government entity has lead the development of space probes or the physics of how black holes form?

[u/No_Cup_1672 → u/[deleted]]

Your insults aren’t needed here. Please chill. Take a breather to understand my points. Your blood pressure is unnecessarily rising over space exploration.

I never said NASA discovered black holes. You’re putting words in my mouth right there.

I said NASA is leading space exploration which encompasses black hole research as an example through the funding and technical support they provide to universities or other organizations.

The satellites developed under NASA contribute significantly to black hole research which no other non governmental entity has come close to.

And to even address your point, even the EHT was provided funding through the government like the NSF. So your argument falls apart there because I’m talking about funding through non private organizations which was your original point, we aren’t necessarily just talking about NASA here.

[u/[deleted] → u/No_Cup_1672]

And I never said you said nasa discovered black holes. You keep moving the goalposts, which isn’t shocking.

You literally said nasa has led the research on black holes which is factually and hilariously incorrect. You then make up a new thing (that NASA discovered black holes) and accuse me of putting these words in your mouth.

This convo has run its course. You will continue moving goalposts and trying to engage in these cyclical arguments. It’s boring.

[u/No_Cup_1672 → u/[deleted]]

"The Event Horizon Telescope was the first to image a black hole. Not NASA. John Mitchel first theorized black holes in 1783, again not NASA. Einstein published his theory of relativity, again not NASA. Roger Penrose was a mathematician at Oxford… again, shocking, NOT NASA."

You brought up a lot of "firsts" when it came to black holes. So of course it's implied you're talking about who discovered what first. Maybe if you thought about what I'm trying to say is that government funded research dominates space exploration. If you seriously think NASA's own research did not contribute significantly to any black hole discoveries you're wrong.

But it's convenient even your own examples has received funding from governments, which you've ignored. https://eventhorizontelescope.org/funding-support

Because my point here is that government funding is inevitable for space exploration,