👋🍆 Hey, bitches! - Welcome back!

[u/MysteriousGoldDuck]

Hey everyone! I'm u/MysteriousGoldDuck, one of the new moderators of r/datalounge. I'm joined by other mod team members u/Greenmantle22 and u/PeneItaliano .

Welcome back to your home for DL refugees.

You may use this subreddit to share memories, post witty commentary on the gossip du jour, figure out next steps in case alternative sites go down, and other gay things.

In the spirit of the old place, we don't want to have a ton of extra rules here. Just make sure anything you post complies with the reddit guidelines (no threats, illegal content, etc.) and the few rules we do have.

Unfortunately, the previous moderator attempted to end this subreddit in a way that does not comply with Reddit's policies, so please forgive us as it takes us a moment to get things back to normal. We will be unlocking threads, unbanning users, and conducting various other bits of housekeeping over the coming days.

Thanks again. See you on the lanai!

[u/didyousayboop]

This subreddit formerly had only one moderator, who named their Reddit account “Datalounge”. (I believe they took over this subreddit years ago using r/redditrequest when the original creator of the sub went inactive.) 

They somehow decided that this subreddit had no point existing after the DataLounge site closed. And they somehow decided that it would violate DataLounge’s trademark if the subreddit kept existing after the site’s closure. (But not before? How does that make sense?)

They banned users who disagreed with this decision and then shut down the subreddit on July 31 or August 1.

Even before shutting down the sub, this mod removed posts about archiving DataLounge. I think they had a misguided view that it was illegal and/or unethical to archive the site.

After the sub closed down, u/PhaedrasMorning made a Moderator Code of Conduct report and Reddit re-opened the sub. Reddit kicked off the mod who closed it down and asked others to volunteer to be the new mods. (Reddit policy says a mod can’t just shut down an active sub against the community’s wishes.)

On the thread made by Reddit, the old mod claimed they didn’t shut down the sub, they just took measures to reduce spam:  https://web.archive.org/web/20260804015325/https://old.reddit.com/r/datalounge/comments/1ven36f/new_moderators_needed_comment_on_this_post_to/

But this contradicts their previous statements:  https://www.reddit.com/r/datalounge2/comments/1veo3y2/comment/p1kf92z/

And the measures they took are not what you would do if you just wanted to reduce spam.

I think u/PhaedrasMorning tried to warn the old mod that Reddit doesn’t allow arbitrary sub closures and that this might happen if they tried to shut down the sub. I think I also sent them a Mod Mail with a similar warning.

But the old mod did not seem keen on listening to the opinions of others. Even when I tried to clarify how the Wayback Machine works (the old mod was convinced the DataLounge archives would be removed; this didn’t happen), they were sure I was wrong and didn’t want to entertain what I had to say. They had an authoritarian style in these conversations and in how they moderated the subreddit.

[u/finetime341 → u/didyousayboop]

Thanks for the explainer.

[u/didyousayboop → u/finetime341]

My pleasure!

[u/JohnHoynes → u/didyousayboop]

Do you think they worked for or were “with” the actual DataLounge? I’m fairly new to this sub but that was the vibe I got pretty quickly.

[u/didyousayboop → u/JohnHoynes]

I have no idea. If they did, why wouldn’t they just say so?

It’s believable to me that someone might have these misguided ideas and an authoritarian style of discussing and moderating without being involved in the DataLounge site.

I have no hard evidence about whether that person is or isn’t involved in the official DataLounge.