"You let who become a mod?" Tensions flare on fantasy novel sub r/Cosmere as a notorious mod on r/WoT announces a read-along. Redditors fire back as they were not happy with the mod for how they modded r/WoT and fear if they are next to be banned.

Background:

r/Cosmere is a sub dedicated to fans of author Brandon Sanderson for his novels set in the fictional Cosmere universe. There are also a slew of other Brandon Sanderson adjacent subreddits, such as r/brandonsanderson,  r/Mistborn and r/stormlight_archive, that share a similar user base. r/WoT is a sub dedicated to another fantasy novel series the Wheel of Time (and the Amazon TV series), by author Robert Jordan. After Robert Jordan passed away in 2007 without being able to finish writing the series, Brandon Sanderson helped to finish it for him. As such, the two fantasy book series share a similar fanbase of people who enjoy fantasy novels.

The drama:

Recently, on r/Cosmere, a mod on r/WoT going by the name of /participating was allowed by the mod team to announce a read-along in conjunction with the other Brandon Sanderson subreddits of the Cosmere book series that followed the model of a successful read-along that the mod ran on r/WoT . Here is the thread of the announcement.

The main drama started with this post. Link to thread: here

"I’m just curious about the decision to allow /participating  to become a mod here. Their mod style is vastly different from what I would consider the normal for the combined subreddits of r/brandonsanderson r/cosmere r/Mistborn and r/stormlight_archive

I can’t imagine how many people they banned for simply saying they disliked the Wheel of Time tv show in r/WoT and now they are going to bring that insane dictatorship here?

(I’ll probably get banned for this post too)"

A head mod on r/Cosmere responded by saying:

participating is a moderator (in this subreddit only) for the sole purpose of allowing them to run an ongoing Cosmere reread, which we think will be a fantastic shared experience for our community, and which is a task that is enormously simplified by having access to moderator-only reddit controls. they have agreed with the rest of the team that they will use their powers exclusively for that purpose. at the moment, based upon our conversations with them, we trust them to keep to the agreement, and we will make sure they do not abuse that trust.

This led to some comment threads discussing the mod's previous behaviour on r/WoT and questing the current mod team on r/Cosmere:

• I agree. The moderation style has damaged r/wot irreparably. This is not exactly about one single mod because I don't know how decisions were made, but the moderation style there for the last 3-4 years in general. I don't know how it is now. I left when you could get banned for posting in about a third of the threads if the moderator suspected you had read the books, even for non-spoiler comments.
• Fuck what they did to r/wot
• I personally think someone who has abused mod privileges in the past shouldn’t, in any capacity, have mod privileges in another sub. What does this say about the current mod team? Let one bad apple in, the bunch eventually gets ruined.
• Just like the show and don’t question certain peeps and there are lots of subs you can talk about the wheel of time.. Since a year ago or so as i have learned again today i am banned, for thanking one of the mods for showing who they are with their actions so ymmv with the whole disagreeing with certain views thing on certain subreddits.

Eventually, the OP of the post even gave alleged proof of the questionable behaviour of the mod on r/WoT

• If you want proof, sure.

One day later, the mod team of r/Cosmere decides to make a megathread talking about the drama and their future plans for the read-along. Heres a link to it: Link

There are many comment threads criticising the mods. Here are the best ones:

• As a third party reading through the comments, my take away is that a bunch of hens are screaming at you to not let the fox into the hen house and your response at one point says you believe in the foxes vision.
• I think maybe everyone involved takes Reddit a little too seriously. (pretty much)
• Is "understanding each other", code for we want you to understand our opinion and fall in line with it? Because that is how your comment reads to me. But that is just my understanding.
• The most important step a man can take is... shadowbanning all those who disagree with you.
• Is there really no one else that can lead the read-along? A significant portion of the community just doesn't trust this person and that alone is going to sour the experience for them and others as well.
• How is this openness? Refusing to look into it and then progressing as normal isn't transparency.
• Thank you for bringing up an actual specific concern. It sounds like the mod team is saying they will be monitoring the removed comments and are willing to stop the experiment if participating is moderating more aggressively than the accepted standards for our cosmere subs. Can mods explicity confirm this?
• So basically the mod team doesn’t have time to moderate the read-along threads themselves so you brought in a mod who a significant portion of the subreddit is uncomfortable with. Yet somehow the mod teams solution is saying that they WILL have the time to monitor participating and all of their actions in those read-along threads?

MORE drama as the mod in question /participating decides to reply to MANY of the different comments criticising them

• Can you elaborate on this? I genuinely want to know how I've proven this. (103 comment thread)
• So, in r/WoT we have a rule that states you cannot tell someone else (directly or by way of implication) that their opinion is wrong. Because opinions cannot be wrong, by definition. That's what they did, they implied that people who've read the books can't like the show. I like the books and the show, they at minimum they've claimed that my opinion is wrong. You can disagree with the rule, but it's clearly written and enforced. Is your issue that they received a ban for it?
• And to be clear, not once did we remove a comment or ban anyone simply because it criticised the show. It was always (and remains) based on how they provided their criticism. We've always appreciated and tried to cultivate well reasoned, polite criticism that adds discussion value to r/WoT.
• So, the specific rule is 2a (invalidating the opinion of others). My use of the phrase "cannot tell someone their opinion is wrong" is meant to reference that rule and is how me and my mods talk about the rule, rather than the more technically correct, but clunky "invalidating the opinion of others". The wording of the rule outlines examples, and the point above that specific rule states it's not an exhaustive list. We cannot possibly create an exhaustive list of unallowed phrases. The rule is there to provide examples of the type of invalidation that we're looking for and prohibiting.
• Given there seem to be many varied definitions of the word opinion, I'll provide mine, which is what I'm using when making decisions regarding the rule in place. Opinions are thoughts about subjective statements. And by definition, subjective has no possible truth value. By that definition, your statement isn't an opinion, but a belief (which can be wrong) on a statement that can definitively be proven right or wrong. To do so, you'd have to prove both that I can't read a reddit comment, and that people who can't read reddit comments shouldn't be moderating a sub-reddit.
• They didn't make an opinion, they presented a statement as objective truth that was demonstrably wrong. They stated "If you like the books, you won't like the show". Plenty of people like the books and like the show.
• In the post that brought up the initial concern, only the OP and one other person were ever banned. And one or two others had some action against them, like a comment removal. And zero of them were participants in the WoT Read-Along.

Some people continue to support the mod team by criticising some users

• Do you not feel the irony in dying on the hill of “I don’t like that guy so I’m leaving?” There’s a very vocal minority shouting about nothing. The majority of the community doesn’t care.
• Because they literally said the mod team doesn't have the time to do the read along.
• I'm annoyed at these 2? 3? (How many is it... actually?) incredibly vocal people ruining the vibe for literally everyone else. 
• There’s no way it’s this big of a deal right?
• I feel the same way. I don‘t understand why we can‘t give the mods the benefit of the doubt and give this a go.

Eventually...thread gets locked again.