there's some things that really suck about this whole situation. first of all, people are being downvoted for expressing their opinions about this when there really shouldn't be any up or down votes. ALL voices in this debate need to be heard, no matter what is being said.

we can go on and on for days and weeks about ViolentAcrez' character and we won't get anywhere. basic fact: lots of people on reddit, not just in the r/writing sub, don't like him. message to ViolentAcrez: you can't go around whining that people don't like you when you've chosen to be a controversial high-profile reddit user -- and seem quite proud of your rep.

because of that, when illuminatedwax didn't communicate with the subscribers about anything, just appointed ViolentAcrez and Karlgraves as co-mods. in the time it took to ping these two people and ask them to be mods, illuminatedwax could have informed some or all of the community about his plans -- he could have run this idea up the flagpole, so to speak. that would have avoided lots of grief.

illuminatedwax claims he didn't know ViolentAcrez was so controversial. i don't buy that for a second. if you're on reddit, even occasionally, you just can't go around claiming you live under a rock.

yet, even if we go with illuminatedwax's fantasy that he innocently appointed an active, talented moderator as a "fixer," it doesn't change the fact that ViolentAcrez came into the community like he was a badass gunslinger sent in "to clean up this here town" and banned a subscriber right away was even more heavy handed. (who cares if he unbanned him right away? it was a cheesy thing to do.) add to that the fact that now, 12 hours or so later, the situation has devolved into illuminatedwax and ViolentAcrez and their posse of thugs engaging in a flame war with people who care a shit ton more for the community than they ever will.

at any point in this cluster fuck, illuminatedwax could have chosen to be humble and gracious and cooperative, and collaborated with the top contributors to fix problems that were, really, in the grand scheme of things, just minor issues.

and to think, after all this, illuminatedwax and ViolentAcrez are STILL making excuses, blaming others, and allowing the shit storm to continue to stink up this joint.

doesn't sound at all like good moderating to me. actually, it seems that any claims the mods make about how much they care about reddit and this community is total bullshit at this point, considering all the bad choices they keep making.

it should not matter which subscribers post in this community or how often they post. almost every single redditor was a lurker at one time, and some redditors continue to lurk in some communities and seldom if ever post, yet post actively in other communities. mods, however, really should be active in their communities and not just fixers. if fixer mods are needed, then there should be a designated, roving crew -- users known for their ability to remain as neutral as possible while fixing things that are actually broken. just sayin...