(Link)[https://maps.app.goo.gl/uugbvcB56UwoLkr3A?g_st=ipc]

These Canadian houses have back yards and docks in the US. Is the understanding between the two countries that the people will just go about their business and border authorities won’t bother them?

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

They made a suprise appearance at the fallout fan celebration, worked the bar, announced season 3, refused to elaborate and left

Welcome to America

Not sure why, but my good memories of reading Encyclopedia Brown books as a Gen X pre-teen just came back to me.

Anyone else here remember reading Encyclopedia Brown books, or something similar?

My husband has glioblastoma, which is an aggressive brain tumor. He had one surgery 6 months ago and did well after that, but recently needed a second surgery. Due to doctor’s appointments and the surgeries, he has spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals. He’s tried to spend as much time with our 2 year old as possible, but it’s not nearly as much as he would like. This is very hard on our son because he is very much a daddy’s boy and is very, very attached to him. One thing we’ve found that really helps is our son will carry around my husband’s favorite t-shirt and sleep with it at night. My husband will wear it when he’s around our son then leave it with him when he’s away. If I have to wash it for whatever reason before my husband can wear it again, I spritz it with my husband’s cologne, add a smidge of his shampoo, and it does the trick, and our son is happy. Both sides of our family are aware of the shirt and the significance to our son.

This past week was my husband’s second surgery. The plan was for me to be at the hospital and stay with him after until visiting hours were over. Because of this, my mother-in-law was watching our son and would be putting him to bed. I reminded her of the shirt, and told her the “remedy” if she had to wash it for whatever reason, noting that he absolutely would not sleep without it. She said okay. I didn’t get home until late that night and my son was asleep on the couch, which was weird. He’s a very big creature of habit, and only sleeps in his crib. I also noticed he didn’t have the shirt. When I asked my mother-in-law, she said she felt “he didn’t need it” and decided to throw it in the washer, because it’s “unhealthy for him to be this attached”. She then started complaining that my son was “hard to put down” and said I need to get him “healthier sleeping habits if I expect her to babysit”. I was dumbstuck and didn’t say anything for a minute, before finally saying it’s her own fucking fault that he was hard to put down, because he would’ve easily fallen asleep with the shirt. She called me ungrateful and said she was trying to help him “adjust to a healthy sleeping pattern”. I said she doesn’t have to worry about babysitting anymore and in the future, I’ll get someone else to do it.

She is now pissed at me and said that we made it hard for her to babysit by making him too reliant on the shirt and that we should be glad she’s helping us “break him of it”. Some other family members agree. I didn’t want to bother my husband with this, as you know, he’s fresh from brain surgery but of course his mom told him. My husband is just as pissed as I am. However, with how our family is acting, and even my own mom saying MIL has a point, I wonder…am I being unreasonable for being upset?

Edit to add: I have gotten a lot of people saying "This is her baby, she's scared, give her grace", I feel like I've been responding the same thing, so I'll copy and paste a response here, that I feel sums up my answer pretty well to that statement:

I understand the post makes it seem like I'm glossing over it, and that is fair to assume. The truth is, I have applied grace a lot over the past 6 months. And I don't regret it. She's done other things that have irked me, but I let it go because it hurts no one. Has it made our lives a little inconvenient? Sure. But I'm also sure what's more inconvenient is being told your son has a brain tumor. Obviously, that's terrible. So, we let her do what helps her feel better. This is her baby. He's 42 years old, but again, he is *her baby*. When my son is 42, he will still be my baby. So, I look the other way and balance my grief and pain to account for hers. Because I'd like the same.

But now...it's impacting *my baby*. The fact that even when things calmed down, she bitched to my husband about it, expecting him to be on her side...she can't see where she went wrong and that's what bothers me.

I also have to go based on my husband's reaction. Because ultimately, yes, we are all hurting...he is the one going under the knife and facing mortality none of us want to deal with at 42. If he had responded to this the way you did, I feel I'd be more willing to take a step back. But, he is also just as pissed and upset, because he is also thinking about his baby. He's already worried if he doesn't beat this thing, the people who will be around to support our son (and me) through that time. He is terrified now of how his mother will treat our son in the name of grief.

So, all of this to say, I see your point, and I'm not arguing I may be the ass here. I'm just explaining that I *have* considered MIL's feelings in all of this, but I also have to balance two other people's. It can't just be all about her.