This subreddit is terrible and let me explain why.

Before you downvote, delete, and ban me please read at least 2/3's of my post.

I've been in some niche subreddits that were hostile but this one takes the cake. Let me go through why this subreddit is terrible and why I won't be coming back.

1. Conflict of interest

The mods on this subreddit are invested in Pebble and work for them. This is a huge problem. Now sure, they could only have wiki rights, or minor rights that don't allow them to remove content but that's a huge issue. We'd never let employees of GoPro have mod access on the /r/gopro subreddit.

2. Oh you've got a problem with your Pebble? How about we downvote the shit out of you.

Yeah explain that? Any seemingly innocent question. Why did my Pebble get stuck in a boot loop? Why is it not charging? Why is my RMA taking over a month? Downvote it without mercy. The mods don't seem to do shit about this.

3. Not following their own subreddit rules.

Right in the sidebar, the first thing you see are rules. Those rules basically say be nice to each other. If that was really a rule we wouldn't see so much rampant downvoting vengeance for people with issues.

My last take on this is that I honestly don't care what you think of my post. Take it as you will. There aren't any excuses for what is going on here. It just needs to change, and if it does then fantastic. Either way I'm unsubscribing and don't care what happens either way.

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u/eMinja pebble time steel black Nov 21 '13

Because it makes it easier for us to communicate with them. It is a decision we have made and it has worked out for us so far. We aren't the only sub that works that way and it is working. I don't see why all the fuss is raised about it.

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u/sirrelevant Nov 22 '13

it makes it easier for us to communicate with them

Pebble can read reddit mail better than email? Please explain.

Maybe the perception is that pebble has their own forum for them to run as they please, and for them to have editorial control in what is supposed to be "our" space seems heavy-handed, regardless of how much or little they choose to exercise it.

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u/sysop073 Nov 21 '13

I'm not too concerned, but you really don't see the issue with a subreddit that spends a lot of its time complaining about a small group of people having those same people as moderators? One day they could decide "man, we're really tired of everyone bitching about X", and just delete every post about X. Yes, it may be unlikely, and maybe it will never happen, but you've made it possible where it would otherwise be impossible, and that makes people nervous. Normally people are made moderators so they can perform moderation, not to use mod mail as some sort of ad-hoc mailing list, so of course there's confusion

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '13

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/sysop073 Nov 21 '13

Well, I'm not going to argue about it too much, but to a casual observer the only reason team pebble would have mod powers on this subreddit is so they could use them to delete things. The fact that it's reversible is irrelevant, because it's assumed that giving them those powers means the other mods are ok with that happening -- otherwise they wouldn't be mods. Apparently you use it to communicate with them, but that's extremely strange; it's like giving a group of people top secret security clearances so you can use the "all-people-with-top-secret-clearances" mailing list to chat, and those people won't actually be using those clearances to look up national secrets, so don't worry about that

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u/sirrelevant Nov 22 '13

so they could use them to delete things

Mods can also ban users from the subreddit

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u/jway5929 Jailbroken iOS Jan 06 '14

It happened! About their CES announcement of the Steel Pebble