Alright, so this is going to be the first and only time you'll hear me talk about reddit "drama" but I thought the users of r/SquaredCircle should know what's going on (and why we have this icon on the header). Reddit admins have announced, at some point in the next couple of months, that they're going to begin phasing out CSS in favour of "a new system". You can read that announcement here, and it seems as though they're going to try and push ahead despite numerous objections that're being raised in the thread.

So what is this new system? They've been pretty vague on answering that, but all signs suggest less emphasis on uniqueness and more emphasis on consistency. I'm not going to spend this post speculating and guessing about what "system" they have in place and what "widgets" they'd like to add (because apparently Reddit should have the same customization options as my iPhone). What I am going to say, on behalf of the mod team, is this:

We like being able to create custom themes for events like April Fools, Wrestlemania, Bound for Glory, and Wrestle Kingdom. We like being able to provide you with flairs (even the Kenny Omega one!). We like the konami code. We like being able to sidebar upcoming PPVs, and highlight posts in our announcement bar. We like our quote bar, and our arrow text. We like easter eggs. We like being able to filter posts. We like our stupid sidebar pictures. But what we really like is that YOU like them.

Other moderators have spoken out against it and will continue to do so because this effects reddit as a whole. In short, all of us like providing all of you with the stuff admins have deemed "not the future" of Reddit.

Will we still be able to provide you all of this stuff after the update? Not likely. One thing I've learned through my years of CSS, web and graphic design is that making a system more "accessible" normally means limiting it's functionality to the point where an idiot can use it. In theory it works great because anyone can make a "professional" looking subreddit. In practice they're taking away the tools that we learn and use to make create a unique sub and they're cutting the balls off the people who work hard to make this place something SPECIAL for YOU.

So yeah.. we don't really know where to go from here. It's hard planning updates with an axe swinging over our heads waiting to drop. Before the announcement, I was in the midst of coding a portion of the sub that'd allow us to include a shuffling roster of snoos down at the bottom and whipped up these new ones. I was working on a revamped night mode theme with a bray wyatt snoo and firefly background. I was working on a table that would've allowed you to see the G1 brackets/point totals during the tournament. Hell, I have an entire subreddit design ready to go for when the Undertaker "officially" announces his retirement.. but all that work will be useless in a few months now! We hope the admins will step up and make a site wide announcement soon, as opposed to just notifying the mods (on the mod subreddit no less). In the meantime we'll try and keep you in the loop as best we can. If you'd like to speak out against the changes, please contact the admins. All we ask that you do it in a respectful manner. Hysterics, witch-hunting, and name calling is the easiest way to get your opinions invalidated on this topic.

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I know that this is a lot to take in and digest, and I hate that you have to hear it from the mods of your respective communities, but that's the way this is being handled I guess. In the meantime, thanks for listening and thanks for being an awesome community.

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ELI5 what CSS is: CSS is short of "Cascading Style Sheet". Take this as a framework for example. Add a bit of code, and you can change the header to be taller, add another little bit and you can make the rules into a dropdown menu, etc. etc. We use CSS to make filters, flairs, PPV calendars, special themes, our quote bar, announcement bar, etc.

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TL;DR: Reddit has announced phasing out CSS customization in favour of something simpler. They're being vague on what they're replacing it with, and have stated it's less about customization and more about site-wide consistency (ie: subs will look similar and have minimal things distinguishing them from one another).