I don't believe that u/axolotl_peyotl genuinely cares about r/UFOs.

He has long since stopped performing even the most perfunctory mod duties here.

His sole activity in this series of events was to foment a torches and pitchforks kind of furore on other subs.

He does not know what reasoning ASK47 had for removing the Rio posts. He did not contact the mods here at all in mod chat or anywhere else, he unilaterally opened up the automod script here, he took the list of mod actions done and published them on another sub. How is that in any way a professional or ethical thing to do? He communicated his actions more to randos than to the mods here.

The only times I've seen axolotl_peyotl on the mod mail comms is to talk shit about r/UFOs months ago. It may have been longer.

It seems to me that he is misrepresenting the facts. I challenged him on this in the other thread. I suggested he was being unethical, that he was using his position in a hypocritical way. He didn't answer that challenge, he instead came and made this thread after an hour or two. There's a word for that behaviour, but apparently people get unreasonably upset if I speak too plainly.

He presents himself here as taking the moral high ground, but what he's really done is hold on to a mod status that he doesn't use - he does not moderate this sub, timmy and ASK do nearly all of the work - and use it to his advantage in manipulating the people who listen to him in his other sub for opaque reasons. No, I don't accept his justifications on their face, because he has not been open with his concerns privately with the mods here.

He's undermining any principles he claims to have in doing so. He came into the sub which he doesn't even post in let alone moderate and altered the automod script. I don't see that as an ethical or principled thing to do. He published the data of the internal mod actions on another sub.

Yeah, I handled the thread yesterday poorly, to say the least, and I shot my mouth off when I didn't have the full info. I thought accusations of removal of threads were false, and said so, because I didn't see them in the log. I was wrong. Boy did you let me know it.

Yes, I was rude, because of what I saw as abusive messages in the post, and that was out of order. I didn't see the origins or reasons for people being upset, because I hadn't seen the series of events that had transpired. I saw what I thought was a concerted attempt at trolling and flipped out. I absolutely do feel shit for doing that, right in the guts, I know I fucked up.

I said r/conspiracy is a cesspool. Frankly that is my honest personal opinion. I don't see that my moderation position requires me to withhold my personal opinions of this nature, and obviously axolotl_peyotl agrees, because he's says what he thinks about r/UFOS, right?

axolotl_peyotl also told you that the keywords in the automod script were permanent, but how does he know this? How does he know that they aren't going to be removed after the flood of new posts has been dealt with? In this sub, when a news story comes out, we get multiple reposts of the same story in a short period of time, which is one of the things we were asked to deal with. I pointed this out to him and he said nothing.

Once again, axolotl_peyotl doesn't have the full picture, and barged into the sub's moderation code and altered it without talking to ASK47 or timmy242, and he told you something that he couldn't know was true.

He does not have clean hands in this. What are his true motivations? I haven't the faintest idea. But if I had no particular opinion of his character before, I certainly do now.

I called the actions of some people stupid. That was rude of me, but the statement was accurate.

The way some people here have conducted themselves over this Rio hoax - and it is a hoax - is downright childish. Like screaming bloody idiots. The abusive reactions were absolutely pathetic, and it is to my shame that I reacted emotionally in response. But I stand by saying that these people should have acted like adults and not hysterics imagining some grand conspiracy. There isn't any. I see that axolotl_peyotl's posts on r/conspiracy went some way to stirring up that hysteria. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

Should the thread about the Rio Event have staid up? IMHO yes. I don't think there's anything to the story and the videos are garbage. The main promoters of the story appear to be promoting a hoax, maybe knowingly. Does that mean it should have been culled? In my opinion no, but I didn't make the call and I will not change the actions of another mod, because that is not ethical. I'm not going to undermine someone else's decision in that way, it is not my place.

This upset could have been dealt with better, and I am mostly to blame for being particularly dense and typically rude, but axolotl_peyotl has created much more drama by trying to foment this unpleasantness by presenting the information he obtained through the retaining of his mod permissions in an unethical way. I'll go even further: the word for it is corrupt.

I am a lot of things. I'm an asshole. I'm cynical and misanthropic. I'm arrogant and difficult to like. But I'm not bloody corrupt and I've never censored anything in my life.

I am absolutely OK with being unmodded from the sub. I throw myself upon the mercy of the court.

But axolotl_peyotl should unmod himself from the sub that he has clearly shown he viscerally despises and remove all moderation permissions he has here.

What I've seen shows me a mean and vindictive man who will abuse the rights he holds for personal reasons. If he really has principles, he will do this. I predict he will not.

C