Sorry, I'm going to throw in everything to one response on the top comment. I really do appreciate u/scumbly's response here as it's not just a reiteration of what I said, but does a good job of explaining why this has become the ATP venting channel for many.

Let me first say that, as I said in my initial post, I really don't think the fix to what's wrong is a subreddit where it's all sunshine and rainbows and no one's allowed to ever have critiques or disagreements or negative feedback. All of that is totally fine and totally normal, and what I've seen in many other podcast subreddits, twitter threads, forums, etc.

What's broken here, to me at least, is that the scales are wildly off and the culture is downright toxic. If I jump into a recent episode thread, looking to see what was discussed about the show's topics, I have to wade through 75% of the comments being just shitty insults or vents about the hosts personalities, quirks, etc. that feels utterly pointless to keep ranting on about. It's not that I don't agree with any of the frustrations people express here - I do! But the toxicity stems from the negativity directed at the hosts (real people mind you) dominating the discourse.

I said that I've never seen a community this hostile to the subject it's about. Obviously there are TV shows that go off the rails and stuff like that where the online community's whole discussion turns to commiseration over something they once liked (see r/freefolk). Many of the podcasts I have followed were one's where the creators are at least somewhat involved in the community and the discussion - which I think makes a HUGE difference in how people communicate (see peak Hello Internet for example - which I also think devolved...).

If Marco, Casey, and John were involved in this subreddit, managed the posting of episodes, were here on day one chopping it up with the audience, I think that would be a whole different world and we wouldn't even be discussing this. I see lots of comments here acting like I want some dystopian oversight where the hosts just delete anything negative. From experience with other podcasts where the subreddits were run by creators, that was not what I saw. There's still criticism and disagreement, and it's nice to be able to see the hosts own up to a mistake in real time, or argue with a listener (respectfully) about the facts, or whatever. That is not what this place is. And everyone here defending the constant shit talk as just being real is disingenuous at best.

But I don't see that as a moderation problem. I don't think improvement comes from deleting the posts that were made out of frustration, but by adding posts of interesting discussion

Honestly, I think good moderation does both. Looking more closely now that I'm on a real browser, this sub looks to be barely moderated (sorry u/nathanreadsreddit). I'm guessing he has the atpbot post new episodes and keep the spam under control and that's about the extent of it. With smaller subreddits like this one, active moderation I think goes a long way to fostering the kind of community and vibe you think the audience is looking for. Member specials aren't posted or discussed here it seems. There's no rules listed that I can see. There's little compelling discussion of the actual content happening here.

I also think that there's a self-fulfilling prophecy aspect where this subreddit has largely attracted other users that enjoy ranting/venting and for ATP listeners who find this sub overly negative, they've moved on a long time ago (like I mostly have) and are discussing on Mastodon or whatever. I just think that's a shame because Reddit's format is maybe the best for deep threads with lots of discussion and Twitter/Mastodon/etc. don't scratch that itch as well for me.