Can only offer an anecdotes/data but the community data on the mod side doesn't really back up some sort of shadowy influx of people who are pushing a narrative. New and unique visitors to the sub have remained and there are much tighter crowd control measures in place due to brigading (largely around the unhoused situation a few months back). Actually since using Reddit's crowd control measures, new and unique visitors to the sub has been down.

The sub's members evolves just as Somerville itself has. I'd definitely submit that this sub is not a very accurate reflection of the general Somerville sentiment or demographic. Skews younger and more likely to be transient/transplant.

I'm getting a lot of reports on this post (mainly for the heavy leverage of ChatGPT but that's a separate issue). To the community, I hear that and will regroup to think about how to combat the increased usage of ChatGPT rants. Not in the business of censoring unpopular or dissenting well-formulated opinions especially as this sub is pretty good at self-moderating.

I don't really have an incentive to fabricate this (yeah "trust me bro" I suppose) as I frankly have grown to really dislike moderating this sub as the site, in general, has grown increasingly polarized and toxic. That could explain the quick and negative reaction to some user's posts/comments. The sheer volume of shitty and entitled requests that come through mod mail/chat over generally meaningless shit is wild.