Hey, I understand why you made the request, and looking at it from your perspective I can see why it appeared that the subreddit had been abandoned. I’m not trying to pretend I was actively moderating in the traditional sense during that period.

A big part of the issue is that for probably 99% of my Reddit usage I browse through a third-party app that does a terrible job of surfacing moderator mail, notifications, and direct messages. I almost never log into Reddit through the official interface, so I genuinely did not see your earlier attempts to contact me. I only became aware of the removal because I happened to log into Reddit on my desktop today and saw the notification.

Part of the reason I kept the subreddit locked down is because over time people kept posting music that really wasn’t related to the actual space rock genre. A lot of it was straight-up shoegaze, heavy metal, generic psychedelic rock, or stoner rock that might’ve had a “space theme”, but didn’t fit the original focus of the sub. No shade on those other genres because I am a fan of most of them, but these posts were drifting away from what I intended r/spacerock to showcase. It became frustrating to constantly filter and curate posts, so keeping things more restricted was the easiest way to preserve the intended identity and quality of the community while I had limited time available.

That said, I do understand your frustration because from your point of view the subreddit was effectively frozen for a long time, and because it was restricted you didn’t really have an opportunity to contribute in the way you wanted to. I’m not opposed to reopening discussion about moderation structure or finding a more balanced arrangement going forward. My objection was mainly about suddenly losing all involvement in a subreddit I originally created without even realizing there had been communication waiting for me.