Greetings all,

We've started the protest this Monday, in solidarity with numerous people who need access to the API, including bot developers, people with accessibility needs (r/blind) and 3rd party app users (Apollo, Sync, and many more). r/humor in particular has made a great post regarding protesting in support of the blind people.

Despite numerous past policies and statements, in support of the mods' right to protest, we have witnessed many attempts this weeks to force subreddits to open (examples: 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7).

In light of this, we recommend to all those supporting this cause that you take the following steps:

• review other softer forms of protest (some of them mentioned here);

• take appropriate measures to consult with your community;

• decide on a course of action, that complies with the ever more draconian admin policies, but still helps send the message that reddit needs to do better on the list of our community demands.

Here is a short list of actions that many subs are already engaging in:

• private days (example - Solidarity Tuesdays, or on the weekends);

• restricting the topic of the forum (example: restricting to just pictures or gifs of one personality );

• narrowing the topic of your forum (see the example of r/Wellthatsucks;

• widening the topic of your forum (see the example of r/interestingasfuck);

• redefining the topic of the forum (see r/nofans, previously a NSFW sub, switching to "lovely passive PC coolers"); r/iphone is posting only pics of Tim Cook “looking dashing”.; r/tall forced to reopen under threat of being removed as mods, users are posting John Longiver pics; r/horny is now a "christian minecraft server";

• marking the subreddit temporarily NSFW or switching to allowing NSFW content. Changing this setting should not be taken lightly (it would be against the TOS); however, if content in your sub happens to also include "nudity, pornography, or profanity", please take appropriate steps to warn users, including temporarily marking your community as NSFW. This has the undesirable effect of reducing your community's reach and visibility but, per the Moderator Code of Conduct, it is our duty as moderators to ensure the safety of those viewing our content and provide appropriate warning to anyone who may incidentally view any mature content (see the example of r/Toyota)

• r/shitposting is banning posts with the letter k;

• inform reddit advertisers of the current issues;

• r/scams forced to reopen but are changing their policies to deliberately mod more aggressively and slowly

• modifying image posts requirements (r/theyknew forced to reopen but only if the first image in every post is a protest image);

• prepare moving the forum to another platform:

  • https://kbin.fediverse.observer/list
  • https://join-lemmy.org/
  • https://squabbles.io/
  • https://tildes.net/;

• promote reddit alternatives in the sidebar;

• content as usual in an open sub, but the title includes protest language;

• remove all sub rules and let the community curate content through up-/downvotes (see r/self);

• open sub and pin anti-staff message (list of unfulfilled promises, terrible decisions), and add to sidebar;

• automod sticky on every thread promoting Reddit alternatives;

• have automod make scheduled posts about the protest;

• increase the age and karma posting requirements through automod;

• turn off discovery settings, and popping up on r/all.

As usual:

• do not allow or promote harassment of people or communities;

• do not allow illegal content, or content that breaks TOS.

We have to work within the limits imposed by reddit, but there is still plenty of ways to get the message to reddit and mass media about the important issues of the protest, that will affect the quality of content on reddit, how people with disabilities can access the site and how mods can fulfill their duties.

Please post below forms of protest in which you engage, or other suggestions.