Update: We're looking for specific feedback here, not a yes-or-no answer. Returning under the original rules is not currently feasible, as we've lost all of the tools and people we needed to run the community the way we previously did.

In our previous announcement we asked Reddit to not censor our communities from paying 3rd-party app users, and to address our concerns over the site's inaction on sexualization of minors and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). As anticipated, Reddit declined to acknowledge either of these issues in any way whatsoever. If you've not read that announcement already, you should do so; it includes a detailed description of the problems we are facing, as well as some work-arounds for users to keep accessing our content.

We don't plan to leave Reddit, but work does continue on expanding access to the community to platforms beyond Reddit, so that users may still participate in our communities in some fashion, even if they cannot install or use the official Reddit app due to disability, technical, or privacy concerns, or if they do not wish to use a platform that knowingly permits sexually abusive content featuring minors.

A number of people have asked us to reopen despite all of this, so we are asking for your feedback on how to proceed. As none of our concerns have been resolved by Reddit, we do not have any good ways to move forward. Our options at this point are to re-open with significant rule changes, or to permanently close the community and allow Reddit's admins to appoint new "landed gentry" of their choosing. Some of our smaller communities will likely re-open sometime on the 5th or 6th, unless there's a strong objection to doing so. We are currently undecided on the fate of the larger ones.

If and when we re-open, it will be under the following terms:

• We will no longer be able to permit new content sellers, due to the loss of our verification bot. Simply put, developers of the software we use to implement verification, and to determine when verification is necessary, will not permit this software to be used on a site that knowingly permits sexually abusive content featuring minors. Anyone verified on r/SexSells as well as those who verified before 14 November 2022, will be exempted from this, as we still have the tools necessary to safely handle those cases.
• Topic/content moderation will be entirely community-driven. We generally won't be removing off-topic posts unless reported by community members. Virtually all of our team has left, either because they relied on 3rd-party apps that Reddit has shut down, or they object to Reddit's refusal to remove CSAM content. The remaining members only service our anti-spam/anti-CSAM automation, and are unwilling to view and moderate adult content, so we simply have no means to ensure posted content is actually on-topic.
• We are unlikely to be able to respond to modmails in a timely manner, and only major issues will be addressed. In particular, there is typically nothing we'll be able to do for folks who are mistakenly flagged as content sellers by the bot, since the tooling and staff we need to review the bot's evaluations are simply gone.
• Comments will remain turned off for the time being, except for meta posts like this one. We do eventually intend to permit these, but we don't currently have a way to moderate these effectively. When commenting returns, we will probably have minimum account age/karma requirements and/or other restrictions, as we're no longer able to use the more-effective tools we had previously relied on. Comment moderation in particular relied very heavily on training artificial intelligence and other algorithmic models, which is specifically prohibited by Reddit's new API terms that went into effect on 1 July.

We are open to suggestions in all this, but any deviation from these terms would need to come with a suggestion on how we can handle it in a way that does not endanger the community or its members with harmful or illegal content. Anyone with feedback may leave it either in the comments, or by messaging us.