I've gotten A LOT of DM's and e-mails from people related to the removal of the author parameter. Some of the e-mails were just downright hurtful and filled with anger. I thought I'd take a few minutes to address this.

First of all, my intention isn't to permanently remove that functionality -- it is a temporary measure until I can figure out the best way to mitigate the most damaging uses of the feature while still allowing the majority of users to enjoy the functionality.

This is a very sensitive issue and I'm going to end up pissing off a large group of people no matter what I do -- I accepted that type of scenario the day I push Pushshift online. There are just some situations that are a no-win scenario.

What I've learned is that I need to accelerate the development of an accounting layer on top of the API and start issuing API keys to people so I can better track usage and make sure that the 90% of users that use the API without ill intent don't have things ruined by the 10% or less of users who only use the API to stalk, harass, etc. other people.

It's a damn shame that there are people like that out there, but we'll figure out something soon and get the functionality back. I'm not going to let a few assholes hold a great tool hostage that I spent years building.

Thanks for your patience -- I just wanted to to communicate with everyone and everyone know that I'm working hard to find a viable long-term solution.

Edit: One possibility is that when someone does an author search, the API returns object ids that could then be used to fetch from the Reddit API. That would respect removed content from the author and still give people the ability to use author search via one extra step.