Mod queue in r/hiking booted me for a map link, no warning at all

I spent 4 years moderating that sub for free, and last Tuesday I shared a USGS topo link in a trail conditions thread for the PCT section near Mount Hood. They called it 'self-promotion' because my blog hosted the file, even though I had zero ads on it. The auto-ban hit within 20 minutes, and my 12,000 post history disappeared from my profile like it never existed. No appeal option, no human reply to my ticket, just a canned message about 'community guidelines.' Has anyone else got nuked by a mod team they helped build, and did you ever get a real answer on the appeal?

1 comments

1 Comment

evan_stone17d ago

Holy crap, that is a straight up betrayal. Four years of free labor and they treat you like a spam bot over a map file that actually helps people stay safe on the trail, that's wild. But here's the thing nobody's talking about, those old mod teams get super protective of their fiefdom once they've been around for a while, it's not about the link at all. They saw a former mod with a blog and got scared you'd start pulling users away to your own site, so they nuked you to protect their little corner of the internet. The 12,000 post history vanishing is the real tell, that's not a simple ban, that's someone going in and scrubbing your digital footprint out of spite. I bet the mod who did it is someone you helped train, and they just wanted to prove they had the power now. Good luck getting a real answer from that crew, they probably have a group chat where they're patting each other on the back for a job well done.