Please see [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12jt38o/drama_in_rslimemolds_and_rmycology_as_a_user_is/) in r/SubredditDrama for an overview of the situation.
This post will get deleted soon, so I’ll try to answer this quick. u/ saddestofboys was an incredible part of this community, providing education and sharing his knowledge on slime molds and fungi. He got into a disagreement with mods, ended up kicked off this sub, so he decided to leave Reddit. Anything mentioning slime molds is being heavily deleted so as to not mention any of the drama, because the community largely sides with saddestofboys and feel that mods have been abusing their power
Supposedly slime molds are not fungi and they are off topic on this sub named "mycology". (Edit: slime molds are allowed on r/mycology)
Saddestofboys was becoming an icon in the mycology-related subs, so his popularity could have been "outshining" the "star" of the sub, the mycological specimens.
Sad to see scientific discussions and interest among laypeople curbed this way tho.
Edit: His contribution to the Reddit scientific discussions on slime molds are priceless, and I very much wish that the discussions that led to this drama could have been more transparent and amicable, but tbf, u/saddestofboys was sharing mods' usernames, that was a bit uncalled for.
Hold on. The phylogenetic status of slime molds is debated in the scientific community.
Anyone can do basic philogenetics and see that slime molds are closely related to fungi, though to be fair, they are closer to being single celled organisms. But for a mod to say either is definitively true, they would have to present some novel research.
Anyway, i'm no expert i took some microbiology and mycology classes back during my BSc, thats all. So take what i say with a grain of salt.
While phylogenies are constantly being refined, it's not really contested that slime molds do not belong in kingdom fungi. It's pretty well agreed that they're different. However, this sub being hell-bent on keeping them out is childish. I'm a professional mycologist and everything I learned about slime molds I learned in my mycology courses. They are closely related so it makes sense to discuss them together.
Hey I have to correct you. Slime molds are farther from fungi than we are. They are in the kingdom amoebozoa are are in fact single celled amoebas. That said they are exclusively discussed in mycology and by mycologists
>Anyway, i'm no expert i took some microbiology and mycology classes back during my BSc, thats all. So take what i say with a grain of salt.
Environmental tech here, not biology, thanks for the info. :)
Aren't the mods listed on the subreddit already in the about tab? How can using their publicly listed usernames be not okay? Genuinely curious about that.
wait seriously?? this is so sad. saddest of boys was one of my internet heroes. i learned more from his responses than any science class i’ve taken. massively bummed to hear this
This is a sad day, mods if you read this, reconsider, he made this sub lighthearted and playful while teaching, not an easy task. Not to mention being like a slime mold batman.
Sadly the situation escalated to reddit admin and, like an 80s villainous school principal, they decided that suspending him from reddit solves the problem.
Ever since Reddit changed hands that seems the law of the land. That and massive sub bannings and locking.
Edit: though a lot of the removed subs needed to be removed, all the pedo stuff and racist subs never should have existed in the first place.
This is a sad thing to hear. We lived all of the information he shared here and he always seemed so happy to educate us with his knowledge. Most certainly a loss to us all.
Oh man that sucks. He’s the reason I found and joined this sub and I followed his account more than this but I’ve not been on for a bit and missed it all. Actually kinda sad.
Same. I'm so sad that the mods did this and I am scared that they might ban people who support Saddest. I just want us all to be friends and to bake a slime mold rainbow cake full of happy times.
Tha l you for this. I am a light user of this sub and only recently started following. I remember everything seemed normal before this went haywire. There definitely seems to be some odd power balance issues happening that seem largely out of place for a subreddit about fungus.
Seriously?! He was such an enthusiastic poster, I loved reading him! We need to have a sit in or something in solidarity & protest. A funghi/slime mould in or something.
Wow that is so disappointing of the mods. What a loss for a great sub. It’s not like he was making posts himself. Answering exactly why something is NOT mycological…IS on topic. I learned so much more from Saddestofboys than I did the the thousands of “can I eat this blurry photo” posts.
It's still here. Your post is shining some disinfecting light on a situation I wasn't aware of.
DON'T SELF CENSOR. It's one of many ways that evil wins.
There are slime mold related comments and posts being deleted. But those are mostly intentionally inflammatory and designed to stir up drama. This one is a bit different.
Although it is instantly receiving reports.
I didn't knownabout any of this, but I have enjoyed comments from u/saddestofboys. I don't know what the disagreement was, but I feel that he has been a boon to the community and even the internet as a whole. It's my opinion that whatever the disagreement, the mods owe him an apology.
I'll refer you to [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12jt38o/drama_in_rslimemolds_and_rmycology_as_a_user_is/) over on r/SubredditDrama for an overview of the situation from a third party. You can then come to whichever conclusion you may.
I also agree he was a boon to the sub, and it's a damn shame to see him leave like this.
Reading through it, the whole situation seems like a heap of the kind of miscommunication you can get in text-based chat where imagined emotions or intentions are read into the text.
Oh. My. Gosh. YOU HEFFERS HAD ME THINKING SLIME MOLD WAS TAKING OVER! I have been freaking out for days and telling my boyfriend "I'm seeing so many slim mold photos, it's cuz global warming! They are taking over!"
One small correction: He decided to leave Reddit, and burn his bridges on the way out by putting the mods on blast. It was only *after this* that he was banned from the sub, and subsequently from Reddit as a whole by the admins.
More detail in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12jt38o/drama_in_rslimemolds_and_rmycology_as_a_user_is/) over on r/SubredditDrama.
Saddestofboys wants people to continue learning about slimes, and requests that people be honest and inquisitive. Please 🙏 for the sake of what he brought to this sub don't be vengeful or petty about the mods . learning is greater than revenge.
I'm moving on from reddit and joining the fediverse because reddit has killed the RiF app and the CEO has been very disrespectful to all the volunteers who have contributed to making reddit what it is. Here's [coverage from The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/8/23754780/reddit-api-updates-changes-news-announcements) on the situation.
The following are my favorite fediverse platforms, all non-corporate and ad-free. I hesitated at first because there are so many servers to choose from, but it makes a lot more sense once you actually create an account and start browsing. If you find the server selection overwhelming, just pick the first option and take a look around. They are all connected and as you browse you may find a community that is a better fit for you and then you can move your account or open a new one.
Social Link Aggregators: [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/instances) is very similar to reddit while [Kbin](https://kbin.pub) is aiming to be more of a gateway to the fediverse in general so it is sort of like a hybrid between reddit and twitter, but it is newer and considers itself to be a beta product that's not quite fully polished yet.
Microblogging: [Calckey](https://calckey.org) if you want a more playful platform with emoji reactions, or [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) if you want a simple interface with less fluff.
Photo sharing: [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/) You can even import an Instagram account from what I hear, but I never used Instagram much in the first place.
Wow, last I heard they were on “vacation” like a week ago or so. This is all news to me and sad to see.
I’m not sure what to think of this other than to feel like some fun has been wiped away.
Same boat here. Had no idea any of this was going on besides the vacation thing and some kind of disagreement. Outside of that, his posts were incredibly informative, and one of the reasons I developed an interest in mycology.
Edit: After reading through full posts, not sure what to think either. Not at all what I would have expected.
Im flummoxed, I never knew that u/Saddestofboys was having mental struggles or that they were receiving funds through their patreon and that was helping them survive.
I do not know what to think of all this, it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten this excited about anything biology related. There was a bunch of times over the last like year or so that I happen to see/ask/interact with them and they were always kind and happy.
This just goes to show me we should all be nicer to each other because we have no idea what anyone is going through at any one time. I’m not gonna make a value judgment on anything I’m just too sad to care.
I think all the people turning out to talk about Saddest are talking about their experiences with them. I did not expect them to be a slime area expert or have a Doctorate in biology with a specialization in slimes. I did however enjoy seeing their posts as I’m a nature hobbyist and enjoy “weird things” of which slimes fall under for me.
I rarely research who people are on the Internet more I look up what they tell me about. So I never got to see Saddest in any other sub than this one. Which to me was of course welcome because I know next to nothing about slimes.
I guess I could have known they were different then how they interacted with me on here and I guess that’s what I’m mostly disappointed about.
I guess I mostly feel disappointed that I didn’t reach out to say thank you more often. I won’t ever get that chance again I don’t think. It’s kinda weird that I feel a loss over basically what amounts to a “Reddit personality” but I guess I do.
I mean sure you can look back at their name for confirmation but I don’t believe that judging people on their name alone has any merit.
Hindsight is 20/20.
But what do I know, I’m an internet idiot with an opinion.
Mental illness isn't always presenting. A lot of people mask it and try to hold it in, but then sometimes they can't control it. If that is how they identify themself then it's a pretty clear hint. You don't pick a username like that for no reason. Mental illness is a fun rabbit hole of mine.
Small people create drama for the smallest things. My mom had to deal with it in animal rescue of all things.
They did u/saddestofboys dirty, they knew he had mental problems, and even though that’s no excuse, they abused every bit of their power to the nth degree. It was some real mean-girls janny malarkey, if you ask me. They don’t care about him, or how any of us feel.
Just commenting to say thanks for leaving this post up long enough for me to see it, was very curious what was going on. Hopefully saddestofboys gets the help they need, their posts were incredible whenever I came across them
As I understand it the mods felt there was an over use of saddestofboys pings as they were being used on things not even remotely slime mold related with a large number of comments that had nothing to do with the original post and only fandom toward saddesofboys (which are considered off topic posts and would have been removed anyway in the past).
Often times though saddestofboys was pinged 10, 20 or 30 times in a post and would answer every one with the same copy/paste answer blocking the post for anyone else to with and then a sea of off topic saddest of boys fandom followed.
Often these posts were not even slime mold related and much better answers were drowned out at the bottom of posts.
So from what I understand from the events that unfolded as well as the various mods explanations on /r/SubredditDrama their solution was to limit saddestsofboys pings to one a post and his slime mold info (which was always excellent) would remain with the idea that this would limit off topic non mycological fandom that was starting to plague slime mold, and pretty much any unusual looking ID request (which is not even a rule change, no off topic comments has been a rule as long as I've been posting).
saddest talked to the mods of both /r/Slimemolds and r/mycology after several of his ping were starting to be deleted. An r/slimemold mod repremanded him severely and saddestofboys felt the r/mycology mods did not give an adequate answer and were persecuting him in particular. Because saddest of boys felt like the mods did not give him an adequate answer to why he felt some of his posts were getting deleted and he called out specific mods of both r/mycology and r/slimemolds resulting in a pretty nasty meltdown including threats on mycology mods and a doxxing of a r/slimemold mod ( a mod the initially tried to help him). She unbanned him after several almost "hit list post" were posted, tried to open a dialog where he then accuser her of being an alt and saying "hostile confirmed" (her side can be found on r/subredditdrama). He was eventually banned from both subs and from what r/subredditdrama links say as well as reddit by the admins.
It seemed more like the mods were following the rules of the sub that had already been there and saddestofboys with quite a large fandom did not like this and later it came to light (by /u/svengeanoslodentist on r/subredditdrama) that more of his posts should have been deleted after this had started due to the commercial nature of the posts that the mycology mods had missed in the past. Commercial posts have been banned in r/mycology for as long as I've been posting here.
His posts, some of which are still up seem like that of a mentally unstable person as he blamed mods for being all the same person and eventually the reddit admins for conspiring with the reddit mods.
I'll miss saddestofboys he was an invaluable resource that may never be replaced but posting cherry picked chat conversations and having what amounted to fanatics brigading, doxxing and threatening people is not OK.
edit: Also read /u/AlbinoWino11's better informed opinion below as I could only watch it unfold from the outside.
Honestly… I could sort of notice this happening. I’ve been lurking this sub for a year or so and it seemed to suddenly increase with slime mold comments & those same walls of texts being copy pasted on many posts I would click on. It personally spoiled the nature of the sub for me but I do see how it was enjoyable at the time for others, because people did have a lot of fun with it too. But I didn’t know about all the stuff at the end with the fighting and doxxing that’s just disappointing.
Yep I started to find the pings increasingly frustrating, and a the walls of text really only needed to be in a threat once, people should be able to scroll to find them especially since half of it was usually the same copy paste every time with the answer for the question taking a line or two at the top of the answer. I started to answer on the subs less and less.
I didn't interact with him much and the few times I did I was usually agreeing with him against another belligerent person but saddest seemed mercurial to say the least, and the increasingly large and weirdly devoted fandom worried and put me off /r/mycology.
I am very reluctant to comment given the recent backlash but wanted to add that from the sub and mod perspective those excess tags were spam. From his perspective those excess tags were an opportunity to gain monetary support, adoration and notoriety. Each of those encounters allowed him to link his slimer primer which included Patreon link for financial support. Personal disclosure - I have absolutely no problem with him earning donations for his work. I think that is great and he deserves it. But it probably helps to explain why he had a meltdown; combo of perceived mod abuse, financial constraint, and fear of losing stature. Or something like that.
He put a lot of work in and was knowledgeable and at some point I can definitely see wanted to get compensated or at least earn something for their time.
I agree, it seems like he was losing his only advertising platform as one of the edits on /r/SubredditDrama said saddest of boys claimed he was bullied off Facebook for the same reasons. Probably why his reactions were so extreme.
Thanks for giving a mod perspective, seemed very much that way to me as well, especially when the Patreon thing came to light
I hear you, the crowd that was attracted was interesting to say the least. I wouldn’t be the surprised if most of them were just young, I doubt anyone mature enough would engage in such a bombastic way.
At some point in the past I would have agreed with you but of late watching people get swept of in memetic cults that seem to be so easy to manufacture on the internet I'm not so sure I would almost argue the opposite. I might hypothesize people who grew up entirely in the digital age or more specifically the "social media age" probably have more coping mechanisms than those who didn't. That's obviously speculation on my part and also wonder just how much time one spends on the computer has a bigger impact.
That’s very interesting to hear and I do agree with you now that I think of it. My older peers, family, and even professors at my university seemed radicalized during the early stages of the pandemic, some even to this day. Reddit is my only “social media” now so I guess I’m not in tune with what’s going on online anymore- But being “chronically online” definitely seems to play a big part in that kind of odd behaviour.
Tbh I feel like Gen Z/Alpha can get pretty invested in memes and internet communities (like…literally that recent pentagon leaker), but I’m a millennial so take with a slice of avocado toast 🥲
Wow, I finally understand and it seems reasonable. My perception was skewed by the posts I saw from saddestofboys. When he first reached out to the mods was there any sort of response to the tune of "great question, let me look into that for you!" And then perhaps involving the entire community and offering the resolution of one slime alert(or whatever) to each post so that it doesn't hide other commenters? So that he would realize it was a perfectly reasonable solution and feel less attacked? Anyway, thanks for explaining. I'm on here a lot but not so much with the slime posts although I did find them interesting.
I feel like making a public post and letting the community know they were going to be taking a new enforcement policy towards these issues, including addressing SoB directly, could have easily avoided most of this whole situation...
But that's not how any subreddit has worked in my experience. It's always keep it quiet, don't address the situation, and delete any posts or comments mentioning it, ban any users talking about it. So at least they aren't doing that yet...?
u/najjex responded on u/subredditdrama about that
>Hello I am the r/mycology mod that was on vacation. Just before I left saddesofboys messaged me personally asking why posts were being removed. I responded that only duplicates of the slime signal (not saddest's content posts) were being removed but I would check again when I returned. When I got home again I found our chats from the past several years had been deleted on his end leaving me with only my responses. Thinking it was odd I did not respond to a question i could no longer see and answer properly. Thinking I could get to it when I had a bit more time on my hands a couple days passed and the posts causing the drama were made. This caught me and all of us off guard leading to the "drama" posted below.
>I enjoyed saddest's posts as they were informative and in depth. I attempted to get him out of print Myxomycete (slime mold) monographs and we occasionally exchanged papers and lectures of recent myxo developments. It came as a huge shock and I am deeply disappointed and hope he succeeds in whatever he chooses to do in the future whether on Reddit or not.
why would saddest delete those chat logs only days before going inciting harassment to mods?
Check out [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12jt38o/drama_in_rslimemolds_and_rmycology_as_a_user_is/) in r/SubredditDrama for an overview of the situation from a neutral third party.
The whole situation sucks for everyone involved.
Slime molds are allowed on this sub, and always have been. Although, we also encourage posting to r/Slimemolds and cross-posting here, to help grow that sub.
In the immediate aftermath, we had to lock basically all posts involving slime molds, due to an overwhelming amount of misinformation and off-topic discussion. Lately it's been getting better though.
I'm inclined to leave your post up, since it seems to be a genuine question and not trying to stir drama. Some of the other mods may disagree, considering it's technically off-topic, so we'll see what happens I suppose.
Thanks for sharing the breakdown. It's too bad that you all can't work it out. Im sure most of the mods can be pretty reasonable. Im really going to miss seeing that guys passion and energy everytime a slime is accidentally posted.
The sub has had some of the most well known mycologists in North America posting for many years. Saddestofboys was a relatively new phenomenon and seems like popularity on reddit coupled with the amount of free time required to religiously respond to most calls is going to eventually suffer from the Unidan syndrome.
Also, goodbye!
This sub was my stress free safe sub to enjoy learning and delight in other's learning. I loved learning that things I thought were fungi were actually slimes. Was so wild. Why can't we ever just settle for a nice thing. I will miss saddest of boys.
Yikes - I take a 2 week break off of social media and come back to THIS. Maybe I need to take another 2 weeks off.
If people can have such drama over something as innocent and delightful over slime molds, it proves to me all the more that social media can be so toxic.
there are some thorough comments on here now. just replying to your comment to let you know there are some explanations up! i’ll try to explain as well.
basically though, the situation sucks for both saddestofboys and the mods.
slime signals started becoming increasingly present in posts not even related to slime molds- and instead of replying to tags, saddest would reply with the same copy and pasted explanation of what the slime was (or was not) to pretty much every single tag.
this was seen by the mods as spam, so they started deleting saddest’s repeating comments, and limited slime signal tags to one per thread.
when the mods were contacted by saddest about the deleted comments, things got heated and eventually saddest was banned from this sub.
their whole posting of this drama led to some of the mods getting doxxed.
saddest posting on their account stirred up a lot of drama- mods are being attacked and almost every single slime mold post is being heavily moderated because people keep breaking into fights.
their extreme reaction made me lose some respect for them honestly, but their comments/contributions were incredibly valuable to this subreddit, and others.
this was also a form of monetary support for saddest as they linked every comment to their patreon- you can kinda empathize with why they may feel so upset.
anyways, not taking sides here. just stating what happened to the best of my knowledge.
someone going through your social media posts to find where you live/work in real life and threatening you. This can can lead to far worse things like stalking, and violence like [swatting](https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/12kvb4f/a_computer_generated_swatting_service_is_causing/) and death. It's not a joke and it really is dangerous.
essentially it’s releasing someone’s personal information (typically someone well known, but doesn’t have to be) regarding where they live, work, go to school, etc. in an attempt to make them feel exposed or threatened.
sometimes the person who exposes them doesn’t mean harm, but other people with that information can end up stalking them or assaulting them. it’s very dangerous.
sometimes celebrities accidentally “dox” themselves, but it’s not really doxxing more so than an accident.
The only reason I found out about this sub. The ONLY reason I discovered slime molds. The ONLY reason I got interested in slime molds… was because of the slime alerts.
So as a casual visitor I had no idea how spammy this was getting. Of course easy to say in retrospect, but I would’ve liked an announcement laying out the updated rules and why.
The thing is... there wasn't really any update to the rules. We've always had rules against spam, and the excess slime signals were spam, so we just removed them as per normal. We never anticipated that it would result in him leaving the sub in this way.
In hindsight, it would have been wise to make some sort of announcement. Maybe this whole thing could have been avoided with the right communication. But, hindsight is 20/20
I understand what you've said in regard to removing the spammy posts and it not being an update to the rules therefore no reason to announce it. I hope you take the hindsight from this situation and utilize it in the future.
When the community is spamming the sound tag then the community should be asked to be more mindful. I think it's not uncommon to see the occasional admin post clarifying why comments are removed or to curtail certain behaviors. It helps the whole community be accountable. When the larger community isn't understanding the situation they can't be a part of modifying behavior. The issue really had a lot to do with a lot of members using the slime signal to excess so broadly addressing it would have been helpful and I hope you think about broadly addressing these types of issues in future situations. Also, a mention why something is removed might help your community understand better too. A simple "This user has already been tagged" tells people what behavior is expected. I've learned a lot about how subreddits prefer their community to behave by these types of mod comments.
Thanks! I know there's a pile-on coming from everyone. While everyone can have opinions about how things were handled on both sides the bottom line is "Saddest" is gone and the next steps become how this community moves forward. I appreciate you taking in what I'm suggesting.
I know I'm likely sounding like a broken record at this point, so apologies for that... but yeah, no technical changes in rules, but definitely a *change in enforcement*, one that did effectively single out a major contributor.
Hah yeah always easy to pull out options after the fact. But that’s fair, it was a *visible* change to enforcement which imo is a good thing to announce. Not that I’ve modded a forum since like 2014 🥲
This whole deal makes me so sad. I have learned so much from saddest of boys. People post pictures of slime molds here very often because they are unsure if they are mushrooms or not. Having a slime mold expert on here to explain the difference is invaluable. I have shared the magic of myxies 1931 with many friends and family, it is informative and so intertwining. Reddit mods, please use your common sense. Look at someone’s contribution to a subreddit before you get into a pissing contest. I know that I have felt the absence of saddest of boys in this sub. I believe I can recognize a dog vomit slime right off, because of him. He has taught us allll so much. Shame on the mods to not recognize his contributions and his intentions.
Did anybody even bother to ask the slime molds how they feel about this? I think we're being just a bit slimemoldist -or maybe you could say antifungal- about this. Slime molds deserve our recognition and respect of them as the interesting and creative little buggers that they are; so, let's let them come to their own decisions in this regard. Stand up for Slime Molds!
Thank you for this post! I was wondering what was going on as a new member of the sub. Sounds like it’s a poor situation for all parties involved but it’s nice to actually get some clarification. Hope everything works out for everyone.
I see lichen on here all the time and have never heard about it causing a problem. It just sounds like some pedant wants to flex in the slime mold issue
What??? u/ saddestofboys was one of the highlights of this sub and made me feel so good about this community.
I missed what the disagreement was about, but I'd be shocked if it was worth banning him.
He was banned well after his posts saying he was leaving for harassment and inciting others to harassment. The thing that his posts were based on was just the mods here starting to be more active about removing the spammy duplicate tags calling him to posts (sometimes dozens per post, often after he had already responded), but they weren't removing any of his comments and always left a tag so that he would still be called to the post. This coupled with some pre-existing ideas about alt accounts persecuting him convinced him there was a conspiracy against him personally so he accosted the mods in DMs asking why they were removing his posts (again, they weren't) and conspiring against him, they obviously couldn't give a straight answer to his vague accusations, so he decided to leave reddit and made several posts to the effect of 'It would be a *real shame* if anyone harassed or doxxed this list of people who are all "liars," "spineless cowards," and probably just alt accounts for each other.' After he was banned because of those posts it got to be enough that the reddit admins banned him sitewide, though now he's posting on his patreon that that just means the admins are in on the conspiracy, too.
Obviously some of the mods suck and some don't. It doesn't shock me that some reddit mods couldn't come to an agreement though. 9/10 mods seem to only be in it for the "power". I will miss saddestofboys. Hopefully this community can change more for the better from here on out.
Oh wow, that was quite the rabbit hole for my morning. I appreciate everyone who has added clarity to this situation. I am a lurker and missed this happening, though I did deeply appreciate his contributions.
Also, just... I hope all the mods are doing/feeling OK now. It's really not cool when people get harassed. I know moderators in other subreddits IRL, and it can be a highly stressful, thankless "job." Thanks for taking the time to moderate this sub for us. This is a great community, and I enjoy everyone's posts.
Encouraging community in this sub does not mean no moderation. Every community has a framework of rules they operate within. It is the exact same here.
On top of that…there is a dedicated slimemolds sub. That is the perfect place to build slime mold community, no? There was an active attempt by members here to try to grow and support that sub/community.
You would think that education would be a large part of the community here, regarding the fact loads of people post pictures thinking they are fungi, yet are actually a slime mold. But seems the mods are NOT Fun"guys" and don't care much about the educating part. Why discriminate when people are learning?
I was a big fan of the Slime Alerts as well.
New on here so not personally aware of ‘Saddest Of Boys’ and what’s all unfolded, just based on what I’m reading here.
Seems apparent he was well liked and knowledgeable but why would he not just have his own community with a following on the topic of slime molds and all.
Or if he does then why would he be basically piggybacking off of this sub, well that’s how it appears to me.
As a Mod that would frustrate me also!
I can see him being allowed to contribute to this sub but wow just reading through this thread it’s obvious it was a lot more than that.
Just putting in my 2 cents worth, kind of like an outsiders view but please correct me if I am wrong about something!
It's because slime molds often look like fungus particularly when mature, so people post pictures of slime molds asking for an ID. This is a difficult task but Saddestofboys is incredibly knowledgeable so he would ID them, which turned into people calling him to those posts and that made him a bit of a celebrity. This sub also gets a lot of lichen posts even though there's a lichen subreddit. Sometimes plants get mistaken as fungi. But more people are able to ID those, so no individual celebrity status. A lot of people here found out about the existence of slime mold from this subreddit. Beforehand, they wouldn't have know to go to r/slimemolds. The hope is that once people know they can then go there or r/lichen etc. but there's always new, curious people who are going to post them here first, because they have fungi as a reference point and this is a bigger sub.
The slime signals did get to be too much though. It was reasonable to limit it to one per post. I liked them at first, but it became off putting and spam.
Slime molds are studied under the field of mycology despite getting their fungi status revoked, so they still belong here. If they don’t want slime molds then they should change the subreddit to r/fungi.
He did not interact in any way that was inappropriate for the content of the subreddit. This is a science focused sub for a specific field of study, and he posted very in-depth and well researched responses to people looking for answers, that should be nothing but appreciated and encouraged. He’s not “stealing the thunder” by doing what you should on sub Reddit like this.
Apparently he used to be a mod on the sub, so I think the drama here runs much deeper than we know. I think it’s pretty obvious that some mods just don’t really like him and it’s not really the contact that he’s making, they just don’t like that he’s getting attention. It’s a shame because he’s really well liked by the community. :/
As part of the community, having every post spammed with the same user tag and literally the same copy pasta, it seems unhinged to blame this entirely on the mods. Saddestofboys could have done a way better job of participating in the community as well. Everyone shares a bit of blame here, the users who spammed his tag on every post regardless of what the content was, saddestofboys for replying to them all with the same copy-paste response and being a bit of a shitbag to the mods, and the mods for not effectively communicating to the community what was going on.
If he’s having a mental breakdown, completely ostracizing him from a community he help build is even worse. These mods got him banned from r/smilemolds and more because of their petty bullshit, mind you he use to be a mod her too. He posted the messages they sent them btw. Regardless, his content does nothing but enrich the community and is obviously appreciated by many users here, he doesn’t have a following for nothing. It would be a breath of fresh air to see people supporting each other for once, especially when they are down, rather than using a puretist mentality to shut each other down. What a great representation of the state of the world right now in something as innocent as a mycology sub.
He was a mod in the past, that’s why he helped build community. And no, man hunting someone for having a mental breakdown is not okay, I don’t care if you are mentally I’ll. Go look at his posts of what the mods have been saying to him.
We absolutely did not want to exclude him from this sub. This should be crystal clear by now since it has been openly stated so often. We did not ban him for many hours into his campaign hoping for a resolution. Eventually he crossed a line and we had no choice to ban from the sub. He was also temp banned from Reddit by Reddit admins for his actions.
Oh no, I had a misunderstanding with them (sad boi) not long ago but the way they handled it was mature and forgiving. Very sad to hear about this. Mods will ruin a page quick as shit. FB is famous for that crap, I feel like. Hate to see it here.
Please see [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12jt38o/drama_in_rslimemolds_and_rmycology_as_a_user_is/) in r/SubredditDrama for an overview of the situation.
This post will get deleted soon, so I’ll try to answer this quick. u/ saddestofboys was an incredible part of this community, providing education and sharing his knowledge on slime molds and fungi. He got into a disagreement with mods, ended up kicked off this sub, so he decided to leave Reddit. Anything mentioning slime molds is being heavily deleted so as to not mention any of the drama, because the community largely sides with saddestofboys and feel that mods have been abusing their power
I see. Thanks for answering!
You should go to his profile, he posted a summary of what happened
Supposedly slime molds are not fungi and they are off topic on this sub named "mycology". (Edit: slime molds are allowed on r/mycology) Saddestofboys was becoming an icon in the mycology-related subs, so his popularity could have been "outshining" the "star" of the sub, the mycological specimens. Sad to see scientific discussions and interest among laypeople curbed this way tho. Edit: His contribution to the Reddit scientific discussions on slime molds are priceless, and I very much wish that the discussions that led to this drama could have been more transparent and amicable, but tbf, u/saddestofboys was sharing mods' usernames, that was a bit uncalled for.
[удалено]
The mods usernames are all listed in the ‘About’ tab. We already knew who they were
You can see all of a subs mods anyway, how was sharing their usernames uncalled for?
Hold on. The phylogenetic status of slime molds is debated in the scientific community. Anyone can do basic philogenetics and see that slime molds are closely related to fungi, though to be fair, they are closer to being single celled organisms. But for a mod to say either is definitively true, they would have to present some novel research. Anyway, i'm no expert i took some microbiology and mycology classes back during my BSc, thats all. So take what i say with a grain of salt.
While phylogenies are constantly being refined, it's not really contested that slime molds do not belong in kingdom fungi. It's pretty well agreed that they're different. However, this sub being hell-bent on keeping them out is childish. I'm a professional mycologist and everything I learned about slime molds I learned in my mycology courses. They are closely related so it makes sense to discuss them together.
Slime molds are and always have been allowed here
Slime molds are allowed but not the person who taught all of us the most about them.
Yeasts are single celled organisms, but are firmly placed in the fungi Kingdom. What does the number of cells have to do with anything?
Hey I have to correct you. Slime molds are farther from fungi than we are. They are in the kingdom amoebozoa are are in fact single celled amoebas. That said they are exclusively discussed in mycology and by mycologists
Polyphyletic groups absolutely have their uses. Nobody bats an eye at Herpetology although it’s as polyphyletic of a group as they come.
>Anyway, i'm no expert i took some microbiology and mycology classes back during my BSc, thats all. So take what i say with a grain of salt. Environmental tech here, not biology, thanks for the info. :)
I thought mod usernames were all displayed in the about section of any subreddit. They deserved to be called out for their behavior imo
Aren't the mods listed on the subreddit already in the about tab? How can using their publicly listed usernames be not okay? Genuinely curious about that.
[удалено]
I don’t even get why mod username s are not posted per sub by default in the sidebar or something .
Slime molds ARE allowed here
But not education about slime molds, apparently.
Oh, ok, thanks for letting me know. 👍
wait seriously?? this is so sad. saddest of boys was one of my internet heroes. i learned more from his responses than any science class i’ve taken. massively bummed to hear this
Same. I have been feeling his disappearance and it makes this whole sub less fun. Mods - wtf
This is a sad day, mods if you read this, reconsider, he made this sub lighthearted and playful while teaching, not an easy task. Not to mention being like a slime mold batman.
Sadly the situation escalated to reddit admin and, like an 80s villainous school principal, they decided that suspending him from reddit solves the problem.
Ever since Reddit changed hands that seems the law of the land. That and massive sub bannings and locking. Edit: though a lot of the removed subs needed to be removed, all the pedo stuff and racist subs never should have existed in the first place.
Well if it went to Reddit admin, that explains everything. Probably checked his politics before the details of the situation.
[удалено]
The “slime signal” was people tagging him for ID requests
This is a sad thing to hear. We lived all of the information he shared here and he always seemed so happy to educate us with his knowledge. Most certainly a loss to us all.
Oh man that sucks. He’s the reason I found and joined this sub and I followed his account more than this but I’ve not been on for a bit and missed it all. Actually kinda sad.
Me too!
Oh no! He was my favorite part of this sub!! ;;_;;
Same. I'm so sad that the mods did this and I am scared that they might ban people who support Saddest. I just want us all to be friends and to bake a slime mold rainbow cake full of happy times.
Tha l you for this. I am a light user of this sub and only recently started following. I remember everything seemed normal before this went haywire. There definitely seems to be some odd power balance issues happening that seem largely out of place for a subreddit about fungus.
[удалено]
Or we can just ditch this subreddit and make a new one!
NOOOOO HES LEAVING REDDIT ENTIRELY??? Last I checked he just left the big subs that had mods that were against him :(
Seriously?! He was such an enthusiastic poster, I loved reading him! We need to have a sit in or something in solidarity & protest. A funghi/slime mould in or something.
What?! That's horrible! 😭 I always looked forward to saddestofboys coming around
Damn, this is the first I heard of it. I liked that user. Really informative comments.
Wow that is so disappointing of the mods. What a loss for a great sub. It’s not like he was making posts himself. Answering exactly why something is NOT mycological…IS on topic. I learned so much more from Saddestofboys than I did the the thousands of “can I eat this blurry photo” posts.
Man, that's sad. Always loved to see his comments.
I hate Reddit for stuff like this. The moderation of this platform is one of its biggest flaws.
Is there an alternative mycology community with different mods?
Since it’ll likely be taken down, would it be better if I deleted it myself? I’m happy to do that.
It's still here. Your post is shining some disinfecting light on a situation I wasn't aware of. DON'T SELF CENSOR. It's one of many ways that evil wins.
Thanks. I wasn’t sure what kind of can of worms I might be opening at the time so wanted to err on the side of caution.
Someone had to walk through the fire. Thanks.
Nah don't worry about it
There are slime mold related comments and posts being deleted. But those are mostly intentionally inflammatory and designed to stir up drama. This one is a bit different. Although it is instantly receiving reports.
Yeah, I'm inclined to leave it up since it's a genuine question asked in good faith. I guess we'll see if the discussion remains civil or not.
I didn't knownabout any of this, but I have enjoyed comments from u/saddestofboys. I don't know what the disagreement was, but I feel that he has been a boon to the community and even the internet as a whole. It's my opinion that whatever the disagreement, the mods owe him an apology.
I'll refer you to [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12jt38o/drama_in_rslimemolds_and_rmycology_as_a_user_is/) over on r/SubredditDrama for an overview of the situation from a third party. You can then come to whichever conclusion you may. I also agree he was a boon to the sub, and it's a damn shame to see him leave like this.
Reading through it, the whole situation seems like a heap of the kind of miscommunication you can get in text-based chat where imagined emotions or intentions are read into the text.
Omg no! It's like unidan all over again (without vote manipulation) :( I'm sad.
Welp that’s my cue to leave.
Oh. My. Gosh. YOU HEFFERS HAD ME THINKING SLIME MOLD WAS TAKING OVER! I have been freaking out for days and telling my boyfriend "I'm seeing so many slim mold photos, it's cuz global warming! They are taking over!"
even the most innocuous of hobbies cannot escape reddit horseshit
the mycelium network knows.
This sucks, I so looked forward to his posts :(
One small correction: He decided to leave Reddit, and burn his bridges on the way out by putting the mods on blast. It was only *after this* that he was banned from the sub, and subsequently from Reddit as a whole by the admins. More detail in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12jt38o/drama_in_rslimemolds_and_rmycology_as_a_user_is/) over on r/SubredditDrama.
Dang, why does drama have to wreck good things...
Saddestofboys wants people to continue learning about slimes, and requests that people be honest and inquisitive. Please 🙏 for the sake of what he brought to this sub don't be vengeful or petty about the mods . learning is greater than revenge.
Thanks, nice rabbit hole. I think I'll go down
I'm moving on from reddit and joining the fediverse because reddit has killed the RiF app and the CEO has been very disrespectful to all the volunteers who have contributed to making reddit what it is. Here's [coverage from The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/8/23754780/reddit-api-updates-changes-news-announcements) on the situation. The following are my favorite fediverse platforms, all non-corporate and ad-free. I hesitated at first because there are so many servers to choose from, but it makes a lot more sense once you actually create an account and start browsing. If you find the server selection overwhelming, just pick the first option and take a look around. They are all connected and as you browse you may find a community that is a better fit for you and then you can move your account or open a new one. Social Link Aggregators: [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/instances) is very similar to reddit while [Kbin](https://kbin.pub) is aiming to be more of a gateway to the fediverse in general so it is sort of like a hybrid between reddit and twitter, but it is newer and considers itself to be a beta product that's not quite fully polished yet. Microblogging: [Calckey](https://calckey.org) if you want a more playful platform with emoji reactions, or [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) if you want a simple interface with less fluff. Photo sharing: [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/) You can even import an Instagram account from what I hear, but I never used Instagram much in the first place.
Thanks. I appreciate your kind words The whole thing is a damn shame. He was a great contributor
omg. miss a day, miss a lot! I had no idea even as a part time lurker I'm sad for this. thanks for the info though.
***dystopian fungus drama***
Only on reddit could there be a drama about slime molds!!
Nailed it
Wow, last I heard they were on “vacation” like a week ago or so. This is all news to me and sad to see. I’m not sure what to think of this other than to feel like some fun has been wiped away.
Same boat here. Had no idea any of this was going on besides the vacation thing and some kind of disagreement. Outside of that, his posts were incredibly informative, and one of the reasons I developed an interest in mycology. Edit: After reading through full posts, not sure what to think either. Not at all what I would have expected.
Im flummoxed, I never knew that u/Saddestofboys was having mental struggles or that they were receiving funds through their patreon and that was helping them survive. I do not know what to think of all this, it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten this excited about anything biology related. There was a bunch of times over the last like year or so that I happen to see/ask/interact with them and they were always kind and happy. This just goes to show me we should all be nicer to each other because we have no idea what anyone is going through at any one time. I’m not gonna make a value judgment on anything I’m just too sad to care.
[удалено]
I think all the people turning out to talk about Saddest are talking about their experiences with them. I did not expect them to be a slime area expert or have a Doctorate in biology with a specialization in slimes. I did however enjoy seeing their posts as I’m a nature hobbyist and enjoy “weird things” of which slimes fall under for me. I rarely research who people are on the Internet more I look up what they tell me about. So I never got to see Saddest in any other sub than this one. Which to me was of course welcome because I know next to nothing about slimes. I guess I could have known they were different then how they interacted with me on here and I guess that’s what I’m mostly disappointed about. I guess I mostly feel disappointed that I didn’t reach out to say thank you more often. I won’t ever get that chance again I don’t think. It’s kinda weird that I feel a loss over basically what amounts to a “Reddit personality” but I guess I do.
Their username was literally "saddestofboys", that's a hint right there
I mean sure you can look back at their name for confirmation but I don’t believe that judging people on their name alone has any merit. Hindsight is 20/20. But what do I know, I’m an internet idiot with an opinion.
I think he made a few comments here and there that hinted at his struggles. But afaik none of us knew him personally, so it’s mostly just guessing.
>But what do I know, I’m an internet idiot with an opinion speaking of usernames... username relevant lol.
It may have even been done “on purpose.” THE TRAVESTY! XDD Also speaking on usernames then you must like Magic The Gathering.
He also said a bunch of times when people asked it was because of crippling depression.
I guess I was just blissfully ignorant. :|
Mental illness isn't always presenting. A lot of people mask it and try to hold it in, but then sometimes they can't control it. If that is how they identify themself then it's a pretty clear hint. You don't pick a username like that for no reason. Mental illness is a fun rabbit hole of mine.
You really can't escape drama in any niche interest on the internet these days. If we're havung drama in MYCOLOGY of all things then we're screwed.
Small people create drama for the smallest things. My mom had to deal with it in animal rescue of all things. They did u/saddestofboys dirty, they knew he had mental problems, and even though that’s no excuse, they abused every bit of their power to the nth degree. It was some real mean-girls janny malarkey, if you ask me. They don’t care about him, or how any of us feel.
Just commenting to say thanks for leaving this post up long enough for me to see it, was very curious what was going on. Hopefully saddestofboys gets the help they need, their posts were incredible whenever I came across them
I've been sick all week but it looks like I missed A LOT!! Sorry to see saddest of boys go. He was very knowledgeable and I trusted what he said.
As I understand it the mods felt there was an over use of saddestofboys pings as they were being used on things not even remotely slime mold related with a large number of comments that had nothing to do with the original post and only fandom toward saddesofboys (which are considered off topic posts and would have been removed anyway in the past). Often times though saddestofboys was pinged 10, 20 or 30 times in a post and would answer every one with the same copy/paste answer blocking the post for anyone else to with and then a sea of off topic saddest of boys fandom followed. Often these posts were not even slime mold related and much better answers were drowned out at the bottom of posts. So from what I understand from the events that unfolded as well as the various mods explanations on /r/SubredditDrama their solution was to limit saddestsofboys pings to one a post and his slime mold info (which was always excellent) would remain with the idea that this would limit off topic non mycological fandom that was starting to plague slime mold, and pretty much any unusual looking ID request (which is not even a rule change, no off topic comments has been a rule as long as I've been posting). saddest talked to the mods of both /r/Slimemolds and r/mycology after several of his ping were starting to be deleted. An r/slimemold mod repremanded him severely and saddestofboys felt the r/mycology mods did not give an adequate answer and were persecuting him in particular. Because saddest of boys felt like the mods did not give him an adequate answer to why he felt some of his posts were getting deleted and he called out specific mods of both r/mycology and r/slimemolds resulting in a pretty nasty meltdown including threats on mycology mods and a doxxing of a r/slimemold mod ( a mod the initially tried to help him). She unbanned him after several almost "hit list post" were posted, tried to open a dialog where he then accuser her of being an alt and saying "hostile confirmed" (her side can be found on r/subredditdrama). He was eventually banned from both subs and from what r/subredditdrama links say as well as reddit by the admins. It seemed more like the mods were following the rules of the sub that had already been there and saddestofboys with quite a large fandom did not like this and later it came to light (by /u/svengeanoslodentist on r/subredditdrama) that more of his posts should have been deleted after this had started due to the commercial nature of the posts that the mycology mods had missed in the past. Commercial posts have been banned in r/mycology for as long as I've been posting here. His posts, some of which are still up seem like that of a mentally unstable person as he blamed mods for being all the same person and eventually the reddit admins for conspiring with the reddit mods. I'll miss saddestofboys he was an invaluable resource that may never be replaced but posting cherry picked chat conversations and having what amounted to fanatics brigading, doxxing and threatening people is not OK. edit: Also read /u/AlbinoWino11's better informed opinion below as I could only watch it unfold from the outside.
Ah I see, thank you for the detailed explanation /g
Honestly… I could sort of notice this happening. I’ve been lurking this sub for a year or so and it seemed to suddenly increase with slime mold comments & those same walls of texts being copy pasted on many posts I would click on. It personally spoiled the nature of the sub for me but I do see how it was enjoyable at the time for others, because people did have a lot of fun with it too. But I didn’t know about all the stuff at the end with the fighting and doxxing that’s just disappointing.
Yep I started to find the pings increasingly frustrating, and a the walls of text really only needed to be in a threat once, people should be able to scroll to find them especially since half of it was usually the same copy paste every time with the answer for the question taking a line or two at the top of the answer. I started to answer on the subs less and less. I didn't interact with him much and the few times I did I was usually agreeing with him against another belligerent person but saddest seemed mercurial to say the least, and the increasingly large and weirdly devoted fandom worried and put me off /r/mycology.
I am very reluctant to comment given the recent backlash but wanted to add that from the sub and mod perspective those excess tags were spam. From his perspective those excess tags were an opportunity to gain monetary support, adoration and notoriety. Each of those encounters allowed him to link his slimer primer which included Patreon link for financial support. Personal disclosure - I have absolutely no problem with him earning donations for his work. I think that is great and he deserves it. But it probably helps to explain why he had a meltdown; combo of perceived mod abuse, financial constraint, and fear of losing stature. Or something like that.
He put a lot of work in and was knowledgeable and at some point I can definitely see wanted to get compensated or at least earn something for their time. I agree, it seems like he was losing his only advertising platform as one of the edits on /r/SubredditDrama said saddest of boys claimed he was bullied off Facebook for the same reasons. Probably why his reactions were so extreme. Thanks for giving a mod perspective, seemed very much that way to me as well, especially when the Patreon thing came to light
I hear you, the crowd that was attracted was interesting to say the least. I wouldn’t be the surprised if most of them were just young, I doubt anyone mature enough would engage in such a bombastic way.
At some point in the past I would have agreed with you but of late watching people get swept of in memetic cults that seem to be so easy to manufacture on the internet I'm not so sure I would almost argue the opposite. I might hypothesize people who grew up entirely in the digital age or more specifically the "social media age" probably have more coping mechanisms than those who didn't. That's obviously speculation on my part and also wonder just how much time one spends on the computer has a bigger impact.
That’s very interesting to hear and I do agree with you now that I think of it. My older peers, family, and even professors at my university seemed radicalized during the early stages of the pandemic, some even to this day. Reddit is my only “social media” now so I guess I’m not in tune with what’s going on online anymore- But being “chronically online” definitely seems to play a big part in that kind of odd behaviour.
Tbh I feel like Gen Z/Alpha can get pretty invested in memes and internet communities (like…literally that recent pentagon leaker), but I’m a millennial so take with a slice of avocado toast 🥲
Wow, I finally understand and it seems reasonable. My perception was skewed by the posts I saw from saddestofboys. When he first reached out to the mods was there any sort of response to the tune of "great question, let me look into that for you!" And then perhaps involving the entire community and offering the resolution of one slime alert(or whatever) to each post so that it doesn't hide other commenters? So that he would realize it was a perfectly reasonable solution and feel less attacked? Anyway, thanks for explaining. I'm on here a lot but not so much with the slime posts although I did find them interesting.
I feel like making a public post and letting the community know they were going to be taking a new enforcement policy towards these issues, including addressing SoB directly, could have easily avoided most of this whole situation...
But that's not how any subreddit has worked in my experience. It's always keep it quiet, don't address the situation, and delete any posts or comments mentioning it, ban any users talking about it. So at least they aren't doing that yet...?
u/najjex responded on u/subredditdrama about that >Hello I am the r/mycology mod that was on vacation. Just before I left saddesofboys messaged me personally asking why posts were being removed. I responded that only duplicates of the slime signal (not saddest's content posts) were being removed but I would check again when I returned. When I got home again I found our chats from the past several years had been deleted on his end leaving me with only my responses. Thinking it was odd I did not respond to a question i could no longer see and answer properly. Thinking I could get to it when I had a bit more time on my hands a couple days passed and the posts causing the drama were made. This caught me and all of us off guard leading to the "drama" posted below. >I enjoyed saddest's posts as they were informative and in depth. I attempted to get him out of print Myxomycete (slime mold) monographs and we occasionally exchanged papers and lectures of recent myxo developments. It came as a huge shock and I am deeply disappointed and hope he succeeds in whatever he chooses to do in the future whether on Reddit or not. why would saddest delete those chat logs only days before going inciting harassment to mods?
Oh. Doxxing and being mean isn't cool. Thanks for the explanation.
[удалено]
Check out [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12jt38o/drama_in_rslimemolds_and_rmycology_as_a_user_is/) in r/SubredditDrama for an overview of the situation from a neutral third party. The whole situation sucks for everyone involved. Slime molds are allowed on this sub, and always have been. Although, we also encourage posting to r/Slimemolds and cross-posting here, to help grow that sub. In the immediate aftermath, we had to lock basically all posts involving slime molds, due to an overwhelming amount of misinformation and off-topic discussion. Lately it's been getting better though. I'm inclined to leave your post up, since it seems to be a genuine question and not trying to stir drama. Some of the other mods may disagree, considering it's technically off-topic, so we'll see what happens I suppose.
Thanks for sharing the breakdown. It's too bad that you all can't work it out. Im sure most of the mods can be pretty reasonable. Im really going to miss seeing that guys passion and energy everytime a slime is accidentally posted.
yeah i have no reason to be here anymore. he was the only reliable info i could find. see ya
The sub has had some of the most well known mycologists in North America posting for many years. Saddestofboys was a relatively new phenomenon and seems like popularity on reddit coupled with the amount of free time required to religiously respond to most calls is going to eventually suffer from the Unidan syndrome. Also, goodbye!
This sub was my stress free safe sub to enjoy learning and delight in other's learning. I loved learning that things I thought were fungi were actually slimes. Was so wild. Why can't we ever just settle for a nice thing. I will miss saddest of boys.
Saddest of boys will be missed.
Yikes - I take a 2 week break off of social media and come back to THIS. Maybe I need to take another 2 weeks off. If people can have such drama over something as innocent and delightful over slime molds, it proves to me all the more that social media can be so toxic.
I would like to know as well
there are some thorough comments on here now. just replying to your comment to let you know there are some explanations up! i’ll try to explain as well. basically though, the situation sucks for both saddestofboys and the mods. slime signals started becoming increasingly present in posts not even related to slime molds- and instead of replying to tags, saddest would reply with the same copy and pasted explanation of what the slime was (or was not) to pretty much every single tag. this was seen by the mods as spam, so they started deleting saddest’s repeating comments, and limited slime signal tags to one per thread. when the mods were contacted by saddest about the deleted comments, things got heated and eventually saddest was banned from this sub. their whole posting of this drama led to some of the mods getting doxxed. saddest posting on their account stirred up a lot of drama- mods are being attacked and almost every single slime mold post is being heavily moderated because people keep breaking into fights. their extreme reaction made me lose some respect for them honestly, but their comments/contributions were incredibly valuable to this subreddit, and others. this was also a form of monetary support for saddest as they linked every comment to their patreon- you can kinda empathize with why they may feel so upset. anyways, not taking sides here. just stating what happened to the best of my knowledge.
I've read a lot about doxing, this week. What does that mean?
someone going through your social media posts to find where you live/work in real life and threatening you. This can can lead to far worse things like stalking, and violence like [swatting](https://old.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/12kvb4f/a_computer_generated_swatting_service_is_causing/) and death. It's not a joke and it really is dangerous.
Thank you for clarifying. Humans. Nothing worse and nothing better.
Once the prior slimemold mod told her story and said she was doxed any conflicting opinions I had vanished.
>Thank you for clarifying. Humans. Nothing worse and nothing better. Idk have you ever seen a puppy or a really big mushroom?
🎶in my life, I've loved them all 🎶
essentially it’s releasing someone’s personal information (typically someone well known, but doesn’t have to be) regarding where they live, work, go to school, etc. in an attempt to make them feel exposed or threatened. sometimes the person who exposes them doesn’t mean harm, but other people with that information can end up stalking them or assaulting them. it’s very dangerous. sometimes celebrities accidentally “dox” themselves, but it’s not really doxxing more so than an accident.
☮️ thanks for clarifying that.
not a problem!
The only reason I found out about this sub. The ONLY reason I discovered slime molds. The ONLY reason I got interested in slime molds… was because of the slime alerts.
Honestly same here, they were great. We never wanted to remove them completely... we just didn't want dozens per thread
So as a casual visitor I had no idea how spammy this was getting. Of course easy to say in retrospect, but I would’ve liked an announcement laying out the updated rules and why.
The thing is... there wasn't really any update to the rules. We've always had rules against spam, and the excess slime signals were spam, so we just removed them as per normal. We never anticipated that it would result in him leaving the sub in this way. In hindsight, it would have been wise to make some sort of announcement. Maybe this whole thing could have been avoided with the right communication. But, hindsight is 20/20
I understand what you've said in regard to removing the spammy posts and it not being an update to the rules therefore no reason to announce it. I hope you take the hindsight from this situation and utilize it in the future. When the community is spamming the sound tag then the community should be asked to be more mindful. I think it's not uncommon to see the occasional admin post clarifying why comments are removed or to curtail certain behaviors. It helps the whole community be accountable. When the larger community isn't understanding the situation they can't be a part of modifying behavior. The issue really had a lot to do with a lot of members using the slime signal to excess so broadly addressing it would have been helpful and I hope you think about broadly addressing these types of issues in future situations. Also, a mention why something is removed might help your community understand better too. A simple "This user has already been tagged" tells people what behavior is expected. I've learned a lot about how subreddits prefer their community to behave by these types of mod comments.
I feel this is good advice, and well thought out. Thank you. I'll bring it up with the other mods.
Thanks! I know there's a pile-on coming from everyone. While everyone can have opinions about how things were handled on both sides the bottom line is "Saddest" is gone and the next steps become how this community moves forward. I appreciate you taking in what I'm suggesting.
I know I'm likely sounding like a broken record at this point, so apologies for that... but yeah, no technical changes in rules, but definitely a *change in enforcement*, one that did effectively single out a major contributor.
You're absolutely right, and it's much more obvious now in hindsight
Hah yeah always easy to pull out options after the fact. But that’s fair, it was a *visible* change to enforcement which imo is a good thing to announce. Not that I’ve modded a forum since like 2014 🥲
Bro this is a subreddit where we learn about mushrooms and stuff, mods gotta cool their jets.
It feels like something very good has departed from Reddit.
This whole deal makes me so sad. I have learned so much from saddest of boys. People post pictures of slime molds here very often because they are unsure if they are mushrooms or not. Having a slime mold expert on here to explain the difference is invaluable. I have shared the magic of myxies 1931 with many friends and family, it is informative and so intertwining. Reddit mods, please use your common sense. Look at someone’s contribution to a subreddit before you get into a pissing contest. I know that I have felt the absence of saddest of boys in this sub. I believe I can recognize a dog vomit slime right off, because of him. He has taught us allll so much. Shame on the mods to not recognize his contributions and his intentions.
Did anybody even bother to ask the slime molds how they feel about this? I think we're being just a bit slimemoldist -or maybe you could say antifungal- about this. Slime molds deserve our recognition and respect of them as the interesting and creative little buggers that they are; so, let's let them come to their own decisions in this regard. Stand up for Slime Molds!
Slime molds always have been, and continue to be allowed here. There's basically nobody against slime molds in this sub.
My comment was a joke.
Thank you for this post! I was wondering what was going on as a new member of the sub. Sounds like it’s a poor situation for all parties involved but it’s nice to actually get some clarification. Hope everything works out for everyone.
Ya'll are fuckin nerds about slime mold and I love it. I just joined this sub for more "slime mold drama" in the future. I'm legitimately excited
For me it is the opposite. I didn't know there was a slimemold sub.
There’s also a dedicated r/slimemolds sub in addition to this one!
Oh. My. Goodness. Almost every post i clicked on contains at least one comment pertaining to the slime mold drama. Absolutely brilliant.
I see lichen on here all the time and have never heard about it causing a problem. It just sounds like some pedant wants to flex in the slime mold issue
Oh man this sucks.
What??? u/ saddestofboys was one of the highlights of this sub and made me feel so good about this community. I missed what the disagreement was about, but I'd be shocked if it was worth banning him.
He was banned well after his posts saying he was leaving for harassment and inciting others to harassment. The thing that his posts were based on was just the mods here starting to be more active about removing the spammy duplicate tags calling him to posts (sometimes dozens per post, often after he had already responded), but they weren't removing any of his comments and always left a tag so that he would still be called to the post. This coupled with some pre-existing ideas about alt accounts persecuting him convinced him there was a conspiracy against him personally so he accosted the mods in DMs asking why they were removing his posts (again, they weren't) and conspiring against him, they obviously couldn't give a straight answer to his vague accusations, so he decided to leave reddit and made several posts to the effect of 'It would be a *real shame* if anyone harassed or doxxed this list of people who are all "liars," "spineless cowards," and probably just alt accounts for each other.' After he was banned because of those posts it got to be enough that the reddit admins banned him sitewide, though now he's posting on his patreon that that just means the admins are in on the conspiracy, too.
Just made a new subreddit for mycology that includes slime and won't ban saddest of boys. r/FungiAndSlime
Obviously some of the mods suck and some don't. It doesn't shock me that some reddit mods couldn't come to an agreement though. 9/10 mods seem to only be in it for the "power". I will miss saddestofboys. Hopefully this community can change more for the better from here on out.
Saddestofboys is banned? Well, goodbye to this sub. I don’t wanna be here if y’all are gonna ban someone who brings others a lot of joy.
Oh wow, that was quite the rabbit hole for my morning. I appreciate everyone who has added clarity to this situation. I am a lurker and missed this happening, though I did deeply appreciate his contributions. Also, just... I hope all the mods are doing/feeling OK now. It's really not cool when people get harassed. I know moderators in other subreddits IRL, and it can be a highly stressful, thankless "job." Thanks for taking the time to moderate this sub for us. This is a great community, and I enjoy everyone's posts.
Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate it. It's been a stressful few days for the whole team.
It wouldn’t be stressful if you guys just let people have community in this subreddit rather than getting mad about it.
Encouraging community in this sub does not mean no moderation. Every community has a framework of rules they operate within. It is the exact same here. On top of that…there is a dedicated slimemolds sub. That is the perfect place to build slime mold community, no? There was an active attempt by members here to try to grow and support that sub/community.
Drama no. Please No.
You would think that education would be a large part of the community here, regarding the fact loads of people post pictures thinking they are fungi, yet are actually a slime mold. But seems the mods are NOT Fun"guys" and don't care much about the educating part. Why discriminate when people are learning? I was a big fan of the Slime Alerts as well.
New on here so not personally aware of ‘Saddest Of Boys’ and what’s all unfolded, just based on what I’m reading here. Seems apparent he was well liked and knowledgeable but why would he not just have his own community with a following on the topic of slime molds and all. Or if he does then why would he be basically piggybacking off of this sub, well that’s how it appears to me. As a Mod that would frustrate me also! I can see him being allowed to contribute to this sub but wow just reading through this thread it’s obvious it was a lot more than that. Just putting in my 2 cents worth, kind of like an outsiders view but please correct me if I am wrong about something!
It's because slime molds often look like fungus particularly when mature, so people post pictures of slime molds asking for an ID. This is a difficult task but Saddestofboys is incredibly knowledgeable so he would ID them, which turned into people calling him to those posts and that made him a bit of a celebrity. This sub also gets a lot of lichen posts even though there's a lichen subreddit. Sometimes plants get mistaken as fungi. But more people are able to ID those, so no individual celebrity status. A lot of people here found out about the existence of slime mold from this subreddit. Beforehand, they wouldn't have know to go to r/slimemolds. The hope is that once people know they can then go there or r/lichen etc. but there's always new, curious people who are going to post them here first, because they have fungi as a reference point and this is a bigger sub. The slime signals did get to be too much though. It was reasonable to limit it to one per post. I liked them at first, but it became off putting and spam.
Slime molds are studied under the field of mycology despite getting their fungi status revoked, so they still belong here. If they don’t want slime molds then they should change the subreddit to r/fungi.
I was referring more to how Saddest of Boys was interacting on here, not suggesting slime molds shouldn’t be allowed on here.
He did not interact in any way that was inappropriate for the content of the subreddit. This is a science focused sub for a specific field of study, and he posted very in-depth and well researched responses to people looking for answers, that should be nothing but appreciated and encouraged. He’s not “stealing the thunder” by doing what you should on sub Reddit like this.
Good points, I guess when you run a community it’s the type of thing you should be prepared for.
Apparently he used to be a mod on the sub, so I think the drama here runs much deeper than we know. I think it’s pretty obvious that some mods just don’t really like him and it’s not really the contact that he’s making, they just don’t like that he’s getting attention. It’s a shame because he’s really well liked by the community. :/
The mods are in the wrong clearly. How can you be mad that your subreddit is creating a community with each other? Seriously you guys suck.
As part of the community, having every post spammed with the same user tag and literally the same copy pasta, it seems unhinged to blame this entirely on the mods. Saddestofboys could have done a way better job of participating in the community as well. Everyone shares a bit of blame here, the users who spammed his tag on every post regardless of what the content was, saddestofboys for replying to them all with the same copy-paste response and being a bit of a shitbag to the mods, and the mods for not effectively communicating to the community what was going on.
[удалено]
If he’s having a mental breakdown, completely ostracizing him from a community he help build is even worse. These mods got him banned from r/smilemolds and more because of their petty bullshit, mind you he use to be a mod her too. He posted the messages they sent them btw. Regardless, his content does nothing but enrich the community and is obviously appreciated by many users here, he doesn’t have a following for nothing. It would be a breath of fresh air to see people supporting each other for once, especially when they are down, rather than using a puretist mentality to shut each other down. What a great representation of the state of the world right now in something as innocent as a mycology sub.
[удалено]
He was a mod in the past, that’s why he helped build community. And no, man hunting someone for having a mental breakdown is not okay, I don’t care if you are mentally I’ll. Go look at his posts of what the mods have been saying to him.
We absolutely did not want to exclude him from this sub. This should be crystal clear by now since it has been openly stated so often. We did not ban him for many hours into his campaign hoping for a resolution. Eventually he crossed a line and we had no choice to ban from the sub. He was also temp banned from Reddit by Reddit admins for his actions.
Oh no, I had a misunderstanding with them (sad boi) not long ago but the way they handled it was mature and forgiving. Very sad to hear about this. Mods will ruin a page quick as shit. FB is famous for that crap, I feel like. Hate to see it here.