the vandwellers subreddit is imploding

Open revolt over in /r/vandwellers.

history of the world, part 1

Count de Monet: I’ve come on the most urgent of business. It is said that the people are revolting.

King Louis XVI: You said it! They stink on ice!

the symptom

Posters are mad at mods for abuses, real or imagined. They call for mod replacement, subreddit replacement, etc.

the causes

/r/vandwellers used to be populated by vandwellers and the cluefully curious. Around 2018, hashtag-vanlife caused a massive influx of the casually curious, low-effort shitposts, and outright trolls:

As of this writing the sub has “2,656,186 readers”. Most posts are, in order of frequency:

1. the same questions asked/answered ad nauseum and addressed in the sub’s wiki
2. is this a good deal posts, forbidden by rules
3. spotted in the wild posts, forbidden by rules
4. influencer spammers

The sub’s founder no longer participates but still enforces some counterproductive policies. Specifically, pinning weekly/monthly question threads that prevent pinning information about FAQs and rules.

The existing team of mods is justifiably frustrated, leading to counterproductive mod actions in some cases.

my reaction

I unsubbed from /r/vandwellers in 2020 and stopped reading the posts. From that point on I interacted with the mainly via a canned search that found topics relevant to by limited fields of expertise.

I deleted that search from my daily web browing routine yesterday.

proposed solutions

abandoning the sub

IMO the sub is too large to moderate, and has turned into a chat room for vandwelling-adjacent threads. I don’t think it’s salvageable. IMO the best course of action would be:

1. acting mods set up a new subreddit to be what /r/vandwellers used to be¹, and link to it in the sidebar using neutral, non-snarky language
2. change the rules of /r/vandwellers to allow chat, shitposting, and other low-effort topics. (It would effectively be /r/vandwellerschat but the sub’s name is immutable. )
3. resign and let the founding mod deal with the mess.

saving the sub

1. oust the founder through /r/redditrequest, according to the rules
2. sticky a post with info on rules, FAQ, and guidance on how to ask productive questions.
3. rework the wiki/FAQ to make it easier to read. Invite subject matter experts to author relevant sections.
4. require minimum karma for posting/commenting. Most of the completely clueless threads are started by brand new redditors.
5. aggressively ban shitposters, trolls, e-beggars, and spammers

1. I set up /r/ActualVandwellers (reddit) and /c/houseless (lemmy) previously but I’m not necessarily trying to drive traffic there. I’d participate anywhere clueful mods and vandwellers interact. ↩