| From the outside, this seems very much like a classic labor dispute. Management (reddit) and labor (mods) are at odds over what they see as the future of the corporation. As such, some form of mediation needs to occur between both sides for work to continue. Again, as an outsider, I see a few problems here: 1) You're not being paid at all, so you're not really 'labor' per se. 2) You're not unionized, so you don't have a spokesperson and can't coordinate your desires. 3) Reddit can't pay you to begin with, as they have basically no money for each mod, and isn't willing to negotiate before the IPO 4) Reddit seems perfectly fine and able to just get new mods and turn the subreddits back on, spam be damned. 5) Reddit also seems like they will just let the wildfire of outrage pass (really spitballing here) and most users will likely not even remember this by the 4th of July. I think someone with actual union experience could really help you all. If you managed to get something of a 'standard' going, with payment in stocks or some other token monetary amount, then I'd say that would be a huge boon to the internet in general and a great roadmap for other companies. A real big opportunity is hiding in this and I wish you all the best in grabbing it. |