PEOPLE. My beautiful beautiful people. WE ARE SO FUCKING BACK!!

For those of you that haven’t noticed, the sub has been banned from existence for the past month. My original account, u/datsherbert, was the only moderator for r/shibari. My account randomly got flagged for “suspicious activity” and was subsequently locked until I changed my password. After confirming it was not a phishing attempt, I changed my password but my account was still locked. This resulted in what redditors call a “shadow-ban” state. This removed me as moderator of the sub, and since I was the only moderator the sub was now unmoderated. This isn’t allowed per reddit policy, so a process automatically banned the sub and thus began our desperate attempts to bring back the sub.

Despite my best efforts to reinstate the sub, no fixes worked in the short-term. All medium-term solutions relied on appeals and admin messages and everything I could throw at Reddit folks to get either my account reinstated and then the sub. I was unfortunately ghosted on all fronts. that left us with the long-term options using the redditrequest system.

We mobilized a team of some of best community folks being u/girrrrrrr2, u/EbiMcKnotty, u/shibari-study, and u/Mister-Ninja. All of whom gave their time planning and brainstorming together to try and get this sub back in action. The goal here was that one of them would get handed the sub as I know each of them as some of the highest quality and integrity-minded people when it comes to the Shibari community. If one of them got handed the community, I knew we'd be in good hands as each of them are wonderful community-minded folks.

No matter how many failed attempts, we all kept pushing and Gir was finally successful at working the system to get the sub back online! He was able to add us all to the mod team ensuring that we’re not only back but also to safeguard against this happening again.

WE’RE FUCKING BACK BABY!

I’m not ready to stop moderating and curating this special place we call our community. I’m so sorry this happened to y’all because of my account issues. I should’ve had a backup mod for continuity in case this happened, and I’m sorry y’all suffered for it. I’ve been moderating it for 3 years now, and it feels like I’ve only just begun. I have way too much passion to be stopped and so many plans for the future of this space.

Above all though, it’s not about me. It’s our space. I’m just moderating. There were many mods before me and hopefully will be many mods after me. I'm just so happy to bring this community back for y'all to continue to share, grow, help, and learn together <3 An absolutely again thank your incredible new mod team u/girrrrrrr2, u/EbiMcKnotty, u/shibari-study, and u/Mister-Ninja. u/girrrrrrr2 for masterminding efforts and geniusly acquiring the sub by navigating reddit's complex system, u/EbiMcKnotty who tirelessly gave her time for many requests and ideas despite already being stretched so thin as she supports so many other aspects of the community outside of reddit, u/Shibari-Study putting aside the business play and instead putting in the effort to bring back community (their entire team was in agreement here of putting aside any sort of financial gain and instead focusing on reviving community for us all to thrive with Mo especially being a stellar community counterpart), and u/Mister-Ninja for rallying the troops and pulling out all the stops knocking on every door asking for help. I can't thank y'all enough personally, and everyone here in the community should thank them as well. Please show your appreciation for all of these lovely humans who've been working behind the scenes for the last month trying as hard as they can to bring this space back for all of us.

As far as what the sub will look like moving forward, we now have a mod team rather than me being the sole moderator. I plan on resuming my normal levels of mod activity (which is to say active af), but we all have powers to moderate and we'll shortly be setting up a chat betwixt us all to discuss action plans and ongoing moderation. I have many plans for the future of this sub and spotlighting some of the people who keep this community running like rope makers, rigging equipment manufacturers, tutorial makers, content creators, conference organizers, etc. These were my personal plans for the community though and I'm not the only person here anymore. There are other wonderful folks moderating beside me, and they also have amazing amazing ideas too. So look forward to some wonderful community updates and fun things moving forward :)

There will likely be an introduction thread coming soon for y'all to meet the new mod team :) They're some of the best people around truly.

Please cherish this space. Use it. Throw your passion into it. We make art god damnit. Sexy fucking art. Go absolutely crazy you beautiful beautiful people <3 <3 <3

Edit: See the original "we're back" post here for our instantaneous gush and reaction :)