Reddit functions on gamification. The rules were written for Asteroids. The game has become Eve Online. The bridge from one to the other is open-source. The results are predictable. Moderating a large sub is akin to policing Mardi Gras with a wiffle ball bat, except nobody is even giving you beads. /r/movies had 6 million subscribers when we decided we needed to be more "public-facing" and I decided life was too short. /r/news has to be apocalyptically bad. Don't blame the moderators. Fundamentally, their platform has been overstretched past the point of uselessness and has crossed over into malignant obstruction. There is nothing in mod toolbox that would have prevented this; the moderators exist in this instance simply to be the scapegoats of an architecture that is fundamentally incapable of the performance its users require of it.