A Brief Update on the Read-Along

Hey folks, this is a brief update on the Cosmere read-along saga.

We want to go ahead and announce that the Cosmere read-along is canceled.

A few hours prior to locking the last post we determined some change of plans was necessary, and when we reached out to u/participating he had already come to a decision and written an announcement of his own, which he has replaced the original announcement with. At that point we removed the few powers he had been given, locked the previous announcement, and left a comment explaining we would follow up shortly. This took us longer to pull together than anticipated because, as mods, we operate on consensus (and community support) which takes time to achieve.

While we are saddened at the community’s reaction and subsequent loss of what could have been a meaningful read-along for experienced and new readers alike, there does not appear to be a path forward in this sub. This was always u/participating’s proposal that he brought to us, and so in the absence of someone else coming forward with a similar leveling of planning, experience, and follow-through, the read-along simply cannot happen at this time. It is possible the read-along could reemerge somewhere else in the future, and we sincerely hope so for the sake of those who were interested in partaking.  Either way, we have decided that the original plan of a r/Cosmere read-along with u/participating having (very limited) mod powers is untenable given vocal community backlash.

We'd like to apologize for how this whole situation went down. Frankly, we had no idea his involvement would garner this kind of reaction, and we were woefully unprepared for it. We made decisions, like locking a post, with reluctance not to shut down the discussion but to give us time to process.

At the same time, we also want to apologize to u/participating (and any other r/WoT mods who felt caught in the crossfire). We believe strongly in not silencing critique of those with power, which is why we left visible many comments that would ordinarily be deemed disrespectful to community members (in other words, violate Rule 1). At the same time, those targeted were not a part of our mod team and understandably felt maligned. We are still discussing how we could have better handled the situation.

We would rather not lock this post, as we've done that a lot already. However, now that u/participating no longer has any mod powers, and was never a part of the mod team, we ask for the discussion to no longer focus on him or r/WoT but rather on the situation as a whole, and we will enforce rules around personal insults toward him as we would toward any other member of the community.

That is going to be all we have to say for now. While we reserve the right to say more on this in the future, between the challenge of unpacking this situation on our own, the constant flow of WaT activity, Dragonsteel somehow finding more things to sell us, and just life, we have quite a lot on our collective plate.

Given that we have much to figure out as a team, we may struggle to answer questions today. You're welcome to ask, but if it takes us days or weeks to respond, know it's because we think you deserve a better answer than we can give right now. As a gentle reminder, we are volunteers who are here because we believe in service to this community. We care deeply about this community’s continued success and ask all of you to please remember to always strive to be kind to each other.