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Mods give a subreddit its norms and structure. If you kick out the mod team and forcibly reopen r/subcultureX, you're not getting r/subcultureX back, you're getting something new puppeting around its skin. If users really just wanted to start talking about X again, nothing's stopping them from going and creating r/subcultureX2. You can't force people to continue donating the massive amounts of free labor that made these communities what they were.

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There already is a function that gives a subreddit its norms and structure. It's the upvote and downvote tool. Mods should not be shaping a subreddit, that's not moderating.

People only put up with so much bullshit. If you allow the annoying and loud trolls in your subreddit you alienate the more reasonable users that bring in quality content and worse case those quality content moves elsewhere.

What I learned in the last years is that it's misleading that the down- and upvote button is enough. Especially as so many users use the downvote button as "I don't agree with this comment" instead of the intended "this does not belong on this subreddit" and no amount of educating the users help.

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