In this two-part interview we sit down with Jason Echols – one of the founders/pioneers of the exmormon subreddit (/r/exmormon).
For tens of thousands of questioning, doubting, and post-mormons, the /r/exmormon serves as a one-stop shop for community, current events, and activism within uncorrelated Mormonism. /r/exmormon is one of the (if not THE) largest and fastest growing religiously-themed subreddits on Reddit, and one of the most powerful forces in 21st century Mormonism.
As a longtime user/admin of /r/exmormon, Jason gives us an overview of:
- The history of /r/exmormon .
- How /r/exmormon works.
- Proper Reddit etiquette (“retiquette”)
- What it is like to be a /r/exmormon moderator.
- Some of the main contributions of /r/exmormon over the past several years.
- His vision for what /r/exmormon can become.
We hope you enjoy this deep dive into the /r/exmormon world!!!
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 1:
Part 2:
8 Responses
Hi John
I learned so much from Jason in these two episodes – being one of those redditors who messes with the r/exmo demographic by being over 70 years old and clueless generally out on the web! It was great to get some tips about how to be a better contributor, and how the mechanics of Reddit work.
As one of the many beneficiaries of the love and insights from people on this sub, and even though I live far outside the American Mormon culture, I have literally been saved by the Mormon Stories podcast and the kindness and wisdom of the mods and fellow-sufferers on the exmo sub. There is not one ex-Mormon soul that I know in my own community.
So, my thanks to you and all the brave souls who stepped Into the ring and took the blows so we could all regain our equilibrium . May you ever prosper.
The exmormon community is hurt by the amount of censorship going on in r/ exmormon. The mods don’t treat posters justly and have a history of denying blatant misuse of power. I
Definitely spooky scary when critics of r/exmormon disappear mid-sentence. ;-)
This is the type of response I’ve seen from a number of r/exmormon moderators when their views are challenged: dismissive.
It is ironic that an ex-mormon group of moderators is so defensive when their positions or reasoning is questioned.
I’m not sure how much Jason has set the tone, but it is fascinating to see r/exmormon quickly excommunicate posters who express certain views.
It’s not scary when a poster is excommunicated Jason. It just demonstrates the type of community and range of discussion the moderators want to allow. I’d say it’s more disappointing.
For the first time, I think of gotten a glimpse of the world of safe spaces and micro-aggressions over at r/exmormon.
I should add that Jason gave me Reddit Gold for my strong support of Dehlin when some were attacking him recently. So, Jason does seem to be a solid supporter of John’s.
On the other hand, Jason supported my r/exmormon excommunication when I supported other posters Jason didn’t like.
All good fun.
Yeah, I’m not going to refer to r/exmormon as “Rex Mormon”, that just hurt my ears every time it was said. And I think it would be confusing to people who don’t already know what r/exmormon is. I just call it “Ex-Mormon Reddit”.
This was a fun couple of interviews. I’m still listening to the 2nd part, but a few things I would say based on part 1:
1) different subreddits have different views on self promotion/blogspam. In general, reddiquette has a concept of the 10-to-1 rule…for every 1 submission to your content, you should have 10 submissions not to your content. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, but some subreddits will very strictly look at that and start removing posts if you’ve been posting too much from a single blog or website. R/exmormon generally doesn’t care about this, but we can sometimes use that to see if people are sockpuppeting, and so on. I’d say that there are lots of other subreddits where what John said about others posting content instead of the content creator is absolutely true.
2) moderation is a difficult balancing act. Especially with the experience that many folks have with the church (and especially disciplinary action), some folks are wary of ANY moderation (I see we already have some comments that are critical of moderation XD). I think this is true of moderation in any online context, whether it’s moderating on Facebook, or on blogs.
3) there’s no way I’d ever say “rex mormon”. I denounce Chino’s cred. To me, it’s pronounced with the letter r, then the word exmormon. “R Exmormon” or MAYBE “r slash exmormon”
Their mod problems go well beyond simple grievances and issues that could be had anywhere in the Internet. It’s not valuable to blame the issues on the culture of the people being moderated. The r/exmormon mods need to knock it off. The problems are well documented in the r/exmo_uncenaored sub.
This is the one, the only “Doctor Scratch.”