TLDR: 8 years and 100k good point to reevaluate. Old system can continue as is, but ready to step down for a better way forward.

After around 8 years not only are we still here, we hit 100k. That wasn’t supposed to happen for an unapologetically pro China space. Of course the primary objective was always the space, not subscribers or activity. The moderation style was among the strictest, if not the strictest, on reddit because again, the priority was the space. Ask yourself whether you think reddit rules are applied fairly to us, and it should be obvious why we inevitably ended up with the moderation style we did.

However 8 years is also an eternity in internet time. I’m the last of the old system. An old system that requires a lot of hands on, daily work. When we started we were very niche and didn’t even have our own subreddit. Now, even if suppressed, there are good subreddits around, twitter influencers to follow, youtubers to watch. We even had the benefit of discord groups that were particularly helpful during covid quarantine.

That being said, I think the old system has run its course. However whatever new course comes has to take into account Reddit’s new treatment of non mainstream links. It’s been made clear to me, that Reddit can deem a source as spam and go after you for it retroactively. The consequences would be ‘case by case’ meaning for Sino users, they will just suspend you. Some of you may have noticed me telling users when they have been suspended in comments. I don’t know why they shadowban so much now, but at this point I don’t care either. It’s more of a pain to approve, but you can still post. Since I’ve been active, there’s been no complaint from admins. ‘Anti-Evil Operations‘ acts once every 1 or 2 months here and the vast majority are things we never approved to be publicly viewed in the first place. These users trigger it by what they post publicly elsewhere, not here. There’s no real issue with the subreddit. There’s no real issue with the mod team. There’s no real issue with the users. Now they have this Safety_QA_misc cracking down with an ever-expanding list of spam with unclear consequences.

The way I see it, there’s a few options moving forward.

1) I continue in my role as long as I am able or until the subreddit is either banned or our users move on to any of the many good spaces out there (listed below and sidebar). This is the current and default path. It’d be good if I can get some long time user volunteers to hand the subreddit over to in an emergency.

2) I recruit several new mods that tries to follow the old blueprint with some changes

3) A new group of users take over with a different vision of how to do things

Any suggestion can be discussed, doesn’t have to be something I listed. However any future path has to take into account a couple things

1) We won’t go private because this is intended to be a public space, we already have private discords and there’s a lot of information compiled and archived that we want publicly accessible for as long as possible

2) Reddit is more suspension/shadowban happy than ever and its happening while we are about as hands on as we can get

3) Any additions to the mod team needs to prove a history with us (if you switched accounts you need to prove you can sign into the old one), or have someone vouch for you that we can trust and verify. Contact in the ‘message moderators’ chat. This isn’t because I think the best mods post a lot. If anything I think mods only survive by saying less. However Reddit has unclear policies on ‘lower’ mod takeovers. They revamped to combat ‘camping’, but you can imagine the potential risk.

edit: To add more info, we get around 100k unique visitors per month. I'm very happy with that kind of outreach for this space. As the one who curates most of the activity, I'm good on the amount also. Along with 100k subscribers, great position to have this discussion.

Discord and other spaces info

Mod PSA: You can be suspended and/or shadowbanned by reddit but still post, just be patient for approval

To check if you are suspended check your profile page without being signed in and using new.reddit.com. Incognito mode should also work for checking.

You can also edit your comments, that seems to bring it to light for mods.

If you are being harassed by pms, change your pm setting to only trusted users in your preferences. Or use a dedicated account for Sino https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/204535759-Is-it-ok-to-create-multiple-accounts-. Just be patient for approvals if using new account. Link submissions are more likely to be approved than text submissions or comments for new users.

Discords. To apply msg mod, bottom right. We have 2, one for any Sino users and one for any verified ethnic Chinese. We won't be changing the approval process for Discord because it would be unfair for those who are already in.

You can also link up on Twitter https://x.com/SinoReddit, we recommend following and participating in discussions on many accounts including but not limited to

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Recommended Youtube channels

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https://www.youtube.com/@JamarlThomas/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@JasonLivinginChina/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@Jingjing_Li/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@MintPressNews/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@NoColdWar/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@Reporterfy/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@RichardMedhurst/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@SabbySabs/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@SyrianaAnalysis/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@TheElectronicIntifada/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewAtlas/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@TheRedNation/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@carlzha/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@democracyatwrk/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@geopoliticshaiphong/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@justinpodur/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@reason2resist/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@revolutionaryblackout7315/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@theeastisapodcast/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@thegrayzone7996/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@wavemedia4433/videos

https://www.youtube.com/@RachelBlevins/videos

Iran has damaged 20 US military sites since the start of the war, satellite images and videos analysed by BBC Verify show, suggesting the attacks are more extensive than publicly acknowledged.

Iran has targeted key facilities across eight countries in the Middle East since the end of February, causing millions of dollars of damage to state-of the-art air defence systems, refuelling aircraft and radars.

The US has sought to limit satellite analysis of the conflict by requesting Planet, a major provider, to impose an "indefinite" restriction on new images of Iran and most of the Middle East. The company justified the move, saying that it wanted to ensure its images were not used "by adversarial actors to target allied and Nato-partner personnel and civilians".

BBC Verify has used satellite imagery from other international providers combined with older images from Planet to track the damage caused by Iranian attacks. The facilities are in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain and Oman. The actual figure could be higher, with some analysts placing the number of bases hit as high as 28.

Among the valuable hardware damaged were three state-of-the-art anti-ballistic missile batteries systems at the Al Ruwais and Al Sader airbases in the UAE and Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan.

The US is only known to operate eight of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) batteries, which are deployed at bases around the globe and cost around $1bn (£766m) to manufacture. Each battery needs a crew of about 100 troops to operate it while the interceptors it fires cost around $12.7m per round.

Vice-Admiral Mark Mellett, the ex-head of the Irish Defence Forces, told BBC Verify that the batteries are at the core of a "highly complex" regional defence network that cannot be "quickly or easily replaced".

Iranian strikes have also heavily hit US refuelling and surveillance aircraft at Prince Sultan Airbase in Saudi Arabia, expert analysis of satellite images show, with damaged aircraft and smoking craters clearly visible.

One aircraft was identified by a MAIAR analyst as an E-3 Sentry surveillance plane. US media reported that it could cost up to $700m to replace.

Putting a launcher and radar on a tiny island the size of a park isn't viable for actual conflict. That park is going to get hit by a hundred drones. Where's the launcher supposed to shoot and scoot to, how and where are replacements coming. Forget Ukraine. There's around 1,000km distance of US ally/bases territory U.S. could use from the border of Israel right up to the border of Iran.

For comparison, the width of the Korean peninsula on average is 300km and is around the same distance from the Chinese coastline. People have crossed the Yellow Sea on jet skis before.

Where is the U.S. supposed to get its strategic depth in a conflict off the Chinese coastline and how far away is it? Okinawa island is 1/10 the size of Qatar. Kyushu is only the size of Taiwan/US state of Maryland and over 1,000 km away. All of China would be strategic depth starting from right next to the conflict area. That's around 5,000km eastern coast and 5,000km to the west from that coast.

Both Ukraine and Iran conflicts continue to affirm everything is going to get hit and hit often, so strategic depth and logistics/supply lines still dominate modern warfare.

If you believe conflict with America is inevitable, a small island off the entire Chinese coast is exactly where the PLA would want it. Iran neutralised military threats near its territory without sending a single soldier out. China has a far larger arsenal and the threats are in very localized areas. The same for blockades, Iran can hold out for a long time. China has far more non Malacca options than US Asian allies, Russia is literally right there and the numerous over land Central Asian routes. There's also no selective blockades for Hormuz or Malacca, sooner or later it is all shutdown or all open.