Confirmed: I'm Chris from Airwindows (small open source audio software dev) and am the sole mod for r/airwindows, which is a dead sub. People interact with me elsewhere, for a while I had a ITTT posting new plugin releases to the sub, then I stopped. I took the sub private largely because as the only user I wanted to endorse the striking Redditors taking much larger subreddits offline. There's no real impact to this.

I got this in mod-mail:

"Hi everyone,

We are aware that you have chosen to close your community at this time. Mods have a right to take a break from moderating, or decide that you don’t want to be a mod anymore. But active communities are relied upon by thousands or even millions of users, and we have a duty to keep these spaces active.

Subreddits belong to the community of users who come to them for support and conversation. Moderators are stewards of these spaces and in a position of trust. Redditors rely on these spaces for information, support, entertainment, and connection.

Our goal here is to ensure that existing mod teams establish a path forward to make sure your subreddit is available for the community that has made its home here. If you are willing to reopen and maintain the community, please take steps to begin that process. Many communities have chosen to go restricted for a period of time before becoming fully open, to avoid a flood of traffic.

If this community remains private, we will reach out soon with information on what next steps will take place."

I responded with the following, and have heard nothing further:

"Understood. Note that airwindows is my intellectual property and I control the website and the youtube channel which is my primary mode of engaging with Airwindows users. As such, and since there are no legitimate users trying to re-open the subreddit, it's an interesting test case. I await whatever further information you care to share with me :)"

There was also another subreddit where I was the sole user, called r/homesoil (a Minecraft mod me and my brother made). I believe that had been taken private long before, and I haven't received mod mail over it. Looks like it's strictly punitive, directed toward anyone aligning with the striking redditors no matter how small they are.

I was asked by another redditor, "Do you have a TM on the name? Could you sue Reddit to take it down b/c they should not have a forum named with your trademark?"

I responded, "Oh no, I created the subreddit. Not only that, people are allowed to create fansites so the mere concept of a subreddit that's solely my business name without me associated with it, is not itself a problem. For instance, there's at least one Facebook group using the name that's not me, and nobody is confused.

The test case (which may never happen, fair warning as this is kinda telegraphing their exposure if it did) would be the use of such a subreddit to try and convince people I represented stuff I don't represent.

In other words, the activity I DON'T want to see is: kicking me off my own subreddit, installing some other person as a mod, who then uses that subreddit to imply I support Reddit's position and leadership.

And in the absence of really impressive pro bono representation, my counter would not be trying to sue Reddit over that, but exposing the situation in a Youtube video, most likely as an aside in a video that's otherwise intended for a product release that would see a lot of attention. For instance, I'm doing reverb effects where the tone quality is tailored to work similarly to Bricasti hardware reverbs, which cost over $4000. There will be people paying close attention to my efforts there, so a mention of the Reddit situation would get outsider attention that wouldn't go to a video solely about Reddit."

That's what I'm interested in watching for. Not so much if control of the subreddit with my company name is wrested from me (might be a Wikipedia-like situation, where that isn't necessarily an issue) but if they're looking to do that for the purpose of misrepresenting my positions and establishing an endorsement where one doesn't exist. Right now, my sub going private is a statement of how I feel about the situation. If that changes, it changes, but if it represents me it'll be private, and sitting on that subreddit name.