Rules are, of course, meant to be followed, but as one Reddit mod found out, there can be exceptions to this.
On the r/aviation subreddit, NASA astronaut Don Pettit shared a photograph he took of a plane 250 miles under him while he was aboard the International Space Station.
Specifically, the picture was taken over the Aleutian Islands on October 20, 2024.
While this image is a spellbinding achievement in and of itself, a moderator of the subreddit didn't think so. Subsequently, the picture was removed. The reason? It was too blurry.
Per a circulating screenshot, which was taken by a user who noticed the removal, the mod team referred to a rule from the subreddit that reads: “all blurry or low quality pictures are removed.”
Reddit users were unimpressed
Needless to say, Redditors didn't take this decision lying down. They made their feelings known on a separate post showing the screenshot justifying the removal.
Redditor u/3delStahl posted the mod's removal explanation with the caption "Dear mods, please show NASA how to take better pictures from space so you don’t have to delete them. Thx!"
"Reddit in a nutshell, baby!" one quipped. "Reddit mods love feeling important," another added.
"Social scientists, economists, and defence experts actually hate Reddit mods, its hilarious," a third claimed.
While a fourth said: "What a joke. One of the most epic pics of aviation from the coolest possible place from an actual astronaut. 'This post breaks our rules.' Give me a break man."
And a fifth admitted: "That's why I rarely post in new subs. Reading through the arcane rules is too much of a hassle if you don't have a law degree."
"People want [the] internet to be authentic, but that means imperfect photos, slightly blurry media," a sixth chimed in. "So what? That’s life. I posted some images too, but trickled over some extremely minor rule, sometimes Reddit feels like power therapy for mods."
A mod apologized
Another mod later apologized for the situation.
"We brought some new people onto the mod team, and unfortunately, there are some learning curves," they wrote. "I caught the issue and fixed it. Thanks to everyone who let me know that this happened. I’ll speak to the guy who made the mistake, and hopefully this won’t happen again. Quality ain’t bad when you consider the pic is 250-ish miles away."
In a subsequent, more personal apology to Pettit, the mod repeated: "My apologies, Mr. Pettit, we’ve brought some new people on to the team with all of the learning curves that would be expected. I’d say the quality of the picture is pretty dang good considering that it’s from about 250 miles away."
The internet is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s newsletter here.
