If you keep up with True Crime, you may know a little bit about Sherri Papini, the Missing White Woman who disappeared under outrageous circumstances and likely orchestrated the thing for attention and money. Because the tale is one of the few True Crime mysteries that's likely to be cracked quickly, and because of the utter ridiculousness of the kidnapping scenario and Papini family, a small but dedicated community has grown around the case. Unfortunately, the admin of the place containing the brunt of the discussion around the case, WebSleuths, is a crazy bitch and banning everybody who doesn't enthusiastically buy Sherri's story, so a flood of WS refugees have traveled to Reddit and settled in two subreddits: /r/Sherri_Papini and /r/thepapinis. This story, a cautionary tale of what happens when WS culture meets the Reddit platform, involves the latter.

Tricia, tyrannical admin of WebSleuths, is banning everybody who doesn't wholeheartedly accept Missing White Woman Sherri Papini's unlikely story and "Supermommy" persona, and as such, a deluge of stateless former users drifted the Internet in search of a place to discuss the case. They soon heard that Reddit was a place where they could do so, and some migrated to the already existing subreddit dedicated to the case, /r/Sherri_Papini, while others created a subreddit of their own for unknown reasons. /r/thepapinis is a subreddit for WS users, moderated by WS users who are clearly unfamiliar with the reddit platform, and they brought with them their own flavor of drama.

It wasn't long before /r/thepapinis was inundated with trolls. Most of the trolling came in the form of "insiders" dropping alleged secret details and information about the Papinis and the case, though the mods themselves also had to deal with other bizarre forms of trolling. While it is unknown if the trolls are Papini supporters from WebSleuths or people just trying to shit-stir for fun, the trolling became a point of frequent concern to the subreddit, and the moderators decided to do something drastic.

Many of the linked posts were removed or deleted, but there's enough information to piece together what happened. In order to combat the trolls, the mods, efforts spearheaded by /u/blondetails, sent regular users a link containing a meme and an IP-catcher. They used this information to cross-reference the IPs of known trolls with alleged "insiders" in order to determine whether they were telling the truth without their knowledge. In addition, mods began to ask insiders to verify themselves in order to gain adequate protection from trolls. Verification involved going into a chat with the mods. A chat which happened to display IPs.

Somehow, possibly because the mods themselves admitted it, it came to light that the mods had collected the subreddit's IPs, and the users were none too happy about the breach of privacy. However, the mods attempted to sweep it under the rug, shortly hand-waving it as something that had already been talked over in later discussions where users raised their concerns.

In the meantime, drama was stirring among the mods themselves, who came to blows over how to handle the trolls and manage the sub. Eventually, /u/ihatebobdylan and /u/blondetails, the mod who orchestrated the IP scheme, decided to quit due to the perceived toxicity and trolling on the sub. Despite some user's concerns with having their IP taken, a sin which would have made the average redditor white-hot with anger, the retirement of the two mods was overwhelmingly mourned (though not so much for one conspiracy theorist). At this point, the mods that were left began to let users in on their frustration with blonde's behavior.

After not so long a time, blonde demanded to have her spot back on the mod team, and although it was eventually granted as the sub went private to ward off trolls, concern grew louder over the user's history and whether she was reliable enough to mod. However, these concerns were all for naught, as she was soon unexpectedlyshadowbanned deleted her account (thanks /u/daisyifyoudo3) and left the remaining mods confused and directionless. After re-opening the subreddit and the very brief rise and fall of one more failed mod (somebody experienced with reddit could quickly see that this user wasn't remotely a good fit for the culture and topic of the sub, let alone modding it, but alas), the dust from all the drama begins to settle, and things are looking up!