EFFORTPOST My favorite dramatic moments from r/illnessfakers

General info:

/r/illnessfakers (IF) follows "subjects" (almost exclusively young women, there are a few older ones, currently no men) who are suspected of faking illness and having Munchausen's. They are referred to as "munchies".

The sub is heavily moderated, with it's 2 most important rules being

1. All posts / comments must be on topic (about illness faking, no random things)

2. No blogging (talking about yourself or your diseases/ conditions)

The heavy handed modding of the sub, combined with how annoying their mods are, has resulted in several very dramatic moments. Here are some of my favorites.

Notable meta dramas

ASH IS NO LONGER AN APPROVED SUBJECT, EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY

The main mod of illnessfakers determined that there was too much BEC (b-word eating crackers) content about Ashley Carnduff. Ashley's real issue is Crohn's disease (which she does have). Her made up complaints are Chronic Lyme acquired from a spider bite, other Lyme associated bacteria, and others. She is thought to be lying about having hEDS and POTS. She also went on an arc of being really obsessed with her period.

From the OP:

Hey, everyone. We are removing Ash as a subject, effective immediately. The content being posted is 99% irrelevant to her medical narrative, and the pure hate and bullying that goes on in threads about her is unacceptable and intolerable. The vibe on this sub needs to shift, fam. We are running the risk of losing this sub from all the cruelty happening here. EVERY other sub has been banned and if we go hardcore snarky like other places, we're next. PLEASE, stop with the body shaming, fat shaming, slut shaming, critiquing someone's posing, critiquing someone's eyebrows, and stop posting BEC content that has zero relevance in a subreddit that is dedicated to discussing behavior consistent with MBI and related medical deception.

This post has 1,000 comments. There are some people who don't care, and many who get very mad. IMO this had less to do with the actual content being disallowed, and more to do with the fact that everybody hates the mods.

Shutting down posting about Ashley lead to the creation of several private subreddits and a larger public one /r/Ashleycarnduff which is pretty active and contains even more drama.

There are some mentions of this incident on kiwifarms Munchausen's by Internet thread as well here

The mods later change their minds and issue this follow up post.

FOLLOW-UP DISCUSSION RE: Pausing Ash Thread; TOS Concerns; Update & Highlights. THANK YOU to everyone who contributed over the past 3 days! I've put together some highlights and responses based on feedback and discussion with you all...please come continue discussing with us here!

Here the main mod apologizes and announces they are reverting the rule after many days of deliberation. People are happy, but the damage is done, and many users appear to leave the sub after this.

This also led to the creation of /r/IFModsExposed, a sub only for pooping on IF mods, and where posting or commenting got an instant perma-ban from IF. That sub was banned by Reddit pretty quickly.

Posts locked

For several months, IF had all posts and comments on manual approval, despite only having 1 active mod for a sub of 150K. After the manual removal was lifted, mods started locking all posts related to one specific person - Dani Marina.

Dani Marina is an almost 40 year old woman who until recently lived with her parents. She had anorexia when she was younger, and shortly after started seeking attention and medical procedures for GI issues. She recently admitted she actually has been diagnosed with Munchausen's, and has admitted to intentionally injuring herself in the past (by doing things like breaking her bones with baseball bats).

Like before, the crackdown from IF mods leads to the creation of a new specific sub /r/DaniMarina. This sub has also had many of it's own dramas, which would be another post.

It is important to note that these subs focused on only one person are way more unhinged.

POLL: Should we allow a RECOVERED FD Patient to do a Q&A Here?

The main mod (again) suggests an AMA from a recovered Factitious Disorder patient

Hey all,

Over the course of this sub's history, questions like this have come up a few times, but this is an unique circumstance and I think this particular issue should be put to the community for a vote. Historically, our policy has been not to allow any sort of Q&A with people who admit having FD/MBI or who are 'trying to stop' because it is giving attention to them and that feeds the issue. We have, however, heard from someone who is now recovered and they have offered to share about their experiences, so I agreed to put it to you all for a vote.

People in this thread basically scold the mod for this terrible idea, and the mods backtrack again.

Let me know if I should make another post! This is only a portion of the total drama.

Edit: I almost forgot one of the best things to come from the Ashley Carnduff drama - this literal manifesto about the IF mods.

And semi-relevant to recent events, from a post linked in the manifesto, is mod work real work? (Deleted account is mod /u/CatAteRoger 's old account)