A bit after midnight on Dec 5th the subreddit was just a bit more than 24 hours old and blowing up. I didn't have a reliable mod team in place, it was my first time modding a subreddit and I was figuring it out as I went along. At the time I was working against a deadline to get something finished for my real life job and paying more attention to reddit than I should have because the subreddit was going crazy.
For the second time I saw a post with users asking about getting CrewsCrew T shirts. I'd previously seen another post asking for the same thing and removed that post because I was afraid someone would see it and try using this as a way to make money. With the second post asking for t shirts, I figured it was better to fill the vacuum than to fight it. Besides, T shirts would be fun and we could raise money to give to a charity related to what Terry was going through.
I'd never run a fundraising campaign or made T shirts before. After a brief google search, Teespring looked like a good platform which would make the shirts, ship them, and donate the money to the 503c of your choice. This seemed perfect, particularly because Teespring mentioned on their website that you could add your charity for direct payment after starting your campaign by emailing them with the details and I didn't know what was the most relevant charity to Terry's situation. I figured we could do a poll once money had been raised to decide where it should go.
Shortly thereafter, users started pushing me for information on where the money would go. In response to a question asking if sales would go to a charity that deals with sexual assault I responded that I hadn't decided where the money would go but would probably make donations along those lines and that I didn't have time to do the research at that point. It was just after 2 AM and I was slammed at work.
Despite this reply, users kept pushing me and I felt like they wouldn't be happy without an immediate response I wasn't prepared to give. I was taking this seriously and wanted to take time to poll the community on what options relevant to Terry's situation existed, do due diligence on them, and make a decision with feedback from the subreddit. Messages questioning me piled up including accusations that I was just going to pocket the money.
Tired and frustrated, I took the accusations personally and got defensive. In my mind at the time it was absurd for these people to expect an immediate response to a question from the sole active moderator of an exploding subreddit in the middle of the night. The campaign wouldn't be over for two days and the money not available for donation until then at earliest- in my mind, the people asking for this detail were unreasonable at best and trolling the subreddit at worst. More importantly, I had to get my work done and didn't have time for this.
Regrettably, under the circumstances, my response was to try and justify why those users asking for details didn't have the right to ask for transparency. They wanted to know where the money would go?
Still tired and frustrated and getting increasingly close to my deadline I edited my sticky and replied in a way that I thought would eliminate any justification for people to chase me for this detail by telling them that if I wanted to I could just burn the money. I also coined the term "T Shirt Police" which I used to refer to the people who were in my mind trolls seeking to derail the subreddit and gave them flair in the subreddit.
If you are buying a shirt, you are doing so under the assumption that I will burn your money. I don't mean to imply that I actually will burn your money but you should not buy a shirt unless you are comfortable with me burning your money. I want this to be clear in response to concerns raised by a few users which really offended me after all of the work I've put in over the past two days.
By telling you that I will burn your money, I free myself of any obligation to prove myself to the T Shirt Police which is important to me because I'm offended by the notion that I should have to do so after all of the work that I've done and continue to do. I don't care if that's unreasonable or petty, I am a person who has put a lot into this and I have the right to self respect.
Not understanding how this should have been done, I incorrectly interpreted the feedback I was getting as an attempt to keep the booming subreddit from becoming successful and pushed back against my critics in an attempt to protect /r/CrewsCrew, the fundraiser, and my integrity. Everything snowballed from there. I made multiple posts and comments repeating these points and when people reacted negatively to what I was saying I got even more defensive and doubled down, silencing criticism more intensely as the criticism became more intense.
It was very disappointing when last nights post verifying that the donation had been made as promised and indicated was met with nothing but skepticism. Although I was upset, I made a point to the mod team that we would allow posts with criticism but which did not involve misinformation to stand and that we would not remove them. The vitriol was to the point that people were asserting that I had intended to pocket the money and only made the donation because I was called out despite the fact that the donation was made nearly a week before the post by /u/etch_ asking for verification of the donation on Saturday night.
Misinformation being spread on other subreddits was often corrected in comment edits once posters became aware their posts contained inaccurate information but obviously those users who saw comments with incorrect facts don't always see those edits. I know there are many users on reddit who are against this sub because they have been misinformed and that is disappointing to say the least.
To those users who seem intent on insisting that I had bad intentions from the start, I am sorry that I can't give you evidence of what was going on in my mind. To those users who didn't trust the email screenshots I provided and then didn't trust the email headers I provided despite everything being legitimate, I just don't know what else I can give you and am open to suggestions.