I spoke with the mods in the thread, then in PM afterward, about this idea and the sticky discussion thread idea, but none of them ever acknowledged either even though I brought them up several times trying to discuss it.
Their responses ranged from wanting to change the discussion to how they felt attacked and disrespected by everyone complaining about them, to making several attempts at belittling me and undermining my credibility, but not once could I get them to stay on topic and even acknowledge that they had heard the suggestions.
They made it pretty clear that they had their minds made up about that thread and went in with a defensive attitude before reading anything, and only grew more defensive from there. The last I heard from them that was even remotely relevant to the point was that they may or may not talk about improvements, then may or may not implement any changes. The last message I sent to them was the following summary of the remaining 2 suggestions after dropping the downvote issue entirely:
"If you guys decide to have a discussion on this among yourselves I'll leave the recap of the 2 suggestions that are left so you don't have to go back in that shit storm. Considering that anything about downvotes is off the table, here's what's left:
A rotation of a few themes of discussion that come up on the same day each week and are stickied to the top. Ask people what they want the themes to be, pick a few you like, and set a schedule. Then as discussions are taken down to make room for the new one, add them to an archive on the side bar of several of the most recent so people can find them. It's a solution to allow people to engage in a discussion with everyone without needing to pull something out of the New section. Everyone that just wants to have discussions that include a lot of people can be happy, it'll reach even more people and it only comes at the cost of taking down that Viking brick thread. Not a bad deal to pacify a large group of fans.
Several different types of tags to categorize types of posts. News, miscellaneous items, artistic OC, discussion, etc. and implement a filter where people can check a box to hide types of content that they don't want to see. You'd never hear people bitch about dogs in jerseys or any of that shit again if there was a clear category that it all went in like Misc. and people could uncheck the box and customize their feed. You could be completely done with people complaining about too much of a certain kind of content, or not being able to find another, and it comes with zero negative effects to anyone. Just a little tinkering with the CSS to implement something that's already working great in dozens of subs across reddit and you could shut everyone up because they're actually satisfied with the solution.
You guys could come out of this really looking like the good guys by giving the community some great features that everyone will love, that don't negatively effect anyone, and that permanently close the door on anyone being able to raise these kinds of complaints again. That also gets them off your ass so you don't have them bitching about you either. It seems like a no brainer. I don't think it needed to get that dramatic in there, but some good could have come out of it. Take whatever time you guys need to talk it over. Sorry I came off as bitchy."
I sent that to the entire mod team, and the only reply I got was "LOL". Maybe a few days to cool down will produce a more positive attitude, or maybe one of the mods that wasn't active in this can change their minds, but if how they were Saturday night is at all indicative of how they usually are, I wouldn't hold your breath on seeing anything done with this.
If you recall, this all started with a lot of Packers fans in /r/NFL remarking that the worst thing about this sub is that any criticism or mention of room for improvement in regard to the Packers or a player is met by hostility, denial, and downvotes by people who actually fool themselves into believing the team in perfect. Then the mod team of this sub responded to that criticism with hostility and denial because they actually believe this sub is perfect. Not one of them admitted any room for improvement at all in that thread, they just explained why none of that was worth doing, why they don't believe there are any problems, and how their feelings are hurt that people are even talking about it.
The irony of that would be funny if it wasn't so disappointing. I fully expect this comment to be deleted within minutes of posting it, just like the Town Hall thread was deleted twice before eventually being allowed. I really hope I'm wrong about them though, and that by now they've calmed down and we can move forward with some actual improvements. We'll just have to wait and see what they do.