For those who don't know, retrogaming on Reddit was a labour of love, there is a multireddit, m/retrogamingnetwork that networks over 60 subreddits under one banner giving the audience, banner, and reach of a big subreddit to some very small and niche spaces.
I bopped onto the main subreddit to grab their discord link for https://sub.rehab/ and was amazed to see the sub open. There's a stickied post from "your new head mod" - they've made some changes already, ones that would stir debate if the userbase was still there to know about it: Reveddit Link
To quote the post opener:
First of all, you all know me probably at this point, but I’m Chalupacabra. We’re in the process of readjusting the mod team, so it’s not fully set up yet, but I’m your new head mod. It’s a process that’s been in the works for a bit now, I’m sure you’ve probably noticed some of the changes the team and I have put together to try to mix things up a bit based on what y’all told us you were interested in seeing.
And if there's any doubts as to what the community "were interested in seeing" we had voted 88% in favour of a total blackout.
On the one hand I'm glad I don't have anything to miss on reddit anymore, I'm not interested in being part of communities run by people more interested in themselves than anyone else, but it's sad to see something that should have died peacefully be zombified instead.
EDIT: looks like the old head mod commented while I was still writing this. Their comments explain the situation much better.
According to this earlier post (reveddit link), the new head mod was part of the old mod team, and the old head mod willingly stepped down at the same time they reopened. According to the old head mod in the comments they were already planning on stepping down, and the situation with u/spez just sped up the process. As for opening the sub, according to the post the mod team was not happy about reopening the sub, but felt forced too as they did not want to get replaced.
Hopefully they do the thing that some other subs like r/pics are doing and make all the posts about something super specific but not really relevant.