"On my city subreddit, for instance, they’ve gotten it to the point where practically anything which isn’t a photo of a sunset is seen as off topic and removed."

hah, my reference to the one large sub where the mods are widely hated was about my city's sub which from your description might be the same. Edit: In this case, I have some empathy for the mods though, since that sub faced invasions from people outside the city who hate it.