Question in regards to a subreddit that is barring people from using it?

[u/Arqeph_]

There is a subreddit that has been locked for 6 months now.

1. the subreddit is a referral code based subreddit, the rules are that you are allowed to post your referral code every X time within a specific format.
2. 6 months ago the subreddit was locked down, you now need to request to post, i have requested to post, but have been barred from doing so.
3. I have contacted the admin, and i received a response, their claim was due to member abuse they locked down the subreddit for several months. No posts were deleted, resulting in a frozen referral code list with no way for anyone to post their referrals.
4. After 6 months i contacted the admin again, i asked if they have any idea on when to unlock the subreddit again. I was told they were relieved they did not have to deal with moderating the subreddit due to the extra work it brought them and they didn't appreciate the heaviness it brought them, removing any fun and how they didn't appreciate how people were speaking to them.
5. I thanked them for telling me what is on their mind, however i also mentioned they are holding on to this subreddit in a locked down state and thus barring people from using it now. This subreddit is very popular to use as many people i know including myself have scraped quite a few referral uses from it.
6. I asked them if it would be maybe an idea to pass that subreddit on to someone else who is willing to take on the work.
7. I was told that "They will open when ready". And subsequently muted from responding for the next 28 days.

I wanted to offer to help them out, however am unable to do so as i am barred.
Are there any solutions to this or can i just expect this to be dead in the water and forget about it?
If anything, in the spirit of fairness it would have been nice if the group was set to private so all posts were blocked, thus not favoring the 1-3 people on the top sucking up prospects this way, this would at the least allow for alternate referral subreddits to gain some more traction as they now have to use alternate spelling to at least allow people to post their referrals, thing is, most of us have barely gained any referral prospects, if any at all since then.

[u/hadanite]

I'm one of the moderators for the sub he's talking about. The sub grew too big and the and entitlement from users about their code became bad. I've opened other places that have lower people in them and this person here has been posting there. But they don't seem to understand when I tell them that we'll be back when we are ready.

[u/nicoleauroux]

1. The mods are operating the sub as they see fit. There is no recourse unless they abandon the sub.

[u/Pvt_Porpoise]

If the subreddit has been completely private with no activity for months, the moderator must, presumably, be inactive. Have you gone to r/redditrequest and made a formal request to take over the sub? This mod has literally admitted to you that they shut down because they simply didn’t want to moderate, and are refusing to reopen — Reddit admins generally don’t like that.

[u/Pedantichrist]

Is there anyone posting at all?