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I have a high level of skepticism for anyone who is a reddit moderator. This is purely speculative and anecdotal, but the ones I've known are not generally heal

I have a high level of skepticism for anyone who is a reddit moderator. This is purely speculative and anecdotal, but the ones I've known are not generally healthy, stable people.

realce 5y ago
I was a redditor for a decade before I did this, and I TOTALLY AGREE. Reddit moderation, esp for large subs of like over 50k, is outrageous. The power you can muster to influence debate and exposure at that level is immense, and there's basically no repercussions for abusive mods. The amount of time you have to devote to managing a community is immense, the ability to keep your mod team on point is hardly possible. It's really hard and thankless and can totally twist your head up.
danielkyne 5y ago
Reddit moderators are a whole breed of their own. Any that I've encountered (mostly for 100k+ subreddits) have lost any shred of empathy they once had.
- papandada 5y ago
  Like living a thousand lives in parallel as a Walmart cashier. Shudder
unethical_ban 5y ago
I'm a reddit mod for a 100k+ geographical sub. I volunteered when I thought the mods did a poor job on something and DM'ed them, and one invited me to help. So every day or three, I hop on and help clean out the report queue if it's stacked up. Being a decent person, modding can be difficult because the internet is full of bad-faith people and idiots. Applying a consistent standard in a way that keeps the sub clean while allowing real conversation is tough, so it is a lot of judgement calls. I could go on, but it is a tough job. I do it because I want the "chatroom of the city" to be as friendly as possible. I tend to let "merely stupid" comments get downvoted to oblivion, but name-calling or straight-up disinfo (I tend to look at their profiles for context) gets deleted quickly. And yeah, I step away from it a few days a week, simply because caring too much will keep you steeped in horrible comments and stupidity far too much.
- vorpalhex 5y ago
  > straight-up disinfo (I tend to look at their profiles for context) gets deleted quickly. That makes me extremely nervous. One can imagine a perverse mod who simply deletes comments based on which political subs they post in.
  - aero-glide2 5y ago
    I don't have to imagine. Many subs automatically ban you if you post in few specific subs.
  - ihattendorf 5y ago
    Honest question: what's the alternative? Maybe sign-off from multiple mods on every action? That'd be a tough sell to require double, triple, or more time from mods. Some sort of random review of x% of mod actions maybe?
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      Have a N strikes policy, track in-sub user infractions. Have a public moderation log. Reddit is unfortunately woefully under-equipped for moderators so the above is a strictly out of band process for Reddit specifically.
  - sellyme 5y ago
    There's definitely some "politics" where that's an extremely wise move. For example, people who regularly post in a subreddit dedicated to holocaust denial don't really deserve benefit of the doubt when they've already posted something bad enough to require moderator interaction in /r/lego.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    Edit up front to say, it's unfortunate that you read that one line and got extremely nervous rather than take anything else I had put into consideration. I personally don't care where you post if you're being polite on the sub I moderate. I try to think of it like being the chairperson of a meeting, or the bartender at a local bar: Let people debate and disagree and even say stupid stuff, but if they say something obviously offensive or start name-calling, you get modded. And if I then look at your comment history and see a stream of vitriolic behavior, that shows me it wasn't "just one time" you got out of hand, but a pattern of undesirable behavior. I do know other subs, mostly political, that will instantly ban you if you have a different set of beliefs than they do. It's very frustrating. But that's not what I'm discussing here.

I have a high level of skepticism for anyone who is a reddit moderator. This is purely speculative and anecdotal, but the ones I've known are not generally healthy, stable people.

realce 5y ago

I was a redditor for a decade before I did this, and I TOTALLY AGREE. Reddit moderation, esp for large subs of like over 50k, is outrageous. The power you can muster to influence debate and exposure at that level is immense, and there's basically no repercussions for abusive mods. The amount of time you have to devote to managing a community is immense, the ability to keep your mod team on point is hardly possible. It's really hard and thankless and can totally twist your head up.

danielkyne 5y ago

Reddit moderators are a whole breed of their own. Any that I've encountered (mostly for 100k+ subreddits) have lost any shred of empathy they once had.

papandada 5y ago
Like living a thousand lives in parallel as a Walmart cashier. Shudder

unethical_ban 5y ago

I'm a reddit mod for a 100k+ geographical sub. I volunteered when I thought the mods did a poor job on something and DM'ed them, and one invited me to help. So every day or three, I hop on and help clean out the report queue if it's stacked up. Being a decent person, modding can be difficult because the internet is full of bad-faith people and idiots. Applying a consistent standard in a way that keeps the sub clean while allowing real conversation is tough, so it is a lot of judgement calls. I could go on, but it is a tough job. I do it because I want the "chatroom of the city" to be as friendly as possible. I tend to let "merely stupid" comments get downvoted to oblivion, but name-calling or straight-up disinfo (I tend to look at their profiles for context) gets deleted quickly. And yeah, I step away from it a few days a week, simply because caring too much will keep you steeped in horrible comments and stupidity far too much.

vorpalhex 5y ago
> straight-up disinfo (I tend to look at their profiles for context) gets deleted quickly. That makes me extremely nervous. One can imagine a perverse mod who simply deletes comments based on which political subs they post in.
- aero-glide2 5y ago
  I don't have to imagine. Many subs automatically ban you if you post in few specific subs.
- ihattendorf 5y ago
  Honest question: what's the alternative? Maybe sign-off from multiple mods on every action? That'd be a tough sell to require double, triple, or more time from mods. Some sort of random review of x% of mod actions maybe?
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    Have a N strikes policy, track in-sub user infractions. Have a public moderation log. Reddit is unfortunately woefully under-equipped for moderators so the above is a strictly out of band process for Reddit specifically.
- sellyme 5y ago
  There's definitely some "politics" where that's an extremely wise move. For example, people who regularly post in a subreddit dedicated to holocaust denial don't really deserve benefit of the doubt when they've already posted something bad enough to require moderator interaction in /r/lego.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Edit up front to say, it's unfortunate that you read that one line and got extremely nervous rather than take anything else I had put into consideration. I personally don't care where you post if you're being polite on the sub I moderate. I try to think of it like being the chairperson of a meeting, or the bartender at a local bar: Let people debate and disagree and even say stupid stuff, but if they say something obviously offensive or start name-calling, you get modded. And if I then look at your comment history and see a stream of vitriolic behavior, that shows me it wasn't "just one time" you got out of hand, but a pattern of undesirable behavior. I do know other subs, mostly political, that will instantly ban you if you have a different set of beliefs than they do. It's very frustrating. But that's not what I'm discussing here.