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> “Why don’t you just fix it?” I try, but it’s hard when I have a busy day and my edit will be reverted within minutes by a full-time Wikipedian / Expert Wikipe

> “Why don’t you just fix it?” I try, but it’s hard when I have a busy day and my edit will be reverted within minutes by a full-time Wikipedian / Expert Wikipedia Rules Lawyer and self-appointed lord of said article. Reddit has fallen to this same problem with subreddit moderators. A subreddit moderator can remove posts and comments they don't want anyone to see. A lot of the popular subreddits and many of the more obscure subreddits are moderator-crafted echo chambers. Some moderators have unbelievable amounts of free time to observe the subreddit and surgically remove discussions they disagree with. Worse, it's all invisible. These subreddits become an extension of what the moderators want without the moderators having to show their actions at all. When you visit a subreddit, you could be reading a carefully constructed echo chamber of a single moderator and have no idea. I think the Reddit situation would be very different if it had a "showdead" style option that let readers see removed comments.

path411 5y ago
Problem is moderators can straight up ban you from posting anymore comments in a sub, and most do if they delete one of your comments. Try to talk about politics in any political tangent subreddit long enough and you will eventually get the boot because no sane person lines up with 100% perfect match to a certain political viewpoint
CRConrad 5y ago
At least Wikipedia has its edit history. Or is that also editable by "Wikipedia Gods" nowadays?
brightball 5y ago
Yep. There’s clearly a reward structure being created to silence contrary information.
dylan604 5y ago
> a "showdead" style option that let readers see removed comments. If it had this option, why even allow the moderation at all?
- skinkestek 5y ago
  Same reason as for HN, to allow transparency of moderation? I.e. we (mods and flagging users) remove stuff, but for those who wonder (and have a small amount of "karma"?) they can always use showdead to see what they are missing out on and even vouch for things that have been killed for no good reason. This works beautifully here, except for stories where it seems a few can kill it with next to no trace except in the server logs. (You sometimes find them in /active even after they are flagged off the front page.)
pydry 5y ago
>Reddit has fallen to this same problem with subreddit moderators. A subreddit moderator can remove posts and comments they don't want anyone to see. A lot of the popular subreddits and many of the more obscure subreddits are moderator-crafted echo chambers. Coz it's cheaper to pay moderators with a power trip than with money. I've yet to see a viable solution to this economic dilemma. * Decentralized moderation tends to end up meaning no moderation coz normal users are not really motivated to clean up spam, etc. * Free centralized moderation like reddit does inevitably means the space becomes a fiefdom from people who have their own reasons for doing grunt work for free (e.g. pushing their agenda, marketing, etc). * Paid moderation isn't usually something people are willing to pay for.
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  > Paid moderation isn't usually something people are willing to pay for. Is there any reason to think that paid moderation wouldn't lead to its own (possibly worse) biases?
  - DFHippie 5y ago
    I guess the reason would be that they could take away your pay.
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      But who is "they"? The one who pays the piper picks the tune.
  - martincmartin 5y ago
    Hacker News has paid moderators, and seems to be higher signal than Reddit.
    - short12 5y ago
      HN moderation is pretty terrible considering the slow amount of posts per day
yreg 5y ago
I am a mod on a subreddit that has public mod logs. There is a bot with mod permissions that logs every action any moderator takes including saving the content of erased posts and makes it publicly available. I think more subreddits should use a tool like this.
shadowgovt 5y ago
As a general rule of thumb, this is a truth worth remembering about online fora in general: In general, the voices with the most power aren't the most correct; they're the boxes with the most time (leisure or paid) to dedicate to being online.
hutrdvnj 5y ago
You can subscribe reddit subs with RSS and fetch aggressively, this way you will see all comments and posts before the mods had time to delete them.
JCharante 5y ago
In this regard Reddit is no different than traditional forums where a mod would ban you for liking the wrong flavor of ice cream. And why should it be? If you want your non-crappy version of a subreddit, then go create it. The truth is that people who want to volunteer their time to mod a subreddit are mainly doing it to power trip, with some rare exceptions.

path411 5y ago

Problem is moderators can straight up ban you from posting anymore comments in a sub, and most do if they delete one of your comments. Try to talk about politics in any political tangent subreddit long enough and you will eventually get the boot because no sane person lines up with 100% perfect match to a certain political viewpoint

CRConrad 5y ago

At least Wikipedia has its edit history. Or is that also editable by "Wikipedia Gods" nowadays?

brightball 5y ago

Yep. There’s clearly a reward structure being created to silence contrary information.

dylan604 5y ago

> a "showdead" style option that let readers see removed comments. If it had this option, why even allow the moderation at all?

skinkestek 5y ago
Same reason as for HN, to allow transparency of moderation? I.e. we (mods and flagging users) remove stuff, but for those who wonder (and have a small amount of "karma"?) they can always use showdead to see what they are missing out on and even vouch for things that have been killed for no good reason. This works beautifully here, except for stories where it seems a few can kill it with next to no trace except in the server logs. (You sometimes find them in /active even after they are flagged off the front page.)

pydry 5y ago

>Reddit has fallen to this same problem with subreddit moderators. A subreddit moderator can remove posts and comments they don't want anyone to see. A lot of the popular subreddits and many of the more obscure subreddits are moderator-crafted echo chambers. Coz it's cheaper to pay moderators with a power trip than with money. I've yet to see a viable solution to this economic dilemma. * Decentralized moderation tends to end up meaning no moderation coz normal users are not really motivated to clean up spam, etc. * Free centralized moderation like reddit does inevitably means the space becomes a fiefdom from people who have their own reasons for doing grunt work for free (e.g. pushing their agenda, marketing, etc). * Paid moderation isn't usually something people are willing to pay for.

dane-pgp 5y ago
> Paid moderation isn't usually something people are willing to pay for. Is there any reason to think that paid moderation wouldn't lead to its own (possibly worse) biases?
- DFHippie 5y ago
  I guess the reason would be that they could take away your pay.
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    But who is "they"? The one who pays the piper picks the tune.
- martincmartin 5y ago
  Hacker News has paid moderators, and seems to be higher signal than Reddit.
  - short12 5y ago
    HN moderation is pretty terrible considering the slow amount of posts per day

yreg 5y ago

I am a mod on a subreddit that has public mod logs. There is a bot with mod permissions that logs every action any moderator takes including saving the content of erased posts and makes it publicly available. I think more subreddits should use a tool like this.

shadowgovt 5y ago

As a general rule of thumb, this is a truth worth remembering about online fora in general: In general, the voices with the most power aren't the most correct; they're the boxes with the most time (leisure or paid) to dedicate to being online.

hutrdvnj 5y ago

You can subscribe reddit subs with RSS and fetch aggressively, this way you will see all comments and posts before the mods had time to delete them.

JCharante 5y ago

In this regard Reddit is no different than traditional forums where a mod would ban you for liking the wrong flavor of ice cream. And why should it be? If you want your non-crappy version of a subreddit, then go create it. The truth is that people who want to volunteer their time to mod a subreddit are mainly doing it to power trip, with some rare exceptions.