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Don't get invested in subreddits. Most of the original mods that cared about their subreddit are gone or have put modlords in their place. A modlord being one t

Don't get invested in subreddits. Most of the original mods that cared about their subreddit are gone or have put modlords in their place. A modlord being one that lord's over many subreddits, typically for a financial or social gain, of which you will be banned at the sign of any criticism. Reddit corporate does not enforce their rules on subreddit mods. It's a show. You can have mods harass you and they'll do nothing. Only go into it with the expectation that this is like any other image board. Make new accounts, use vpn's, else a mod will cry and reddit corporate will treat you you as a felon regardless.

civilized 5y ago
This is very sad to hear. I haven't been on Reddit much in the past few years, but I still appreciated the unique, often well-moderated communities I knew of back in the day.
- eatonphil 5y ago
  For what it's worth, I do not share GPs experience. I shared this list because these are good, quality subs period.
throwawaysea 5y ago
This. I have tried reporting mod ban abuse, which you can do if you look hard enough through the help pages. I gave them all the evidence needed to show the mods were violating Reddit’s own policies around arbitrary bans. However I only ever got a form response that shows Reddit doesn’t care. At this point I am convinced Reddit just needs to die and get replaced by something better.
- devwastaken 5y ago
  I have had subreddit mods openly call me all manner of inflamatory names, stalk me, and harass me in general. Sometimes those powermods get removed by contacting the lead mod if they're still around, but powermods know this and will hide the mod list, remove the post(s), and handle all the reports. So to other mods and users it looks like nothing happened at all. Reddit is the least transparent platform, it's designed for censorship and abuse, even.
armchairhacker 5y ago
This may be true for top subreddits but definitely not all. Especially the ones mentioned in the website. Like I doubt there are any powermods on r/ProgrammingLanguages. Also it's not like you're saying anything remotely politically incorrect on those subs either.
- devwastaken 5y ago
  Its hard to tell. The design of Reddit is heavily favored towards mods. If something happens the mod will simply remove the post(s), squash the reports, and it will all look like nothing ever happened. A single mod can do whatever they want on a subreddit and effectively hide it from other mods. The "hide the mod list" feature prevents users from appealing to other less active mods. What is considered "politically incorrect" is not universal. Software has plenty of its strong opinions and people whom want to squash opinions. Over time some subreddits get taken over and used for personal benefit. Lots of crypto schemes and people looking to sell things. The bans generally don't happen over technical disagreements, they happen when a mod themselves gets inflammatory with users and users push back. Simply what I'm saying is reddit is designed against communities, don't get invested. There's useful stuff but underneath it's not any different from boards of old.
riffic 5y ago
> Reddit corporate does not enforce their rules on subreddit mods. There are absolutely no rules concerning moderation. As long as content policy is being followed, mods have free rein and full discretion to apply their own standards. edit: there are mod guidelines (https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-guidelines-for-healthy-communities https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-guidelines-for-...), but these are mere suggestions for healthy communities. You won't get de-modded for acting outside the guidelines.
- devwastaken 5y ago
  Reddit admins will ban and shadowban users for behavior. They will not do so to mods whom have the same behavior. Here's the moderator report form that Reddit says they read https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=179106 https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form... Reddit acts as if they care, as if there are rules that are applied equally and as if these are "communities". They are not.
  - riffic 5y ago
    I'll assume that 99% (probably closer to 99.999% but this is a gut feeling and I don't have raw stats) of Moderator Complaints sent in through that particular form are garbage and non-actionable. I'll agree that there are a lot of bad moderators on the site, but there are also a lot of bad users.
kzrdude 5y ago
There are some good stories too. For example, some time ago /r/chess had a "protest" against the prevailing mod, the subreddit was turned over to a new mod and there were community mod elections, and it's been much better since. So far so good, some people really care about the community (and some mods are good enough to step aside, also commendable!).
authed 5y ago
> [...] of which you will be banned at the sign of any criticism. Very true... I just had a few accounts banned that they somehow connected to each other... /r/politics is one of them that really likes the ban-hammer (you have to be pro-Biden AND anti-Trump to avoid any issues).

civilized 5y ago

This is very sad to hear. I haven't been on Reddit much in the past few years, but I still appreciated the unique, often well-moderated communities I knew of back in the day.

eatonphil 5y ago
For what it's worth, I do not share GPs experience. I shared this list because these are good, quality subs period.

throwawaysea 5y ago

This. I have tried reporting mod ban abuse, which you can do if you look hard enough through the help pages. I gave them all the evidence needed to show the mods were violating Reddit’s own policies around arbitrary bans. However I only ever got a form response that shows Reddit doesn’t care. At this point I am convinced Reddit just needs to die and get replaced by something better.

devwastaken 5y ago
I have had subreddit mods openly call me all manner of inflamatory names, stalk me, and harass me in general. Sometimes those powermods get removed by contacting the lead mod if they're still around, but powermods know this and will hide the mod list, remove the post(s), and handle all the reports. So to other mods and users it looks like nothing happened at all. Reddit is the least transparent platform, it's designed for censorship and abuse, even.

armchairhacker 5y ago

This may be true for top subreddits but definitely not all. Especially the ones mentioned in the website. Like I doubt there are any powermods on r/ProgrammingLanguages. Also it's not like you're saying anything remotely politically incorrect on those subs either.

devwastaken 5y ago
Its hard to tell. The design of Reddit is heavily favored towards mods. If something happens the mod will simply remove the post(s), squash the reports, and it will all look like nothing ever happened. A single mod can do whatever they want on a subreddit and effectively hide it from other mods. The "hide the mod list" feature prevents users from appealing to other less active mods. What is considered "politically incorrect" is not universal. Software has plenty of its strong opinions and people whom want to squash opinions. Over time some subreddits get taken over and used for personal benefit. Lots of crypto schemes and people looking to sell things. The bans generally don't happen over technical disagreements, they happen when a mod themselves gets inflammatory with users and users push back. Simply what I'm saying is reddit is designed against communities, don't get invested. There's useful stuff but underneath it's not any different from boards of old.

riffic 5y ago

> Reddit corporate does not enforce their rules on subreddit mods. There are absolutely no rules concerning moderation. As long as content policy is being followed, mods have free rein and full discretion to apply their own standards. edit: there are mod guidelines (https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-guidelines-for-healthy-communities https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-guidelines-for-...), but these are mere suggestions for healthy communities. You won't get de-modded for acting outside the guidelines.

devwastaken 5y ago
Reddit admins will ban and shadowban users for behavior. They will not do so to mods whom have the same behavior. Here's the moderator report form that Reddit says they read https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=179106 https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form... Reddit acts as if they care, as if there are rules that are applied equally and as if these are "communities". They are not.
- riffic 5y ago
  I'll assume that 99% (probably closer to 99.999% but this is a gut feeling and I don't have raw stats) of Moderator Complaints sent in through that particular form are garbage and non-actionable. I'll agree that there are a lot of bad moderators on the site, but there are also a lot of bad users.

kzrdude 5y ago

There are some good stories too. For example, some time ago /r/chess had a "protest" against the prevailing mod, the subreddit was turned over to a new mod and there were community mod elections, and it's been much better since. So far so good, some people really care about the community (and some mods are good enough to step aside, also commendable!).

authed 5y ago

> [...] of which you will be banned at the sign of any criticism. Very true... I just had a few accounts banned that they somehow connected to each other... /r/politics is one of them that really likes the ban-hammer (you have to be pro-Biden AND anti-Trump to avoid any issues).