7 ms·

Why do Reddit moderators do their work? They are paid in power. They get to decide what viewpoints are seen or not by others. That is a very compelling wage.

Why do Reddit moderators do their work? They are paid in power. They get to decide what viewpoints are seen or not by others. That is a very compelling wage. And of course they all think they're doing a service by advancing their ideology because of course their ideology is the right one.

jknoepfler 4y ago
That's an extremely reductive claim. Can you really not think of more mundane reasons someone might find themselves moderating reddit? It's hard to imagine "ideology" being relevant to the vast majority of reddit... Do you really think the moderators of ELI5 or PeopleFuckingDying or some obscure porn reddit or whatever are primarily concerned with "ideology"? I used to help moderate a poker forum. I was a professional poker player, and an extremely active user of the forums. I don't recall pushing an ideology beyond "keep discussions constructive and topical." The person you just replied to was a mod. Are you implying that their work was somehow about pushing an ideology?
- aliqot 4y ago
  > It's hard to imagine "ideology" being relevant to the vast majority of reddit... This is egregiously incorrect.
  - jknoepfler 4y ago
    In what sense? Would tipping that scale entail that "all reddit moderators are only and exclusively motivated by ideology?"
- bitwize 4y ago
  It's common knowledge now that abstaining from politics is taking the side of the oppressor. This has the effect of giving many subreddits and other topical communities a political orientation even if politics is nominally offtopic. To give an example, it is increasingly hard to find an online knitting community that tolerates conservative viewpoints; most have followed the lead of Ravelry.
  - jknoepfler 4y ago
    So the implication you're drawing from this... which was the topic at hand... is that all knitting forum moderators are motivated exclusively be the desire to espouse an ideology?
    - bitwize 4y ago
      No, but preventing the Nazi camel from getting its nose in the tent is now an important motivator for moderators.
      - jknoepfler 4y ago
        Sure, yeah. I doubt most knitting forum moderators wake up thinking "gosh I'd better get to that knitting forum to prevent the Nazi camel from getting its nose into the knitting tent," but I don't know any knitting forum moderators. The comment I was replying to - "all individuals of class X are motivated exclusively by vicious desire Y" - isn't a truth-seeking comment, and I think we can do better.
    - floor2 4y ago
      Please don't troll or make bad-faith arguments on HN. This post contains two instances of moving the goalposts and using extreme language for strawman attacks. People are pointing out that moderation is often biased and that the power of controlling the narrative and topics & viewpoints that are allowed is a motivator for many moderators. Your strawman argument that "all moderators" being "exclusively" motivated is just rhetoric to try to win against a claim no one is making.
  - common-know 4y ago
    No, it's not "common knowledge" that abstaining from politics is siding with the oppressor. That's an unfalsifiable ideological assertion that has been well-socialized, but that doesn't make it fact and lots of people disagree with it, because it's an opinion, and it's one that presupposes a Foucaultian worldview of human dynamics as being able to be distilled down to pure power struggles. It's absurd to see that bandied about as truth just because it's "common knowledge." I bet in Communist China it was "common knowledge" right before the famine that killing the sparrows would bolster the harvest, too.
- mring33621 4y ago
  "keep discussions constructive and topical." is subjective
  - jknoepfler 4y ago
    Of course it is. That does not entail that forums moderators (myself included) are exclusively motivated by a desire to push an ideology, which was the topic at hand. Nor does "subjective" entail "ideological" unless you're going to torture the term ideology being having a useful meaning.
    - thatguy0900 4y ago
      We're not talking about forum moderators, really, but power moderators. Someone who mods a random topic they like is probably decent at it and not trying to push something. Someone whos gotten themselves in a position to mod 10+ of the largest subreddits on reddit is probably not doing very much actual modding and is very much trying to push something.
      - kibwen 4y ago
        The person above stated "Why do Reddit moderators do their work? They are paid in power." They appear to be talking about moderators in general, not just power mods. The root comment here also appears to be talking about mods in general (with little idea what they're talking about, AFAICT).
    - rovolo 4y ago
      > Nor does "subjective" entail "ideological" unless you're going to torture the term ideology being having a useful meaning. What is your useful definition of "ideology"? Why isn't "subjective" included in your definition? Why would including "subjective" in your definition make it less useful? Before hearing your response, I'm going to guess that you're thinking ideologies need to be "significant" for them to be an ideology. I'm guessing you don't think that subjective opinions are ideological because you don't think they're important enough to get that label.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  Reddit's larger subs, particularly their political ones, are 100% content farming and ideological cults. Subs with hundreds of thousands of millions of subscribers that regurgitate twitter screenshots with timestamps removed, and where dissent is often banned. Antiwork, Latestagecapitalism, WhitePeopleTwitter, and many others. Related, I got banned from entertainment for saying an exchange between jk Rowling and a trans person wasn't "mocking". I didn't defend her, I just called out a shitty title. When I messaged the mods saying, in essence, "y'all are dumb and need to distinguish fact from opinion" they flagged me for harassment, which is one demerit away from a sitewide ban. I know some mods are decent, and it's better in smaller subs with some actual purpose (city, hobby) that isn't memes, violence, porn or politics. Any of those categories, and with subs of any large size, and it gets really scummy really fast. (Shout out to r/Texas mods for not sucking).
- retpirato 4y ago
  Reddit mods have a habit of blocking/censoring views they don't agree with, (mainly all on one side, consistent with their ideology). That doesn't mean it applies to every subreddit, but if it weren't a widespread problem do you really think anybody would be talking about it?
schwartzworld 4y ago
That may be true of the big subreddits. I moderate a small, niche one simply because I was visiting it every day for years and then they needed a mod. I saw it as a chance to improve an online space that I liked.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  This doesn't seem to contradict the parent. Presuming that you are improving it along a certain direction, not in a random walk back and forth.
- paisawalla 4y ago
  This is a common pattern with all organizations, but especially charities, non-profits, or volunteer roles. At first, the work is done by those who love that cause, and commonly some combination of - the cause becomes prominent enough that there is influence or prestige associated with the role now, that it attracts power-seeking personalities - the original founders are too burnt out to care, or clueless/trusting such that they get outmaneuvered by savvier entrants Personally, I see it as the entropic drift of an organization away from an original cause or mission (order) towards a vehicle for the pure exercise power (chaos).
  - richbell 4y ago
    I think this is spot-on.
  - smsm42 4y ago
    There's a theory for it. https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

jknoepfler 4y ago

That's an extremely reductive claim. Can you really not think of more mundane reasons someone might find themselves moderating reddit? It's hard to imagine "ideology" being relevant to the vast majority of reddit... Do you really think the moderators of ELI5 or PeopleFuckingDying or some obscure porn reddit or whatever are primarily concerned with "ideology"? I used to help moderate a poker forum. I was a professional poker player, and an extremely active user of the forums. I don't recall pushing an ideology beyond "keep discussions constructive and topical." The person you just replied to was a mod. Are you implying that their work was somehow about pushing an ideology?

aliqot 4y ago
> It's hard to imagine "ideology" being relevant to the vast majority of reddit... This is egregiously incorrect.
- jknoepfler 4y ago
  In what sense? Would tipping that scale entail that "all reddit moderators are only and exclusively motivated by ideology?"
bitwize 4y ago
It's common knowledge now that abstaining from politics is taking the side of the oppressor. This has the effect of giving many subreddits and other topical communities a political orientation even if politics is nominally offtopic. To give an example, it is increasingly hard to find an online knitting community that tolerates conservative viewpoints; most have followed the lead of Ravelry.
- jknoepfler 4y ago
  So the implication you're drawing from this... which was the topic at hand... is that all knitting forum moderators are motivated exclusively be the desire to espouse an ideology?
  - bitwize 4y ago
    No, but preventing the Nazi camel from getting its nose in the tent is now an important motivator for moderators.
    - jknoepfler 4y ago
      Sure, yeah. I doubt most knitting forum moderators wake up thinking "gosh I'd better get to that knitting forum to prevent the Nazi camel from getting its nose into the knitting tent," but I don't know any knitting forum moderators. The comment I was replying to - "all individuals of class X are motivated exclusively by vicious desire Y" - isn't a truth-seeking comment, and I think we can do better.
  - floor2 4y ago
    Please don't troll or make bad-faith arguments on HN. This post contains two instances of moving the goalposts and using extreme language for strawman attacks. People are pointing out that moderation is often biased and that the power of controlling the narrative and topics & viewpoints that are allowed is a motivator for many moderators. Your strawman argument that "all moderators" being "exclusively" motivated is just rhetoric to try to win against a claim no one is making.
- common-know 4y ago
  No, it's not "common knowledge" that abstaining from politics is siding with the oppressor. That's an unfalsifiable ideological assertion that has been well-socialized, but that doesn't make it fact and lots of people disagree with it, because it's an opinion, and it's one that presupposes a Foucaultian worldview of human dynamics as being able to be distilled down to pure power struggles. It's absurd to see that bandied about as truth just because it's "common knowledge." I bet in Communist China it was "common knowledge" right before the famine that killing the sparrows would bolster the harvest, too.
mring33621 4y ago
"keep discussions constructive and topical." is subjective
- jknoepfler 4y ago
  Of course it is. That does not entail that forums moderators (myself included) are exclusively motivated by a desire to push an ideology, which was the topic at hand. Nor does "subjective" entail "ideological" unless you're going to torture the term ideology being having a useful meaning.
  - thatguy0900 4y ago
    We're not talking about forum moderators, really, but power moderators. Someone who mods a random topic they like is probably decent at it and not trying to push something. Someone whos gotten themselves in a position to mod 10+ of the largest subreddits on reddit is probably not doing very much actual modding and is very much trying to push something.
    - kibwen 4y ago
      The person above stated "Why do Reddit moderators do their work? They are paid in power." They appear to be talking about moderators in general, not just power mods. The root comment here also appears to be talking about mods in general (with little idea what they're talking about, AFAICT).
  - rovolo 4y ago
    > Nor does "subjective" entail "ideological" unless you're going to torture the term ideology being having a useful meaning. What is your useful definition of "ideology"? Why isn't "subjective" included in your definition? Why would including "subjective" in your definition make it less useful? Before hearing your response, I'm going to guess that you're thinking ideologies need to be "significant" for them to be an ideology. I'm guessing you don't think that subjective opinions are ideological because you don't think they're important enough to get that label.
unethical_ban 4y ago
Reddit's larger subs, particularly their political ones, are 100% content farming and ideological cults. Subs with hundreds of thousands of millions of subscribers that regurgitate twitter screenshots with timestamps removed, and where dissent is often banned. Antiwork, Latestagecapitalism, WhitePeopleTwitter, and many others. Related, I got banned from entertainment for saying an exchange between jk Rowling and a trans person wasn't "mocking". I didn't defend her, I just called out a shitty title. When I messaged the mods saying, in essence, "y'all are dumb and need to distinguish fact from opinion" they flagged me for harassment, which is one demerit away from a sitewide ban. I know some mods are decent, and it's better in smaller subs with some actual purpose (city, hobby) that isn't memes, violence, porn or politics. Any of those categories, and with subs of any large size, and it gets really scummy really fast. (Shout out to r/Texas mods for not sucking).
retpirato 4y ago
Reddit mods have a habit of blocking/censoring views they don't agree with, (mainly all on one side, consistent with their ideology). That doesn't mean it applies to every subreddit, but if it weren't a widespread problem do you really think anybody would be talking about it?

schwartzworld 4y ago

That may be true of the big subreddits. I moderate a small, niche one simply because I was visiting it every day for years and then they needed a mod. I saw it as a chance to improve an online space that I liked.

MichaelZuo 4y ago
This doesn't seem to contradict the parent. Presuming that you are improving it along a certain direction, not in a random walk back and forth.
paisawalla 4y ago
This is a common pattern with all organizations, but especially charities, non-profits, or volunteer roles. At first, the work is done by those who love that cause, and commonly some combination of - the cause becomes prominent enough that there is influence or prestige associated with the role now, that it attracts power-seeking personalities - the original founders are too burnt out to care, or clueless/trusting such that they get outmaneuvered by savvier entrants Personally, I see it as the entropic drift of an organization away from an original cause or mission (order) towards a vehicle for the pure exercise power (chaos).
- richbell 4y ago
  I think this is spot-on.
- smsm42 4y ago
  There's a theory for it. https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths