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I think the author doesn't understand that reddit mods don't work for reddit. In their discussion with the mods they mention "site-wide rules" which makes me t

I think the author doesn't understand that reddit mods don't work for reddit. In their discussion with the mods they mention "site-wide rules" which makes me think they don't understand that the mods of each reddit make their own rules. On that sub, their rules don't allow people who mostly post links to their own site. It's up to you if agree with their rule, but those are the rules they have chosen. The common response is "if you don't like the rules make your own subreddit". Unfortunately that doesn't scale very well, especially if you're trying to replace a popular subreddit. Of course the simple workaround here is that OP shouldn't be posting their own content anyway. The should send it to a friend who can post it if they think it's interesting. Posting your own content if you aren't already an engaged member of the community is like walking into a room and shouting "hey everyone I have something you might like!". That's why there is leniency for active members of a subreddit to post their own things. For people who are saying "thankfully HN is different!", it really isn't. It's basically the same as a subreddit run by the mods here. I personally like the way the mods run things here, which is why I participate here more. But at the end of the day it's just a different set of humans with a different set of rules (and a little bit more control since they can do things on the server that reddit mods can't). And on this "subreddit" they allow people to post their own content if it's relevant, similar to a lot of other subreddits that aren't /r/moviedetails.

operatingthetan 4y ago
>For people who are saying "thankfully HN is different!", it really isn't. Yes it is. HN's moderation is run by HN. The rules are applied consistently because there are are no third party mods or rules. People know what to expect and that builds community better. You don't have to wonder if some edgelord mod is going to get home from school and delete your post based on their mood.
- favaq 4y ago
  That's not correct. Users can "moderate" by flagging comments, which hides them. dang rarely undoes a flag.
  - operatingthetan 4y ago
    Sure, but that further bolsters my point that HN is in fact different.
- jedberg 4y ago
  I think you missed my entire point then. > HN's moderation is run by HN No, it's run by a few humans. > The rules are applied consistently Yes, because those humans are awesome and consistent. > because there are are no third party mods or rules. That's not why reddit is different. It's because a lot of the humans that run the subreddits are inconsistent. But some run their subreddits just like HN. If you think of HN as a well run subreddit it makes more sense.
  - operatingthetan 4y ago
    >No, it's run by a few humans. Dang is employed by HN. >That's not why reddit is different. It's because a lot of the humans that run the subreddits are inconsistent. You're disagreeing and then saying something that isn't appreciably different.
    - tptacek 4y ago
      Dan is HN. The analogy to a subreddit is good; Dan has in fact much more control over HN than a moderator does of a subreddit.
      - operatingthetan 4y ago
        YC has a vested interest in keeping the HN moderation a certain way, it bring a certain quality to the discourse but it's different than the structure of any sub. Dang has a direct relationship with the owners of the site and responsibility to them, that relationship doesn't exist in any way on reddit. The mods run amok. Suggesting HN is effectively just another subreddit dismisses several important differences.
        tptacek 4y ago
        No, I don't think that's how HN works at all. Dan can in fact run amok on HN. I don't believe there are significant pressures from YC on how Dan structures moderation here. People unfamiliar with the setup here tend to think about YC first when they think about its management, but they should think about Dan first. My understanding is that things are pretty hands-off; even the perks that YC companies get here are, I believe, pretty much things Dan decided to give them.
- waboremo 4y ago
  You are still incorrectly comparing. The equivalent to HN in Reddit world is a single subreddit. When you compare a single subreddit to HN, you see there aren't many differences at all, a single set of rules being applied as the mods intend.
  - operatingthetan 4y ago
    >a single set of rules being applied as the mods intend. Perhaps you haven't had as much moderator interaction as I have, but this is not the case whatsoever. Some subs will have 30-100 mods and each will apply the rules differently per their own interests or pet peeves.
    - TeMPOraL 4y ago
      Well, then let's qualify HN as a mid-sized subreddit with a mostly well-behaved subscriber group and bunch of tricks (such as non-trendy UI) that reduce moderation load, making it possible for a single person to handle it. Point being, comparing HN to Reddit is a category error; HN is in the same class as subreddits. This is less about HN and more about Reddit itself: Reddit is not a community, it's a network of communities on a common platform. Each subreddit is its own reality.
  - strken 4y ago
    It would be interesting if a subreddit actually paid its frontline moderation staff, and hired them via a board that didn't have mod responsibilities itself. I wonder if any of them have tried?
  - bartread 4y ago
    Sure, except that's not actually the case at all. I don't know if dang is the only HN moderator, but even if he's not I've never seen any evidence of anyone in that role here just capriciously remove or lock discussions in a way that's absolutely commonplace on Reddit. There are subs on Reddit that I simply no longer engage with because I'm sick of dimwit edgelord mods locking discussions whilst I'm typing out a contribution even though there's nothing wrong with either the original post or the discussion. There's no sense of consistency in the way the sub rules are applied in each of those subs. A few weeks ago on the CasualUK subreddit one of the mods went off the deep end and started hurling insults left, right, and centre, and banning people simply for politely calling out their poor behaviour. That mod's conduct absolutely violated the rules of both the sub and Reddit as a whole. It's not OK and, again, it wouldn't happen here.
- Sebb767 4y ago
  Most importantly: HN is moderated by payed moderators, which are hired and selected to do a good job here. They are still humans and fallible, obviously, but it's a far cry from "random dude that started a community in his free time".
  - riffic 4y ago
    paid there's a great reddit bot that explains that "payed" is a sort of nautical term.
parsoj 4y ago
hmm - I didn't get that read about the author at all. In fact the whole premise of the article (comparing moderation policy differences between different subreddits) - would suggest they totally understand that reddit moderators aren't all pulled from one homogeneous pool of employees. I think the "site wide" bit was actually brought up by the moderator - referring to the fact that the /r/moviedetails moderation checks your full post history across all of reddit (not just your behavior on /r/moviedetails) and bans you from their subreddit based on that.
daveoc64 4y ago
>In their discussion with the mods they mention "site-wide rules" which makes me think they don't understand that the mods of each reddit make their own rules. They're referring to the 10% guideline that many subreddits follow: You should submit from a variety of sources (a general rule of thumb is that 10% or less of your posting and conversation should link to your own content), talk to people in the comments (and not just on your own links), and generally be a good member of the community. https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion/#wiki_here_are_some_guidelines_for_best_practices.3A https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion/#wiki_here_are_som...
groffee 4y ago
[flagged]
jseliger 4y ago
I noticed the moderator problems on Reddit many years ago: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/16/the-moderator-problem-how-reddit-and-related-news-sites-decline/ https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/16/the-moderator-problem-how..., but I also observe that, since then, Reddit appears to have become much more popular. So maybe the structure is good enough.
- swayvil 4y ago
  The system meets 2 criteria. It's cheap. It fosters advertising.
Sunspark 4y ago
Don't be so sure that some of the mods don't work for Reddit. Some of them are powermods modding multiple large subs in the millions of subscribers, and they seem to be able to get their way instantly with anything they want. Pretty lucky of Reddit to have people who can mod multiple huge subs for years for "free". Not only that, but Reddit wants to do a public IPO to raise more money. So let's see how that's going to go with the investors.. "we have vAlUe FoR tHe ShArEhOlDeR by not paying staff, but these are capricious little creatures who we have no idea who they are and they have control over user engagement and the user experience but don't worry about it". How well is that going to go? Not very well. At the very least, it'll be required to be published in the financial statements how much of the Reddit budget goes to PAY mods, and this will finally put an end the oft-repeated claim that all the mods are volunteers. I hope the supreme court takes away section 230 from these people. They have abused their power so much by permanently banning people who simply have an opinion that is not the same as theirs, that they deserve to lose it.
- tptacek 4y ago
  People are entitled to run their own private sites in ways that restrict you from sharing your opinions that are not the same as theirs. The view of the law that you're espousing is one where, simply by dint of letting people sign up to a service you run, you take on an obligation to carry their messages. That's an intense amount of authority to give the government over private enterprise, and a stultifying precedent for anyone who wants to stand up a site of their own. Get a blog.
  - Sunspark 4y ago
    Sorry, but if you have control over 5, 10, 20+ million subscribers, it's not your own private site. You're either a paid employee or you're a freeloader riding on someone's carriage, in which case they should be paying Reddit for allowing them a platform and bandwidth in which they can shape and control the narrative by controlling what speech is allowed. It goes beyond just controlling the speech or opinions of people who disagree with you such as I am doing here, there is also money involved such as in controlling which links get published. Those links drive traffic to specific sites which host ads. Surely you do not believe that all the links to specific sites over and over is simply because they are "fast to publish" or something do you?
none_to_remain 4y ago
At this point Reddit mods look like unpaid employees to me. This was not the case say, 10 years ago, when Reddit admins enforced the sitewide rules and mods did their own thing. Now Reddit depends on mods to enforce the sitewide rules, instructs them in their work, removes them if their work product is not up to snuff, and I've even seen them demand minimum staffing levels be met.
- flangola7 4y ago
  Reddit is several orders of magnitude larger than it used to be. Managing a social gathering of 500 people has qualitative differences from managing a gathering of 5 people. Strategies that are beneficial at the small scale might not work or even have negative effects at the large scale.
- lawgimenez 4y ago
  I’m one of the mods of a subreddit with over 50K subscribers and all I could say is that it is very tiring. And, looking to quit being a mod. People just can’t read or won’t read the rules. One thing I hate most is that YouTubers high jacking or spamming without even engaging the community or in the comments. It’s so frustrating to keep removing it.
winternett 4y ago
Everyone wants everyone else to just watch them make the money and play video games in reality... They don't want to have to watch anyone else playing and winning at them... This is the main reason why large-scale moderated communities always become corrupted... And also why algorithms always will get corrupted too.
monksy 4y ago
You have now been banned from r/pyongyang

operatingthetan 4y ago

>For people who are saying "thankfully HN is different!", it really isn't. Yes it is. HN's moderation is run by HN. The rules are applied consistently because there are are no third party mods or rules. People know what to expect and that builds community better. You don't have to wonder if some edgelord mod is going to get home from school and delete your post based on their mood.

favaq 4y ago
That's not correct. Users can "moderate" by flagging comments, which hides them. dang rarely undoes a flag.
- operatingthetan 4y ago
  Sure, but that further bolsters my point that HN is in fact different.
jedberg 4y ago
I think you missed my entire point then. > HN's moderation is run by HN No, it's run by a few humans. > The rules are applied consistently Yes, because those humans are awesome and consistent. > because there are are no third party mods or rules. That's not why reddit is different. It's because a lot of the humans that run the subreddits are inconsistent. But some run their subreddits just like HN. If you think of HN as a well run subreddit it makes more sense.
- operatingthetan 4y ago
  >No, it's run by a few humans. Dang is employed by HN. >That's not why reddit is different. It's because a lot of the humans that run the subreddits are inconsistent. You're disagreeing and then saying something that isn't appreciably different.
  - tptacek 4y ago
    Dan is HN. The analogy to a subreddit is good; Dan has in fact much more control over HN than a moderator does of a subreddit.
    - operatingthetan 4y ago
      YC has a vested interest in keeping the HN moderation a certain way, it bring a certain quality to the discourse but it's different than the structure of any sub. Dang has a direct relationship with the owners of the site and responsibility to them, that relationship doesn't exist in any way on reddit. The mods run amok. Suggesting HN is effectively just another subreddit dismisses several important differences.
      - tptacek 4y ago
        No, I don't think that's how HN works at all. Dan can in fact run amok on HN. I don't believe there are significant pressures from YC on how Dan structures moderation here. People unfamiliar with the setup here tend to think about YC first when they think about its management, but they should think about Dan first. My understanding is that things are pretty hands-off; even the perks that YC companies get here are, I believe, pretty much things Dan decided to give them.
waboremo 4y ago
You are still incorrectly comparing. The equivalent to HN in Reddit world is a single subreddit. When you compare a single subreddit to HN, you see there aren't many differences at all, a single set of rules being applied as the mods intend.
- operatingthetan 4y ago
  >a single set of rules being applied as the mods intend. Perhaps you haven't had as much moderator interaction as I have, but this is not the case whatsoever. Some subs will have 30-100 mods and each will apply the rules differently per their own interests or pet peeves.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    Well, then let's qualify HN as a mid-sized subreddit with a mostly well-behaved subscriber group and bunch of tricks (such as non-trendy UI) that reduce moderation load, making it possible for a single person to handle it. Point being, comparing HN to Reddit is a category error; HN is in the same class as subreddits. This is less about HN and more about Reddit itself: Reddit is not a community, it's a network of communities on a common platform. Each subreddit is its own reality.
- strken 4y ago
  It would be interesting if a subreddit actually paid its frontline moderation staff, and hired them via a board that didn't have mod responsibilities itself. I wonder if any of them have tried?
- bartread 4y ago
  Sure, except that's not actually the case at all. I don't know if dang is the only HN moderator, but even if he's not I've never seen any evidence of anyone in that role here just capriciously remove or lock discussions in a way that's absolutely commonplace on Reddit. There are subs on Reddit that I simply no longer engage with because I'm sick of dimwit edgelord mods locking discussions whilst I'm typing out a contribution even though there's nothing wrong with either the original post or the discussion. There's no sense of consistency in the way the sub rules are applied in each of those subs. A few weeks ago on the CasualUK subreddit one of the mods went off the deep end and started hurling insults left, right, and centre, and banning people simply for politely calling out their poor behaviour. That mod's conduct absolutely violated the rules of both the sub and Reddit as a whole. It's not OK and, again, it wouldn't happen here.
Sebb767 4y ago
Most importantly: HN is moderated by payed moderators, which are hired and selected to do a good job here. They are still humans and fallible, obviously, but it's a far cry from "random dude that started a community in his free time".
- riffic 4y ago
  paid there's a great reddit bot that explains that "payed" is a sort of nautical term.

parsoj 4y ago

hmm - I didn't get that read about the author at all. In fact the whole premise of the article (comparing moderation policy differences between different subreddits) - would suggest they totally understand that reddit moderators aren't all pulled from one homogeneous pool of employees. I think the "site wide" bit was actually brought up by the moderator - referring to the fact that the /r/moviedetails moderation checks your full post history across all of reddit (not just your behavior on /r/moviedetails) and bans you from their subreddit based on that.

daveoc64 4y ago

>In their discussion with the mods they mention "site-wide rules" which makes me think they don't understand that the mods of each reddit make their own rules. They're referring to the 10% guideline that many subreddits follow: You should submit from a variety of sources (a general rule of thumb is that 10% or less of your posting and conversation should link to your own content), talk to people in the comments (and not just on your own links), and generally be a good member of the community. https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion/#wiki_here_are_some_guidelines_for_best_practices.3A https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion/#wiki_here_are_som...

groffee 4y ago

[flagged]

jseliger 4y ago

I noticed the moderator problems on Reddit many years ago: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/16/the-moderator-problem-how-reddit-and-related-news-sites-decline/ https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/16/the-moderator-problem-how..., but I also observe that, since then, Reddit appears to have become much more popular. So maybe the structure is good enough.

swayvil 4y ago
The system meets 2 criteria. It's cheap. It fosters advertising.

Sunspark 4y ago

Don't be so sure that some of the mods don't work for Reddit. Some of them are powermods modding multiple large subs in the millions of subscribers, and they seem to be able to get their way instantly with anything they want. Pretty lucky of Reddit to have people who can mod multiple huge subs for years for "free". Not only that, but Reddit wants to do a public IPO to raise more money. So let's see how that's going to go with the investors.. "we have vAlUe FoR tHe ShArEhOlDeR by not paying staff, but these are capricious little creatures who we have no idea who they are and they have control over user engagement and the user experience but don't worry about it". How well is that going to go? Not very well. At the very least, it'll be required to be published in the financial statements how much of the Reddit budget goes to PAY mods, and this will finally put an end the oft-repeated claim that all the mods are volunteers. I hope the supreme court takes away section 230 from these people. They have abused their power so much by permanently banning people who simply have an opinion that is not the same as theirs, that they deserve to lose it.

tptacek 4y ago
People are entitled to run their own private sites in ways that restrict you from sharing your opinions that are not the same as theirs. The view of the law that you're espousing is one where, simply by dint of letting people sign up to a service you run, you take on an obligation to carry their messages. That's an intense amount of authority to give the government over private enterprise, and a stultifying precedent for anyone who wants to stand up a site of their own. Get a blog.
- Sunspark 4y ago
  Sorry, but if you have control over 5, 10, 20+ million subscribers, it's not your own private site. You're either a paid employee or you're a freeloader riding on someone's carriage, in which case they should be paying Reddit for allowing them a platform and bandwidth in which they can shape and control the narrative by controlling what speech is allowed. It goes beyond just controlling the speech or opinions of people who disagree with you such as I am doing here, there is also money involved such as in controlling which links get published. Those links drive traffic to specific sites which host ads. Surely you do not believe that all the links to specific sites over and over is simply because they are "fast to publish" or something do you?

none_to_remain 4y ago

At this point Reddit mods look like unpaid employees to me. This was not the case say, 10 years ago, when Reddit admins enforced the sitewide rules and mods did their own thing. Now Reddit depends on mods to enforce the sitewide rules, instructs them in their work, removes them if their work product is not up to snuff, and I've even seen them demand minimum staffing levels be met.

flangola7 4y ago
Reddit is several orders of magnitude larger than it used to be. Managing a social gathering of 500 people has qualitative differences from managing a gathering of 5 people. Strategies that are beneficial at the small scale might not work or even have negative effects at the large scale.
lawgimenez 4y ago
I’m one of the mods of a subreddit with over 50K subscribers and all I could say is that it is very tiring. And, looking to quit being a mod. People just can’t read or won’t read the rules. One thing I hate most is that YouTubers high jacking or spamming without even engaging the community or in the comments. It’s so frustrating to keep removing it.

winternett 4y ago

Everyone wants everyone else to just watch them make the money and play video games in reality... They don't want to have to watch anyone else playing and winning at them... This is the main reason why large-scale moderated communities always become corrupted... And also why algorithms always will get corrupted too.

monksy 4y ago

You have now been banned from r/pyongyang