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reddit has some of the worst mods I’ve ever seen in any capacity. And they’re frequently in control of massive subreddits. I remember when hate speech was just

by bgro 3y ago

reddit has some of the worst mods I’ve ever seen in any capacity. And they’re frequently in control of massive subreddits. I remember when hate speech was just discovered as a reason to ban people, and mods of major subreddits would find ways to use that either out of protest or complete incompetence to ban people. For example, banning users for disagreeing with a controversial decision because “I hate your take, thus it is hate speech.” Or the constant other entitled drama like when a soccer subreddit started mass banning people discussing a major game because his team lost. There’s also just constant nuking of entire threads and locking them with no reason other than a blanket accusatory pinned comment about how “everybody” can’t behave. Nothing better than opening a thread about a picture they took of their dog only to find thousands of deleted comments and a temper tantrum post from some mod. Or multiple pinned spam posts from mods advertising junk in like a 5000 character copy paste spam in every post that just adds to the useless scrolling you have to do to see legitimate content.

chris_wot 3y ago
The r/Australia mods are awful
- jq-r 3y ago
  I bet a lot of r/SomeCountry subreddits are cesspits of bad moderation and/or nationalism and other *isms.
- firecall 3y ago
  I hate to use this word, but the entire subreddit is juvenile. Try making a comment that maybe all Boomers arnt property owning rent seeking monsters… Or having a nuanced debate around how renting out your property on AirBNB doesn’t make you responsible for the destruction of society… The entire sub is overrun by zealots with an overly simplistic view of the world. Still, they are doing news.com a massive favour by seemingly giving them endless material to reuse without credit! Being banned from Reddit in 2023 is a blessing. I still hang out on Aussie forums, notably OCAU which is still going strong!
starttoaster 3y ago
I was banned from /r/police for mentioning Philip Brailsford, a cop and murderer that gets a lifetime disability pension for PTSD from executing someone on their knees in a local hotel’s hallway. I guess they probably hated my speech.
- randomdata 3y ago
  I was suspended from Reddit in its entirety because I said I wouldn't be offended if someone called me gay. I am not sure why think they I need to be offended by it. It does not seem like something to be ashamed of? But no big loss.
  - starttoaster 3y ago
    I'm sure they think they're being progressive. I was banned from /r/publicfreakout for mentioning racial inequality issues in the US in a video that starred a person of color. What's funny is that my comment was meant to spur progressive communication about the struggle for people of color. My comment on the video was highly upvoted and generated a ton of level-headed discussion about racial inequality. The mods, however, cited racism and banned me. I'm sure pretending like the issues don't exist is extremely productive for change.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - randomdata 3y ago
      Mods are arbitrary at the best of times, but in my case it came from an admin, banning me from the whole site. That seemed unusual. Particularly for something that seems so innocuous. The mods of the subreddit saw no reason to ban me. I also made some silly quips about spez in the same timeframe. It is possible he was salty about it and arbitrarily chose a comment to reference in the banning, not being the true reason. It certainly would not be out of character.
      - DropInIn 3y ago
randomdata 3y ago
Makes sense, though. There isn't much incentive to be a mod on a massive subreddit. The users don't care about you. Reddit doesn't care about you. About all you get in return is some laughs when you strike the ban hammer, which doesn't incentivize good faith moderating.
- noodle 3y ago
  There's a lot more intangible incentives than you'd think. For example, general clout, influence peddling, an outlet for low power people to experience power, etc.. Many people don't care about those types of incentives, but there are some who do.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > For example, general clout, influence peddling, an outlet for low power people to experience power, etc. Does that meaningfully differ from "some laughs when you strike the ban hammer"? One may not physically laugh out loud, but no doubt the appeal of which you speak stems from pleasurable emotions that stem from the entertainment in experiencing those things. It is understandable why some people would be drawn to those incentives, but I am not sure those incentives align with good faith participation. Power and influence is best experienced when used in bad faith. When only used in good faith, one will not even recognize that they have it. In the old owner/operator forum days there were other incentives to be a good faith mod. Financial gain being one possible incentive. But in the case of Reddit, they take all of those parts for themselves, leaving just the scraps for any would-be mods. As such, the earlier "reddit has some of the worst mods I’ve ever seen in any capacity" assertion is not surprising. There is nothing to attract "good" mods.
    - noodle 3y ago
      Yes. For example, I was a mod on a larger tech related subreddit (trying to keep it generic) that was a critical part of my tech stack and daily work at the time. The mods above me would regularly promote their POV on certain topics and do various things to demote/remove the things that they disagreed with. In this way, the community artificially seemed to be more in favor of particular directions on certain topics. Did this have any material impact? I don't know. But its an example where a set of random people can at least try to leverage their position for more than just "some laughs". Its one example of what I mean about "influence peddling".
WheatMillington 3y ago
I was just thinking about this today. This is how we can measure how exceptionally bad spez's handling has been: people are sympathizing with Reddit mods. Reddit mods have been almost universally despised for as long as I can remember.
gman83 3y ago
I was a mod on a couple of subreddits that have more than a million subscribers. It's a thankless task. Most mods I've interacted with are absolutely fantastic, spending their free time volunteering for the community and genuinely making the community better. Filtering out spam, harassment is a daily, endless task. The only time people talk about the moderators is when something goes wrong. The main reason I stopped doing it is because it was just too much work and having the community mainly shit on you doesn't make it more enticing to continue. Everyone assumes the worst about you, how you're somehow in it for the wrong reasons, when for 99% of mods I've interacted with that definitely wasn't the case.
0max 3y ago
I got banned from r/SanFrancisco for inciting violence asking why Chase Center attendees get tranquilized while aggressive people in the streets of the city don't.
danron100 3y ago
Yeah! That locking threads feature is almost most of the times. Especially that auto lock after 6 months. +that long a$$ auto mod pinned comment is also annoying to scroll

by bgro 3y ago

chris_wot 3y ago

The r/Australia mods are awful

jq-r 3y ago
I bet a lot of r/SomeCountry subreddits are cesspits of bad moderation and/or nationalism and other *isms.
firecall 3y ago
I hate to use this word, but the entire subreddit is juvenile. Try making a comment that maybe all Boomers arnt property owning rent seeking monsters… Or having a nuanced debate around how renting out your property on AirBNB doesn’t make you responsible for the destruction of society… The entire sub is overrun by zealots with an overly simplistic view of the world. Still, they are doing news.com a massive favour by seemingly giving them endless material to reuse without credit! Being banned from Reddit in 2023 is a blessing. I still hang out on Aussie forums, notably OCAU which is still going strong!

starttoaster 3y ago

I was banned from /r/police for mentioning Philip Brailsford, a cop and murderer that gets a lifetime disability pension for PTSD from executing someone on their knees in a local hotel’s hallway. I guess they probably hated my speech.

randomdata 3y ago
I was suspended from Reddit in its entirety because I said I wouldn't be offended if someone called me gay. I am not sure why think they I need to be offended by it. It does not seem like something to be ashamed of? But no big loss.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  I'm sure they think they're being progressive. I was banned from /r/publicfreakout for mentioning racial inequality issues in the US in a video that starred a person of color. What's funny is that my comment was meant to spur progressive communication about the struggle for people of color. My comment on the video was highly upvoted and generated a ton of level-headed discussion about racial inequality. The mods, however, cited racism and banned me. I'm sure pretending like the issues don't exist is extremely productive for change.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - randomdata 3y ago
    Mods are arbitrary at the best of times, but in my case it came from an admin, banning me from the whole site. That seemed unusual. Particularly for something that seems so innocuous. The mods of the subreddit saw no reason to ban me. I also made some silly quips about spez in the same timeframe. It is possible he was salty about it and arbitrarily chose a comment to reference in the banning, not being the true reason. It certainly would not be out of character.
    - DropInIn 3y ago

randomdata 3y ago

Makes sense, though. There isn't much incentive to be a mod on a massive subreddit. The users don't care about you. Reddit doesn't care about you. About all you get in return is some laughs when you strike the ban hammer, which doesn't incentivize good faith moderating.

noodle 3y ago
There's a lot more intangible incentives than you'd think. For example, general clout, influence peddling, an outlet for low power people to experience power, etc.. Many people don't care about those types of incentives, but there are some who do.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > For example, general clout, influence peddling, an outlet for low power people to experience power, etc. Does that meaningfully differ from "some laughs when you strike the ban hammer"? One may not physically laugh out loud, but no doubt the appeal of which you speak stems from pleasurable emotions that stem from the entertainment in experiencing those things. It is understandable why some people would be drawn to those incentives, but I am not sure those incentives align with good faith participation. Power and influence is best experienced when used in bad faith. When only used in good faith, one will not even recognize that they have it. In the old owner/operator forum days there were other incentives to be a good faith mod. Financial gain being one possible incentive. But in the case of Reddit, they take all of those parts for themselves, leaving just the scraps for any would-be mods. As such, the earlier "reddit has some of the worst mods I’ve ever seen in any capacity" assertion is not surprising. There is nothing to attract "good" mods.
  - noodle 3y ago
    Yes. For example, I was a mod on a larger tech related subreddit (trying to keep it generic) that was a critical part of my tech stack and daily work at the time. The mods above me would regularly promote their POV on certain topics and do various things to demote/remove the things that they disagreed with. In this way, the community artificially seemed to be more in favor of particular directions on certain topics. Did this have any material impact? I don't know. But its an example where a set of random people can at least try to leverage their position for more than just "some laughs". Its one example of what I mean about "influence peddling".

WheatMillington 3y ago

I was just thinking about this today. This is how we can measure how exceptionally bad spez's handling has been: people are sympathizing with Reddit mods. Reddit mods have been almost universally despised for as long as I can remember.

gman83 3y ago

I was a mod on a couple of subreddits that have more than a million subscribers. It's a thankless task. Most mods I've interacted with are absolutely fantastic, spending their free time volunteering for the community and genuinely making the community better. Filtering out spam, harassment is a daily, endless task. The only time people talk about the moderators is when something goes wrong. The main reason I stopped doing it is because it was just too much work and having the community mainly shit on you doesn't make it more enticing to continue. Everyone assumes the worst about you, how you're somehow in it for the wrong reasons, when for 99% of mods I've interacted with that definitely wasn't the case.

0max 3y ago

I got banned from r/SanFrancisco for inciting violence asking why Chase Center attendees get tranquilized while aggressive people in the streets of the city don't.

danron100 3y ago

Yeah! That locking threads feature is almost most of the times. Especially that auto lock after 6 months. +that long a$$ auto mod pinned comment is also annoying to scroll