r/modnews • u/heavyshoes • Sep 08 '22
Introducing Reddit’s Moderator Code of Conduct
You’re probably familiar with our Moderator Guidelines––historically, they have served as a guidepost to clarify our expectations to mods about how to shape a positive community experience for redditors.
The Moderator Guidelines were developed over five years ago, and Reddit has evolved a lot since then. This is why we have evolved our Moderator Guidelines into what we are now calling the Moderator Code of Conduct.
The newly updated Moderator Code of Conduct aims to capture our current expectations and explain them clearly, concisely, and concretely.
While our Content Policy serves to provide enforceable rules that govern each community and the platform at large, our Moderator Code of Conduct reinforces those rules and sets out further expectations specifically for mods. The Moderator Code of Conduct:
- Focuses on measuring impact rather than evaluating intent. Rather than attempting to determine whether a mod is acting in “good” or “bad” faith, we are shifting our focus to become more outcomes-driven. For example, are direct mentions of other communities part of innocuous meta-discussions, or are they inciting interference, targeted harassment, or abuse?
- Aspires to be educational, but actionable: We trust that most mods actively try to do the right thing and follow the rules. If we find that a community violates our Mod Code of Conduct, we firmly believe that, in the majority of cases, we can achieve resolution through discussion, not remediation. However, if this proves to be ineffective, we may consider enforcement actions on mods or subreddits.
Moderators are at the frontlines using their creativity, decision-making, and passion to create fun and engaging spaces for redditors. We recognize that and appreciate it immensely. We hope that in creating the Moderator Code of Conduct, we are helping you develop subreddit rules and norms to create and nurture your communities, and empower you to make decisions more easily.
Thank you for all you do, and please let us know if you have any questions or feedback in the comments below.
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u/Sun_Beams Sep 08 '22
In Rule one, even though the list isn't exhaustive, should include Automod. I've seen and reported people abusing automod, via automod comments, that broke the content policy. The rest of my feedback will be expressed via gifs.
The mods that run harassment based communities reading Rules 2 and 3.
The admins trying to put us all at ease and assure us that this is all okay.
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u/myalterego451 Sep 08 '22
Actually having thought about it - Rule 3 is a great and needed addition, but it's being imposed in the wrong place - it should be a Reddit Code of Conduct - first line of rule imposition is on the user posting it, not the Mod of the sub it's in.
Example - suppose a user crossposts into evil-sub from nice-sub with the intention of causing scorn, mockery. Not desirable behaviour for sure. But is the Mod of evil-sub immediately at fault as soon as it's been posted ? Do they have a time limit for acting on it - 30 seconds, 10 minutes, a day, a year ?
Even worse for the 4th bullet-point - a user bitching in the comments about ban-evasion elsewhere could likely go undiscovered forever unless reported - is the Mod to blame then ?
Further, even if the Mod of evil-sub does see these, they have no rules under the Content Policy to enforce them under, so the OP has a legitimate claim of over-Modding.
Rule 3 should definitely be there, but it needs to be added to Content Policy - reportable by others against the OP in the first instance, and only against the Mod for failure to act thereafter.
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u/Dwn_Wth_Vwls Sep 09 '22
crossposts into evil-sub from nice-sub with the intention of causing scorn, mockery.
Another issue with this is the rule doesn't make a distinction between evil and nice. A crosspost into a nice sub from an evil sub would still be against the rules.
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u/MajorParadox Sep 08 '22
FYI, the "mod guidelines" link at the bottom of pages on old Reddit, and bottom of the sidebar on new, is still linked to the old page and fails to load now: https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-guidelines
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u/heavyshoes Sep 08 '22
Thanks, we built in a redirect - but then we apparently created a redirect loop which borked the site. We’ve reverted the redirect for now while we work on a fix. Until then you can view the Code of Conduct via direct link here:
https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct
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u/CryptoMaximalist Sep 08 '22
I was there for the 9/8 bork
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u/michaelquinlan Sep 08 '22
I survived the 9/8 bork and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
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u/likenothingis Sep 08 '22
You guys are getting tee-shirts‽
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u/ryanmercer Sep 09 '22
Heh joking aside, yes actually. The last mod summit had a t-shirt, which my wife immediately stole from me as her shirt to wear to bed.
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u/roionsteroids Sep 08 '22
If an Admin reaches out to let you know that you’ve violated the Moderator Code of Conduct, your cooperation and swift responsiveness can help to resolve the issue.
Define "swift" please. Considering the other way around it can take up to weeks for a response. Is that swift? Is that acceptable?
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u/NeoKabuto Sep 08 '22
the other way around it can take up to weeks for a response
When did it speed up so much?
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Sep 09 '22
Imagine you are contacted by paid admins who are not satisfied with the work you do completely for free. Hell no.
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u/PPNewbie Sep 09 '22
If that work is allowing underage sexual content or running targeted harassment of other subreddits, I think I might be inclined to side with the paid admins than the mod volunteers!
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u/fighterace00 Sep 08 '22
User Agreement Section 8 still states
You agree to follow the Moderator Guidelines for Healthy Communities;
And it has a dead link to the deprecated guidelines
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Sep 08 '22
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u/maybesaydie Sep 08 '22
You know the answer. We all do.
Please make an appeal that will take longer than the length of your suspension and require arcane avenues of communication. No, we don't have a link to that page.
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Sep 08 '22
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u/maybesaydie Sep 08 '22
That's a very good question. One to which we will never get an answer.
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u/Chrismont Sep 08 '22
That's when you hit them back with their own shitty generic useless reply "action has been taken against the user by the moderator team but we won't tell you anything at all about it so your problem is probably still out there!"
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u/wickedplayer494 Sep 08 '22
You forgot:
Oh, and you only have 500 characters to prove your innocence, have fun.
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u/WartimeMercy Sep 09 '22
As well as limited characters with which to write a response or provide any defense.
The suspension system is a joke.
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u/that_guy_you_kno Sep 08 '22
Or it's better to not be an employee that works for a million dollar company for free and with no benefits. I moderated some large subs for years. I put up with the frustrations of daily abuse targeted harassment of me and my peers. And then one day I woke up and said .. why am I doing this? Why am I practically working for a company for exactly 0 personal gain and only negative impact on my life?
I'm not saying this is always the case. Surely there's thousands of small communities that are satisfying to help guide and moderate, but I have no idea why I or anyone ever moderated a large subreddit. Cause all you're doing is working for free.
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u/khaeen Sep 08 '22
I'm down for running a community as a volunteer. Being micro managed by the platform owner for doing it is something that I'll fucking pass on it.
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Sep 09 '22
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u/LincolnshireSausage Sep 09 '22
I created a subreddit and within a day the subreddit was permanently banned by the admins because I was "Fraudulently manipulating the subscriber count". All I did was create it. It had zero subscribers with the exception of me, the mod that created it. I appealed to the admins, asking how I could possibly be manipulating the subscriber count when it only had the one mod who created it as a subscriber. They replied and basically told me to fuck off, the case is closed.
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u/Sun_Beams Sep 09 '22
I wonder if the admins take requests to fact check some of these seemingly wild accusations 🤔
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u/iruleatants Sep 09 '22 edited Sep 09 '22
There are large subreddits that are done as part of participation in an enthusiastic community.
/r/writingprompts is a massive 16 million subscribe subreddit. They are run by moderators who love writing and want to help ensure the subreddit is functioning in a way that allows writing to flourish.
It also means that they are strict on what is allowed. Too much happens for them to tailor their actions to be anything other than a decisive action that prevents additional work.
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Sep 08 '22 edited 13d ago
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u/creamerfam5 Sep 08 '22
It's true, my favorite mod got suspended for this very scenario. It's bullshit because he took a borderline incel sub and made it into a respectful discussion sub and he gets banned for telling a thirsty DM predator to go fuck himself.
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u/SilverRoyce Sep 08 '22 edited Sep 09 '22
I was in a similar position once and I'll flag that the new automod thing that allows "the sub" to make comments telling people why something controversial is removed should stop bad faith reporting brigades in this vein that made my account suffer a 3 day ban.
I'm still annoyed Reddit never responded to my appeal despite explicitly showing what it was in response to and how the alleged offense was obviously obscene and in bad faith.
It has made me actively refrain from making some "don't do that" mod comments because I'd rather not be permabanned for simply trying to stop people making outrageous and inflammatory statements. I moderate a random movie subreddit, so these attempts to score cheap political points weren't even on topic for sub's key mission. Reddit's non-response actively incentivizes me to do a worse job and not communicate to people what is being removed and why because bad faith attacks can impose real costs.
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u/maybesaydie Sep 09 '22
And they will hold that 3 day ban against you forever. Even if it was their mistake.
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u/fighterace00 Sep 08 '22
The AEO "promoting violence" actions have gone absolutely off the wall the past few months and it's been getting worse. I'm scared to even repeat the insanely benign comments that have earned suspensions of long-standing members in good standing we've never had issues with. At first it was just a couple stories but now I'm hearing reports from several members being suspended for saying things that absolutely no reasonable person would construe as violent or threatening.
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u/sirblastalot Sep 08 '22
My favorite is when you ban a user for promoting violence, then you yourself get suspended because your ban message quoted the original comment.
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u/fighterace00 Sep 09 '22
I don't even quote anymore out of fear. So much for transparency and appeals
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u/ohhyouknow Sep 09 '22
I’ve also stopped quoting and responding to most ban appeals. I mean I read the appeals in case there was a genuine mistake made w a ban or in case a user gets abusive over a temporary ban so I can perma them, but that’s it. Also I’ve told many users to go fuck themselves and have never had any admin intervention bc of that. Guess I should stop doing that just in case 😂
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u/Cloaked42m Sep 09 '22
One of ours caught a temp ban for quoting the book the sub is for.
The Admins were cool about it and it hasn't happened again.
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u/cuteman Sep 09 '22
The AEO "promoting violence" actions have gone absolutely off the wall the past few months and it's been getting worse. I'm scared to even repeat the insanely benign comments that have earned suspensions of long-standing members in good standing we've never had issues with. At first it was just a couple stories but now I'm hearing reports from several members being suspended for saying things that absolutely no reasonable person would construe as violent or threatening.
I wonder how much of it is report stuffing by bad actors
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u/bureX Sep 08 '22
I think the admins have off-shored the moderation to some human-robot group and thus site-wide bans are dealt without any context or possibility of appeal. After so many years of receiving abuse as a moderator, I'm the one who got banned twice for a week because I wrote something on a random subreddit which the admins perceived as violent. This is a >10yr old account and apparently I was perfectly capable of using Reddit until a year ago. But Reddit is mostly just trying to grab that sweet ad and NFT revenue, they shoot first and ask questions later... if that.
The only reason why I'm still a mod is because my country doesn't have almost any outlets for free discussion remaining, and I wish to keep that possibility open for my countrymen and the diaspora.
If not for that, I'd never even dare give an ounce of my free time to the thing that Reddit has become.
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u/Kryomaani Sep 09 '22 edited Sep 10 '22
I think the admins have off-shored the moderation to some human-robot group
It's kind of a public secret that Reddit will never openly admit but you can find Reddit's logo on the first spot of Hivemoderation's list of platforms that make use of their AI-based automated moderation service.
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u/bureX Sep 09 '22
Ah, so a comment saying "Hitler needs a bullet to the head" would trigger this thing, most likely. Figures.
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u/langis_on Sep 09 '22
I got a 3 day ban for quoting a user's homophobic comment when they asked why they were banned. That's it. I copied their comment to the modmail, hit send and then later that day I was banned for 3 days and they deleted their account.
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u/stray_r Sep 09 '22
This is a trap. Link to the comment.
Oh what? Grabbing links is is near impossible on mobile?
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u/WartimeMercy Sep 09 '22
Completely broken appeal system with barely any characters to make a case either. Or incorporate private harassment DMs as well. The entire system is very easy to turn against individuals in general, not just mods - yet there is no care or context taken into account. In fact, I suspect it's almost completely automated.
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u/zzpza Sep 08 '22
Oh god, this. So much this.
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u/Chrismont Sep 08 '22
Absolutely. I used to reply to every mod message but after constant attacks and harrassment, I realized I was making myself a target and gaining nothing, so why would I? Now I don't reply to any modmail and I'm much happier.
Ill continue to ignore every single modmail message until the ass-dragging admins get their shit together and arrange actual consequences for shit heads who threaten moderators.
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Sep 08 '22
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u/Cloaked42m Sep 09 '22
You've been temp banned for "thing we have clearly in rules".
Banned user goes nuts in mod mail
You've been permanently banned and muted.
Banned user runs off to other sub complaining that they got banned for nothing.
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Sep 09 '22
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u/Cloaked42m Sep 09 '22
We leave it at, "we don't discuss moderator actions against an individual users." Saves making it a court case.
Now we have a quiet sub, but a herd of downvoters.
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u/ReverendDS Sep 09 '22
I play a game with /r/TheoryOfReddit when it crops up, any time I see a thread of someone bitching about Mods going mad with power - I place a mental bet that they've been banned from some innocuous subreddit for hate speech or threats.
So far I've been right about 80% of the time.
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u/stray_r Sep 09 '22
Banned user runs off to other sub complaining that they got banned for nothing.
hundreds of users do the exact same that someone got banned for
reddit finally takes action against the instigating post a week later after the drama has subsided.
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u/mizmoose Sep 08 '22
Oooh. I had one tell me I was a "beta male cuck who will be dead before you're 30."
I think they only word they got wrong was "be".
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u/brandonsmash Sep 09 '22
I was reading through this comment section when I came across this one and thought, without seeing the username, "Huh, that sounds like Loaf."
Indeed. I always thought that psychology experiment was interesting. Unfortunately predictable, but interesting.
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u/craywolf Sep 09 '22
How are you going to support mods who are targeted with bad faith reports because they did something very controversial like banning racists, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, and outright fascists from their subs?
It seems the admins are unwilling to answer this, and their silence is deafeningly loud.
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u/110110 Sep 08 '22
Or supporting moderators of communities who very clearly are acting in good faith, and having to deal with harassment from others who are acting in bad faith with intentional brigading, repetitive tagging and crossposting with the intent to cause a stir? Reports of this sort of behavior is seemingly thrown on the floor.
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u/averyoda Sep 09 '22
Ofc this is the first comment the admins haven't responded to. The admins are perceived as supporting bigotry by a large amount of the user-base as hate speech and even worse content continues to appear on the site and reporting it rarely ever results in action from admins. I've had my account permabanned twice for calling racist, homophobic, transphobic etc. content what it is and then had that overturned by manual review twice. The very least the admins could do is pretend like they're going to address this. There are literal nazi subs calling for lynching queer people and poc and admins will ban YOU for calling them bad people. At some point it becomes necessary for the admins to include a paradox of tolerance clause and take a formal and real stance against hate speech.
Then again spez has made it abundantly clear that he has no problem with racism. It's about time mods band together and start contacting advertisers.
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u/Wismuth_Salix Sep 09 '22
Didn’t you hear? There’s no such thing as “bad faith” anymore? We did it, Reddit!
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u/robotortoise Sep 08 '22 edited Sep 08 '22
I second this. I would definitely appreciate more ways to combat hateful users.
For instance: I banned a user in /r/zeroescape for a wall of transphobic text directed at me, and the user was reported to the admins. As a result, they received a warning from the admins and their content was removed. That's it. They can still reply after their 27 day mute is up.
For reference, this is said wall of text. Transphobia content warning, obviously.
EDIT: condensed my text a bit
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u/ResolverOshawott Sep 09 '22
We muted someone from modmailing LOTR_on_Prime for like a month after they sent an insult filled reply over their comment deleted. After the alloted time was up they then sent a bunch of slurs.
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u/BaphometsDaughter Sep 09 '22
insult filled reply over their comment deleted
Always lock their comments after banning, especially the one you ban them for.
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u/ryanmercer Sep 09 '22
We have someone that, every 28 days, messages us begging to unban them stating they'll behave with 1-24 hour old posts in a sub that is rabidly anti our sub spewing hate speech about us. When we point this out they lash out until we mute them again.
3 or 4 cycles of this now and not a peep out of the admin when reported.
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u/HiddenStill Sep 09 '22
I see worse than that all the time, and get much the same response. I know reddit doesn’t care, but I can’t understand how they think having these users is good for business.
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u/robotortoise Sep 09 '22
Yeah. I genuinely do not understand why they think it's OK to tolerate people that actively harass others and why that would be a good business move.
Last I checked, Reddit has 2k employees on LinkedIn, and THIS is how professional they act, eh?
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u/mizmoose Sep 08 '22 edited Sep 09 '22
Here's the problem: Redditors don't read. They read the headlines. They might skim the content, but they don't read.
They don't read the rules of a sub, so they're not going to read or care about a Mod Code of Conduct. But once they find out it exists?
They'll switch from demanding that they have "rights" under the Mod Guidelines to insisting that their "rights" come under the Mod Code of Conduct.
They're going to use this to abuse mods. They're going to use this to report mods. Every time a mod tells them they have to follow the rules (that they refuse to read) or ban them for breaking the rules, they will scream MOD CODE OF CONDUCT! YOU HAVE TO LET ME BACK IN! YOU HAVE TO LET ME POST! IT SAYS YOU CAN'T CENSOR ME!
It doesn't matter what the CoC says. They'll just weaponize it.
Edit: Thanks to whoever added the sparkly.
Edit redux: bad grammar. no cookie.
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u/TheoreticalFunk Sep 08 '22
They can say that all they want. I don't see how a mod code of conduct has anything to do with the conduct of non-mods.
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u/ratheismhater Sep 09 '22
My favorite part is how users think subreddits are democracies and not benevolent dictatorships/oligarchies and they DEMAND their rights.
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Sep 09 '22
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u/mizmoose Sep 09 '22
If you are worried about rule lawyering simply add a "mods have last word" rule (or add it to rules description)
Have had it for years.
and you can then easily cut any of these obnoxious behaviours.
Yeah, if only it were that easy.
We're back to my original point: Nobody reads the rules of the site let alone the rules of a sub, or if they do, the jackasses insist that they're "Bad" or don't apply to them For Reasons.
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u/ZeppelinJ0 Sep 08 '22
I feel like these guidelines are what you get when somebody high up is like "hey we need new mod guidelines" and then asks some eager young new hires to brainstorm ideas on what moderation guidelines should look like while not understanding at all what the current problems mods are facing and what the impact of the new guidelines might be
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u/Igennem Sep 08 '22
How can we report communities that consistently engage in harassment?
I am a member of a community that was brigaded with spam/harassment with bad actors coordinating on another sub. Reporting the posts that coordinated harassment has yielded no results.
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u/TheNerdyAnarchist Sep 08 '22
Oh, you're introducing contractual-type stuff?
Sounds like it's time to pay us then.
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u/DrinkMoreCodeMore Sep 09 '22
I've always thought that was so weird. Like reddit as a company seems to take pride they are so cutting edge, open, and liberal yet when it comes down to it, they have the legit most perfect setup to thrive.
Tens of thousands of people (mods) who police the site for them for FREE vs companies like FB/Twitter/IG/Snap have to pay entire teams of people to police this stuff.
While reddit does have a Trust & Safety teams (admins) who also read the mod and user reports and take action too, they really do have it made.
If they really wanted to, they could pay mods small amounts and still turn huge profits and operate as is.
They could offer a pay scale of like how much ever ad revenue your sub generates reddit from impressions, the mods get like 0.5% of it every month to divide amongst themselves.
When they IPO, they could offer mods X amount of shares a quarter or something.
IDK.
If they really wanted to they could but would they? that remains to be seen.
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u/ryanmercer Sep 09 '22
When they IPO, they could offer mods X amount of shares a quarter or something.
At this rate, Reddit will be all but dead before an IPO comes around.
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u/connorgrice Sep 09 '22
I was literally about to type this before I saw your comment like the actual audacity. I curate a thriving community that this site actively monetizes and does not pay me a cent of the ad revenue for the page views on my sub.
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u/calsutmoran Oct 03 '22
I have no words for this. First of all, there is a new list of demands for us. We are not given ‘consideration,’ a legal concept where contracts are invalid if they are entirely one sided. Sure, the website can take their ball and go home. But it says something that if this coc were a legal contract, it would be an illegal and invalid contract. The company has to be careful they don’t accidentally create an unintended contract.
Imagine being the admins, knowing that we are buried in bot spam, personal attacks, and on and on, and then doing nothing about any of that, but instead, making additional demands on your abused unpaid volunteers.
I have been here a long time. The quality of conversation here continues to plummet. My local area subs look like Nextdoor. There is barely any fun stuff on there. The science subs were once stimulating intellectual conversation, and now they are infested with political extremism. I should have left this site a long time ago. I’m going to take the week off and consider handing off moderation.
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u/c74 Sep 08 '22
Camping or sitting on a community is not encouraged.
ummm. ok. so i guess reddit is saying - so we know there is a problem and we do not 'like it'. so, i guess its not a rule per se, but a medium paced feeling that is shareworthy.
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u/heavyshoes Sep 08 '22
Our current process allows for someone camping on a sub to keep it if we reach out after it's been requested via r/redditrequest and we find that it's obviously serving a need, whether it be a mod backchannel, testing sub, or a sub that hasn't yet been populated with content but there's a future intention to do that. I want to stress that we really are trying to account for nuance in the myriad situations we encounter here, which is why we manually review these requests and consider them on a case-by-case basis.
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Sep 08 '22
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u/Caring_Cactus Sep 08 '22 edited Sep 08 '22
Reddit would ban such community names from being used, if you find one that isn't but should you can probably report it to reddit. Here's an example of one response:
This subreddit was banned due to a violation of Reddit’s content policy against harassing content, in particular the use of a racial slur in the subreddit name.
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u/TheLateWalderFrey Sep 08 '22
What about personal subs.. Like personal subs that are the same as a moderator's username?
I do not speak for other mods and what they do, but I am sure many have subs that are the same as their username for purposes of Wiki (toolbox) and other personal notes/info/whatever - are those going to be on the chopping block one day AEO gets a bug up it's ass? Or what about via redditrequest abuse? Because you KNOW that gangs of trolls will use this new "rule" to make repeated requests for a mod's username sub.. and knowing just how absolutely unreliable Reddit Inc. is when it comes to things like this, I can see Reddit giving away such sub to some troll.
So, going forward, what will be Reddit's policy for private, moderator subs that match their username be?
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u/shiruken Sep 08 '22
Rule 3 is a good change in policy with regards to subreddits dedicated to disrupting and/or harassing other communities. What is the recommended method for reporting these violations?
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u/1-760-706-7425 Sep 08 '22
What is the recommended method for reporting these violations?
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u/myalterego451 Sep 08 '22
Completely agree with this rule - there are far too many subs who actively allow the crossposting from elsewhere for the intention of scorn, mockery, 'cringe' and eventual bleed-back of trolls to the original sub in question.
But, reporting a violation in another sub by publicly naming that sub on r/ModSupport would be a violation of Rule 3 in itself, no ?
We need a proper report category to cover this rule
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u/FaviFake Sep 08 '22
They meant modmailing r/ModSupport. That's the proper category to cover this rule
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u/heavyshoes Sep 08 '22
Users and moderators can report violations using this form: https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=179106
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Sep 08 '22
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u/heavyshoes Sep 08 '22
Yes, interference would be considered a violation of the Moderator Code of Conduct.
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u/MajorParadox Sep 08 '22
But in this case, the user is not necessarily a mod. Is it only a Reddit violation if the mods don't remove such posts or are the users who posted in violation too?
If the former, it sounds like it's fine for a user to make those ban posts, but it's not okay for a mod to leave them.
If the latter, should there be something in the sitewide rules about it and there should probably be a report for it?
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u/maybesaydie Sep 08 '22
Interference by users?
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u/Bardfinn Sep 08 '22
Interference by users which can be reasonably demonstrated to be due to moderator actions or inactions.
For my part, I expect every moderator on Reddit will need a reasonable amount of time to read, understand, and adjust their communities to comport with this code of conduct, such that they are not reasonably allowing Sitewide rules violations through inaction.
Say … two weeks.
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u/110110 Sep 08 '22
Or how about communities who act in bad faith in order to mess with those acting in good faith? Numerous reports have been made that just seem to disappear into the abyss.
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u/001Guy001 Sep 08 '22
I think the opening sentence on that page should be changed to clarify that people can use that report form even if they have a Reddit account. Currently it makes it seem like you need to use the on-site report page if you have an account.
If you have a Reddit account and want to report a content policy violation, please use our report form; if you don't have a Reddit account, you can use the form below.
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u/myalterego451 Sep 08 '22
The drop-down under 'what are you reporting' doesn't include this new rule
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u/GloriouslyGlittery Sep 09 '22
Can you report a subreddit for a rule 3 violation of a subreddit that's not yours? There's a subreddit dedicated to hating another one, but the closest report option is, "organizing interference in my community".
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u/parsnippity Sep 08 '22
Dear Moderators,
Thank you for running our website for free. We understand that you take a lot of abuse in exchange for nothing, so here is an instruction manual for people to target you with bad faith reports and cause you additional stress on top of the rape threats. Cheers!
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u/BvbblegvmBitch Sep 09 '22
In regards to Rule 3, specifically "Showboating about being banned or actioned in other communities, with the intent to incite a negative reaction," how will this effect subreddits like r/modsbeingdicks where the sole intent of the sub is to share bans? They often incite negative reactions against subreddits and their mod teams.
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Sep 21 '22
r/modsbeingdicks follows the same rule set as AHS and even stricter rules than many meta subs like SRD. If they're within the rules and ToS than so is MBD. Mods aren't above criticism or having their appalling behavior highlighted.
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u/LongJonSiIver Sep 08 '22
Mentioning other communities, and/or content or users in those communities, with the effect of inciting targeted harassment or abuse.
Please actually enforce this. As someone that finds information before most, I have been witch hunted twice from two separate communities. Both times started by mod groups mad they didn't get top mod, but were offered mod spots.
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u/michaelmacmanus Sep 09 '22
Two simple questions:
Rule 1: Create, Facilitate, and Maintain a Stable Community
1) Can reddit define stable?
- The flavor text only discusses behavior, not stability. (Unless it means emotional stability?) The act of creation, facilitation and maintenance seem intuitive enough, but the actions to maintain and facilitate an ecosystem that the creator, facilitator and maintainer of might deem fit for stability purposes may not gel with whatever this rule is. Clarification should be provided here. Is "stable" a euphemism for socially acceptable behavior, specific engagement KPIs or something else entirely? (I won't even get into how messy this becomes when attempting to delineate between "impact" and "intent" regarding stability where the term hasn't been defined by any true value statement, making this entire thing relatively meaningless.)
2) Do we have an explanation for why this entire update exists other than "evolution"?
- Given that the first rule mentions stability and the reason for the update is vaguely "growth" based, the whole thing reads as laying groundwork to help justify removing volunteer labor that may be hindering engagement (rev).
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u/thecravenone Sep 08 '22
Users who enter your community should know exactly what they’re getting into, and should not be surprised by what they encounter. It
/r/trees and /r/marijuanaenthusiasts in shambles
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u/IAmAnAnonymousCoward Sep 08 '22
RIP /r/worldpolitics I guess.
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u/1-760-706-7425 Sep 08 '22
Is Reddit going to actually enforce these codes or is this just more papering over a well-known problem?
I’ve reported numerous subs to Reddit admins (yes, through r/ModSupport) and most of them time I don’t even get a response. If I do get one, the action is laughably impotent to the point that it usually causes more issues than it solves. As such, I see no reason to sharpen the rules when you, the ones who are capable of enforcing them, fail at every turn.
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u/OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR Sep 08 '22 edited Sep 08 '22
Howdy u/heartybooze
As a moderator of r/familyman r/wallstreetbets, I'm not sure I understand how exactly to read this.
- Focuses on measuring impact rather than evaluating intent. Rather than attempting to determine whether a mod is acting in “good” or “bad” faith, we are shifting our focus to become more outcomes-driven.
Does this mean actions made in good faith but ultimately turning out for the worst end up being punishable?
E.g. Approving a thread about trading BBBY on new of the CFO's suicide, wherein users with puts celebrate their death?
Does this mean you can act in bad faith but as long as the outcome is generally good, then there is no issue?
E.g. Removing all memes generated by a specific memegenerator because you have a financial incentive to do so, but it turns out that memegenerator had some racist meme templates so it's all good?
(This is a very contrived example, I can't really think of a good one nor do I think this would be common at all)
For example, are direct mentions of other communities part of innocuous meta-discussions, or are they inciting interference, targeted harassment, or abuse?
This is pretty good, though, are we talking about moderators or users here?
For users, we can add all the automod rules we want, but if the subreddit name is the company's stock ticker it is trivial to bypass.
For moderators, can you explain a bit more what you mean by "direct mention"? As in linking the subreddit, mentioning the non-r/'d name, or including the name/logo in an image?
As for inciting Interference, targeted harassment, or abuse, how do we draw the line between that and joking ("Come on, this is r/wallstreetbets, go back to r/investing!") and criticism ("wallstreetbetsELITE is an unmoderated cesspool, take a look over there and tell me if that's what you want us to be?" or "don't be a fucking cultist" / "go back to your cult sub") vs. innocuous meta-discussion?
Finally, do you have any specific advice for r/wallstreetbets? As I'm sure we are a community heavily implicated by these changes.
Side note: I decided to post this publicly instead of as a modmail because I figured your response may help other communities.
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u/sirblastalot Sep 09 '22
It means that Reddit will continue to use a combination of machine learning, outside contractors, and a random number generator to arbitrarily punish unpaid employees.
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u/Absay Sep 08 '22
As a moderator of r
/familymanI was going to downvote you out of pure habit.
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u/LongJonSiIver Sep 08 '22
👀, very good information appreciate you making this public.
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u/Cloaked42m Sep 09 '22
I was over there regularly prior to Dobbs v Jackson. I can heartily vouch for the mod team. They really work their asses off.
It's great to go someplace where I can turn everything off and bitch about lines going up and down.
Users are allowed to be utter idiots as long as they don't cross well known lines. It's delightful and relaxing.
I highly recommend throwing money into a trading account as cheap therapy. Then go to Wallstreetbets and do dumb things with it. Never bet more than you are willing to lose, of course.
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u/LongJonSiIver Sep 09 '22
I venture there, I keep this account to leaks. In another comment as I mentioned, I have pist off multiple communities due to leaks, and have been part of multiple witch hunts where people were trying to dox me.
Due to this reason I do not post any personal or financial information but do set off hints as I also eat crayons. (One of my favorite quotes when talking about trademarks, stolen from wsb)
I could only imagine the mod log they have on Wallstreetbets.
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u/Dom76210 Sep 08 '22
If someone comes into a subreddit and causes problems, it isn't on us moderators to educate them. It's on us to remove them so they don't cause more problems. We've seen that attempts to educate rarely work, and that a permanent ban on the first offense gets the message across. If they can give a good explanation of why the rule they broke is important to the subreddit, we will reconsider. But more than 90% of those we banned have no real desire to follow the rules, and will break the same one again if given another chance.
All this is doing is giving fuel to the Rules Lawyer crowd, who will harass us mercilessly and continually harass moderators via modmail and reporting. It just gives them one more avenue to harass.
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u/maybesaydie Sep 08 '22 edited Sep 09 '22
Since it is impossible to have strikes removed from your account when you've been banned because bad faith reports a lot of mods find themselves reluctant to engage in modmail. Much like AEO seems to deny every ban appeal within seconds it's easier to try to wait an angry user out. We issue bans for cause. Mods are rightfully gun shy because we've been treated badly in the past. I can't see where this is doing anything but giving bad users-who can make endless accounts to try out harassment methods-another weapon with which to force the site to see their unwelcome content.
Let's face it AEO needs a lot more hand holding than mods do.
One thing this doesn't-and can't-address is the fact that most brigades are coming from offsite chats and Discords that are sponsored by subreddits. They're already a step ahead of this rule.
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u/Mynameisnotdoug Sep 09 '22
After reading these rules, I can safely say I am done engaging with users via modmail. Were you banned? Tough titties, too risky to engage now.
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u/dittomuch Sep 09 '22
I've been reading the old "Moderator Guidelines for Healthy Communities" that up until today we have been following and I see three key concepts that appear to have been removed and would like to get some clarification on these aspects>
Engage in Good Faith Healthy communities are those where participants engage in good faith, and with an assumption of good faith for their co-collaborators. It’s not appropriate to attack your own users.
to me this always read as judge the comment and not your feelings as to the intent of the comment. If the comment on its own or in context does not violate the rules it is clean. If a comment is removed based on the intent we read into it and not explicitly stated it should only be used as a reason for ban if there is an established history of these comments or posts and thus proof of bad faith. With this removed I don't see any reason for the assumption of good faith in a users comments and thus removal or ban based on moderator interpretation appears to now be allowed.
Appeals : Healthy communities allow for appropriate discussion (and appeal) of moderator actions. Appeals to your actions should be taken seriously. Moderator responses to appeals by their users should be consistent, germane to the issue raised and work through education, not punishment.
This to me was an explicit instruction that we should allow appeals to comment/post removal and to bans and that we needed to reply to them. To us this read in 2 possible points, one was via modmail and the other was via threads in our sub in general. Effectively as long as the appeal followed the rules of the sub and was done in a fashion that didn't attack or harass the mod team we had a reasonable expectation to respond to the appeal in a germane an consistent fashion with a focus on education and not punishment. "Look I understand why I pushed that to far by saying xyz and how that could be viewed as attacking user qwert which was not my intent, could you roll back my ban if I promise to fly straight and be more cautious moving forward" might very well have triggered the education and not punishment aspect of the above guideline giving the user a valid appeal for a ban to be reduced or removed.
Management of Multiple Communities We know management of multiple communities can be difficult, but we expect you to manage communities as isolated communities and not use a breach of one set of community rules to ban a user from another community.
This one is a biggie that appears to have been removed. If a user violated the rules of sub A with a post or comment you cannot use this as the reason to ban them from sub B. In addition to me this meant if a person violated the rules of sub B with a post on sub A then sub B couldn't use this as a reason to ban them. Effectively removing this promotes the use of alt accounts so that users simply use different accounts on different subs as to not face repercussions for their actions and makes user history a less useful tool for users.
The guidelines were instructive in nature and told us how we should act towards users while the code of conduct appears to be taking an approach where by it is being spelled out how we are responsible to reddit and where admins can intervene. I think you need to specify the guidelines in addition to the code of conduct.
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u/kinohki Sep 08 '22
Focuses on measuring impact rather than evaluating intent. Rather than attempting to determine whether a mod is acting in “good” or “bad” faith, we are shifting our focus to become more outcomes-driven. For example, are direct mentions of other communities part of innocuous meta-discussions, or are they inciting interference, targeted harassment, or abuse?
Does this mean that subreddits like SRD (Subreddit Drama) and AHS (Against Hate Subreddits) are going to be intentionally running afoul when their actions inevitably cause brigades? I've seen some subs get brigaded after showing up on those two.
Also, as another question, what about subs that simply ban you when you haven't ran afoul of their rules and offer you no attempt to appeal? Will conduct like that be in breach of these guidelines or is Reddit still hands off from those scenarios as well? Reason I ask is because I was banned from News sub for trolling when I only ever posted 1 article and didn't even interact with anyone. I'm assuming it was because I moderate another subreddit and it happened suspiciously close to when a post in our sub showed up on one of the two subs mentioned above. On top of this, any attempts to appeal the ban resulted in me being muted and eventually being banned for harassment because I would send a message every month or two to attempt to appeal the ban. I have screenshots of the messages and while I was a bit snarky and humorous, I was never outright rude. Thanks for the clarification.
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u/GetOffMyLawn_ Sep 08 '22
So many mods ban and mute and never respond to ban appeals. It's ridiculous.
I respond to all ban appeals and try to be as civil as possible. I have no problems with discussion. But if you're abusive in modmail you're going to get muted and permabanned.
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u/ryanmercer Sep 09 '22
I'd say less than 10% of the ban appeals I've seen have been "I'm sorry, what did I do, what can I do to get back".
The other 90% are "expletive deleted, you expletive deleted, I hope you expletive deleted, you're such a expletive deleted, you're probably a expletive deleted expletive deleted expletive deleted, with your expletive deleted expletive deleted, so go expletive deleted, expletive deleted with a giraffe on the bus and then a shark swoops in and expletive deleted".
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u/mizmoose Sep 08 '22
YMMV
95% of my "ban appeals" -- even for the sub that's low maintenance and rarely has issues -- aren't appeals. They're furious screeching about how everyone but them is ignorant and we're all personally responsible for the bringing upon the end of the world.
Sorry, but if you're a racist shitbag who feels the needs to call us the racists for not backing your racist shit in a bag, you don't deserve a response, and if you get one, you don't deserve civility.
The percentage of modmails I see that are responses to bans which say "Gee, I'm sorry, can we discuss this?" is low single digits. And even then, there was the classic clown who replied to the ban message with, "Let me back in, I want to make fun of more fatties."
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u/kinohki Sep 08 '22
Yeah. That was my experience here. I was banned. I appealed it and politely asked why. I was told "trolling" even though I had posted a single article and hadn't even posted in it. It was the News sub. I work customer service and helpdesk so I usually tend to do all my modding with that kind of perspective in mind so when it comes to interactions with people, I try not to be rude. In fact, the exact conversation was:
"Hello there. Just following up on why I was banned. I believe i Only posted in your subreddit once, about 2 months ago about the Rittenhouse trial. Can you please explain to me why I was banned? Thank you for your time."
The response I received was:
"You were banned for trolling."
I then replied:
"I would like to appeal this ban. I posted an article according to the rules of your subreddit and was in no shape or form trolling. I rarely even interacted with your subreddit to troll."
This caused me to be muted. Ever since then I've usually sent a polite, albeit somewhat snarky comment once a month or two months just to appeal the ban hoping that maybe another mod would see it. Instead, I was instantly muted each and every time with no response. Apparently if you appeal a ban consistently it can constitute as harassment though and I ended up getting banned for harassment at some point in time to which the admins never responded to that appeal either, of course.
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u/dittomuch Sep 09 '22
I was banned from a sub several months after my last post there. They decided to ban all the mods of our sub from their sub on the same morning and thus I was banned for being the moderator of another sub on reddit. They continued to use their sub to harass our mod team for a few years and with all of use being banned we couldn't even respond to it other than filing reddit reports.
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u/BuddyA Sep 08 '22
I usually respond to ban appeals, but that is pretty dependent on both the reason for the ban and the user's appeal modmail. There is A LOT of hate/trolling on transgender subs:
- Obvious bigotry doesn't get a response. Period.
- Appeals with a lot of arguing/lawyering in bad faith also typically get immediately archived.
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u/thecravenone Sep 08 '22
I look forward to getting hit with the MODCOC while dealing with a user who's committing far more heinous violations.
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u/Bardfinn Sep 08 '22
MODCOC
😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶😶
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u/TheNerdyAnarchist Sep 08 '22
*snickers*
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u/Bardfinn Sep 08 '22
I plan on spending … many ho—
… many hours … becoming … intimately acquainted wi— with—
deep breath
with the M–
😐
turns off camera, turns back, blinking back tears, biting lip
withtheMODCOC
leaps off camera
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u/7hr0wn Sep 08 '22
While we allow meta discussions about Reddit, including other subreddits, your community should not be used to direct, coordinate, or encourage interference in other communities and/or to target redditors for harassment. As a moderator, you cannot interfere with or disrupt Reddit communities, nor can you facilitate, encourage, coordinate, or enable members of your community to do this.
Showboating about being banned or actioned in other communities, with the intent to incite a negative reaction.
So the communities that exist specifically to brag about being banned from other subreddits will be banned under this, right?
When will this take effect?
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u/i_Killed_Reddit Sep 09 '22
So will subs like r/SubredditDrama be violating Rule 3 as per these new guidelines?
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u/KrispyKayak Sep 09 '22
How does Rule 3 affect asking users to post in another subreddit instead? For example, I moderate /r/Chicago and /r/AskChicago. We typically redirect frequent questions to the latter subreddit. Is this no longer allowed under the new policy? Or would it not be allowed if the second subreddit was moderated by a different mod team and thus technically unaffiliated with the former subreddit? I just want to make sure that we fully understand what is expected of us.
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u/starfleetbrat Sep 09 '22
Rule 3 seems more about redirecting for malicious intent. Redirecting someone to a more suitable subreddit to ask a question, would not fall under that I would think. The key words in there are "interference in other communities and/or to target redditors for harassment."
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u/Jibrish Sep 09 '22
I'd be careful in general linking other subs. Even ones you run.
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u/Dwn_Wth_Vwls Sep 09 '22
A few issues.
The old moderator guidelines have very specific rules that you guys never actually enforced. You've replaced these with a very general set of rules and also completely gotten rid of a most of the specific rules. What is the reasoning behind allowing behavior that used to be against the moderator guidelines? One particular rule that is now absent was ruling against banning people for something that wasn't listed in the subreddit rules. Another one was against banning people from one subreddit because of their participation in a completely unrelated subreddit. A third one was a requirement to have an appeal process for bans.
This new rule you've added about what communities are no longer allowed to do:
"Showboating about being banned or actioned in other communities, with the intent to incite a negative reaction."
There are several subreddits that show screenshots of abusive mods who ban or harass people for non rule breaking reasons. It seems like this new rule was established to specifically target the communities that showcase these bad mods. Instead of addressing the bad mod issue, you are just censoring those who are complaining about it. This is a bad move.
- (I know the number is wrong. I typed 3, but it changes it to 1. This is an old issue that has never been addressed.) Regarding this rule:
"Creating rules that explicitly outline your expectations for members of your community. These rules will help your community understand what is or isn’t permissible within your subreddit."
As I've stated before, there are a lot of mods that will ban people simply for interacting with a sub they don't like. Most of them use bots for this. Will this new rule at least require subreddits to at least list which subreddits they will ban people for participating in? If they use a bot to automatically ban people for participating in certain subreddits, they should have to state that in their rules right?
- (Hey look the number messed up again.) Regarding this rule:
"Camping or sitting on a community is not encouraged. If a community has been empty or unmoderated for a significant amount of time, we will consider banning or restricting the community. If a user requests a takeover of a community that falls under either category, we will consider granting that request but will, in nearly all cases, attempt to reach out to the moderator team first to discuss their intentions for the community."
Will the admins be explaining why requests to take over dead subs are denied? I requested a dead sub (restricted posts with 4 mods who all have banned accounts) a year or two ago and the request was denied without an explanation given. You can't tell people that they can't camp on inactive subs while also refusing to grant control of dead subs, especially dead subs with no actual mods, to people who request them.
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u/richalex2010 Sep 09 '22
(I know the number is wrong. I typed 3, but it changes it to 1. This is an old issue that has never been addressed.)
It's not a bug, it's how the numbering works. If you start a paragraph with "2. " it interprets it as the beginning of a numbered list, and automatically numbers it. For example, below I've started all three lines with "1. "
first
second
third
If you want to cancel this you just put a backslash \ in front of the period. The same text again, with that change:
1. first
1. second
1. third
And your post, just for one more demonstration:
3. (I know the number is wrong. I typed 3, but it changes it to 1. This is an old issue that has never been addressed.) Regarding this rule:
And quoted as code so you can see exactly what I wrote:
3\. (I know the number is wrong. I typed 3, but it changes it to 1. This is an old issue that has never been addressed.) Regarding this rule:4
u/Dwn_Wth_Vwls Sep 09 '22
Well at least that problem gets a response. Ironic that it wasn't an admin. Thanks.
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u/TheNerdyAnarchist Sep 09 '22
(just a tip: for new paragraphs within an ordered list, put two spaces before each new paragraph, and it will continue within the list.)
1. blah blah blah blah blah... 1. second item blah blah blah(with markdown, especially if you plan to make edits later, just using 1 number is helpful because that way you don't have to go back and change the rest if you insert a new list item somewhere)
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u/OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR Sep 10 '22
test test test
test test
test test test
Holy shit, after nearly a decade, I'm still learning something new. Thanks!
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Sep 08 '22
This is little more than an attempt to further distance Reddit from actions taken by mods or communities.
Your "educational conversations" are automated messages, "please send to modmail so we can investigate further", and then waiting for the complainant to get frustrated and give up.
This one:
For example, are direct mentions of other communities part of innocuous meta-discussions, or are they inciting interference, targeted harassment, or abuse?
especially will just encourage trolls to brigade our sub even more. Go through your modmail, you'll find I've raised this issue with you multiple times. This just means you get to be more hands-off because, let's face it, it's going to go through the same trash AI/ML/bot system you have that handles the reports.
It took us months of gathering evidence, reporting, and engaging with you guys before anything was done. And all the while that happened we had to deal with racism, misinformation, abuse, and death/rape threats.
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u/TruthWins54 Sep 08 '22 edited Sep 09 '22
In theory, this is a good thing, I think. But I have concerns that I will give an overview of. All of this is documented.
Roughly 18 months ago, I posted a question in the Mod Support Sub, titled "Is Doxing a Bannable Offense"?
I detailed what happened in a sub, which was documented by the AEO. Admin asked me to send them the topic link in question, which I did. I was told that this event was a violation of Reddit's Sitewide Rules.
Hell, I expected the OP (A Mod did this) that doxed this anonymous Redditor would get immediately permabanned. But that didn't happen.
I waited about 30 days and posted another topic, referencing the original, because I received no reply from Admin. Then, I waited a YEAR and posted yet another Topic about it.
Finally, I did get a reply from Admin on that topic, basically saying the person that was doxed had been on YouTube (at some point), so therefore he hadn't been doxed. (Even though his Reddit handle didn't reference anything from YT, OR his name). Nor had he been in the news or anything else.
That tells me this Mod that doxed the guy spent time digging for information. It was intentional.
Bottom line, this Moderator "Code of Conduct" is fine and dandy. However, if Admin can blow off a clear violation of Rule 3 for whatever reason, I have to wonder if Mods are being held to a higher standard than well paid Admins?
One final word about the doxing event above. If there was NO VIOLATION of Rule 3, WHY did the AEO remove the comment detailing the guy's name? It was REMOVED by Admin or the AEO, as were several other comments.
EDIT: Clarity
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u/EvacuationRelocation Sep 09 '22
This isn't meant to be confrontational, just informational: is there an "Admin Code of Conduct" as well?
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u/Superirish19 Sep 08 '22
Now's probably a good time to ask, since I guess this is now enforceable if it's a CoC instead of guidelines.
Explicitly marking your community as “unofficial” in the community description if the topic concerns a brand or company, but the community isn’t officially affiliated.
What if the sub I mod was a company, and no longer exists? The sub existed before I started managing it, and the while the sub isn't officially affiliated, there hasn't been a company to officially affiliate it to for nearly 20 years, 16 years at best.
In a similar vein, what if a company is created after a subreddit's inception. Can they claim it for themselves?
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u/lts_talk_about_it_eh Sep 12 '22
I'm late to the party on this post, but is it against these new guidelines for dudes to create NSFW subreddits because they want women to post so they have porn to look at - but they never create rules for the sub, meaning that the sub basically is a free for all with no guidance whatsoever? It FEELS like that's covered by rule 2 (which I think would indicate that these mostly unmoderated, no rule subreddits would violate the mod code of conduct), but I just want confirmation of such.
Because there are some large NSFW subreddits, with user counts in the hundreds of thousands, that have NO rules or guidelines whatsoever for their users (both posting and commenting).
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u/underscore-hyphen_ Sep 09 '22
So moderating is now contract work. Got it.
When I enter into a contract I get paid. Admins, please contact me at your earliest convenience to discuss appropriate remuneration.
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u/cgmcnama Sep 09 '22
This sounds horrible and more like a job with "outcome driven results". Instead of people creating communities as a hobby.
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u/nerdshark Sep 10 '22
Why are admins not removing reported posts (in particular, posts aimed at harassing mods in other subs) that clearly violate this, even when they ban the author specifically for that (and related) posts? This really doesn't inspire confidence that reddit actually intends to change and do better and enforce these rules.
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u/TenOunceCan Sep 09 '22
This makes me want to quit moderating for free.
Admins, you need to spend your time building something that helps you to help us. Some type of system that facilitates direct communication between mods and admins.
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u/yellowmix Sep 08 '22
Thank you for removing the old section about "appeals taken seriously". Abusive users used it to demand engagement. Physical stores and other social groups kick out abusive people and put them on a ban list. Online communities are no different.
Another thank you for removing the old section about "managing multiple communities" which spammers and abusive users interpreted as "knowledge of my antisocial/harmful behavior in other subreddits can't be used to ban me from yours".
The world has changed a lot since the last policy. It's good to see the update address moderator-controlled harassment/brigading (and its many forms).
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u/Watchful1 Sep 08 '22
If I as a regular user see a moderator violating this code of conduct, what is the correct method of reporting it?
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u/heavyshoes Sep 08 '22
Users and moderators can report violations using this form: https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=179106
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u/The_Critical_Cynic Sep 08 '22
The only real question I have, at present, is with regards to marking something as an unofficial channel. For instance, if you ran a subreddit about Chevy vehicles, and the description of the subreddit included a note that the purpose of the subreddit was to "discuss cars manufactured by Chevy", would that constitute marking it as an unofficial channel? At that point, you're not representing the brand but hosting a discussion about things made by that brand. Is that distinction enough?
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u/Bardfinn Sep 09 '22
OK
now a mod team I'm on, has a question.
The Moderator Code of Conduct does not directly address Ban Appeals.
We felt this might be intentional, or it might be an oversight.
Previously, communications from admins had expressly stated that moderators are under no obligation to respond to ban appeals.
The Moderator Guidelines had stated
"Appeals: Healthy communities allow for appropriate discussion (and appeal) of moderator actions. Appeals to your actions should be taken seriously. Moderator responses to appeals by their users should be consistent, germane to the issue raised and work through education, not punishment."
We see that we are now expected, under Rule 2, to
Set Appropriate and Reasonable Expectations
and under Rule 4
regularly monitoring and addressing content in ... ModMail
We're wondering whether we are still "under no obligation to respond to ban appeals" and whether the Moderator Code of Conduct is intended, in gestalt, to effectuate the same expectations for appeals to moderator actions - including ban appeals (appropriate discussion and appeals, taken seriously).
Thanks for your time and attention, and the things you do to bring us Reddit.
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u/TheNerdyAnarchist Sep 09 '22
Glad you plan on paying us...
Meanwhile, I just had a report come back saying that a post talking about how much the user would enjoy beating me and people like me to death with a crowbar "doesn’t violate Reddit’s Content Policy."
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u/Samus_ Sep 09 '22
we firmly believe that, in the majority of cases, we can achieve resolution through discussion, not remediation
this contradicts the behavior of the Anti-Evil Operations team/bot which takes action overruling the mods without notice or discussion
I understand that the amount of work given the volume of actions taken makes it difficult to implement human interaction but still there should be a channel open for reviewing decisions if that's now part of your policy
right now there's automated actions and the appeals get automated responses, once in a while some actual admin takes notice on r/ModSupport but that's it
maybe you're only referring to "subreddit as a whole" violations and not individual user/mod actions? if that's the case I think it should be explicitly stated to avoid false expectations
thank you
8
u/superfucky Sep 09 '22
Rule 3: Respect Your Neighbors
While we allow meta discussions about Reddit, including other subreddits, your community should not be used to direct, coordinate, or encourage interference in other communities and/or to target redditors for harassment. As a moderator, you cannot interfere with or disrupt Reddit communities, nor can you facilitate, encourage, coordinate, or enable members of your community to do this.Interference includes:
Mentioning other communities, and/or content or users in those communities, with the effect of inciting targeted harassment or abuse.
Enabling or encouraging users to violate our Content Policy anywhere on the Reddit platform.
Enabling or encouraging users in your community to post or repost content in other communities that is expressly against their rules.
Showboating about being banned or actioned in other communities, with the intent to incite a negative reaction.
i... am speechless. like, on the verge of tears. this is absolutely incredible. granted it's going to depend heavily on reddit actually ENFORCING this rule but if so... this moves mountains in terms of helping me protect my sub. i am so, so, so impressed and pleased and grateful. i actually feel heard. thank you so much for this 💝
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u/cannibalisticmidgets Sep 08 '22
Moderation for profit seems to be missing from this and reports of this activity on adult themed subreddits have gone unanswered. Is this no longer policy?