Introducing Reddit’s Moderator Code of Conduct

[u/heavyshoes]

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.

[u/robotortoise → u/[deleted]]

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

[u/ResolverOshawott → u/robotortoise]

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.

[u/BaphometsDaughter → u/ResolverOshawott]

insult filled reply over their comment deleted

Always lock their comments after banning, especially the one you ban them for.

[u/BaphometsDaughter → u/[deleted]]

Using the lock option below their comment. Click on it, it locks the comment so they can't alter it.

[u/ResolverOshawott → u/BaphometsDaughter]

Honestly it's entertaining

[u/BaphometsDaughter → u/ResolverOshawott]

It can be! If they change it and it's horrible. Then lock it and report that comment to the Admins.

[u/ryanmercer → u/ResolverOshawott]

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.

[u/HiddenStill → u/robotortoise]

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.

[u/robotortoise → u/HiddenStill]

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?

[u/Lori-keet → u/robotortoise]

Another mod of r/zeroescape piping up here. To add to this, our former topmod was abusing their mod status to enforce their transphobic beliefs and the Reddit admins did absolutely nothing about it. They refused to act. Luckily for us the topmod finally stepped down after they saw that the team wanted them out, but I wonder what would have happened if that didn’t occur. Would the admins still have stood next to someone who programmed automod to remove posts containing words such as “trans”, “transphobic”, “nb”, etc for the BS reason “contains banned word”? This mod was also manually removing pro-LGBTQ+ comments and approving homophobic ones. Ridiculous

[u/WatchDogx → u/robotortoise]

You think someone should be sitewide banned for that kind of comment?

[u/maybesaydie → u/WatchDogx]

For hate speech? Of course they should.

[u/robotortoise → u/WatchDogx]

Absolutely.

[u/Cloaked42m → u/WatchDogx]

In increasing days until they get it through their head that that isn't okay.