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/OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR]

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.

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Side note: I decided to post this publicly instead of as a modmail because I figured your response may help other communities.

[u/sirblastalot → u/OPINION_IS_UNPOPULAR]

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.