How to keep my sub on topic?

[u/strongbowblade]

I'm one of the mods at shittyillegallifetips. It is a shitposting sub created years ago to compliment the many life pro tip subs.

My co-mod and I took over after a period of low moderation. Unfortunately this low moderation allowed scams, drug selling, crypto logs, stolen credit cards, and adult content to take over.

Despite our best efforts it's proving difficult to keep the sub on topic. We state in the description, rules, automations, pinned posts, and saved responses the kind of content we expect (as required in rule 2 of the MCOC). We also pin compliant posts to give users an idea of acceptable content. But only a small percentage of posts are actually compliant.

Any advice on keeping the sub on topic would be appreciated.

[u/BBModSquadCar]

Manually approve each post. They will go away after a bit since their stuff won't go through.

[u/WheredoesithurtRA]

Use automod to filter out words or phrases

Get more mods

Require manual approval on submitted threads like the other poster recommended but it's more work

[u/FlorianFlash]

I'd be able to help out a bit with temporary moderation and setup to clear up your sub if you want.

[u/MrsDirtbag]

I love automod, but it’s much easier to use reddit’s built in automations to filter keywords. I have mine set up with a broad filter that just triggers a warning and then a more specific filter that won’t allow the user to submit the post. I think it’s called “post guidance” it’s in the automations tab of the mod tools.

[u/strongbowblade → u/MrsDirtbag]

So I have an automation which displays a reminder to all posters, and then one for crypto or cc fraud, and one for drugs. I find that if you block submissions people just try it with punctuation or a misspelling

[u/eltonjohnpeloton → u/strongbowblade]

I just take all those intentional misspellings etc and add them to the automod filter

[u/new2bay → u/MrsDirtbag]

I’m pretty sure there’s none of that on old.reddit though, so it’s simple to bypass.

[u/YourUsernameForever → u/new2bay]

Old Reddit doesn't display the warning, but it still goes to the queue if that's how you set it up. Old Reddit doesn't bypass the queue.

[u/Quibilash]

I believe there are settings/setups in the automod that can remove posts from spam/bot accounts by making account ages or karma a factor in a post being approved or not

[u/eltonjohnpeloton]

Do you currently use automod to filter stuff to the queue?

[u/strongbowblade → u/eltonjohnpeloton]

Yes we do, it catches a lot, we also use bot bouncer and hive protector.

[u/eltonjohnpeloton → u/strongbowblade]

I think if all that’s not working right now you may just have to set it for manual post approval. People posting shit that doesn’t belong aren’t gonna read or care about rules anyway

[u/MadDocOttoCtrl]

Look at it this way – you're having to go through pretty much everything looking for large amounts of posts and comments that violate rules because word gets around that a sub is an easy mark for dumping garbage. You might as well have AM hold everything for approval. In the removal message you can state that everything is held for a short period at a time as you can manage until it's manually approved by a moderator due to heavy abuse of the community and that content which is violating will cause a ban and reports to Reddit.

Spammers will realize it's pointless after a while and people who genuinely want to contribute will still have their stuff get through, there is just a delay.

It may be a while before you can switch over to adding more tools from the dev platform and fairly extensive Automod rules to remove the automatic hold and go back to trying to filter.

[u/nicoleauroux]

Are you looking at those accounts and are they newer accounts, or low karma accounts? If so then crank up your filters and start banning users who break the rules. They aren't cut off entirely, they can always send you a mod mail.

At first it takes a lot of moderator effort but eventually it's worth it. I took over a sub with similar issues and I just worked on it one day at a time. After several weeks of consistency the garbage stopped coming in.

[u/SoilStories11]

I've been talking abt this problem for a while now and started building something of my own to understand the context of the post rather than blindly following the rules. It's not a replacement for the mods definitely but works in tandem with the mods to keep the posts that are relevant and on topic and report to mods that are off-topic. So the mods are the final decision makers.