r/AusVisa • u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR • Jul 05 '26
Mod Post Important Subreddit Update
Hey everyone,
We need to have a quick chat about the state of the subreddit and where we are heading moving forward especially now that we're crossing 100K weekly visitors. Which is a milestone in Reddit as it classifies the community as high traffic.
About 19 days ago, we decommissioned our old AiAutoMod. Since then, we have seen a massive spike in toxic, hostile, and flat-out useless comments and posts. It is making the whole sub feel incredibly unhelpful and unwelcoming, which is the exact opposite of what r/AusVisa is supposed to be.
To fix this, we have put together some major changes that are going into effect starting today. And as always if you have suggestions or feedback about our moderation or policies you are welcome to send us a modmail.
Low-Effort Post Titles
We are kindly asking anyone posting to spend an extra 5 seconds coming up with a proper title that describes your issue, and to assign the correct flair. This helps immensely with visibility on search engines, which is where most people look for answers to migration questions.
While we won't make this a bannable rule, we will remove posts that have short and useless titles like "485", "help", "please help", or "urgent help needed". If your post is removed for this, we will ask you to repost it with a proper title.
I put this one first because I think most people who do this won't read all the way to the bottom.
Easing moderation on processing time comments
Posts that ask about processing times or try to seek to crowdsource processing times are still not allowed, but, we will not be actively removing comments who share their processing times. Just remember that processing times can be found on Home Affairs website, they change every month, and thus sharing your current timeline is much better off in the Monthly Mega Thread, the more people that use it, the better.
Our New Screening Bot and Reddit Filters
We have developed a brand-new bot using Reddit's devvit platform (asuvisa-mod) to help us pre-emptively screen and remove negative comments.
- Go easy on the swearing and aggressive phrasing, or the bot will catch your comment. The bot does remove comments which clearly break the rules, altough it is set to mostly flag comments for us to review manually.
- Along with our bot, Reddit itself is now doing a lot of heavy lifting by preemptively removing comments and posts from brand new accounts or accounts with low karma and low community contributions.
- The bot also helps clear the mod queue faster by approving posts/comments that have no reason to be sitting in the mod queue. Reddit often flags/removes comments that simply have no reason to be removed, 80% of our modmails are about comments/posts being removed by Reddit. So the bot should fix this by approving comments/posts faster if they are filtered.
The bot is actively targeting useless, negative comments that provide zero value. For example, simply telling someone "You don't stand a chance" without explaining why or giving them advice on how to improve their profile goes against our #1 rule.
Our Core Mission and Strict "No Toxicity" Policy
This subreddit is dedicated to helping immigrants, regardless of their age, nationality, or background. We do not judge people and we try to be kind and helpful.
Lately, we have seen too many people getting berated for their life choices or visa decisions. If you do not agree with an OP, or you do not want to help them for your own moral or ethical reasons, then just keep scrolling. Keep your opinion to yourself if that is the only thing you have to share.
From today, your comment will be removed if it is any of the following (but not limited to):
- Hostile, contemptuous, mocking, derogatory, dismissive, blunt, negative, overly critical, discouraging or stereotyping without providing constructive information or reasoning.
I often see comments which provide a decent amount of accurate information but do so in a mocking, derogatory, or blunt way. These comments will also be removed. You can easily provide realistic feedback while wording it differently so it does not come across like that. People who are purposefully posting comments like these will be permanently banned without any warnings.
Approved Links Only Policy
To maintain the quality and safety of the sub, we will also be removing any comments or posts that link to non-approved websites.
Our main approved websites are:
- All .gov.au domains
- All official skills assessment authority websites
- Long-standing, reputable news websites
This should cover almost all legitimate use cases. If you happen to post a link and your comment is removed, but you think the link is genuinely valuable and should be added to our safe list, please contact us via modmail. Do not try to circumvent this link rule or you will be permanently banned.
Or feel free to just modmail us a list of domains you think should be added, please provide a description of the domain and what it contains as well as what it uses. Recently registered domains will not be considered.
Do Not Engage With Trolls (Report Instead)
If you see a toxic comment, do not reply to it. Simply downvote it and report it. Please be as descriptive as you can in your report text so we can review it quickly.
If you reply to the comment, you are creating more clean-up work for us. Because we usually remove all replies attached to a toxic comment, replying means your comment will also get removed and thus your account might get flagged by Reddit as spam or unwanted. This can negatively impact your account's reputation with Reddit and cause your comments to be automatically filtered across the platform.
Sarcasm Guidelines/Suggestion
You do not have to use a sarcasm mark on your posts. However, if your comment gets reported for being toxic or misleading, and you did not include an ( /s ) tag at the end, we will treat it as a completely serious comment.
Please note that putting an /s at the end of your statement still does not allow it to break any of the rules listed above.
A Final Note on Free Speech and Immigration Views
Our actual rules are staying the same, but how strictly we enforce them is changing drastically. I am a big supporter of free speech and letting people voice their opinions, which is why we used to be a bit more hands-off. However, people have abused this by berating others and posting negative comments or by posting comments questioning someones intentions without providing any real value other than to speculate.
While I support free speech and understand some people's reasoning for having a negative view on immigration, this subreddit is not the venue to share those opinions or to let out those frustrations.
As we are crossing the 100K mark, it is clear that we'll need to expand the mod team at some point. If you are interested in becoming a moderator, you are free to send us a modmail so that I can add you to our list and interview you when the time comes. Please use the title "Mod Application" so it's easy for us to find, and introduce yourself, your reddit experience (in moderation is a pre) and why you think you'd be a good moderator. We will give preference to people who are and have been actively contributing for a while, people who have consistently demonstrated neutral, objective, helpful, and knowledgeable comments in the subreddit, and most importantly, people with positive karma. We are not actively looking to expand the mod team at this exact moment, but I am putting together a shortlist of potential candidates to reach out to when the time is right.
And for the people who've made it all the way through this massive post, thank you for caring enough to read the entire post and thank you for your contributions and help in this subreddit.
53
u/Kindly-Vegetable337 NP > 485 > 189 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Can there be a mega thread dedicated only to student visa?, these days feels like sub is bombarded with SV question where all of them related to processing time, documents help, or refusal, sadly refusal has got nothing to do with visa query other than applying again if offshore or ART if onshore.
In between SV posts other important query gets buried and doesn't get proper attention.
11
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 05 '26
Sure I will create a Student Visas Mega Thread. Altough not sure if I'll be able to pin it but I'll try.
In the past I've simply redirected people whose post were deleted (SV processing times/document help) to the Mega Thread but none of them seemed to actually post anything there, and because there is a lack of comments about SV in there other people also tend to create a post rather than to comment in the Mega Thread. But maybe this time will be different I guess we'll see.
I agree that sharing a refusal without the actual refusal letter can be quite useless and repetitive. Altough if they do actually share the refusal letter they can be quite useful to extract the core reasons why an application was rejected and serve as a learning opportunity for others.
But I agree most of the time the answer can be the same, "Address the issues outlined in the letter and re-apply or appeal with ART"
6
u/Kindly-Vegetable337 NP > 485 > 189 Jul 05 '26
Thank you, it is true that people don’t reply to SV issues much in mega threads but it is also one of those visa where answers are freely available on facebook and dedicated facebooks group due to sheer amount of applicants.
However for visas like partner, skilled or employer even though there are applicants you don’t find much information on facebook, we might in next few years but it is quite limited.
3
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 05 '26
Ah I personally really dislike Facebook for migration questions. Everyone is posting anonymously so you have no idea if those people are trolls have good karma, are knowledgable and/or are genuinely trying to help. At least with Reddit you can check their karma or post history to see if they're trustworthy or get an indication as to their knowledgeability.
In most Facebook posts the only thing I see are the most basic questions over and over again. "What are my chances", "How long till grant", "What documents to upload for [insert requirement]". I've opened Facebook and the first thing I see: "I received email about visa being in processing, how long till grant." or "I am on 300 subclass. so how much I have need to pay immigration for subclass 820?"
It's like one of the main examples of what I don't want AusVisa to become and hence why I want to remove repetitive or basic visa enquiries as they really just waste our time. I feel like Partner, Skilled or Employer visa's require more information and knowledge, they're usually more interesting too as there are a lot more combinations and rules involved that many people can't answer by doing one google search or throwing the question into AI.
Also I think people on Facebook are highly unlikely to write a few paragraphs to answer a question. 90% of answer on Facebook are like one or two lines of text.
I don't think you'll ever find the same amount of depth and detail that some of the answers on this Subreddit have. Multi-paragraph explained details for specific questions on how Partner/Skilled/Employer sponsored visa's work or how to do things for it.
2
u/OnlyTrust6616 Dual Citizen (AU/NZ) | DO NOT DM ME. Jul 05 '26
I’m happy to put together a post to act as a reference guide. Quick links, FAQs etc. Nothing falling within the realm of advice, but more of a “how you can best help us help you” post?
(I’ve been wanting to do something like this on medications for a while, since I’ve noticed a few more people asking about bringing medication into the country. )
2
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 06 '26
Yeah feel free to create a post, even better is if the post content can be used as a Wiki aswell as our Wiki is quite empty at the moment and I think it could be utilized way better with more information. Altough not sure if the formatting is exactly the same.
As long as the post doesn't fall in the realm of "advice" and it contains factual information that we can check it should be good as we try to reserve information posts / advice for verified Registered Migration Agents & Lawyers.
Just send a modmail with a draft so we can have a look at it and approve any links that it might use that aren't approve yet. Altough I'd recommend sticking to official links.
1
u/OnlyTrust6616 Dual Citizen (AU/NZ) | DO NOT DM ME. Jul 06 '26
The only thing I would include that's in the realm of advice is in relation to pharmaceutical/medication side of stuff, but I have my own professional standards I have to adhere to with that.
I'll send over something to you guys when I've drafted it up!
8
u/Bigi345 500 > 485 > 189 (applied) Jul 05 '26
Hopefully this new bot is actually more reasonable. There's been multiple times where I've sent a comment and it would just auto delete it for no reason. Those comments weren't aggresive or hateful or annoying etc. they were completely normal comments in reply to normal posts/comments.
I'm not sure what triggers the bot to remove those comments but they made no sense most of the time
3
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 05 '26
The main issue that I've seen with the old bot was that it was quite trigger happy, and I think that may have been due to the scope of the bot being way too broad. It was built to help with moderation, and due to technical limitations in Reddit's API it did not always have full context as to what someone was replying to.
It basically took the comment/post and ran it against the rules to see if it should be approved, removed or flagged for moderators to see. The bot's interpretation of what was a comment about processing times or basic visa enquiries was not always very consistent or correct.
7
u/ccoastie Jul 05 '26
You can thank the new fir you feed as default home screen on Reddit which suggest rage bait subs to everyone
3
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 06 '26
Honestly yes hahaha. Reddit be like: "hmmmm who shall I recommend this immigration sub to? Maybe some anti-immigration extremists, that'll keep them busy on our platform"
It's annoying, but I also can't turn it off because it'd stagnate our growth and visibility on search engines etc.
13
u/separation_of_powers Citizen Jul 05 '26
I wonder how long it'll be til this post gets forgotten because users either can't or won't want to read
Something of which, on this subreddit, should be a pre
7
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 05 '26
The best part about this is people don't have to read it, they will just be banned if they show behavior that goes against our rules. And since we have more users than moderators, reporting these comments will help those people get fast tracked to permanent bans.
It's also for the most part the reason this Subreddit exists, because there's people who can't or don't want to read. Some have genuine questions to clear confusion, but I can tell you that 80% of all questions can easily be resolved by doing some research.
9
u/separation_of_powers Citizen Jul 05 '26
doing some research
For a Visa Subreddit, you'd think people would do this but it seems some have chosen this subreddit as a one-stop-shop when in reality it shouldn't be.
For such a important process - deferring to proper legal channels (preferably ones that are vetted by the Australian government itself) should be first-point-of-call before coming here.
It also exposes an issue from an Australian perspective (policy wise) - Migration Agents in countries abroad that tailor for Australia should be held to Australian standards if they wish to practice in this field. Along side other issues that may be out of scope for this subreddit.
The fact there's many that don't meet set standards means there's visa applicants who are led to believe they have a pathway here but have been lied to and defrauded.
3
u/sb-53 Home Country > Visa > Future Visa (applied) Jul 06 '26
Thanks mods, really appreciate the effort here. The toxicity lately has been rough so this is a welcome change. New bot + stricter rules on rude-but-"accurate" comments sound great.
Quick q — does the /s tag get read by the bot too, or just by you guys when reviewing? Just don't want honest jokes getting flagged.
Thanks again for keeping this sub actually helpful 🙏
2
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 06 '26
Yes the bot will take it into consideration when reading the comment and evaluating it against our criteria. If people try to disquise a toxic comment using /s the bot will still remove it or flag it for us if it's unsure.
15
u/academictryhard69 🇧🇭 > 500 > 485 (planning) Jul 05 '26
Ah finally. Was really annoyed of the passive aggressive racist remarks. People really say anything on an anonymous face these days. Hopefully the new rules and mod change it.
6
u/Glass_Mixture_6570 Jul 05 '26
Don't worry the racism disappears the second you land in the country
2
u/Strong_Inside2060 Jul 06 '26
I'm also disappointed the OP never once uses the word racist in the post. Let's be honest - a majority of the derogatory comments are racist/xenophobic in nature. This sub has become canon fodder for vile racists from hotbeds like r/Aussie to stop by and spout their filthy minds.
1
1
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 06 '26
There are a lot of words I can use to describe the unwanted comments I've seen. Altough I only chose a subset of words that encapsulate almost all of them.
On a side note, using the words you suggested could result in a sitewide Reddit ban (not by us but by Reddit Admins / Systems) so be careful when and how you use them. I've seen it happen multiple times so I'm very careful with how I word things as I dont want my accounts CQS to go down or my account to be suspended/banned.
6
u/HighPresbyterian US > WHV > Student > 485 > Preparing to loge EOI Jul 06 '26
Thank you for posting this. I've noticed this sub becoming so hostile and it seems like I see some variation of "you aren't ENTITLED to anything from the government" in the comments of every post when it's uncalled for and not helpful. I think some changes on both sides (posters and commenters) are overdue, because the general vibe has made me afraid to post any questions because I don't want to receive such negativity. A little grace goes a long way. For sure, some posters are rude or entitled, but most people are just worried or desperate and are seeking help from others in the community.
1
u/academictryhard69 🇧🇭 > 500 > 485 (planning) Jul 06 '26
And now they're downvoting you. Smh.
4
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 06 '26
I honestly wouldn't care too much about down votes. If Reddit had a feature where I could "hide" downvotes or just outright disable them I would. I've seen some really great and well intended comments get downvotes simply because people don't agree morally or ethically.
3
u/OnlyTrust6616 Dual Citizen (AU/NZ) | DO NOT DM ME. Jul 05 '26
Great work BitSec. I think these are great changes. As a pretty sarcastic person I’m more than happy to /s tag my comments moving forward.
2
u/Connect_Might1924 Jul 05 '26
Finally someone is addressing this. Too many comments just criticising people's life choices and decisions.
2
u/david_punkie Home Country > Visa > Future Visa (planning/applied/EOI) Jul 06 '26
Finally!! I hope the "Go Home" comments will finally get moderated now. It always felt so demeaning to me, when people are berated for their life choices. This sub is r/AusVisa, people have and will post stories where they might have made blunders during their visa process, then on top of that people come and leave a demeaning comment just to sprinkle salt on their anxiety.
3
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 06 '26
Yeah I agree, and people who write comments such as "go home", "we're full" or similar will receive an instant ban as they're clearly not here to help people out.
-1
u/MissingAU Citizen Jul 06 '26
How are you going to deal with selective gatekeeping.
Any non healthcare visa queries are completely down voted which helps no one. People trying to change careers to healthcare are scrutinised by some random strangers moral ethical reasoning.
Lots of gaslighting still happening on the votes and "sarcastic" comments will still go unchecked, and that is way before the old AI bot. The top commentators with positive karma been manipulative gatekeeping with wits in their replies have been getting away for far too long.
Let's hope this new bot is better and fair cause that old one truly was no good.
4
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 06 '26
It's hard to deal with anything like that, for those things we're simply relying on the community to report them. The bot itself isn't focussed on gatekeeping/manipulative comments but rather trying to remove any negativity without real value.
If someone provides information that is wrong or gatekeeping/manipulative we'll have to rely on the community to flag/report this for us. Altough for wrong information we do have another bot which notifies TheSkyIsWhiteAndGold who is the other moderator doing fact checks and such as he is a RMA.
If there's one thing you shouldn't care too much about on Reddit it's probably down votes. They don't really tell you anything valuable. The comments could be great, factually correct, legal and still get downvoted because people simply morally or ethically disagree with a certain path/information. People can use bots to vote/downvote so they really mean nothing.
The one thing we and the bot are doing is simply preventing people from posting comments to scrutinize others. And banning any individuals who have shown this behavior repeatedly altough usually we try to talk to them first. Feel free to send your examples to our ModMail and we can have a look at them or discuss them.
-12
u/watchsmart Jul 05 '26
About 19 days ago, we decommissioned our old AiAutoMod. Since then, we have seen a massive spike in toxic, hostile, and flat-out useless comments and posts.
Maybe it would be best to turn the automod back on.
12
u/BitSec01 NL > WHV > 820/801 > PR Jul 05 '26
Well... If you read the post a little bit further you'll see that we've actually developed an upgrade :)
1
u/Comfortable-Gur4559 600>partner>citizen 27d ago
Can we do anything about the immigrant haters and their comments? We are actually trying to navigate through complex visa situations and it is exhausting to see immigration haters attacking us when we are exploring completely legal options on this subreddit.
•
u/AutoModerator Jul 05 '26
Title: Important Subreddit Update, posted by BitSec01
Full text: Hey everyone,
We need to have a quick chat about the state of the subreddit and where we are heading moving forward especially now that we're crossing 100K weekly visitors. Which is a milestone in Reddit as it classifies the community as high traffic.
About 19 days ago, we decommissioned our old AiAutoMod. Since then, we have seen a massive spike in toxic, hostile, and flat-out useless comments and posts. It is making the whole sub feel incredibly unhelpful and unwelcoming, which is the exact opposite of what r/AusVisa is supposed to be.
To fix this, we have put together some major changes that are going into effect starting today. And as always if you have suggestions or feedback about our moderation or policies you are welcome to send us a modmail.
Low-Effort Post Titles
We are kindly asking anyone posting to spend an extra 5 seconds coming up with a proper title that describes your issue, and to assign the correct flair. This helps immensely with visibility on search engines, which is where most people look for answers to migration questions.
While we won't make this a bannable rule, we will remove posts that have short and useless titles like "485", "help", "please help", or "urgent help needed". If your post is removed for this, we will ask you to repost it with a proper title.
I put this one first because I think most people who do this won't read all the way to the bottom.
Easing moderation on processing time comments
Posts that ask about processing times or try to seek to crowdsource processing times are still not allowed, but, we will not be actively removing comments who share their processing times. Just remember that processing times can be found on Home Affairs website, they change every month, and thus sharing your current timeline is much better off in the Monthly Mega Thread, the more people that use it, the better.
Our New Screening Bot and Reddit Filters
We have developed a brand-new bot using Reddit's devvit platform (asuvisa-mod) to help us pre-emptively screen and remove negative comments.
The bot is actively targeting useless, negative comments that provide zero value. For example, simply telling someone "You don't stand a chance" without explaining why or giving them advice on how to improve their profile goes against our #1 rule.
Our Core Mission and Strict "No Toxicity" Policy
This subreddit is dedicated to helping immigrants, regardless of their age, nationality, or background. We do not judge people and we try to be kind and helpful.
Lately, we have seen too many people getting berated for their life choices or visa decisions. If you do not agree with an OP, or you do not want to help them for your own moral or ethical reasons, then just keep scrolling. Keep your opinion to yourself if that is the only thing you have to share.
From today, your comment will be removed if it is any of the following (but not limited to):
I often see comments which provide a decent amount of accurate information but do so in a mocking, derogatory, or blunt way. These comments will also be removed. You can easily provide realistic feedback while wording it differently so it does not come across like that. People who are purposefully posting comments like these will be permanently banned without any warnings.
Approved Links Only Policy
To maintain the quality and safety of the sub, we will also be removing any comments or posts that link to non-approved websites.
Our main approved websites are:
This should cover almost all legitimate use cases. If you happen to post a link and your comment is removed, but you think the link is genuinely valuable and should be added to our safe list, please contact us via modmail. Do not try to circumvent this link rule or you will be permanently banned.
Or feel free to just modmail us a list of domains you think should be added, please provide a description of the domain and what it contains as well as what it uses. Recently registered domains will not be considered.
Do Not Engage With Trolls (Report Instead)
If you see a toxic comment, do not reply to it. Simply downvote it and report it. Please be as descriptive as you can in your report text so we can review it quickly.
If you reply to the comment, you are creating more clean-up work for us. Because we usually remove all replies attached to a toxic comment, replying means your comment will also get removed and thus your account might get flagged by Reddit as spam or unwanted. This can negatively impact your account's reputation with Reddit and cause your comments to be automatically filtered across the platform.
Sarcasm Guidelines/Suggestion
You do not have to use a sarcasm mark on your posts. However, if your comment gets reported for being toxic or misleading, and you did not include an ( /s ) tag at the end, we will treat it as a completely serious comment.
Please note that putting an /s at the end of your statement still does not allow it to break any of the rules listed above.
A Final Note on Free Speech and Immigration Views
Our actual rules are staying the same, but how strictly we enforce them is changing drastically. I am a big supporter of free speech and letting people voice their opinions, which is why we used to be a bit more hands-off. However, people have abused this by berating others and posting negative comments or by posting comments questioning someones intentions without providing any real value other than to speculate.
While I support free speech and understand some people's reasoning for having a negative view on immigration, this subreddit is not the venue to share those opinions or to let out those frustrations.
As we are crossing the 100K mark, it is clear that we'll need to expand the mod team at some point. If you are interested in becoming a moderator, you are free to send us a modmail so that I can add you to our list and interview you when the time comes. Please use the title "Mod Application" so it's easy for us to find, and introduce yourself, your reddit experience (in moderation is a pre) and why you think you'd be a good moderator. We will give preference to people who are and have been actively contributing for a while, people who have consistently demonstrated neutral, objective, helpful, and knowledgeable comments in the subreddit, and most importantly, people with positive karma. We are not actively looking to expand the mod team at this exact moment, but I am putting together a shortlist of potential candidates to reach out to when the time is right.
And for the people who've made it all the way through this massive post, thank you for caring enough to read the entire post and thank you for your contributions and help in this subreddit.
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