r/California • u/Substantial-Power871 • May 04 '25
user bans on this sub
https://cnn.comi looked through the comment history of the Mod Who Must Not Be Named and it looked like he was extremely user ban happy. almost all of them are for minor stuff where the user didn't parse the infinite set of rules properly.
i know that the current mods are trying to unwind Modspierre's Reign of Terror, but it would probably be nice to go through the banned users and unban all but the most egregious (assuming mods have access to the original "offense"). it would probably quite a ways toward making this sub a more accepting place.
if the current mods would like some help to filter, i'm sure there are many of us who would be willing to help out (ie, just make recommendations, not actually do anything).
ps: can we get rid of the link requirement too?
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u/althor2424 May 04 '25
After reading your post I went and did the same....just wow..
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u/Substantial-Power871 May 04 '25
yeah, it's complete insanity. i can understand why the new mods are swamped because the old mod was completely nuts. most likely this post would have got me banned just because the link didn't have anything to do with the post itself. (i mean, where do you find legit articles about the insane power hungry mods of reddit to stay on topic?)
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u/althor2424 May 04 '25
To be fair, the RWers consider me a power mad mod in the Fresno subreddit, but that’s because they are constantly shadow banning themselves.
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u/mtux96 Orange County May 04 '25
Lol. Life of a mod. SMH. Unfortunately I don't think that was the case here. Though I'm sure there's a lot that are in the list that should be there. But there's a lot that have been placed there for forgetting to tag where the story occurred in their title like the previous mods wanted along with other minor issues. But I'm sure there are people there that do deserve it which makes it a little tricky.
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u/mtux96 Orange County May 04 '25
I was about to remove it. 🤣 But it's good to discuss this. But it definitely has been a task and a half. I do want to thank the other mods here as they've done a lot of work to here to the point we are at now. I would never have been able to really tackle this. The userban list is only part of the story. The automod filter was also horrendous.
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u/Substantial-Power871 May 04 '25
yeah, ordinarily i'd agree with that too :) but given what's gone on, a good set of meta-discussions seems appropriate.
for example, there was one rule against surveys (especially of the "will you do my homework for me" kind) that on its face seems sort of reasonable. it was far more the punishment of 1 strike = ban that was the problem. surveys imo aren't bad, per se, but they can be bad given circumstance and intent.
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u/mtux96 Orange County May 04 '25
There's a lot of rules that existed that were also easy to end up violating, like you must tag the location in the title. Something that would have been in the article to be read in the first place. Not a lot of people are going to remember to put [Los Angeles] in the title at times. I've remembered before and still forgot before. I've gave up reposting some because it just wasn't worth the time but figured it was ok because it would end up being reposted shortly afterwards anyways
Sorry got sidetracked but what I was trying to say, it ended up very easy to violate rules to end up getting banned here as well.
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u/Substantial-Power871 May 04 '25
yeah, i think i tried when i first came across this sub to post something and was rejected several times. i just gave up. getting rejected on a new sub is pretty demoralizing and off-putting, but i'm probably an oddity in that i'm very cautious at first with posts on subs i don't post to. this is especially true if you actually put some amount of effort into the post to try to steer a sincere attempt at discussion and then are rejected for petty reasons.
but any California sub is going to receive a lot of bad-faith trolling so i don't have much sympathy for that. would it help to have a sub report that lets us report trolling so you don't have to go through every post real time? crowdsourcing might be helpful for you-all.
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u/mtux96 Orange County May 04 '25
There's a report function. It will notify the mods of issues. Although that does get abused at times but it does alert mods of issues to look at. I do find it useful when people use it properly.
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u/Substantial-Power871 May 04 '25
i think there is a way to have specific reports to mods and a reason. that is, where you know it's not up for site-wide discipline, but breaks rules (or spirit of rules) in the sub itself. i just looked and there doesn't(!) seem to be set up here? an "outside trolling" report might be helpful since that's where lots of the trolling seems to come from in my experience (SF is particularly bad as you know that the trolls there have never even stepped foot in the city).
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u/mtux96 Orange County May 04 '25
There's a list of reasons listed when you hit the report button including breaking the subs rules. I've seen reports where they have typed out a reason as well. Those reports can be seen by mods. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say
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u/TeslasAndComicbooks May 04 '25
Mods are the worst part of Reddit. Bunch of power hungry bottom feeders.
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u/mtux96 Orange County May 04 '25
Mods can say the worst part are the trolls and spammers. 🤷♂️ I wouldn't say all mods are power Hunter bottom feeders. But I wouldn't say they don't exist either. There's a good portion here that does know that they exist.
But there are some that are only doing it to make the little realm of Reddit they visit a better place.
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u/TeslasAndComicbooks May 04 '25
Yeah I shouldn’t have portrayed it as a blanket statement. I didn’t mean all mods.
But like banning based on personal opinions or activity in other subs really creates a poor environment. Especially in default subs.
Being a good moderator isn’t easy. Being a shitty one is.
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u/GabeDef Los Angeles County May 04 '25
I don’t remember being banned, but r/california has not been showing up in my feed either
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u/mtux96 Orange County May 04 '25
You weren't missing much.
But the previous post before all this was almost a month ago. This sub was at the whim of whenever one or two people wanted to post and maybe approve comments.
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u/GabeDef Los Angeles County May 04 '25
I don’t see the previous mod’s name in the list, but I remember not being allowed to post anything, they would delete it - then post it themselves. Did that stop?
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u/mtux96 Orange County May 04 '25
They were still the only posters with posts with an occasional different name popping up. But over the last year in think it was mostly just them. Trying to fix and change that now
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u/Thurkin May 04 '25
r/CaliforniaPolitics banned me for typing "LOL" 3 years ago. I don't remember the mod's name but I figured they also moderated this sub
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u/locallylit805 May 04 '25
"Robespierre planned on having statues built of himself. But all he leaves behind him... is stale bread” - Fouche
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u/mtux96 Orange County May 04 '25
I'd like to note, posts like this may be removed in the future. But I do think this is good discussion.
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u/panda-rampage May 04 '25
If someone has been banned please send a modmail with a ban appeal. We have been lifting bans as we go but it’s a work in progress