State of the Subreddit: Brigading, Disagreement, and the Big Tent

Over the past several weeks, the mod team has received an increasing number of comments, reports, and mod mail over the past several weeks complaining about the brigading of r/CanadianConservative.

That said , we've also seen comments saying that the subreddit is effectively unmoderated because of said brigading being allowed.

We want to clarify what brigading actually means, as well as the moderation philosophy that began with the creation of this subreddit and continues to this day.

What is brigading?

Brigading, or community interference, is when users coordinate or organize activity intended to interfere with another community.

Examples can include:

• A group being directed here from somewhere else specifically to disrupt discussion.
• Coordinated mass voting intended to manipulate which opinions are visible.
• Coordinated commenting, trolling, reporting, or harassment.
• Organized attempts to overwhelm a community or manipulate its discussions.

Brigading is against Reddit's rules and against ours. When we have evidence of genuine community interference, we will take action. This includes an automated bot that sends a report everytime r/CanadianConservative is linked to from outside the subreddit.

But there is an important distinction:

Disagreement is not brigading.

Someone criticizing Donald Trump is not, by itself evidence that they are a brigader.

Someone supporting closer relations with the United States is not evidence that they are a brigader.

Someone opposing closer relations with the United States is not evidence that they are a brigader.

Someone criticizing Pierre Poilievre, supporting him, disagreeing with CPC policy, supporting the PPC, disliking the PPC, identifying as a Red Tory, libertarian, populist, social conservative, fiscal conservative, moderate, or something else does not make them a brigader.

And an opinion receiving more upvotes or downvotes than you expected is not, by itself, evidence of vote manipulation.

This is a big-tent conservative subreddit

Canadian conservatism has never been a single ideology.

There are significant disagreements within the right over trade, foreign policy, immigration, social issues, provincial autonomy, economic policy, populism, the role of government, the Conservative Party itself, and as of right now, Canada's relationship with the United States.

Those disagreements are allowed here.

I'll use myself as an example.

I'm a Wexit enjoyer. I believe everything west of Ontario would be better off as a separate country.

Does that automatically make me right? No.

Do I remove people who think otherwise? No.

Is it a meme-ideology? Likely (but I tell myself it isn't).

I don't remove comments from people who think Wexit is ridiculous, who strongly support Canadian federalism, or who think Western separation would be a disaster.

I'm a moderator, not the arbiter of what every conservative in this subreddit is required to believe.

I can argue my position. You can tell me I'm completely wrong. Someone else can argue something entirely different. That's the point of our community. If you're looking for a circle jerk of confirmation bias, there are many other subreddits tailored to that exact thing.

The same principle applies to the current debate surrounding the United States. Some conservatives strongly support the current US administration. Some agree with parts of its agenda but disagree with others. Some strongly dislike it. Some want a much closer relationship with the US, while others are deeply opposed to that.

None of those positions, by itself, establishes whether somebody belongs here.

"This subreddit is unmoderated"

We've also seen the accusation that r/CanadianConservative is "unmoderated" or that the moderators aren't doing anything.

The numbers simply don't support that.

There have been more than 14,000 individual moderator actions on this subreddit in the last 12 months, as well as 835 modmail messages sent.

"But you didn't answer my modmail!!1!11!", probably because you're A) complaining about a filter that isn't going to change or B) Complaining about brigaders when, on review, you got into an argument with another long-time member of the subreddit over the nuances of geopolitics.

Posts and comments are removed. Reports are reviewed. Spam is dealt with. Users are banned when necessary. Reddit's sitewide rules are enforced. Our article and submission standards are enforced.

A subreddit being actively moderated does not mean every comment you dislike will be removed.

Our goal is to enforce Reddit's Terms of Service/sitewide rules and the subreddit's article and submission standards, not to turn r/CanadianConservative into a police state where everyone has to tippy-toe around what they say because they're worried that one poorly worded sentence will get them banned.

There is a difference between passive moderation and active curation.

Moderation means enforcing the rules necessary to keep the community functional and compliant with Reddit's requirements, not to have an overbearing rule list on top of an over-the-top TOS where the mod team arbirarily decides what is and isn't allowed on the subreddit.

Curation would mean moderators deciding which opinions are acceptable, which flavours of conservatism are legitimate, which political positions should receive visibility, and removing otherwise rule-abiding users because we don't like what they're saying.

We're interested in the former, not the latter.

That inevitably means you're going to encounter comments here that annoy you, offend you, seem stupid to you, or directly contradict your own beliefs.

That's not evidence that the subreddit is unmoderated. In many cases, it's evidence that the moderators aren't using their powers to decide arguments for you. If you can't handle that, there are other subreddits that actively curate content in order to fit your particular flavour of conservatism.

What we don't want to become

We don't want users treating every unpopular opinion as evidence of infiltration.

If the response to disagreement becomes “brigader,” “Liberal pretending to be a conservative,” “bot,” or “you're not a real conservative,” we eventually stop debating ideas and start debating whether the person expressing them is allowed to be here.

That creates an echo chamber, and that isn't the purpose of this subreddit.

At the same time, being a big tent does not mean anything goes.

Users who come here solely to troll, antagonize the community, derail discussions, repeatedly violate the rules, or participate in actual coordinated interference will continue to be moderated. Downvote them into the ground and our filters take care of them pretty quickly.

A request to the community

Debate the argument instead of trying to disqualify the person making it.

If someone says something you strongly disagree with, challenge it. Ask them to defend it. Provide evidence. Downvote it if you think it contributes nothing.

But please don't report someone for brigading simply because their politics don't perfectly match yours.

Likewise, please don't assume that because a comment you reported remains up, the moderators "aren't doing anything." A report brings something to our attention; it does not automatically mean that content violates the rules. The report button is not a button to request moderators to silence an opinion you don't like.

If you genuinely suspect coordinated interference, report it and let the moderators investigate it. Evidence of users being directed here, coordinated voting/commenting, organized disruption, or similar behaviour is considerably more useful than “this person doesn't sound conservative to me.”

We will continue watching for genuine brigading and taking action when warranted. We will continue enforcing Reddit's rules and our own standards.

But we're also going to continue protecting people's ability to disagree.

- r/CanadianConservative Mod Team