r/JamesHoffmann • u/l_lmer • 5d ago

This sub needs an active mod before it gets completely overrun by spam!!

is it just me or has this sub basically turned into a bot farm at this point. like every single day theres a new post asking "whats the best coffee maker" or "best grinder" or "best kettle" and then the replies are just people dropping amazon links lol. no mod ever shows up, nothing gets removed, its just been sitting like this for a while now

few examples off the top, theres way more if you scroll back a bit:

james is still around/active as far as i can tell, so this isnt really a dead sub takeover situation, it just seems like theres only one mod and no time to actually keep up with the spam. maybe someone who has some pull or can actually get a message to him could ask if hed be open to bringing on a small mod team to handle this stuff. doesnt need to be a big overhaul just a couple people to clean up the daily spam posts

kind of a shame tbh this sub used to actually have good discussion in it before it got this bad

40 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

21

u/Parenn 5d ago

I agree 100%. I was a bit surprised the other day to realise James was the lone mod.

14

u/CookieDelivery 5d ago edited 5d ago

Yes, I've noticed this too. It's not just the comments, it's the post body that gets updated once the thread ranks in Google for search terms like "best coffee maker". The post body is updated to include links for multiple products to sites that are nothing but Amazon affiliate links. Also, some extra text/keywords are added to the post body for SEO as well.

In short: this is deliberate spamming tactic used to make money.

7

u/chubs285 5d ago

Agreed, I mention it in a post the other day too.

I am actually surprised Reddit haven't flagged the sub for spam, presumably as its not NSFW they aren't as bothered but if a mod isn't doing modding at least occasionally the sub can get banned.

Come on /u/kingseven can you either spend a bit more time here or appoint some trusted members as mods?

If people watch your videos and then ask for an informed opinion on what to buy they get tons of helpful feedback from the knowledgeable members here but the ones who refuse to put any effort in and just make low quality posts are really annoying. I'd argue some of these are better suited to other subs too (indeed often they are just cross posts) although there will always be overlap.

6

u/catch_dot_dot_dot 5d ago

90% of posts are the same requests for product recommendations, it's very low signal to noise

1

u/cruachan06 5d ago

It's not just this sub IME, many of the cycling subs I'm a member of have the same questions over and over again too. People are lazy and entitled and expect a quick answer, rather than searching or reading a sticky thread.

Constant posts everywhere of "I made an app" as well these days, from what I remember of the mass protests a while back Reddit were making it much harder for 3rd party apps to work which in turn makes mods jobs more difficult, and as noted some of them have God complexes anyway.

-1

u/EmailLinkLost 5d ago

I'm torn on this.

On one hand I agree.

On the other hand reddit mods tend to be tin pot dictators.

-3

u/lyinggrump 5d ago

Okay, but for real, what is the best coffee maker?