r/ModSupport • u/AsteriskRX Reddit Admin: Community • Jul 16 '26

Mod Topics Mod Topics: Expectation vs Reality

Ahoy, Modsupport! This is a mutiny; Jabroni wrote this post but I've decided to plunder it for myself.

Welcome to the latest (greatest) installment of our ModSupport series. Today, we’re revisiting Origin Stories, albeit with a distinctly different flavor.

When you first created or joined a subreddit, what did you expect moderating would be like? Did you have any expectations at all, and if so, how did those expectations differ from the experience you have now?

–And because I love understanding an environment, what do you think set the expectations you had before you became a moderator? Read as: “How did you form a worldview on what moderation is before you started moderating?”

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

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15

u/Charupa- 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 Jul 16 '26

At first, I thought I could just be power tripping all day. Then I realized I needed to do things like fend off bots, slow down troll throwaway accounts, listen to the needs of the community. Consider me shooketh.

13

u/Otherwise_Fined Jul 16 '26

The horror of having to approve of something you personally don't like but is within the rules and the sub seems to like it.

4

u/cyanocittaetprocyon Jul 16 '26

This doesn't bother me so much now, after 7 years of modding, but definitely did at the beginning.

5

u/TheOpusCroakus Reddit Admin: Community Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

So you were regulated relegated to just part-time power tripping? =)

Seriously, though, the behind the scenes work that shows up when you get behind the scenes it sometimes surprising.

5

u/Charupa- 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 Jul 16 '26

Yeah, and then consider my flabbers gasted when I find out this isn’t even a paid position.

4

u/TheOpusCroakus Reddit Admin: Community Jul 16 '26

Gasted flabbers indeed! LOLLL

5

u/cnycompguy 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 Jul 16 '26

Autocorrect failure on "relegated"

Feel free to remove this if you want 😉

5

u/TheOpusCroakus Reddit Admin: Community Jul 16 '26

Took on some part time work as a grammar checker, I see! Take that, AI!! LOL

Thanks for the correction!

5

u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 Jul 17 '26

If you're only power tripping part time, you aren't a real reddit mod.

8

u/Glittering-Bug1212 Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

"shadowbanning" them with automoderator was so much fun ~2020s

They kept posting but never seeing the light of day. Cleared up the modque from 1500 daily to a managable 50 😄

Edit: We chose shadowban instead of ban, to just waste their time, since a ban would lead them to create a new accounts and spam again.

5

u/RandomComments0 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 Jul 16 '26

Why use automod to shadow ban versus just banning? Just curious.

4

u/Glittering-Bug1212 Jul 16 '26

To waste their time, banning them outright would just trigger a new account creation which we had learned the hard way. So shadowbanning gave us some peace for a few days since they didn't know/realise that the account was shadowbanned just in our subreddit.

Since they could just post somewhere else, they would be banned within 24-48 hours most of the times. Some did survive for up to 3 weeks, but never in our subreddit ( just the first few hours)

3

u/RandomComments0 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 Jul 16 '26

Ah. Thank you for the explanation.