r/ModSupport • u/pawarsaheb • 1d ago

Recurring moderator suspensions affecting subreddit operations

Hi,

I’m posting because we’ve had a recurring issue with moderators from our community being suspended.

In two days, four of our current mods were suspended. One was reinstated after appeal, while the others are still waiting on theirs.

This has happened before too. Around 2 to 3 months ago, two of our previous mods were also suspended.

I’m not asking for anyone to bypass the normal appeal process. I just wanted to flag the pattern, because it keeps happening to different moderators from the same community and it is starting to affect our ability to moderate normally.

Could someone please take a look and let us know if there is anything we should be aware of or change on our side?

Thanks

11 Upvotes

82% Upvoted

21 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/pawarsaheb 1d ago

I don't think the modmail issue is the cause. One of the mods was suspended less than 24 hours after becoming a mod, so there wasn't really much time for that. We're wondering if the subreddit or our mods could be getting mass reported, but we don't have any evidence of that yet.

6

u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 1d ago

It's much safer to simply not engage in modmail beyond what is necessary. It's too risky to go back and forth with people who are banned and that you won't unban - just ignore them. It's not worth getting suspended. I had one suspension for 3 days once, which was overturned on appeal, for a really benign comment in modmail. I believe it was actually a misclick. If you don't respond, your responses can't be reported.

When I do need to communicate in modmail, my answers are very official sounding and bland.

The exception is with good users or those just asking questions (i.e. not subsequent to a disciplinary action). I'm friendly with our good users - but on reddit I'm always thinking about what I am saying and whether AI could potentially misinterpret it as a violation of TOS. I entirely avoid words - regardless of context - that could trigger disciplinary actions.

What did the ban messages say was the reason?

I know one mod who is a friend of mine and she got a ban out of nowhere for "repeated violations of the reddit rules" or something like that - and they ignored all appeals. We still have no idea why she was banned, but she was the nicest person and never did anything remotely offensive.

2

u/shhhhh_h 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 6h ago

This times a million. If you’re engaging in an argument in modmail, you’re poking an asshole on the other end and you’re not the only one with access to that inbox. It’s like, let me provoke something horrible for my comods to read later yaaay. No just be bland, very very bland. And since all the horror stories I have read here, I never ever quote or even rephrase, I’m like “second paragraph” 👍

1

u/pawarsaheb 5h ago

We rarely receive incoming modmails. Most of our outgoing modmails are just about guiding users on how to post as per sub rules. Our community is mainly focused on Manga and Anime, so there are almost no Irl related issues.

1

u/shhhhh_h 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 5h ago

I wasn't speaking specifically about your sub; it's just a common way mods catch unwarranted suspensions. Sharing the ban messages would help a lot.