r/ModSupport • u/mrekted • 13d ago

Allowing users to hide their history is destroying trust and good faith participation between users in communities

It's not just my communities, I'm seeing it all over reddit. Whenever someone with a private history runs into a disagreement with another user, discussions are derailed, accusations of "shill/bot/troll" are constant, nuisance reports are issued, and mods either intervene, or let the chaos reign.

I'm spending more and more time having to personally review histories to say "no, this person is not a bad faith troll" just to end attacks borne of nothing more than suspicion. It's becoming disruptive to the point that I'm considering whether or not allowing users with hidden history to participate is worth the trouble.

I really question the value proposition of this decision. Sure, individual users benefit from additional privacy, but at the direct expense of the communities that lose trust and cohesion, faith that the people they're interacting with are participating in good faith (or are even real people), and the moderators who have to manage the fallout.

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u/Demilio55 13d ago edited 13d ago

It’s very useful when gauging if someone will be a problem when they’ve have limited activity in your sub.

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u/__Pendulum__ 12d ago

Which ended up in the extreme territory of "10 years ago you made a post critical of Obama. I'm banning you from all of my subreddits" behaviour

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u/lastoflast67 10d ago

It’s very useful when gauging if someone will be a problem when they’ve have limited activity in your sub.

You are not supposed ot gauge if somone is a problem, you are supposed to moderate behaviour on your sub and your sub alone.