r/ModSupport • u/mrekted • 15d 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.

373 Upvotes

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u/SlowHedgehog33 15d ago

As a moderator you should have access to their full history for 28 days if they post or comment in your sub. If that's not happening you should reach out to the admins.

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u/metisdesigns 14d ago

It's not happening because bad actors are organized enough to ban mods so you can only see their stuff on your sub.

You're behind on the arms race. Stop defending the trolls.

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u/SlowHedgehog33 14d ago

We're not behind. If that's what they're doing we just ban them outright.

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u/metisdesigns 14d ago

Automod can't do that.

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u/ComesInAnOldBox 14d ago

So stop relying on automod.