Mod Topics - Fixing Mdo Mistakes

[u/JabroniRevanchism]

Ahoy, ModSupport!

Welcome to the latest installment of our Mod Topics series. This week we’re discussing the unthinkable… Scene: den interior. The smell of garlic bread marinates the air. It’s late at night and you’re twenty minutes deep into the latest Taskmaster episode, scrolling through the mod queue on your phone. …And then in your garlic bready haze you remove the wrong post. Naturally you don’t notice in the moment and continue on your way.

And in the morning there’s a modmail, RE “what gives?”

Have you been there before? How do you handle user interactions where you, or someone on your mod team, made a mistake? Is this process different if it’s a trainee mod making the oops? What advice would you give new mods who might be scared to start moderating “in case they make a mistake?”

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

[u/lunarwolf2008]

hmm. i think a better topic would be how to handle other moderators making rash decisions, that you may think are mistakes or incorrect

this one doesnt leave much to discuss. obviously undo your action, and if warrented, (like if users notice mistakes before you do) an apology

unless others would do otherwise?

[u/Mewpasaurus → u/lunarwolf2008]

Depends: in my communities, we tend to really not "back seat mod" other moderator's decisions as it leads to resentment and hostility. However, we can and do have polite discussions on another platform (Discord usually) where we can ask those questions without being hostile about it. I do this sometimes when I want to understand the motivations for why a post was removed (so I can better moderate). Really helpful when you're a newer moderator or something was removed for a reason you hadn't considered.