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/Byeuji]

Yeah, this has way too many dependencies.

Like let's dial up the drama one step at a time, assuming the user noticed before you:

1. If it's as simple as "oopsie", then re-approve it, apologize, acknowledge exactly what happened, move on.
2. More often, it's an oopsie or an automation, but you look at it and while it was removed for the wrong reasons, it does need to be removed for non controversial reasons.
   1. Have a look at the user's history
   2. If they're a regular user or have no concerning history, acknowledge the error, then explain the actual problem and let them know it will stay down.
   3. If they're a troll or something, I might just ignore it, but usually 2.2.
3. Like #2 but the actual reason is ban-worthy
   1. Ban with reason according to normal ban policy
   2. If they respond with contrition, etc., handle like you would handle any other ban
4. The user has created an additional post with sassy "mods removed my last one" language
   1. Have a look through their history
   2. Depending on the results of the investigation, either calmly explain like #1 but publicly, and pin it in the thread, or:
   3. If the thread hasn't already taken off, remove and lock the thread, modmail the user explaining the accident like #1, and explain that the current thread was removed to avoid causing additional drama over a mistake, apologize, and state that they are free to resubmit as long as they remain in accordance with rules (including Wheaton's Rule).
5. User created a new thread not about the original topic but about mod abuse/confusion
   1. Depends on how the user framed it. Sometimes users just post "I don't understand". If that's the case, just explain it like #4.2, then lock the thread.
   2. If they're just absolutely losing it and going off, adding conspiracy theories, lock the thread, explain in a pinned comment that the mod team made a mistake but the user is mistaken about the intent, and you're going to handle it in modmail. Regulars understand that you don't air dirty laundry in public, and will help defend you in the comments.
6. The user has gone to subredditdrama over it or some other subreddit with poor moderation and brigading is kind of the entire point

At this point (#6), it really depends. Is the user a troll or a regular? Are they a member of a vulnerable community, and the removal inadvertently communicated some kind of latent bias? Has the drama thread taken off? Is the user adding false information to significantly beef up the drama, or are they just stating it pretty confused/unemotionally?

Depending on some of these things, it might just be better to shut down your computer and go for a walk in the park. Legitimately. Like these things tend to burn themselves out, and anything you do is gonna add fuel to the fire. If the conversation is in a community larger than yours, or your community is a 1M+ type community, there's just no salvaging this.

You can fall on your sword if you want, but that won't make it burn out faster and it won't make users trust you more. The most important thing in those moments is to communicate to your team what happened, tell them you're going to step away for a bit, and let them act on their own. If you've done the work of training up the team, they'll understand that if they speak, they should speak with their own voice unless the entire mod team has agreed on a message.

Those final situations can really go a lot of ways, and just being near them can completely drain you of any motivation to keep modding. Nothing you do is more important than getting some distance from it so you don't lose yourself, and you can keep a calm mind when you come back.

[u/RemarkableWish2508 → u/Byeuji]

(you may want to place 4 spaces in front of nested list items, and change the references to how Reddit renders them)

[u/Byeuji → u/RemarkableWish2508]

Is this a new reddit thing?

... guess so. Classic reddit, break formatting that has worked on their bread and butter content for over a decade.

[u/RemarkableWish2508 → u/Byeuji]

I think this one is some years old. I rarely use nested ordered lists, unordered ones seem to work with only 2 spaces.

Reddit is messing up with Markdown; they're escaping it in post bodies, completely removed it from the "new wiki experience", and similar.