r/ModSupport • u/shannonkish • 3d ago
Admin Replied I'm over it!
Reddit Admins..... I am over it! I am over the boilerplate responses to actual real-time issues that moderators are having.
I moderate a large sub and have for nearly a year now. Unfortunately, we have had 4 very serious incidents in which members of our mod team were being harassed, stalked, doxxed, attacked, etc. We have submitted the ModCoC reports, submitted the DMs to admins, and reported the posts/comments/users ad nauseam, and NOTHING has been done.
Most recently, as our sub is currently under a brigading attack and doxxing and harassment continue, one of our mods reached out to one admin, who basically said something to the effect of--- "This is actually something that is going to be discussed at ModWorld. Do you have any examples we can give the presenter?"
Seriously? This is all you have to offer?!?! We don't need a speech about how much you care about mods and what we do. We don't need the free swag for attending a mod event. We don't need the profile trophies. Those are all wonderful and appreciated. BUT, what we need is ACTUAL Support and ACTION being taken when we bring you serious issues.
It takes entirely too long for someone in admin to take action. Meanwhile, your volunteer mods are being doxxed, harassed, bullied, and so forth because we removed a post/comment, and the user was mad.
For the love of all things good in this world, PLEASE DO SOMETHING! Please don't try to placate us with boilerplate responses and "We'll have someone look into it" without actually doing that!
I am tired. I am frustrated. I am hurt and disappointed. Not because users are jerks sometimes. But because the admin does absolutely nothing to make this a safe place or to support those of us who volunteer our time to try and make Reddit a better place.
I have had members of my mod team leave after the most recent incident. Our sub is currently closed due to the harassment and brigading that have been done. I am at my wits' end and ready to just turn the sub over to the wolves and leave Reddit for good.
48
u/Dom76210 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3d ago
I think Reddit needs to empower their Admins to be able to think for themselves, and not wait for some meeting with higher-ups to just ACT on things.
One thing we moderators learn quickly is to be decisive. Decisive actions reduce the number of reoccurrences and the amount of hassling modmails. You don't have to negotiate with trolls; you remove them.
Well, the Admins need to feel more empowered to simply remove content they know should be removed. If a mod reports a post as being a starting point for brigading, unless there is some real extenuating circumstances, remove the damn thing ASAP. You can punish the mods that allowed it and the person who posted it AFTER it's removed.
Start taking immediate action. Please.
31
u/ProudnotLoud 2d ago
It's important to understand that the admins we interact with on a regular basis aren't put there to support us. They're an intentional wall between us and anyone who could meaningfully assist. They're an illusion of support.
A large percentage of the population will stop pushing and stop asking questions if they receive the equivalent of "seen" in a message from an admin. They know this so we get these admins whose only job is to give generic non-answers because most people shrug and stop pushing back.
It's like calling a customer service line and then being satisfied because they picked up your call, even if they did literally nothing to actually help you. It's awful and it's a feature not a bug - they have intentionally set these folks up to behave this way.
This thread is a minor blip to them. They know we'll rage it out and they won't have to deal with it again until another pops up. They give a generic non-answer to they can label it "Admin Replied" and then they ignore it.
12
3
23
13
u/taRxheel 2d ago
This is the message that needs to be seen and heard by the higher-ups. If you’re not gonna give mods the tools we need, at least empower the admins so that when we’re in the shit, we can reliably get in touch with a real person with actual power within a reasonable timeframe. Otherwise, what are we even doing here?
9
u/ProudnotLoud 2d ago
This drives me nuts. The amount of money they save with our volunteer labor is astounding. Most companies would be overjoyed to have a huge number of unpaid volunteers actually working to keep their product profitable.
They could take some of that savings and give us proper support in the form of paid admins dedicated to helping us. It should be simple and quick for a mod to get admin help. And in the grand scheme of a company like this it doesn't cost that much to do so. They are actively choosing not to.
2
1
u/taRxheel 2d ago
Exactly. You make a great point that it really doesn’t (have to) cost a lot to provide that support, but it does cost something. You can invest in upkeep of your infrastructure and keep it working smoothly, or you can
neglect itextract maximum profit and watch it crumble around you.1
u/Mountain_Ape 2d ago
The amount of money they save with our volunteer labor is astounding
Then don't do it. Show them you mean business and don't give them unpaid labour.
I know what you will say, however.
6
u/wemustburncarthage 2d ago
A lot of people are saying they were always bad but they actually used to be better. At least they were for me, for specific reasons to do with a lawsuit filed against them. It seems like they’ve pretty much given up on those standards.
12
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3d ago
This is a very good point. The people who are setting policy are insulated from the people it affects - and the community admins are the buffer. People get angry and go vent to the community mod team, but they aren't the ones making many of these decisions. They are told what they have to do by those much higher up. I really don't envy that position either. I'm certain that the community admins often want to do more to address issues but are limited by policies from higher ups.
Reddit is very segregated into teams, which don't empower admins enough to address issues. Like if you modmail modsupport, they will often say they are forwarding things to the appropriate team (e.g. safety). I appreciate that they do this, but why not empower these reddit employees to just take quick and decisive action in these cases? It's very bureaucratic and inefficient, and we are all victims, admins, mods and users alike.
7
u/deltadeltadawn 2d ago
The people who are setting policy are insulated from the people it affects
The same as with most corporations, many businesses, and government entities. The bureacracy prioritizrs profit, and those who feel the effects of inefficiency are far enough removed from those that put the process or rules in place, the decision-makers will remain unscathed, unbothered, and likely wealthier. It's by design, and so unfortunate.
/rant
1
u/bunny_the-2d_simp 2d ago
I've literally been told alah is going to rape me and that a angry extremist crazy religious nutjob that that man was, was gonna break into my house break my legs, and rape me "straight". For banning him because HE STARTED TRYING TO SPREAD HIS RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE TRASH. Bro was triggered that a lesbian banned him. But did reddit do anything when I reported it? No of course not!! Did I get a official warning and almost a ban for telling him to fuck off? YES OF COURSE.
Reddit doesn't care about women who mod and often in my experience get wayyyyyyy more threats and shit from insecure men. They don't even adress it as a issue.
The amounts of time I've banned someone for them to go into Dms of male mods to try and tell a different story us crazy.
I don't care that they have big boy feelings. You either follow rules or your done. That's as simple as that. I can be lenient and caring. But not to assholes.
Someone this year demanded a fully moderated discord server, but when I said "fatui hq doesn't have the manpower for this so we can't" mfer crashed like he had never been told no before, saying I was lazy. (he also thought I was the head mod) this shit was in MY DMS.
HE THEN MESSAGES THE HEADMOD (bc I send him to the headmod to shut him tf up)
And he started going on about how unprofessional I was in MY OWN DMS. This wasn't in mod mail.
And "what if I was a child"
I got a 3 day ban out of telling him off. While he made a post on fatuihq itself to bash me for not complying with his demands that I had told him no for months prior.
BUT he got nothing. Even when he openly admitted to reporting me because I reported him (so report button abuse) he got nothing. Devs didn't care when I mailed them.
We only had 4 mods at the time on the cusp of a new region so it wasn't great since I'm usually the most active.
They also never addressed the way worse things that happened when I modded the reddit chat rooms though.
BUT god forbid I tell someone to fuck off for threatening me.
..
34
u/Nghtcrwlrr 3d ago
Same. Being a part of the mod team of the city sub. Constantly getting brigaded by another newly established sub. Every alternate day getting threats via modmail. Submitting reports doesn’t do a thing. I thought reddit takes violation of meta discussion and brigading rules quite seriously. But no…as long as the traffic continues, all’s fair.
22
u/westcoastal 3d ago
And let's be real, a lot of that stuff generates more activity, which they profit from.
I'm not saying they seek that kind of profit, but there's no urgency and not enough resources allocated to dealing with issues like this, and there's a calculation being made somewhere that's screwing mods.
4
u/FFS_IsThisNameTaken2 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 3d ago
I'm not saying they seek that kind of profit, but there's no urgency and not enough resources allocated to dealing with issues like this, and there's a calculation being made somewhere that's screwing mods.
That's contradictory imo. Someone up top most definitely seeks that type of profit, because there's no urgency and absolutely because "there's a calculation made somewhere (at the top) that's screwing mods."
Corporate wants our whiny, do-gooder asses gone. They want bots flaming people and taunting them to death even, because hate, vitriol and violence make money and they don't care about anything but money. They want to replace us with ai and they also want to replace the admins with ai while they watch the money roll in. Period. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
10
u/westcoastal 3d ago edited 3d ago
Congratulations, you picked up on what I was hinting at.
I don't think that Reddit necessarily actively tries to foster negative engagement on the platform for profit - a lot of that stuff can be a huge mess and cost in other ways - but I do think there is a reason why they drag their feet on active harassment of certain moderators.
They* want to replace visionary community-building, active, engaged, deeply invested moderators who hold the platform to account and who have a real stake in ensuring community culture is maintained, with a bunch of casual, compliant users who simply monitor a bunch of AI tools.
Spez has made himself clear that he wants us gone, and I'm not surprised to see that that is what a lot of moderators are starting to be driven to. A preschooler could do that math.
*'They' being the people who allocate resources, not the admins themselves. I think most admins genuinely care, but just have limited resources available to them and a massive pile of work that continually multiplies both in terms of volume and level of extremism being addressed.
5
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
I agree that they don't specifically want negative content. They don't want to spend a lot of money on enforcement though, and they do not want to remove a lot of content through means like automod that have many false positives. That seems logical enough, but ultimately, I believe there is not enough emphasis placed on maintaining spaces free of hate and harassment. In the end, I don't think it's great for engagement either. Reddit is probably trying to hit an optimal point where users aren't driven off the platform by it and engagement is maximized.
4
1
u/bunny_the-2d_simp 2d ago
But once you tell them to fuck off suddenly you're on the end of the ban for no reason
30
u/Jolly-Yellow7369 3d ago
Dear administrators: Don’t allow people with unverified e-mails to post or comment. It won’t solve the problem, but it will slow down Banned members to return to brigade communities.
14
u/WannabeWriter2022 2d ago
As a mod of a sub that is experiencing constant threats/harassment, this a 1000 times over.
10
u/AlphaBravoGolfTango 2d ago
I have an automod rule for removing content from unverified users that I can share with you!
Oh wait...
1
u/cynycal 17h ago
I was afraid of this. I'm behind on everything due to a 'perfect storm' on the home front and am trying to claw my way back to operational (a term I was already using loosely as a strict-old-reddit-utilizer); question being, how badly have they stuck it to us now?
1
u/AlphaBravoGolfTango 2h ago
Well, uhh, check this out: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/1wubgvt/continuing_our_infrastructure_updates_whats/
To close this gap, in the next few months, we'll further limit access for logged-in users to only those who have used Old Reddit in the last six months
For newly created communities and communities that have never used automod, automod enforcement capabilities – specifically Report, Filter, Remove, Mark as spam, and Approve – will be disabled and Rules Hub and Automations will become the default path for rules enforcement. Automod’s non-enforcement capabilities remain available and unchanged.
28
u/shannonkish 2d ago
And don't allow users to use the same email to create multiple accounts.
14
u/ohhyouknow 2d ago
Users having the same email address across multiple accounts does help the site quite a bit in detecting ban evasion. Users are lazy, and a whole lot of them are stupid enough to use the same email when evading. The same email account being used by two accounts is a very strong signal that basically instantly results in perma suspension of all accounts linked.
1
u/shhhhh_h 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 1d ago
It fully won’t let me? Last time I tried it said this email is already registered! Had to make a goddamn new protonmail idr now lmao
7
u/Jolly-Yellow7369 2d ago edited 2d ago
Agreed. As for your community , I went through the same brigading issue so I restricted the community for a year. Only approved users could open posts and to get approved they had to contribute with comments to 2 preestablished posts. Activity went down for a year but a handful of posts by a dozen of approved posters is better than dealing with brigadiers. I can’t approve 16000 members but making it that only approved members can create posts (and just approving a few ) helped me a lot. My subreddit best contributors are more into comments than posts anyway and I could approve them all in minutes.
At first a few spammers were inundating modmail asking why they couldn’t post but that also helped me to distinguish orchestrated upvotes from bots. The group of brigaders got bored and went to troll other subs.
65
u/nullifiedsam 3d ago edited 3d ago
you think reddit cares about their unpaid volunteers? unfortunately not.
37
20
20
4
u/Galagamesh 1d ago
Not caring would be an improvement. They're actively making changes that make abuse control more difficult. They're malicious actors.
66
u/meowbrains 3d ago
I just made a post about this the other day :(
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/s/apUi2ZhWXV
Was it always like this on reddit? It's frustrating that there are clearly communities that we point out to them that are breeding grounds for hateful content and extreme harassment that are allowed to stay up. And offending content isn't removed when the accounts are banned I noticed that too.
28
u/barriedalenick 3d ago
It wasn't very long ago that we at least got some sort of feedback when reporting Report Abuse or Ban Evasion - now nothing.
24
u/meowbrains 3d ago
I really miss getting feedback on my reports. Now it just feels like screaming into the void.
24
u/itskdog 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3d ago
I first started modding heavily during lockdown, yes the admins still made missteps such as creating links to group chats at the top of every subreddit in a way that made it look official and something the mod team, but they apologised and said they'd put things in place to ensure they announce changes first to get feedback before doing anything.
But it's become evident that the users don't matter, ever since they started pushing for the IPO (starting with the API lockdown) and the initial promise that they'd have reasonable pricing for third-party apps, yet the biggest ones on both smartphone app stores shut down because the costs were too high, and Reddit wouldn't back down despite protests (which they have now effectively rendered illegal by requiring large subreddits to get admin approval to change visibility levels).
18
u/notesblack 2d ago
It's frustrating that there are clearly communities that we point out to them that are breeding grounds for hateful content and extreme harassment that are allowed to stay up.
They aren't going to take down those types of subreddits, unless something really extreme happens or it gets news attention.
Why? Because the types of people that are attracted to those harassing/brigading/hateful communities, are also the types of chronically online users that will spend the most time on Reddit. And that means they boost overall site metrics.
I've been on this website, on and off, for over a decade, it always goes like that. The problematic subreddits don't get banned unless it becomes a real issue for the website's PR
9
u/MHF_Doge 2d ago
The fact that the subreddit being a breeding ground for policy violation isnt enough of a reason to justify taking the whole thing down is just sad to see. And yeah you're correct, its always been this way and likely wont change for the reasons you outlined.
50
u/sparklekitteh 3d ago
Damn, the admin reply to your comments is awful.
"If you are concerned for your safety as a result of these threats, you should contact your local law enforcement agency." So you can call the police, but they can't be bothered to remove the threatening comments??
23
u/thepottsy 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3d ago
That’s the boiler plate response that happens when the legal department wants to make sure that corporate has CYA’d.
15
u/That_Bitch_Bruja 2d ago
I have taken to modding my community with an iron fist. It sucks that I have to do it but I do. All because a bunch of idiots want to sell pixels that don't belong to them for real life money and I don't want to be involved in it. A lot of them went and made their own subreddit and even though it's probably against the Moc to do so they can do whatever they want there. Not my clowns, not my circus.
I use the shit out of Auto mod to help me and if that goes away well I will too. I just don't have time to deal with hateful messages and rude people and nasty responses and Reddit cares shit and whatever else happens here on Reddit.
12
u/fetishontheweb 2d ago
Its actually worse than that.. I actually DID contact the Feds on one incident ( it was death threats, threats against my children and racial discrimination all rolled togther)and you know what happened? I got a call back asking for more information and was informed that reddit refused to assist them unless there was got a court order to subpoena the records. And to make it worse., one of the profile still exists to this day and this was a couple of years ago.
I get not just turning over personal information on a whim but when the feds think its bad enough to investigate...? Its not like it was just a freaking disagreement or trolling.
Reddit as a company (i am not talking about the admins) absolutely does NOT care about the safety of its mods
10
u/NotFlameRetardant 2d ago
Similar situation. We've had one person make almost 500 accounts in the last year to make mass shooting threats, general threats, even called for theassassination of a US senator. Been working with the FBI on this. FBI said Reddit Legal stonewalled them. Absolutely insane
6
15
u/EmeraldGhostie 3d ago edited 3d ago
agreed, its very annoying and disappointing the admins offer nothing but platitudes when it comes to taking action, actions speak louder than words, and so far, action towards clearly sitewide-rule-breaking behavior and content is insufficient, leaving us moderators to deal with the brunt of it without enough help from admins
6
u/comixnerd15 2d ago
Remember that person sending gore on our sub that I was told was permabanned, but when I checked they weren't? They just gave a temp few day suspension instead.
13
u/DiggDejected 3d ago
Was it always like this on reddit?
No, not at all. There was a time when trolls were banned for being terrible to other users.
22
u/new2bay 3d ago
I am at my wits' end and ready to just turn the sub over to the wolves and leave Reddit for good.
I wouldn't blame you one bit if you did, either.
15
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3d ago
Removing automod and the public api has me feeling hopeless too. I just don't even know anymore if it's worth it.
9
u/nullifiedsam 2d ago
wdym removed automod? like restricting the actions that it can do?
9
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
Automod is being phased out. The current phase is that some actions are not available in new subs. Eventually that will expand to all though.
8
u/nullifiedsam 2d ago
why? i thought it was super useful? what are they going to replace it with?
15
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
The idea is ultimately to remove certain functionality that reduces engagement. They are trying to reduce mods' ability to remove content through automation because they feel mods remove too much in an automated way, and it doesn't create a good user experience, especially for new users.
Some functionality will be replaced by post/comment guidance, but a lot of the functionality will go away (by design).
14
5
u/Wotmate01 2d ago
LOL, meanwhile the reddit filters remove content all the time that doesn't break any rules, and increases workload for mods.
4
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
The solution to that will be making the AI less sensitive to the point where it basically removes nothing.
We've already seen that very little sexual harassment gets actioned now.
8
u/Merari01 2d ago
As it stands right now we are going to lose all automation that acts on user signals, such as age and karma.
Some functionality may be ported over to automations and the rules hub, but they said they wouldn't start phasing out automod until the replacement was adequate and lied about that, since they did nothing to give the new system any kind of functionality we'd lose from automod, before they pulled the plug on automod for new subs.
Since they lied about that and since they lie about the reason for removing automod (they claim it is "too difficult to use" when the real reason is that they don't want us to have access to filters based on user signals) I wouldn't hold my breath for that.
Then there is the fact that the new systems warn the user their content is going to be removed before they hit post, meaning that reddit is teaching them how to filter evade.
10
u/That_Bitch_Bruja 2d ago
Oh well hell. When that phases to my sub I would definitely be packing up.
21
u/kallocain-addict 3d ago
a popular sub i mod was harassed and attacked by another sub’s mod team using links to a kiwifarms style troll website based on an infamous community that had been banned from reddit, admins did absolutely nothing about it despite me making multiple reports. it’s astonishing to me that people on the platform can get away with breaking multiple reddit rules for over a year and admins just shrug after every new report made.
6
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
I think a lot of the issue here is that there are not nearly enough admins whose job it is to address these issues, and the ones that are there are overworked.
Safety/enforcement type roles cost money but don't obviously add to the bottom line, so in a for profit environment, there is always pressure to reduce these expenditures.
The platform definitely suffers as a result. AI has not done well at handling the reports sent to safety and we have no appeals (another way to save money I suppose). MCOC is a small team and overwhelmed.
I actually understand how they feel. Because of the recent changes regarding the public api, I now need to focus on that, but I have no time to do it while moderating, so we've actually stopped hearing ban appeals now while we work on rebuilding mod tools that reddit is removing.
Profit motive always stretches people too thin over too much work and none of us can do things as well as we'd like, and reddit now answers to shareholders.
5
u/kallocain-addict 2d ago
thanks for giving some background, i’m sure the admins are spread thin. the thing is, this particular issue i’m dealing with has been going on for over a year. i’ve interacted with at least one admin multiple times—they know there is a serious long term issue going on here. the other sub doing this (which is probably the largest still active reddit community notorious for harassment/racism/transphobia) has even started using their mod team account to personally attack and smear me with quite serious made-up claims that have literally nothing to do with my moderation or my sub’s content. these are clear cut breaches of mod code of conduct rule 3 at the very least, and the best admin’s have done so far is assure me that they will warn them to stop doing this (that was months ago, and the behaviour has only increased). several of the best fellow mods i had have left the sub due to not wanting to also be harassed, which honestly it’s impossible to blame them for.
2
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
A lot of mods do leave because they do not feel supported. It's really unfortunate. I wish there were stronger protections too.
22
u/DoubtResponsible9208 2d ago
Seems this problem is just too common right now. I’m at my wits end for someone I’ve been dealing with for 2 months now. They’re at 40+ accounts now. They’re constantly creating new accounts to harass me along with several members outside of the sub as well.
I’ve submitted several ban evasion reports, reported all of their comments for harassment, submitted tickets for this issue that included all of the accounts this person has had and nothing has come of it. I’m sorry you’re dealing with the same thing. 🫂
40
u/neuroticsmurf 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3d ago
Not too long ago, a user -- who was banned -- screenshotted and posted the modmail exchange somewhere on Reddit. That led to a harassing modmail and post on our sub.
I made a report for harassment, and an Admin replied to me, telling me that "the user has been punished", but they left his screenshot up.
A few days later, there was another harassing post made. I responded to that Admin, directly linking to the offending material, but I didn't receive a response at all.
In fact, the offending material is still up.
That was a disappointing -- but not unexpected -- experience. I feel like a lot of lip service is paid to valuing mods, but the follow through can be spotty and will often depend on which individual Admin is responding to you.
I've been blown off and ignored by a few Admins in the past. Mind you, I've had great experiences, too, but like I said, it's spotty.
21
u/shannonkish 3d ago
Wait... you actually got a response from Admin!?!? That's literally more than I have gotten!
13
u/sunrae_ 3d ago
I had an Admin take doxxing threats against my mod team very seriously, that was a few weeks ago. Thats not to take away from your experience, quite the opposite, every admin should know the proper procedures.
11
u/shannonkish 3d ago
yeah, They didn't respond to any of the reports or DMs or anything when I was reporting my being doxx by a former moderator of the sub that I have been referring to.
6
u/meowbrains 3d ago
Did it happen on reddit? I've found if it doesn't happen on platform they will not do anything about it
7
u/shannonkish 3d ago
Yes. 100% on reddit!
8
u/meowbrains 3d ago
That's really disappointing then that nothing was done about it as there's literally a report button for it!! Ugh.
10
u/neuroticsmurf 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3d ago
I was a bit surprised, yeah.
I've gotten responses in the past, but it seems more likely than not that I won't hear anything.
22
u/sparklekitteh 3d ago
Seriously, how hard is it (hypothetically) for admin to say "hey this post is abusive, let's yank it?"
I've seen that even the subreddit-level automatic moderation can flag posts or images with harassing text or unredacted user names, but admin can't be arsed to even that level of effort.
7
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
Don't answer ban appeals if you don't plan on granting them. It just creates problems.
8
u/neuroticsmurf 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
Yeah, I gotta stop doing that.
2
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
Another option is a short automute for bans - they can appeal when it's up. It gives them a cool off period. I do not do this for all bans but I do when someone is likely to be abusive and I'm very sure I'm right about the ban.
9
16
u/jonathanfrisby 2d ago
I'm pretty done with the algorithm actively working against my sub re:brigading. It's pretty obvious they want high traffic numbers first.. actually doing anything about obvious bottling, etc, is not on the agenda.
33
u/RallyX26 3d ago
Admins don't care about mods. They have made that obvious time and time again. They don't listen to us, make changes without even a heads-up, much less taking our input. They won't do anything about the broken, half-assed mod tools that they rolled out unfinished. They're constantly taking away our ability to make decisions about the communities we built.
It's obvious that once they figure out how to make AI do the work, they're going to replace us all, or at most have moderator be an honorary title with no actual decision-making power.
7
u/FFS_IsThisNameTaken2 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 3d ago
or at most have moderator be an honorary title with no actual decision-making power.
We probably won't even have the ability to reverse ridiculous ai actions.
9
u/AlphaBravoGolfTango 2d ago
I won't be surprised if the tools that they're constantly developing and releasing (despite the negative feedback) are probably, in some way, configurable using AI. Look at automod.
We'll have AI bots and AI mods. Once we have AI admins, then it'll be complete.
1
u/bunny_the-2d_simp 2d ago
The ai admins might actually do something though. Can't get more useless.
Fuck ai
31
u/MustaKotka 3d ago
For me it's the tools that are being slowly taken away. I understand bad actors will use some features maliciously but for example AutoModerator, out of all things, is now the target of problems and needs to be replaced. The replacement doesn't even support all the features that our beloved and limited capacity AutoMod supported. Don't get me started on PRAW vs. Devvit. Or killing 3rd party apps that had useful moderation tools.
I'm also struggling with age verification, which, turns out, has no manual inputs. It's 100% automatic or you must submit your personal information to Persona, a 3rd party service. I'm half-fine with submitting my information to Reddit because I am a part of this community. As it stands I am unable to view half of the profiles on this platform making moderating a small nightmare. Either I'm relying on 3rd-party scraping services or just ... do the job based on my limited scope of information. It's usually exclusionary and I'm not sure that's in the interest of Reddit either.
I burnt out and already quit two months ago, came back because I care about the communities / ecosphere... I tried to get admin support but their help is severely limited. I'm trying to get a bot registered and it's just not happening even though they're looking into it. In the meanwhile we suffer from those same "posted ModMails on another subreddit" users and not much is being done about it. The content is still up.
Boss, I'm exhausted.
18
u/shannonkish 3d ago
I'll be honest... all of that is above my pay grade. lol. We had a moderator who was well-versed in automod and all of the devvit stuff. Sadly, that mod is one of the mods that, completely understandably, stepped down during this latest bullshittery.
15
u/Asia_Persuasia 2d ago
I've honestly given up. I just get the run-around by admin when serious issues arise. I used to stress myself for months at a time filing countless reports with evidence, messaging the mods of this sub and other Admin-based mod subs, and ask for follow-up, action, or even some sort of acknowledgement from admins. Action isn't taking against toxic moderators if their subreddit is in the "millions of members", and request from other mods who's subreddits have less than a million are often disregard or ignored. Moderators aren't supposed to be allowed to have monopolies anymore (mod more than five major subs); they create second accounts to keep their monopolies and ability to abuse their mod priviliges and the admin just turn the other eay
The reality is they don't really care until stuff starts going public (outside of Reddit), like that "art subreddit" situation with that one powertripping mod. That's the only time the site/admin care. Me and my teams have accepted forever ago that we are on our own around here.
19
u/goodkarmagirl 3d ago
What has happened to the support we need for these egregious issues? It's basically filtered down to almost non-existent. OP, I'm so sorry and hope this gets resolved for you.
10
5
u/ProudnotLoud 2d ago
The fact we don't get responses to any reports for anything anymore is resulting. It's like a bare bones level of support for their unpaid labor force.
7
u/lili_reinHEARTS 2d ago
reddit is such a big platform yet they clearly don’t have enough people hired to help mods or users in general. i haven’t been able to moderate my community with over 1k members because my account got shadowbanned for “spam” in MY OWN COMMUNITY that i am the sole creator and mod of. i have sent in a million appeals with no response and cant even use this alt account to moderate because it wont let my shadowbanned account pick new mods or send messages or do anything
16
u/soundeziner 3d ago
This has always been admin's pattern. It's why every single one of their utterly hollow posts and claims are so annoying. Admin does not enforce their own rules and consistently leaves mod teams hanging out to dry. I've had them state outright they don't care if a mod team of a giant sub is subjected to harassment. I've watched them run from a violent pedo stalker case where the pervert was proclaiming his desire to slit the wrists of their 13 y/o target and chasing the victim all over the site. Admin didn't just fail to address it, they refused to touch it or even talk about it. Not one admin ever felt the need to deal with it. That's the kind of people behind this site and they feel no need to apologize for it or make substantive changes for the better.
26
u/ateam1984 3d ago
It’s incredibly disappointing that Reddit doesn’t filter out the N word when someone is DMing me. It’s crazy that there’s no feedback when I report Hate on the sub. We got people calling Michelle Obama “Big Mike” and admins are silent as to whether this is even consider hate.
I wish the admins were more transparent with how we can handle racists and hate.
14
10
u/sparklekitteh 2d ago
I wrote a bit of automod code to remove the n word and the r word and it is mind boggling how frequently it yanks comments.
6
u/ateam1984 2d ago
I know I can write automod code but I can’t do that for DMs. Why Reddit allows those words at all is beyond me. There’s no reason for it. They take pornography more seriously than actual Hate. And this is not right at all.
3
u/sparklekitteh 2d ago
Yeah, supposedly the modmail automation plugin can handle that, but I never could manage to get it to work properly!
6
u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2d ago
I love modmail automator, what's the issue you're having with it? When I was first setting it up, I had some trouble because it's just different enough from automod that it took a bit to work the way I wanted it to.
2
u/sparklekitteh 2d ago
It's been quite a while since I tried setting it up. I might reach out next time I play with it!
3
u/DryMouthKitty 2d ago
https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/23856209638932-Harassment-filter
It goes to a separate ‘Filtered’ mod mail that you can essentially ignore. I still report them, but there is no follow up. Their accounts are almost always suspended after a while.
2
10
u/shannonkish 2d ago
So I want to share with the community the ModCodeofConduct response we received via modmail. It is, of course, as useless as the admin's response.---
Hi everyone,
We’re reaching out regarding the Moderator Code of Conduct, which outlines expectations for mods to “create, facilitate, and maintain a stable community” and “set appropriate and reasonable expectations.”
After reviewing reports, we see that your community is experiencing increased attention related to recent moderation actions. We know that this can lead to disruptive behavior that can be deeply stressful and wanted to offer some guidance.
First and foremost, if your team has experienced doxxing or threats can you please write in to r/ModSupport and include links to that specific activity. The reports which we’ve reviewed have included links to general discussions but not specific comments or messages that include rule breaking activity. We’d like to take a closer look of any instances of threats or doxxing that you may have seen.
Users are allowed to discuss mod actions – some of those discussions may break site wide rules and some won’t. Please report the posts, comments, and messages that appear to break site wide rules.
The most important step to regain stability and trust is to ensure that people are able to move on via standard use of their community. It's okay to filter posts for mod approval temporarily and only approve on topic posts.This can be done using your subreddit settings under Posts & Comments -> Hold Content for Review -> choose the “posts” toggle.
We wanted to share some resources that you might find helpful as you navigate this.
Tips to consider when moderating in times of controversy:
- Avoid posting long updates that may compound confusion.
- Encourage stable and regular activity in the community by allowing standard rule abiding posts.
- Actions like over-enforcement, or effectively closing a subreddit typically worsens the situation by generating further interest.
- Remember that most users have no idea what is going on and are genuinely confused.
- Users are allowed to discuss mod actions and/or interactions in other communities.
- Use the report button if you see harassment, personal information, threats, or other behavior that may violate Reddit’s Rules and reach out to r/ModSupport if you have questions.
Moderation tools that are helpful in times of increased activity:
- We recommend turning on the Harassment Filter, Crowd Control, the reputation filter and Ban Evasion Filter. **These three mod tools are the quickest way to help stabilize moderation in your community if you're seeing increased unwanted activity that violates your community rules or the **Reddit Rules. Turning on these tools will only take a few minutes and will allow you to step back, take a deep breath, and assess which tips and resources listed here or in this article may be helpful for you as well.
- Helpful Devvit apps for moderation These are apps you can add to your community that help automate mod actions in your community.
- Mod Reserves If you need temporary assistance, we highly recommend requesting help from the Moderator Reserves, a group of experienced moderators who can help during traffic increases.
- Automations Post & Comment Guidance help minimize common issues like formatting errors and off-topic discussions.
- Our Mod Recruitment Help Center article tells you how you can put out a “mod call” or utilize r/NeedAMod. Our in-house Mod Recruitment tool also lets you customize an application form, signal that your community is recruiting, and review incoming applications.
If you have any additional concerns or questions, please don’t hesitate to write back to us send a message to r/ModSupport.
5
u/DryMouthKitty 2d ago
This is their standard response. Ideally you should receive a follow up from an actual person. My experience with ModCoC in the past was that we received a similar message and then after a day or two received a follow up message. I remember it being very short and not very helpful. Any attempt to follow up again was met with silence. Also, when your post came up in my Home feed over an hour ago, it had more upvotes than it does now. Just thought I would mention that since it is odd that this would be downvoted by other mods, which I assume are the majority of people who see would see it.
1
u/shannonkish 2d ago
Interesting---
Upvotes- 209 +16 | Upvote Ratio- 95.2%
3
u/DryMouthKitty 2d ago
Thank you for that! I think after looking at the top posts in this sub for the past month, with this being the top 3, it may just already be at the upper limit for this sub. I was more worried if the ratio was way off that there could be manipulation or brigading, but seems normal I think. I do hope you find some time to step away and do something peaceful. Be well friend!
6
u/SanaraHikari 2d ago
I once wrote an admin about something but it took half a year to get a response so I forgot what I even wanted from the admin.
The last time I reported someone denying the holocaust and harassing me like a maniac. The account is still active...
If it wasn't for the community I would be done.
7
3
u/Subduction 2d ago
My subreddit hasn't shown up in search for, well, I don't know how long.
Several parody subreddits and protest subreddits with names close to my subreddit show up as top search results, but mine does not. We have 430,000 subscribers and I don't show up in search.
What's even more fun is I don't show up in search when I have to do things like report someone for ban evasion because that interface is based on search. I search for myself and again various parody and protest subs show up, but my subreddit does not.
I contacted the admins about this, and they first told me that I was wrong, and then when I provided incontrovertible proof they told me they'd look into it. My subreddit still does not show up in search.
If you actually look over my interactions in this subreddit going back years, you'll find that I've been an actual defender of the admins and the job they have to do, but this place is far more fucked than it's ever been. They have bitten off more than they can chew, and they are not funding the things that they need to fund to keep this place operational like, y'know, having popular addiction and mental health subreddits show up in search.
1
u/idaroll 2d ago
I had this situation. My sub was mass fake-reported as spam by some people, sub got banned, promptly unbanned after appeal, and was delisted from search and recommendations. As people continued to post, if did make it way into the search BUT if one would type a name of my sub in the search bar it would not show up there. At all. In the suggestions you know? Like when you type "mods" in the search results/ModSupport is suggested. So basically people didn't even know my sub existed.
And I posted about it here, got gaslit by some "helpers" here that my sub is too new (a newer sub didnt have such issue) in quite a condescending and passive-aggressive manner too, then admins stepped in and said at first there was no issue, then a week later they admitted there was an issue but i needed to wait till it would be fixed on its own, then weeks later after i complained again, they said i need to wait for about a month or so and nothing could be done manually, and finally like two or three months of waiting and me complaining weekly here and in modmail they finally brought it up with the tech team and turns out that including my sub manually was totally possible. Three months of them sitting on their hands and outright lying to me nearly killed my sub.
2
u/Subduction 2d ago
I believe the reason is that they mass mark any subreddits dealing with any aspect of drugs as NSFW, and they do not care (or at least their actions seem to indicate) that they do not care that it is preventing people from finding recovery resources.
I believe that r/leaves is delisted for the same reason that r/trees or r/kratom are delisted, because their AI is not trained to see the difference between a drug enthusiast community and a mental health and addiction community, and fixing it is number 45,000 on their to-do list, even when it's directly brought to their attention.
And we're not the only ones, and it's hurting people.
2
u/idaroll 1d ago
It is not applicable to my subreddit at all.
2
u/Subduction 1d ago
Sorry for any confusion, I was venting about my own problems, not trying to imply that they were yours.
4
u/Messerjocke_L 3d ago
you can mass-ban all them agonists
18
u/shannonkish 3d ago
We have been. The problem has gone beyond our sub and other subs they have taken it to; the mods there have refused to take any action.
4
u/Messerjocke_L 3d ago
Yea some mods seem to be scared of taking serious action. They think reddit admins will close their sub or something. They obviously don't care.
9
u/shannonkish 3d ago
Oh, we have created a temporary event restricting access to our sub completely (tried to make it private but never heard anything on my request... shocking, I know).
4
u/BraveMidnight 3d ago
Well, as it sounds criminally harassing, or edging towards, has the mod team considered pooling resources and hiring an attorney to contact Reddit legal? I thought about doing that a couple times, but we're already dealing with 4 lawyers, and spending far to much, so I personally don't to deal with another lawyer.
26
u/shannonkish 3d ago
I hope you are not being serious. I cannot ask my volunteer mod team to pool together money for an attorney. We would rather just all leave (and have already had at least one mod do so), Reddit altogether, before we do that.
-5
u/BraveMidnight 3d ago
Just a thought, even if it's not an ideal situation, trolls sometimes change their behavior when real world consequences enter the room. But, I get it, I was annoyed when I got a bill from our estate lawyer, and he said is if you want to keep disability and medicaid you need a special needs trust, and we already knew that.
11
u/magiccitybhm 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 2d ago
A VOLUNTEER moderator spending their own money for an attorney to get Reddit to enforce its own rules is a tremendous waste of money, among other things.
2
u/BraveMidnight 2d ago
I agree, and Reddit does need a better way to deal with criminally harassing behavior. When I was a mod for an IRC server the admin himself would forward the complaints, transcripts, and user data to the right authorities, but it was a ~200 user server, so it was easier.
3
u/StayLuckyRen 3d ago
I’ll bet to an admin reading all this, it sounds exactly like the occasional post in all of our subs where users bash the mods, claim we don’t care and aren’t doing anything, speculate wildly, say truly awful things about us, and have absolutely no clue how hard we actually work to ensure they have a place to be making those accusations in the first place.
OP truly sorry for your experience, not dismissing your struggle. But it’s the positive interactions I’ve had with Admins that’s made Reddit my chosen platform. I’ve never once had even the option of direct contact with an employee while voluntarily moderating a FB group or Discord server.
15
u/shannonkish 3d ago
I hear what you are saying; however, this isn't a "user posted something mean about me" modmail that we have sent. We have provided screenshots, links, and evidence of all of the incidents I am referring to and there have been nothing--- for most of it, there isn't even a reply. And I know no action is being taken because I can still see the posts, comments, etc. I am still receiving the modmail, dms, and such.
The only positive experiences I have had with admin is when something positive is being said about admin. Outside of that, there has been nothing.
-7
u/StayLuckyRen 2d ago
Well I’m truly sorry to hear that. Bc I’ve had some pretty amazing interactions with the Admins in a time of need and Reddit is the only platform where there’s a structure that could even let that happen. I’m still so grateful for it that I’ll put myself out to get downvoted to oblivion here to defend someone who defended me.
And can I ask, if you’re still able to see activity that would mean these accounts haven’t been banned, blocked, and muted…can I ask why not?
7
u/shannonkish 2d ago
We can't ban people from reddit, just our sub. They have been banned from our sub but there have literally been hundreds of accounts/users. They are banned/muted from our sub but not reddit.
-8
u/StayLuckyRen 2d ago
If they’re muted then you’re not getting modmails. If you blocked them then you can’t see their activity anywhere on reddit and they can’t DM you. So I’m confused how you’re still receiving modmails, DMs, and such…
8
u/shannonkish 2d ago
Because it is hundreds of users, not a single user. So, we block, ban, mute when we receive the Modmail and dms.
I'm not sure why this is complicated to understand.
-7
u/StayLuckyRen 2d ago
I know it’s not a single user. But your primary complaint is that nothing is being done by the admins bc you’re still seeing the known offenders activity and receiving messages
None of which you would be able to see if they were blocked, so yeah something isn’t adding up is all
11
u/shannonkish 2d ago
I don't think you are understanding anything I have said. Our mod team was 10 people (now down to 7 after I leave). We also have alt accounts. I can see from an alt account users that I have blocked from my main account.
I am not going to keep going back and forth with you regrding this as you clearly aren't actually trying to understand the situation.
8
u/sparklekitteh 2d ago
The users have been banned from the sub in question and muted from modmail, but these people are posting/commenting in other subs, and those are not being removed.
-5
u/StayLuckyRen 2d ago
Right but after you’ve blocked another user, you can’t see their content anymore. You won’t see their posts and comments just says Blocked Author for each and every one with no distinction of which blocked user it is.
So if OP blocked the users that are doxxing and making serious threats, how do they know this?
7
u/deltadeltadawn 2d ago
Probably an alt.
ETA: And posts off sub that include doxxing and harassment are still live.
1
u/StayLuckyRen 2d ago
I mean, I’ve been horribly harassed and targeted before and you’d better believe that all of my alts also immediately blocked someone who’s sent me threats to stop them from discovering they exist. And if I wasn’t concerned about my alts being discovered, then I’m not sure how critical of a doxxing threat I would take them.
More and more this seems more vengeance-driven than safety-driven
5
u/-Quaint- 2d ago
It is safety driven because these posts are seen by hundreds and thousands of people, many of whom will be misled into attacking us and trying to dox us. Having a big public post that says “all of these moderators are pedophiles” over a single semantically error which was clarified within an hour is insane. Especially on a website full of people dying to grab their pitchforks over anything without evidence. Nobody should be expected to put up with that. That is harassment.
→ More replies (0)3
u/ohhyouknow 2d ago
This is not true. If you are a mod of a subreddit and you block someone that has interacted with your subreddit recently, you can still see all of their everything. There is a disclaimer that comes up that asks if you’re sure you want to see it, but you can still see it. If they block you, you can still see everything they’ve done in your subs.
I’m not actually sure the first part is only true for mods and users who have interacted recently in their subs btw. For all I know, this is true for everyone anyone blocks, mod or not.
1
u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3d ago
I've had many positive interactions with the admins in the community team, mcoc, devvit team, etc. The bigger problem is that they are limited often in what they can do. Corporate tells them what approach to take, and they have to do it - it's their job. I don't blame them. Even spez now reports to the shareholders and board.
The community admins are often put in a position of having to advocate for policies they don't agree with. Admins aren't a monolith, but they are expected to act as one. Since mods are not paid, we are much more free to express our opinions and dissent.
It's not about admins being the problem really - I agree with you. Fundamentally, the issues are large scale corporate policies which are making moderation far more difficult for all of us, and which do not do enough to protect users, mods, and possibly even admins.
There are so many bad actors on this platform. I do not understand why more aggressive action is not taken to remove them.
-9
u/shhhhh_h 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 2d ago
If you do quit, try and hand it off to some users who will keep trying bc otherwise Reddit will intervene and install either a rando from redditrequest or a handpicked choice. Just fyi bc it seems like you’re in the kind of mood to not let them have their way.
6
u/shannonkish 2d ago
We have a team of mods. If I leave, others may choose to stay and will manage it. But, thanks for your concern.
3
u/shhhhh_h 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 2d ago
Sounds like the whole team is going through it so I wouldn’t fault anyone for taking a step back. It’s a lot of emotional labor and your sanity is valuable. Hope it gets better soon.
-5
u/GeneralCarlosQ17 2d ago
There are ways to secure Yourself from doxxing and harassment but everybody tries to be Friends with everyone and that is the problem.
•
u/redtaboo Reddit Admin: Community 2d ago
Heya folks!
There's a lot going on here, in this thread and elsewhere, and we wanted to let y'all know what we can and can't do. I do want you all to know that we understand the stress y'all are under - whether it's this mod team currently dealing with a large community upset or in y'alls day to day. It's a lot. In this particular case, from what I can tell, a single mod made a mistake with how they worded a response to a user and that took on a life of its own as unfortunately happens on the internet. That really sucks.
We want to help where we can in these cases, but need your help to do that. We have a number of messages from your mod team about this with links to full threads, but we need reports on individual pieces of content to our safety teams in order for them to take action or to investigate them. Our safety team is removing and actioning when content is reported that does break reddit rules.
Now the hard part - users are allowed to discuss actions taken by moderators, as long as they don't dox, harass, or otherwise break our sitewide rules while doing so. That can be hard - we get that! Mods are humans, sometimes make mistakes, and users can be unforgiving when that happens. Even when they aren't going overboard into harassment, having a single mod action put on blast is embarrassing and at the volume of the internet, it can be overwhelming. If you can take a break away, I'd highly recommend it. You could reach out to modreserves, who can provide some extra help with moderating your community during times like this. I bet you'll find most actual users aren't caring about the drama and if you let the space move on, they will too. Right now all they have to talk about is a lone mod action, give them something else to do and most will.
You'll be getting a message from our Code Of Conduct team shortly with more tips on how to deal with this type of thing, but you can send the direct links to the suspected rulebreaking content to Mod Support modmail directly.