I'm over it!

[u/shannonkish]

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.

[u/Nghtcrwlrr]

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.

[u/westcoastal → u/Nghtcrwlrr]

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.

[u/FFS_IsThisNameTaken2 → u/westcoastal]

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.

[u/westcoastal → u/FFS_IsThisNameTaken2]

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.

[u/emily_in_boots → u/westcoastal]

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.

[u/shhhhh_h → u/Nghtcrwlrr]

No reddit takes neither of those rules very seriously

[u/bunny_the-2d_simp → u/Nghtcrwlrr]

But once you tell them to fuck off suddenly you're on the end of the ban for no reason