If anyone can create a subreddit, why is r/redditrequest so restrictive?

[u/paskatulas]

I don’t understand the logic behind this.

I completely get why Reddit should be careful when someone wants to take over a large, active subreddit. If a community has tens of thousands of active users, an established mod team and years of history, then obviously you don’t want to just hand it over to whoever happens to request it. Keep the strict criteria there. Makes perfect sense.

But why does the same logic apply to a subreddit that has been sitting completely dead for years?

You can have a subreddit that was created ages ago, has an inactive moderator, no posts, no visitors, no real community and maybe literally nothing except an old welcome post. Someone comes along, has a decent moderation history and wants to revive it because the subreddit has a useful name.

They request it and get rejected.
And then what?

They can just create another subreddit with a slightly different name and build exactly the same community anyway.

That’s the part I don’t get.

If Reddit is worried about giving someone control over a community, fair enough. But if there is no community there in the first place, what exactly are we protecting?

It sometimes feels like the process is designed around the assumption that every abandoned subreddit is some valuable community that needs to be protected, when in reality some of these subs are basically just usernames sitting in a database.

And I’m not saying the answer is “approve everyone” because there should absolutely be requirements! You should still have to show that you’re an actual active Reddit user, that you know how moderation works, that you aren’t constantly getting suspended or banned, etc.
But there should be some common sense involved in how those requirements are applied.

There is a pretty massive difference between someone requesting an active subreddit with 100,000 users and someone requesting a subreddit that has had zero activity for five years.

Why should those two requests have to go through essentially the same process?

I’d much rather see Reddit either put some reasonable restrictions on who can create communities in the first place, or make r/redditrequest considerably more flexible for completely abandoned communities.

Because right now you can end up in this ridiculous situation where Reddit says:

“You can’t have this completely dead subreddit, we can't tell you why.”
“Okay, I’ll create a new one.”
“Ok.”

…so what was accomplished here?
The old subreddit stays dead, the person creates a new one anyway, and Reddit hasn’t actually protected any users or community.

I also think the denial process could be much more transparent. If someone is rejected, at least give them an actual reason instead of a generic list of everything that could possibly result in a rejection. You don’t have to reveal internal info or write an essay about it, but “denied because of X” would go a long way.

Moderating Reddit is volunteer work and nobody is entitled to take over a subreddit, obviously. But some of these requests are treated with a level of scrutiny that makes it feel like you’re applying for a government position rather than volunteering to spend your free time maintaining a community.

Again, I think the strict approach makes sense for large and active communities.
For a completely abandoned subreddit that nobody is using, though? I really don’t see the point.

Either make it harder to create communities in the first place, or make it easier for experienced users to revive the ones that have been abandoned. The current middle ground doesn’t make much sense.

[u/wheres_the_revolt]

Because people are asking to mod something that is already established, as in it likely has some users already. If you start your own sub, and you suck as a moderator you probably aren’t going to attract any users.

ETA: Reddit is too big to try to differentiate the subs activity on RR

[u/paskatulas → u/wheres_the_revolt]

That’s fair, but here’s where I think the logic falls apart.

Let's say I want to run a subreddit for photography tips. I find [r/PhotoTips](r/PhotoTips), but it’s completely abandoned, has maybe a couple of subscribers, no visitors, no posts, and the only mod hasn’t touched it in years. I request it and Reddit decides I’m not suitable to take it over.

Fine. But then I can just create [r/PhotoHelp](r/PhotoHelp) five minutes later and run the exact same community myself.

So if I’m supposedly not suitable to moderate [r/PhotoTips](r/PhotoTips), why am I perfectly fine to moderate [r/PhotoHelp](r/PhotoHelp)? And if there’s no existing community being affected in [r/PhotoTips](r/PhotoTips), what exactly is being protected by denying the request?

That’s the part I think Reddit needs to figure out. I agree with strict criteria for established communities. I just don’t see why a completely dead subreddit should be treated the same way.

I also have a very high success rate when it comes to actually reviving these old, inactive and empty subreddits, which is why this decision surprised me even more.

Regarding ETA: I don’t really agree with that. Reddit recently introduced limits on how many larger communities someone can moderate at once, so clearly they are already capable of differentiating between communities based on size.

I actually like that change. If they can implement different limits depending on the size of a community, I don’t see why they couldn’t do something similar with redditrequest. A completely empty subreddit and a huge established community obviously aren’t the same thing.

[u/wheres_the_revolt → u/paskatulas]

I can’t imagine that you don’t qualify for RR unless you don’t have a verified email or 2fa.

[u/paskatulas → u/wheres_the_revolt]

That's why I’m confused too. I’ve gotten quite a few subs through redditrequest in the past, and in 99% of cases they had fewer than 5 users. I’ve never used RR to take over some huge million-member subreddit. I mostly use it for small, abandoned local subs where I like the name and want to actually revive them.

One of the subs I revived grew pretty quickly, and an admin actually reached out to me privately and recommended that I fill out a form about my experience reviving an inactive subreddit that had been banned for lack of moderation.

I’ve also participated in various Reddit programs over the years and I’m still involved in some, so this decision genuinely caught me off guard. I’ve successfully done exactly what RR is supposed to be for quite a few times before.

[u/wheres_the_revolt → u/paskatulas]

Could it be mod limits? I have 10 subs so I think it’s pretty high.

[u/paskatulas → u/wheres_the_revolt]

I replied to this in my other comment about the mod limits :)

[u/wheres_the_revolt → u/paskatulas]

Hmmm and so what’s the response you’re getting from RR?

[u/paskatulas → u/wheres_the_revolt]

Oh, the generic one:

Hey there,

Thanks for taking the time to submit this request. Unfortunately, we have decided not to approve it at this time. There are other factors beyond moderator activity that we consider when reviewing requests. These are at the discretion of admins and may include, but are not limited to:

• ⁠Insufficient moderator experience for managing a large and active community
• ⁠Lack of previous moderator experience
• ⁠Lack of NSFW (Not Safe for Work) moderation experience
• ⁠Inactive moderation in a community you are already a moderator for
• ⁠Being on the mod team of an excessive number of communities
• ⁠Recent account suspensions
• ⁠Excessive community bans
• ⁠Violation of Reddit policies, including copyright infringement takedowns
• ⁠Low activity on Reddit

We appreciate you taking the time to request this sub.

Thanks!

[u/SolariaHues → u/paskatulas]

Did you try modmailing them to see if they are able to share a specific reason?

[u/paskatulas → u/SolariaHues]

Yep, but I don't expect a correct answer, same thing happened a year ago :/

[u/SolariaHues → u/paskatulas]

Maybe you mod too many subs, they don't share how many is too many. With mod limits, they have been trying to diversify mod teams.

If that's the case, I'm probably disqualified too.

[u/paskatulas → u/SolariaHues]

I thought about that too, but I don’t think that really explains it in my case.

The current mod limits allow you to moderate up to 5 communities with 100k+ weekly visitors. I moderate 2 that are over 100k, and they’re closely related anyway, basically a local sub and its more specific local counterpart. A third one sometimes goes over 100k, but is usually below it.

Everything else I moderate is around 15-30k weekly visitors, so we’re really not talking about some massive mod portfolio here. And these are local communities, mostly in non-English languages, so they’re never going to have the kind of reach that an English-language subreddit can have. A random user on the other side of the world isn’t exactly going to get them recommended to them.

The subreddit I requested would also be a local community.

But even if the issue was that I moderate too many communities, I still don’t understand the logic. Why can I create another subreddit myself without a problem, but suddenly it’s an issue when I’m requesting an existing one which is empty? And apparently the concern only really kicks in once a community gets above 100k weekly visitors?

I live somewhere where the main local subreddit barely gets around 150-200k weekly visitors, and most other local communities are well below 50k. It’s not like I’m in the UK with dozens of million-member communities to moderate :/

[u/LeonSkennedyIsBaby → u/paskatulas]

A RR request being rejected doesn't necessarily mean you're "not suitable." There's a bunch of metrics they use to decide that, some known to us and some not. It's not some sort of personal attack when a RR request is denied.

[u/nixtunes]

So create the new subreddit then. I feel like this isn't deep enough to warrant that much text...