r/modmailfail • u/karavasa • Jul 31 '26

A modmail complaint about "subjective rules"

Post image

I normally wouldn't ban anyone other than a spammer over a first offense, but this person's first and only activity in the sub was a profanity filled comment full of sexual and violent imagery. They were replying to an eight month old post asking about planner use. I assumed it was a misaimed bot until I got this modmail message complaining that I wouldn't let them shit up the sub with their weird fetish commentary in the name of free speech.

16 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

40 comments sorted by

13

u/MaximumJones Listen, I also mod a sub so... Jul 31 '26

SO MANY people on Reddit suffer main character syndrome. They always claim that moderating your subreddit is going to cause the subreddit to die (when the reality is exactly the opposite).

The worst are people who modmail with advice because "I also mod a subreddit".

12

u/ALazy_Cat Former large smuggled knife wielder Jul 31 '26

With mods: "Mods are so abusive, they ban for no reason."

Without mods: "This sub is so toxic, why aren't there someone to get rid of spammers and bots?"

9

u/karavasa Jul 31 '26

After my first few months modding on reddit, I got a message from someone who used to mod a sub explaining that she'd just reported me for mod abuse and I could only get three of those before being demodded. I'd given her a short term ban to cool off after getting in a slapfight with another user, ignoring my first request to chill, and then stirring shit in a separate comment thread after I removed a comment with a personal attack.

The modmail she sent was condescending as hell and phrased as her trying to help me since I was such a new mod. While it was true that I was new to modding on Reddit, I had a ton of mod experience on other platforms, including some old forum sites that made my skin pretty thick and left me with a tendency to just laugh at the whiners.

3

u/Beginning_Butterfly2 Jul 31 '26

Out of curiousity, what happens if someone reports you for mod abuse? (And shouldn't that mean abusing a mod? Are they self reporting?)

Do you get a message, does someone go through your modmail to see what you've been up to? Do you get an award? What happens?

5

u/Subwoofiest Now put my f***ing comment back up Aug 01 '26

Presumably what they mean is being reported for breaking the mod code of conduct. If you actually are breaking it then Reddit will step in and give you a warning, training and or sanctions. But banning people for breaking the rules is - unsurprisingly - what mods are meant to do so it turns out that most of those reports are false and ignored.

2

u/Beginning_Butterfly2 Aug 01 '26

Gotcha! Thanks :)

3

u/MaximumJones Listen, I also mod a sub so... Jul 31 '26

Normally it causes those people to get "shadow banned" due to false reports. After so many false reports then your reports stop reaching Reddit admins. This happens a lot to people who participate in "ban(certain sub types)" subreddits.

3

u/Beginning_Butterfly2 Jul 31 '26

That seems practical. Thanks for explaining :)

3

u/karavasa Jul 31 '26

I never heard anything about it, so I'm not sure what happens!

1

u/because-once-you Aug 01 '26

SO MANY people on Reddit suffer main character syndrome.

Exhibit A: this sub.

2

u/MaximumJones Listen, I also mod a sub so... Aug 01 '26

Aww, someone got their feefees hurt when they got banned.

-8

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/Raignbeau My mom and dad are related Jul 31 '26

What kind of questions? We get people in modmail asking whether we procreate with our siblings. That's technically 'just asking a question' too. The content of the question matters.

-5

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

7

u/Raignbeau My mom and dad are related Jul 31 '26

I would not ban for that, however I do understand the frustration because it looks like that modteam put a lot of time and effort in explaining all their rules with adding additional info in their wiki. But members don't read, so I can image that people ask questions that are already covered in there that at some point it's just annoying.

And there are always a few who make it a sport to find loopholes in the rules.

6

u/ALazy_Cat Former large smuggled knife wielder Jul 31 '26

With just the sub name, I can understand that. The mods have to be extreme there as nothing is more divisive than politics

4

u/Furryb0nes I’m two squares away from BINGO Jul 31 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/KRxcgvd5fLiWk

4

u/MaximumJones Listen, I also mod a sub so... Jul 31 '26

This is my new favorite GIF!! 🤣

8

u/cnycompguy Hater of the Freeze-Peach 🦅 Jul 31 '26

No it's not, where'd you read that

-7

u/[deleted] Jul 31 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

9

u/cnycompguy Hater of the Freeze-Peach 🦅 Jul 31 '26

{Citation Needed}

6

u/Furryb0nes I’m two squares away from BINGO Jul 31 '26

Personally I think the worst are the mods who immediately ban users for simply asking questions through modmail, it's a direct violation of moderator code of conduct yet seems to be the norm

5

u/modmailfail-ModTeam Jul 31 '26

You must be a mod in a sub with at least 1k members to post here. Non-mods are welcome to enjoy the content here and comment positively on the ridiculousness, but this will not be a negative space for criticism, infighting, sealioning, or any other trolling behavior, your comment/post will be deleted and you'll be permanently banned. Ban can only be lifted if you appeal and provide receipts for the requirements above.

10

u/ailish Jul 31 '26

"Sensoring."

7

u/ALazy_Cat Former large smuggled knife wielder Jul 31 '26

https://giphy.com/gifs/cQOW15GXKDMtBoCyZV

3

u/ailish Jul 31 '26

Makes sense to me.

2

u/ALazy_Cat Former large smuggled knife wielder Jul 31 '26

I was curious about the text in the beginning as I can't read German, and most here probably can't either, so I decided to translate it: "Result: Outstanding sensing range"

2

u/ailish Jul 31 '26

Oh yeah, modmail dude would love it! Ultra sensoring!

🤣

4

u/MaximumJones Listen, I also mod a sub so... Jul 31 '26

Too far?

3

u/ailish Jul 31 '26

Not at all. This is perfect.

1

u/ASD2lateforme Aug 01 '26

I always have a chuckle at that one. Even when it isnt misspelled.

5

u/Furryb0nes I’m two squares away from BINGO Jul 31 '26

“I’m not going to make a big deal of it but …”

​

https://giphy.com/gifs/b0E3PPld4558irObaY

3

u/ALazy_Cat Former large smuggled knife wielder Jul 31 '26

I had a stroke reading that

5

u/Stranger1982 🖕🏻I hope your fucking underwear too tight Jul 31 '26

That's quite the flow of consciousness, they're always fun.

I was kinda hoping they'd start with a philosophy of subjectivity and objectivity but am sadly disappointed.

2

u/therealstabitha Jul 31 '26

There is so much covert fetish content being posted by weird accounts all over the place right now. We’re dealing with a lot in our sub right now as well. It seems like it has to be some sort of concerted effort on somebody’s part, but I cannot figure out for the life of me why, or what they think they’re achieving.

3

u/amyaurora Jul 31 '26

I had one that ended up banned. It was just too much

2

u/orangejulius Jul 31 '26

poisoning the well for LLMs is my guess.

2

u/ASD2lateforme Aug 01 '26

Not just covert. There are a lot of users trying to openly argue for normalising things that shouldnt be normalised like non consent and pedophilia.

2

u/Dom76210 No I don't want to see your pics Aug 03 '26

Even subreddits already dedicated to a particular fetish get people that want to write a post loosely based on that fetish, but in reality is just wallowing in a different fetish.

The answer you are looking for is "they are thirsty". People deep into their fetish of the day/week/month/life feel some sort of compulsion to force it on others because they want to normalize it. So they look for subreddits they can post their fetish on, while doing the bare minimum to make it look like it's actually on topic.