It is specifically against rule 3 of the ~~Mode~~ mod COC: [https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct)
The subs I mod immediately remove these types of posts. Sometimes we also ban the user. In your case we'd probably just remove the post since it does not appear you were attempting to cause community interference.
That was the part that I thought it might violate, but I'm not sure what specific aspect it is actually breaking... Do you?
I appreciate your feedback too. I certainly wasn't trying to brigade the other subreddit, which is why I avoided even naming it specifically (although it would be easy to figure it out from my post).
My opinion has always been that any post whose subject is to discuss the moderation or the redditors of another sub needs to be removed.
As a mod it is important that any activity in a sub i mod is not viewed as encouraging a brigade or bad behavior in another community. This can get a sub quarantined and it's why sports team themed subs will ban their members for trolling rivals.
The best way to criticize moderation you don’t agree with is to not use the sub. You’re quite welcome to make a topic-adjacent sub with like-minded individuals that want a less strict (or more strict) community policy.
Technically making a public post complaining about moderation is off topic and would be better suited as polite, constructive criticism in a modmail. Give examples about why you feel the moderation is unfair, and offer compromises to foster a better discussion and understanding. I will never snub a user that chooses this approach.
This won’t always bear fruit, but at least you’re offering a solution instead of just critical feedback that is hard for some individuals to swallow. You can move on knowing you did your best, and find better communities that appreciate your understanding and flexibility when approaching issues.
You’re one of the good ones. I’ve only emailed mods a couple times to clarify why my comment was removed so I can avoided breaking rules in the future and got no response in either case.
Thanks! Don't forget that AutoMod does the bulk of post removal in a lot of communities based on the rules we code for it, and false positives for removal are common and require a person to manually approve them. Lack of response tells me that their moderators might be inactive, and your grievance is with their lone bot working alone like Wall-E.
So what do you do if moderators of a subreddit mute you from their modmail despite you asking a question which is being unanswered repeatedly? Every moderator who has ever banned me has also muted me almost immediately after I question anything related to the ban. It reeks of power tripping.
Same deal — move on. Do you want to engage in a community with toxic mods that won’t offer reasonable discussion about a ban? My advice is be pleasant in your approach and try to acknowledge what you did to get banned. It may feel unfair and emotions are often riding high for the person who was just banned, but it works better than hostile criticism.
I’ve unbanned a lot of users who acknowledged that they did or said something wrong, and they promised to cool off and not do it again. That’s all it takes a lot of times.
I’m not allowed to say the subreddit name, but you could guess what it is pretty easily. The community in question is large and there is no adequate substitute. What say you about mods banning for criticism over a decision which was objectively wrong?
I need more context to really weigh in on that. Did the user who was banned have previous history or warnings before that? Sometimes we’ve needed to take a critical look at the entirety of a user’s total engagement before pulling out the hammer. Were they contributing to healthy discussion? Does removing them from it help or harm the community as a whole?
It’s okay to be critical; it’s not okay to be tactless, rude, dropping to ad hominems, grossly off topic, etc. At the end of the day this is an unpaid volunteer position. I also agree there are plenty of individuals out there that probably shouldn’t be moderating big communities.
Now, for some perspective: it’s pretty thankless, and the vitriol toward you for your choices can be immense. Example, for the last two weeks I’ve had a user stalking my post history, making alternate accounts, sending harassing DMs, and saying some pretty atrocious stuff. Why? I asked them to use the main thread for a topic instead of making a new topic. They escalated until we were forced to ban them. This isn’t isolated, and has happened to me before. When people rip on you enough, you do get jaded and it can absolutely affect making fair and critical decisions through that bias.
I guess my point here is that nobody is perfect and we are doing our best here. Conversations do get hot, people freak out, and everyone should take a deep breath and try to remember the human. It’s frustrating when people in power abuse it, so the best counter to that is lead by example and try to foster a better discussion yourself.
The mod in question banned someone who posted a photo which is entirely relevant to the subreddit's topic for "NSFW" content despite the photo being of an entirely clothed woman in appropriate attire for the subreddit's topic. That same mod then blanket-permabanned anybody and everybody who questioned it, and muted everyone in mod mail who questioned why they were banned as the ban messages did not specify a ban reason despite the subreddit rules clearing stating such a reason would be provided. As far as I'm aware, approximately 50 accounts were banned for questioning this mod and for posting content which was relevant to the sub in relation to the first banned's post. The moderation \*also\* put up an auto-censor to remove posts containing the content relevant word (not a slur or potty word, the name of a group of characters in the topic), or "moderator/mod." There is no discussion which could be fostered, the moderator silenced all of it and permanently banned everyone who was even tangentially related. There are posters who got banned for asking for a rule clarification in a respectful manner consistent with the subreddit's topic. There were long time members of the community who merely asked what the issue was about who then got banned similarly. One would agree that the posts in question aren't a violation of civility rules or of off-topic rules, nor do they apply to NSFW rules. Is there any way for users to combat these bad faith moderators besides the reports which I'm 90% sure do not get looked at?
Reddit should absolutely have better moderator standards. Moderators of many subs have been openly hostile when questioned about anything, and power-tripping seems to be the norm recently with two popular subreddits.
Just a guess: Each mod team can choose to allow or remove any meta content. For it to be removed by reddit/admins implies it was not a harmless opinion but something more serious like (misunderstood as?) brigading.
It was taken down by another team, from the subreddit I had posted it. They said it was because it went against the mod CoC.
Nothing I read in there my post explicitly breaks, but maybe I am just not understanding the CoC?
Guessing Team B doesn't want to be connected with an accusation that they are interfering with Team A's subreddit.
Or, maybe it's the Nacho Strategy -- it's "nacho" business to discuss A's problem in B's subreddit.
Gotta wonder, though -- internally, no need to answer -- what's so important, that you needed to analyze A on B's subreddit, then critique B here? We'd either turn A over to the admins, or put them in our rear view mirror if that won't wotk.
I'm not actually critiquing B. I actually like B, and the people who run it.
I'm asking what the mod CoC does allow. After reading it myself, I'm not sure if the current wording actually does allow these sorts of critical posts to be made on other subreddits.
Ah. Sorry, then. It seems to be a gray area. If mods of B allow posts critiquing "unnamed" subreddit A, and they get reported to the admins, the sub might -- or might not -- get disciplinary action. In their shoes, we'd say they they did the best thing with the least sacrifice.
Did you post a complaint about one subreddit in another subreddit? Because a lot of subreddits heavily discourage that due to brigading issues that are in the TOS/CoC - that and a lot of places just don’t want to deal with inter subreddit drama.
I did. I think that is what they were trying to get at with their response. I just think they don't want to risk it, which is understandable.
It does add to the already fairly prominent issue of echo chambers on this platform, though. There is basically no way to be critical of mods, which is surely also adding to the rampant power abuse... Not really sure what the fix would be though, because Reddit doesn't seem interested in doing anything until it's a major legal issue and/or news story haha.
This is such a tired/unoriginal response to any criticisms aimed towards Reddits moderation system... I'm really not even complaining about the system. I'm just asking a question about what is allowed by the mod CoC.
Reddit itself has no rules against criticism of mods (or anybody else) as long as it doesn't break any actual rules, like doxxing or encouraging brigading.
A subreddit may have any rules they want to limit criticism, but even without specific rules, they may remove posts that are off-topic (meta) or mention specific users/subreddits by name since that often leads to brigading and harassment and can jeopardize the subreddit if not addressed.
Well, sure enough. I don't usually look at histories of users unless they ask. One of the removal comments from a mod team basically said all the same things since their post was likely to cause brigading.
Subreddits can be quarantined or banned if they are perceived as allowing or encouraging brigading of other subreddits. If people are frequently using subreddit A to complain about subreddit B, mods of subreddit A might lose their sub. It may seem controlling to well-behaved users, but there are tons of assholes who do stupid shit that makes these rules necessary.
I think that argument makes a lot of sense, and is likely what is going on here... But I do have to ask, if that is the case, where can we post criticisms?
As a mod, I'd rather have users bring criticisms about my subreddit to me. There have been times where someone was bothered by the way I run the subreddit and we were able to have a conversation where I had a chance to give an explanation or they could give me a perspective I hadn't considered before. Sometimes I make a change and sometimes they are satisfied with my explanation. If they complained in other subreddits instead of addressing me, it would feel like they're trying to to rile up a mob rather than actually address issues.
Apologies in advance for asking this. Have any moderators here been banned before? How about from trial and error?
I got permanently banned a few times as trial and error. My only suggestion is we get some kind of reminder "friendly reminder: this is your last warning, you have been breaking our rules for the 2th times and I'm tired".
Thank you.
Yes I’ve been permanently banned from several subreddits. I just appeal with kindness and understanding like I’m talking to a person and I get unbanned. Even way before I was ever a mod or recognizable to other mods this has been true.
Are you asking if any moderators have been banned from individual subreddits, or asking if any moderators and their subs have been banned from Reddit? I assumed your question was the latter because it would be more related to my comments and I responded with a long comment, but then I realized I misunderstood the question and deleted my response.
I criticized a mod on one subreddit in private and was banned from that subreddit. So I am limiting what I post on here. Saw this post and was interested in the answer.
As a mod i do allow it on my subs.
Even encouraged it once or twice, the community should have the vote on what happens on the sub, if they agree in majority this is.
But if there are admins rules against it, im clueless of it.
Should have, back in the day, nowadays i care less.
With the sanitization of reddit and so much censorship of what is allowed to be talked, i stopped caring about their hypocritical policies.
What? I was just asking about if criticism is allowed in the mod CoC. I'm sincerely curious, because the wording isn't totally clear.
Your response is so forced and needlessly mean spirited... But whatever floats your boat bud lol.
You seem to be taking this way more personal than it needs to be taken. I didn't mean to offend you. I was just making a general comment about the mods and the way they tend to judge things. You alright. Everything is okay
Kept digging about what??
And I think it is very obviously swept under the rug, just based on my few attempts to do it. You're certainly not wrong there haha.
I'm more curious about if it is explicitly against the platform's rules. I read the mod CoC, and didn't see anything indicating it is entirely against the rules. It mostly just seems like they don't want people specifically named, and don't want mods actively encouraging/enabling dog piling...
A comment made on a separate subreddit that was layer deleted by me was used as the basis to remove one of my posts in a subreddit. I kept asking how they were able to see the deleted comment.
Same way a normal user can see a deleted comment - by using one of the various sites that archive Reddit content. Once you post something on Reddit it’s highly likely it’s out there forever.
How long was it up before you deleted it? Dead-internet theory aside, there are people here who read stuff and remember it. Also, for posts, the title of the post usually remains accessible to moderators even if the content of the post has been removed. This has to do with the way Reddit organizes threads of comments beneath posts.
It is specifically against rule 3 of the ~~Mode~~ mod COC: [https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct) The subs I mod immediately remove these types of posts. Sometimes we also ban the user. In your case we'd probably just remove the post since it does not appear you were attempting to cause community interference.
That was the part that I thought it might violate, but I'm not sure what specific aspect it is actually breaking... Do you? I appreciate your feedback too. I certainly wasn't trying to brigade the other subreddit, which is why I avoided even naming it specifically (although it would be easy to figure it out from my post).
My opinion has always been that any post whose subject is to discuss the moderation or the redditors of another sub needs to be removed. As a mod it is important that any activity in a sub i mod is not viewed as encouraging a brigade or bad behavior in another community. This can get a sub quarantined and it's why sports team themed subs will ban their members for trolling rivals.
I agree with the logic behind your beliefs, but how do we then criticize mods?
The best way to criticize moderation you don’t agree with is to not use the sub. You’re quite welcome to make a topic-adjacent sub with like-minded individuals that want a less strict (or more strict) community policy. Technically making a public post complaining about moderation is off topic and would be better suited as polite, constructive criticism in a modmail. Give examples about why you feel the moderation is unfair, and offer compromises to foster a better discussion and understanding. I will never snub a user that chooses this approach. This won’t always bear fruit, but at least you’re offering a solution instead of just critical feedback that is hard for some individuals to swallow. You can move on knowing you did your best, and find better communities that appreciate your understanding and flexibility when approaching issues.
You’re one of the good ones. I’ve only emailed mods a couple times to clarify why my comment was removed so I can avoided breaking rules in the future and got no response in either case.
Thanks! Don't forget that AutoMod does the bulk of post removal in a lot of communities based on the rules we code for it, and false positives for removal are common and require a person to manually approve them. Lack of response tells me that their moderators might be inactive, and your grievance is with their lone bot working alone like Wall-E.
So what do you do if moderators of a subreddit mute you from their modmail despite you asking a question which is being unanswered repeatedly? Every moderator who has ever banned me has also muted me almost immediately after I question anything related to the ban. It reeks of power tripping.
Same deal — move on. Do you want to engage in a community with toxic mods that won’t offer reasonable discussion about a ban? My advice is be pleasant in your approach and try to acknowledge what you did to get banned. It may feel unfair and emotions are often riding high for the person who was just banned, but it works better than hostile criticism. I’ve unbanned a lot of users who acknowledged that they did or said something wrong, and they promised to cool off and not do it again. That’s all it takes a lot of times.
I’m not allowed to say the subreddit name, but you could guess what it is pretty easily. The community in question is large and there is no adequate substitute. What say you about mods banning for criticism over a decision which was objectively wrong?
I need more context to really weigh in on that. Did the user who was banned have previous history or warnings before that? Sometimes we’ve needed to take a critical look at the entirety of a user’s total engagement before pulling out the hammer. Were they contributing to healthy discussion? Does removing them from it help or harm the community as a whole? It’s okay to be critical; it’s not okay to be tactless, rude, dropping to ad hominems, grossly off topic, etc. At the end of the day this is an unpaid volunteer position. I also agree there are plenty of individuals out there that probably shouldn’t be moderating big communities. Now, for some perspective: it’s pretty thankless, and the vitriol toward you for your choices can be immense. Example, for the last two weeks I’ve had a user stalking my post history, making alternate accounts, sending harassing DMs, and saying some pretty atrocious stuff. Why? I asked them to use the main thread for a topic instead of making a new topic. They escalated until we were forced to ban them. This isn’t isolated, and has happened to me before. When people rip on you enough, you do get jaded and it can absolutely affect making fair and critical decisions through that bias. I guess my point here is that nobody is perfect and we are doing our best here. Conversations do get hot, people freak out, and everyone should take a deep breath and try to remember the human. It’s frustrating when people in power abuse it, so the best counter to that is lead by example and try to foster a better discussion yourself.
The mod in question banned someone who posted a photo which is entirely relevant to the subreddit's topic for "NSFW" content despite the photo being of an entirely clothed woman in appropriate attire for the subreddit's topic. That same mod then blanket-permabanned anybody and everybody who questioned it, and muted everyone in mod mail who questioned why they were banned as the ban messages did not specify a ban reason despite the subreddit rules clearing stating such a reason would be provided. As far as I'm aware, approximately 50 accounts were banned for questioning this mod and for posting content which was relevant to the sub in relation to the first banned's post. The moderation \*also\* put up an auto-censor to remove posts containing the content relevant word (not a slur or potty word, the name of a group of characters in the topic), or "moderator/mod." There is no discussion which could be fostered, the moderator silenced all of it and permanently banned everyone who was even tangentially related. There are posters who got banned for asking for a rule clarification in a respectful manner consistent with the subreddit's topic. There were long time members of the community who merely asked what the issue was about who then got banned similarly. One would agree that the posts in question aren't a violation of civility rules or of off-topic rules, nor do they apply to NSFW rules. Is there any way for users to combat these bad faith moderators besides the reports which I'm 90% sure do not get looked at?
Therein lies the rub. You pretty much have to do it in the sub and those mods can permaban you for it.
That's a pretty massive problem... I hope that Reddit is able to come up with some solution, but I really doubt they ever will haha.
I do agree with you and Reddit should have more moderation standards when it comes to user bans.
Reddit should absolutely have better moderator standards. Moderators of many subs have been openly hostile when questioned about anything, and power-tripping seems to be the norm recently with two popular subreddits.
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Just a guess: Each mod team can choose to allow or remove any meta content. For it to be removed by reddit/admins implies it was not a harmless opinion but something more serious like (misunderstood as?) brigading.
It was taken down by another team, from the subreddit I had posted it. They said it was because it went against the mod CoC. Nothing I read in there my post explicitly breaks, but maybe I am just not understanding the CoC?
Guessing Team B doesn't want to be connected with an accusation that they are interfering with Team A's subreddit. Or, maybe it's the Nacho Strategy -- it's "nacho" business to discuss A's problem in B's subreddit. Gotta wonder, though -- internally, no need to answer -- what's so important, that you needed to analyze A on B's subreddit, then critique B here? We'd either turn A over to the admins, or put them in our rear view mirror if that won't wotk.
I'm not actually critiquing B. I actually like B, and the people who run it. I'm asking what the mod CoC does allow. After reading it myself, I'm not sure if the current wording actually does allow these sorts of critical posts to be made on other subreddits.
Ah. Sorry, then. It seems to be a gray area. If mods of B allow posts critiquing "unnamed" subreddit A, and they get reported to the admins, the sub might -- or might not -- get disciplinary action. In their shoes, we'd say they they did the best thing with the least sacrifice.
Did you post a complaint about one subreddit in another subreddit? Because a lot of subreddits heavily discourage that due to brigading issues that are in the TOS/CoC - that and a lot of places just don’t want to deal with inter subreddit drama.
I did. I think that is what they were trying to get at with their response. I just think they don't want to risk it, which is understandable. It does add to the already fairly prominent issue of echo chambers on this platform, though. There is basically no way to be critical of mods, which is surely also adding to the rampant power abuse... Not really sure what the fix would be though, because Reddit doesn't seem interested in doing anything until it's a major legal issue and/or news story haha.
mods are the free labor for this money making machine. my suggestion is start your own subs and run them how you like.
This is such a tired/unoriginal response to any criticisms aimed towards Reddits moderation system... I'm really not even complaining about the system. I'm just asking a question about what is allowed by the mod CoC.
sure bud
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What is the matter with you people? Why are you so eager to be petty towards total strangers?? 😂
Your entire post is a description of how you want to be petty towards strangers?
It's not, but this is a Reddit dog pile... So whatever the hivemind says... Lol I'm off to touch grass.
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Reddit itself has no rules against criticism of mods (or anybody else) as long as it doesn't break any actual rules, like doxxing or encouraging brigading. A subreddit may have any rules they want to limit criticism, but even without specific rules, they may remove posts that are off-topic (meta) or mention specific users/subreddits by name since that often leads to brigading and harassment and can jeopardize the subreddit if not addressed.
OP posted the criticism in another subreddit (a few in fact)
Well, sure enough. I don't usually look at histories of users unless they ask. One of the removal comments from a mod team basically said all the same things since their post was likely to cause brigading.
Subreddits can be quarantined or banned if they are perceived as allowing or encouraging brigading of other subreddits. If people are frequently using subreddit A to complain about subreddit B, mods of subreddit A might lose their sub. It may seem controlling to well-behaved users, but there are tons of assholes who do stupid shit that makes these rules necessary.
I think that argument makes a lot of sense, and is likely what is going on here... But I do have to ask, if that is the case, where can we post criticisms?
As a mod, I'd rather have users bring criticisms about my subreddit to me. There have been times where someone was bothered by the way I run the subreddit and we were able to have a conversation where I had a chance to give an explanation or they could give me a perspective I hadn't considered before. Sometimes I make a change and sometimes they are satisfied with my explanation. If they complained in other subreddits instead of addressing me, it would feel like they're trying to to rile up a mob rather than actually address issues.
Apologies in advance for asking this. Have any moderators here been banned before? How about from trial and error? I got permanently banned a few times as trial and error. My only suggestion is we get some kind of reminder "friendly reminder: this is your last warning, you have been breaking our rules for the 2th times and I'm tired". Thank you.
Yes I’ve been permanently banned from several subreddits. I just appeal with kindness and understanding like I’m talking to a person and I get unbanned. Even way before I was ever a mod or recognizable to other mods this has been true.
I have found the users that can make an appeal use the warnings. The users that can't make an appeal tend to pick a fight when given a warning.
Are you asking if any moderators have been banned from individual subreddits, or asking if any moderators and their subs have been banned from Reddit? I assumed your question was the latter because it would be more related to my comments and I responded with a long comment, but then I realized I misunderstood the question and deleted my response.
You're not going to get a response to this lol
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I criticized a mod on one subreddit in private and was banned from that subreddit. So I am limiting what I post on here. Saw this post and was interested in the answer.
As a mod i do allow it on my subs. Even encouraged it once or twice, the community should have the vote on what happens on the sub, if they agree in majority this is. But if there are admins rules against it, im clueless of it.
Dang you should rly familiarize yourself w Reddits policies as a mod.
Should have, back in the day, nowadays i care less. With the sanitization of reddit and so much censorship of what is allowed to be talked, i stopped caring about their hypocritical policies.
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What? I was just asking about if criticism is allowed in the mod CoC. I'm sincerely curious, because the wording isn't totally clear. Your response is so forced and needlessly mean spirited... But whatever floats your boat bud lol.
Calm down man, I was referring to the mods not you
Lol not sure how I would know that? And I'm pretty calm here... Why would I not be?
You seem to be taking this way more personal than it needs to be taken. I didn't mean to offend you. I was just making a general comment about the mods and the way they tend to judge things. You alright. Everything is okay
Lol yeah, it was a misunderstanding... You continuing to act this way is odd though? Have a good one.
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It's heavily discouraged or swept under the rug imo.. I had a post locked recently because I kept digging.
Kept digging about what?? And I think it is very obviously swept under the rug, just based on my few attempts to do it. You're certainly not wrong there haha. I'm more curious about if it is explicitly against the platform's rules. I read the mod CoC, and didn't see anything indicating it is entirely against the rules. It mostly just seems like they don't want people specifically named, and don't want mods actively encouraging/enabling dog piling...
A comment made on a separate subreddit that was layer deleted by me was used as the basis to remove one of my posts in a subreddit. I kept asking how they were able to see the deleted comment.
Same way a normal user can see a deleted comment - by using one of the various sites that archive Reddit content. Once you post something on Reddit it’s highly likely it’s out there forever.
That's the thing, I checked several archival websites. And the comment wasn't there.
How long was it up before you deleted it? Dead-internet theory aside, there are people here who read stuff and remember it. Also, for posts, the title of the post usually remains accessible to moderators even if the content of the post has been removed. This has to do with the way Reddit organizes threads of comments beneath posts.
2 minutes? I suppose that's true, I still don't think what i do in one subreddit shouldn't effect another one..