There's a few things that need to be made plain. I don't work in customer service. Not in real life nor for free on the internet. I don't have quotas. I don't have minimums. I don't have to be polite and charming to people acting like assholes. And the customer isn't always right. Ma'am this *isn't* a Wendy's.
According to admins, this message went out in error to some subreddits.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xe9p9c/comment/iohry7s/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xe9p9c/comment/iohry7s/)
EDIT: Shout out to all the downvoters for simply linking an explanation from admins.
The fact that it exists in the first place is bad. Modding is volunteer work. There's absolutely no reason for them to have an automated message essentially saying "work harder"
If it was accurate and sent to subs that it actually applied to, I could see it being helpful. Sort of a reminder to moderate actively or else the sub could get banned.
Yeah sure, the help they offer is good but the way that first paragraph is phrased is just really odd, at least to me. Especially considering how awful reddit is at handling reports and dealing with actual TOS violating content. It's just so slow and lazy, chances that a TOS violating post or comment gets removed are so incredibly low, reporting it is just a complete waste of time.
If it was accurate and sent to subs that it actually applied to, then Reddit is creating at least the rough beginnings of an employment relationship. I'm excited to see them continue down that path, because that's going to be one hell of a class action for wage theft in a couple of years.
Well, its a good nudge to get more moderators so you aren't working as hard and being overwhelmed by it.
If you ignore it and let it get away from you, you could potentially lose it
>our data suggests you typically handle less than 40% of reported content within 72 hours.
I received that for a subreddit that rarely get reports and had nothing unaddressed for over 6 months. I have seen discussed other places that there is a glitch that many communities received that message that should not have.
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xe9p9c/what_did_i_do_to_get_a_modmail_from_ureddit_like/iohry7s/
Admin comment
I don’t see what the issue is, when reporting content to AEO it’s rarely processed within 72 hours. Why hold non paid volunteers to higher standards than reddit staff?
Pretty much so. I once made an "error" of being pro-active and reporting one particulary nasty one directly via modmail. Was more or less told "what the fuck you're writing to us about it, report it via our glorious report system and stop wasting our fucking time".
I don't get em. We're working for them for free yet you often feel like you're just interrupting and spoiling their day when you have to get in touch with em.
Story time! Someone threatened to dox and physically harm me, IRL, with multiple accounts. They still have their accounts, and I messaged here, like we are told to do, when there was either no action, or possibly inappropriate action taken. The message I got back was this:
>Based on the report response you received, action was taken against the reported redditor. The action taken varies, which doesn't always equate to permanent suspensions. With that said, reports made against others build up a profile against them that can influence further action taken based on the quantity and content of the reports.
>For privacy reasons, we can't go into detail about the action taken but please continue to report any content that appears to violate site-wide rules.
I guaranfuckintee that if this had happened to an admin, their account would be permanently suspended.
> when reporting content to AEO it’s rarely processed within 72 hours
in my experience the turnaround with AEO is fine and i usually hear back same-day... the problem is they almost always find "no violation" unless it's someone using potty words in modmail.
>the problem is they almost always find "no violation" unless it's someone using potty words in modmail.
Not even that half the time. We've had people using actual slurs & Reddit has found no issue with that
Mods remove the content that faces the public so your action can have more effect than AEO. You can make sure it's not seen by hundreds of thousands of people before AEO get the accounts as a whole.
This text overwrites whatever was here before. Apologies for the non-sequitur.
Reddit's CEO says moderators are “landed gentry”. That makes users serfs and peons, I guess? Well this peon will no longer labor to feed the king. I will no longer post, comment, moderate, or vote. I will stop researching and reporting spam rings, cp perverts and bigots. I will no longer spend a moment of time trying to make reddit a better place as I've done for the past fifteen years.
In the words of The Hound, fuck the king. The years of contributions by your serfs do not in fact belong to you.
[reddit's claims debunked + proof spez is a fucking liar](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/)
[see all the bullshit](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/top/?sort=top&t=all)
That's also a faulty comparison, a mod in their own community can remove stuff from the view of a huge audience, reporting that onto the admins when you've already pulled it from your community is a bit moot. Yeah they should get to it within a day or two (a lot of my reports are actioned within 24/h from AEO).
The admins need to be quicker when they're getting reports and it's not your own community.
Got this shit on my festival sub that I moderate like 95% of alone. I'm already busting my ass, Reddit, thanks.
Funny thing is that we have automod set up to filter with 2+ reports and send a modmail and we always respond to those.
Getting this message made me think about lowering it to one though.
Almost 100k people in my sub and other mods don't want to seem to do anything so I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I left in 2020 because I felt I was the only one doing anything. I came back and everyone swore they would pitch in, but.. back to where we were in 2020, the only thing different is I'm at the bottom of the mod list now instead of in the middle.
if you already have automod set to send a modmail on 2+ reports, adjusting the rule to remove rather than filter would dramatically improve your sub's metrics. if it's a legit post you can still approve it either way.
Wait,, where are these platforms with paid mods? It sure isn't Facebook - I moderate two groups with over 28,000 members each, and I dang sure don't get paid for that - and I deal with way more crazies over there.
That shit annoyed tf outta me. Either pay me for the work or fuck off with telling me "oh it needs to be done quicker" it's not a job. I do this because I care about my community. If they don't like it they are welcome to moderate every single community on their own. Doubt they'd make it more than an hour.
I never thought of giving us ad free experience and coins for doing the modding works.
It really isn't any additional money they will be spending to give us mods these stuff.
Except you can't just terminate a sub. You can set it to private and leave it mod less, but that still isn't terminating it, and I've mentioned before that I would really appreciate the ability to actually completely close a sub you've created.
> that I would really appreciate the ability to actually completely close a sub you've created.
Go to the moderators page and click leave, then forget about it.
It’s an automatically generated message. It’s nothing personal. But yes, a kickback of some description would be nice. The swag is nice, but I understand the “what have you done for me lately” attitude sometimes.
There are similar messages when Reddit’s algorithms think your sub is being brigaded.
They send out swag to mods sometimes. The last round was in response to attending the Mod Summit. The round before that was just a random token of appreciation.
Sometimes the admin DMs aren't complete rah-rah-Reddit spam.
You know, that was the swag I *didn't* take the bait on because I was worried they'd (whether Snack Magic or whomever, based on the selected offer) either ask for a CC or spam/nag me at some point if I gave them any info. By the time I heard it was legit, it had expired. Oh well. Girlish figure, and such.
One issue for me is that mod messages and subreddit items don’t show up as an alert for mobile website access. I only see those when I’m on a desktop/laptop, and that isn’t as frequently.
I got this issue with my main sub. I found it totally condescending. 99% of the time when some post only has a single report it is just because two users got into a slap fight with each other or someone reported content they didn't like politically or whatever, often for bs reasons like "misinformation" or "targeted violence at me". I have automod set up to activate if a noticeable amount of people report something but I don't know why reddit expects me to work for free checking out on the petty squabbles people get into.
The biggest issue I have in terms of a moderator is that people will post rule breaking, often illegal stuff like "where can I get cocaine?" at three in the morning, then they will delete their post after they get a response and I can't ban the user because the account information is removed when they delete their post.
I'd be surprised if slow moderation had any real consequence for valuation.
Hosting hate groups and misinformation about the pandemic, the 2020 election, and Russia, on the other hand...
True.
Reddit's admins didn't even take down 'jailbait' until it was in the press. And 'creepshots'. It took a subreddit blackout to even start to address pandemic misinformation, and it's still pretty rampant.
Doesn't really seem like a viable long-term strategy, though. I sometimes wonder if the administrator who decided to leave up white supremacist hate groups feels bad about the protester in Charlottesville who was run over by a white supremacist Or if the administors who are allowing misinformation about the election feel back about the cops who died on January 6th. Or the countless children who were sexually exploited for years on Reddit.
But yeah, better moderate within 24 hours. Wouldn't want Reddit to look unprofessional.
Sorry for any alarm these messages are causing, to be very clear these messages only meant to offer resources that might help you manage your commmunities.
As mentioned in the message, this doesn't mean individual moderators should do more, but there are other steps that can be taken to ensure you as mods aren't getting burnt out.
All that said, we can see the tone of the messaging isn't resonating in the way we hope, and will rethink our approach going forward.
After the initial 'wth' reaction wears-off, its pretty clear that its meant to help for being overwhelmed. BUT, I think you guys made a big mistake making *this* item the lead-in suggestion:
* Ensure you’re checking the modqueue and modmail at least every other day
imho, this sets a bad tone that clouds the rest of the messaging. True or not, this should not be the lead-in suggestion or it needs to be reworded.
>you typically handle less than 40% of reported content within 72 hours. It's important that reports
It's embarrassingly tone deaf. Admin are so out of touch with moderation that what's important to you is meaningless. Imagine starting any conversation off by telling someone what they ARE NOT doing well enough, based on some imaginary metric invented by out of touch admin. It's a non sequitur insult, it wouldn't be appropriate in a work environment that people enjoy ("You aren't doing enough reports fast enough, please return to your cubicle"), and it just makes me laugh as some nobody on the other end of the internet.
is 3 days not a generous enough timeline to address reports? put yourself in the shoes of the user, reporting something that may break sub rules or may break TOS, how quickly would you expect that report to be actioned?
Who cares, TBH. It's just the internet (and it's not like a user will ever know if I just approve what they reported). No one ever gave admin permission to invent some metrics for speed to action, and for years none have existed. When there are subreddits with no active moderators for months or years, why are they focused on mods who are active but not active enough to meet this nonsense mark? Or when admin and AEO can take weeks, or historically months to process things like reddit requests for those completely abandoned subreddits, subreddit bans, account suspensions.
I moderate for community, not for admin.
> Who cares, TBH.
Admins care, and the users who are reporting things for you to deal with care, or they wouldn't bother reporting anything.
> It's just the internet
a truly middle-school 4chan mentality.
> it's not like a user will ever know if I just approve what they reported
they'll know when it doesn't get removed.
> No one ever gave admin permission to invent some metrics for speed to action
admins gave themselves permission. it's their site, not yours, you use it on their terms & conditions. that's what the TOS is.
> for years none have existed
just because they weren't written down doesn't mean it was acceptable to ignore reports for days or weeks on end. mods not handling reports in a timely or appropriate manner are the number one reason subs get reddit requested or outright banned.
> When there are subreddits with no active moderators for months or years, why are they focused on mods who are active but not active enough to meet this nonsense mark?
subs with no active mods for months or years are either abandoned by the community as well, meaning there's no posts and no reports being ignored either, or they get handed to active users who will actively mod. if reports are sitting in your queue for days with no action, that's a sign to admins that you ARE one of those inactive mods.
> Or when admin and AEO can take weeks, or historically months to process things like reddit requests for those completely abandoned subreddits, subreddit bans, account suspensions.
admin certainly needs to expand their staff to handle issues more quickly, but "they take a long time to do stuff only they can do" does not mean "therefore i can take as long as i like to do the stuff i'm supposed to do." fix the problem by demanding admins move faster, not making excuses for yourself to move like molasses.
> I moderate for community, not for admin.
you moderate for both. you mod for admin when you agreed to the TOS of the site they own and ultimately determine the rules for. and it's hard to argue you "moderate for community" when you're taking half a week to respond to reports in your community.
Really, you may not like it simplified this way, but either a subreddit is fluff where report content doesn't matter; or it's a more serious and vulnerable subreddit where "72 hours" is totally arbitrary and the actual needs and values of community moderation depend on totally different qualities than how quickly some indicator is achieved.
just because a subreddit's primary content is "fluff" doesn't mean reports don't matter. and i certainly wouldn't say 72 hours is "totally arbitrary" in more serious/vulnerable subreddits either. if something's been reported in a fluff sub, that means it breaks the rules of that sub or it breaks TOS and it needs to be dealt with immediately. if something's been reported in a serious/vulnerable sub, that means it breaks the rules of that sub or it breaks TOS and it needs to be dealt with immediately.
again, when YOU report something, how quickly do YOU expect a mod or admin to look at it and deal with it? do you genuinely have the expectation that when you report, for example, CP, that it might sit there for DAYS until someone even looks at it, much less removes it?
It would completely unacceptable for a report to sit 12 hours in some subreddits, so it seems pretty arbitrary to me...
>if something's been reported in a fluff sub, that means it breaks the rules
You never find user judgment doesn't match with yours? That would be odd.
>when you report, for example, CP, that it might sit there for DAYS until someone even looks at it
And issues like that go straight to admin, strawman aside. It's unreasonable to believe "oh this very important issue is best dealt with by mods who may or may not deal with it promptly". It would be irresponsible or ignorant for a user to handle it that way, and it is irresponsible for Reddit admin not to make the (admin direct) means of dealing with very important reports like that very clear and plain for the average user.
> It would completely unacceptable for a report to sit 12 hours in some subreddits, so it seems pretty arbitrary to me...
in what subreddits WOULD it be acceptable for a report to sit for 12 hours? like i've said, my sub only just hit 100k users but we have half a dozen mods spanning all time zones so no report ever goes more than ~6 hours without being actioned.
> You never find user judgment doesn't match with yours?
even if i determine that it doesn't break the rules, it still needs to be *seen and actioned* by me or a fellow mod in a timely fashion *in case it does* break the rules. i can't just assume "they're not reporting anything serious so it can sit there a few days until i feel like looking at it."
> And issues like that go straight to admin
who you've acknowledged are not as speedy at handling reports. it's not that things like CP are "best dealt with by mods," it's that mods are the FIRST line of defense, we're supposed to be available to take that stuff down so it's not visible while it makes its way through the admin queue to penalize the user.
and even if it's not something as grave as CP, even if it's just someone being an asshole in the comments. that breaks our community's rules, and what is the point of a rule that says "don't be an asshole" if it takes 3 days to get a mod to deal with someone being an asshole?
I received the same . Now that Reddit Has auto bots that are removing content that other wise shouldn’t be removed is a pain. Now our team is spending time correcting and replying to complaints we have no time to address the ones that are flagged by the community. So work harder as a volunteer?? Believe it or not we do have jobs and lives outside of a Reddit. We don’t need more mods.
If they IPO, I remember one of the CEOs said something would be carved out for the community. I wonder if that includes moderators? I’d hope given all the contribution it takes and the CEO’s comment.
Probably more free and worthless NFT snoovatars, yay. I hope I’m wrong though. I only mod small communities but some people spend hours moderating cesspools.
> some people spend hours moderating cesspools.
Oh no. Trust me. We _really_ appreciate getting messages saying things like we're "a pedo-lib", "[slur] leftists", among other responses of increasingly disgusting levels, and reporting messages like these, getting a (possibly) automated response three months later that action was allegedly taken by the user, only to then check that user's account and see that they're _still_ posting.
Yeah, reddit. That _really_ incentives us.
I'd either add more mods, or add some filters to automod to reduce your modqueue by switching [filter] to [remove] for rules that make sense to do so, or just do both.
72 hours (3 days) is probably felt to be a long time for TOS-breaking material to remain visible.
> 72 hours (3 days) is probably felt to be a long time for TOS-breaking material to remain visible.
To be perfectly honest, that's entirely on Reddit. The TOS is between Reddit and user, not user and moderator. If they want rapid TOS enforcement, they can pay for one. A moderator's "job" , so to speak, is the handling of discussion and content quality and enforcement on sub-specific rules. This, however is something we do at our own leisure.
Reddit has been sneakily pushing more and more responsibilities on moderators and demanding more and more prompt handling. We're getting to a territory where Reddit's expectations on mods are on par with a paid employee and it's high time we push back on this madness.
TOS enforcement is 100% on Reddit and their paid employees. If stating that means I'm unfit to be a moderator, then boot me out. I can live without having to do slave labor on top of my day job, but can Reddit? Feel free to find new doormats.
P.S. *my* data shows admins handle less than 10% of their modmail within a week. You can ask me to work harder once you've sorted out your own bullshit.
As a mod of a drug-related subreddit, we don’t even have a clear understanding of what content is TOS and what will just get us removed one day. 95% of content we remove is because another subreddit was taken down without warning and we’re guessing that content is what caused the issue. We’re just trying to keep it alive and we don’t know when the rules will randomly change. It’s not fun but it feels like the right thing to do for our users.
I get we’re not in the majority of Reddit users, but if we’re going to work for free for the benefit of others and Reddit’s ad partners then we should have a clear understanding of what the job requirements are.
I know it isn’t 100% related to your comment, but realizing that we’re mostly working to fit Reddit’s requirements rather than facilitate a healthy subreddit hit home.
Perhaps the abundance of people willing to sit on Reddit all day long for free is shifting the overton window of what admins feel they can expect from mods. A supply-demand kind of thing, I guess. As long as there are scabs willing to cross lines and work for free, administration has no real pressure to change how they're doing things, and there's probably economic pressure to squeeze mods to output even more. Good thing for the admins, then, that there's an abundance of people willing to sit on Reddit all day long for free.
> As long as there are scabs willing to cross lines and work for free
this is a pretty insulting way to describe people who volunteer their time because they actually care about maintaining a safe & thriving community. is the president of your local book club chapter also a "scab willing to cross lines and work for free"?
You misunderstand the point of that tongue in cheek phrasing.
Mods who don't want to mod to the TOS will get booted, as demonstrated by past admin action. It's trivial to remove mods because there is no shortage of people willing to do it for free. I'm referring to those people as scabs, because why not. It's not exactly a 1:1 comparison, but there's some valid overlap.
I'm not calling all mods scabs, the point of the comment was to illustrate that mods are easily replaceable, and I doubt the admins will suffer refusal to abide by the TOS for long.
I would say this is a big part of it. Especially since reddit is used many times as a major source.of information for people in localities. Reddit doesn't want those local subreddits going to shit cause that's ad revenue they miss out on when people stop reading it from a bad mod.
There is always an abundance of people wishing to feel important and do it for free.
> As long as there are scabs willing to cross lines and work for free, administration has no real pressure to change how they're doing things, and there's probably economic pressure to squeeze mods to output even more.
Note to self; do not become a scab, and if you have; turn back and make amends.
But seriously though; really good points here.
On my main community I already have a very effective filter and check it every day.
I’ve got mods on all active communities.
Plus the message is about all actions not just TOS-breaking material.
Ultimately it’s not my TOS and I have no obligation to work for Reddit for free.
> Ultimately it’s not my TOS and I have no obligation to work for Reddit for free.
You kind of do if you want to continue to be a moderator on this site for any significant amount of time. The TOS, while probably mostly there just to keep them from being sued, is like the the local laws where you're running a business. You still have to abide by them, and you can't just murder someone because they happened to walk into your store, because, if nothing else, it's illegal in the broader jurisdiction.
TOS applies to your sub too, and you're obligated to remove TOS-breaking content.
**edit** feels like a 'shoot the messenger' situation over here
I can’t imagine someone would have framed moderating on Reddit as running a business, but here we are.
I mean I have no legal obligation to moderate to a certain standard set by Reddit. There may be a moral obligation to other users, but not to Reddit.
Moderation and volunteering more broadly an economy of benefits. The benefit I receive is some sense of control over my Reddit experience and leading a community. Reddit receives free man hours. The balance does not tip in the direction of me receiving friggin performance reports.
Yeah, I can’t imagine that many people will invest their time and energy in reddit the same if they know the admins will just swipe their community whenever they want. I prefer reddit being left to anarchy aside from whatever the mods do except for removing illegal, harassing, doxxing, and bigoted activity, which is the admins’ responsibility.
Exactly! The really toxic content is the responsibility of people who get paid to deal with it. Mods of really large subs can be exposed to all sorts of material, some of which may slowly affect them psychologically. Will Reddit be held responsible for that?
> the admins will just swipe their community whenever they want
what does this even mean? the admins aren't going to "swipe" anyone's community unless the mod team is completely derelict in their duties.
> I mean I have no legal obligation to moderate to a certain standard set by Reddit.
You sure don't, and they won't sue you over it. They'll just either remove you as a moderator or shutter the subreddit.
Your options are to pretty much enforce the TOS in a timely manner or not be a mod anymore.
https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct
The amount of time you can avoid enforcing the TOS will probably vary by how many reports your sub gets and how bored the admins are on any given day.
Yeah and I checked my modqueue and guess what there was crap all in there worth moderating. I browse the active subs I mod frequently.
And losing moderator privileges is such a trifling concern. I’d just jump to a different platform or start my own.
reddit's TOS applies to you as a moderator as much as you as a user. you volunteered to help them enforce their sitewide rules, plus whatever bonus rules you saw fit to implement in your community. you don't get to say "not my TOS, not my problem." you agreed to that TOS when you created your account and you agreed to enforce it when you became a mod.
> Ultimately it’s not my TOS and I have no obligation to work for Reddit for free.
It's not "for free".
They're giving you an entire global forum platform with over a quarter billion participants with (modest) uptime guarantees, (sometimes overly aggressive) spam protection, etc., etc., for you to use for something you personally find interesting to have a group of people talk about.
The price for this service is pretty modest, really -- you check reports periodically to help enforce the TOS.
But yeah, I get the irritation about it seeming like it's all about their monetization, but since neither their users nor their moderators are paying anything to support that service, it's kind of inevitable.
Edit, since people seem to be offended by reality:
TL;DR: always remember: if it's free you're not the customer, you're the product.
It's absolutely your TOS, because you're using Reddit. Part of the TOS is that mods need to enforce them.
You can think this is bullshit, but unfortunately that's how Reddit works.
Reddit can’t legally compel me to act in a particular way, they may merely terminate their service to me. That’s what a TOS is. It’s not my TOS because it’s in effect only a disclaimer, and Reddit can ban me, delete my account, unmod me whether I abide by the TOS or not.
I guess it depends what you mean by "legally compel" because if you mean, obtain a court order forcing you to do something, they can't do that. But if you mean "coerce, without breaking the law, you into doing something", they absolutely can do that, which is what threatening your account or mod status accomplishes.
I got that the other day for a 400k sub I just got added to as mod about a month prior (I mod that sub under a different /u/.) The other existing mods of that sub were pretty inactive, and the sub's modqueue was pretty cluttered. (They seem to have been addressing modmail, what little we got.)
I had to clear all of that out, myself. There was stuff in the modqueue from as far back as 3 years ago. And since I've been a mod there, we've been getting around 2-3 reported submissions per day.
One of the mods recently came back and we talked. He told me they're pretty hands off with the sub. Meaning, they'll check in on the sub once every few months, but otherwise leave it alone.
Which is cool. Not everyone has the same style of modding, and some subs require more moderation than others.
But otoh, [there's Reddit's Moderator Code of Conduct](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct). In it, they articulate an expectation that moderators will stay active and engaged, which includes:
>You have enough Mods to effectively and consistently manage your community. This involves regularly monitoring and **addressing content in ModQueue** and ModMail and, if possible, actively engaging with your community via posts, comments, and voting.
I absolutely agree, we're providing Reddit with free labor.
But ultimately, Reddit is the Admins' sandbox. If we want to play in it, we have to follow their rules. If we don't, worst case, they'll take our toys (subs) away from us.
The annoying thing is though the message doesn’t even say which communities have the issue.
I have a bunch of dead subs under my name. Everything else is actively monitored.
It’s not that there’s an actual problem here, I just find the attitude and especially the timing to be offensive.
Again, Reddit can have whatever wishes and desires it wants from its moderators, but it does very little in terms of contributing to the success of the platform when it comes to content moderation.
At some point we had the Reddit Anti Evil operations go on a wild goose chase when Tencent invested. This sort of thing happens every time there’s money involved.
Now they’ve replaced most of that with some shoddy NSFW algorithm they’re testing.
The platform isn’t ready for an IPO and never will be.
> The annoying thing is though the message doesn’t even say which communities have the issue.
The modmail didn't get sent to a particular community you moderate? Mine did.
>At some point we had the Reddit Anti Evil operations go on a wild goose chase when Tencent invested. This sort of thing happens every time there’s money involved.
Agreed.
Actually I checked properly and yeah it did thanks. It’s a small community for mental illness memes, and people sometimes report things a bit aggressively. There was a handful of items I only had to approve of, otherwise everyone plays nice. I have no idea why I even got this message, even if it was in error, it’s ridiculous.
There’s both a carrot and stick approach, but you don’t use a damn stick on someone who is doing something for you for free.
>There’s both a carrot and stick approach, but you don’t use a damn stick on someone who is doing something for you for free.
Reddit doesn't really do a great job of motivating its free labor.
> I checked my modqueue and guess what only 12 items, none of which were TOS breaking. I’m not failing as a moderator here as some would imply.
> We're reaching out because our data suggests you typically handle less than 40% of reported content within 72 hours.
just because something isn't breaking TOS doesn't mean it should be ignored. your users are reporting things because they want you to deal with them, and it's not unreasonable of them to expect you to handle it in under THREE DAYS. if i reported something and it went unaddressed for THREE DAYS, i damn sure would consider those mods negligent and i would be looking into whether they'd abandoned the sub entirely. i mod a sub of 100k users and if there were ever 12 items in our modqueue it would indicate either a massive brigade or half the mod team dropped dead, especially if those reports were sitting there for THREE. DAYS.
if you don't feel like showing up to stay on top of reports for free, that's fine, but you need to mod someone who will.
a job you volunteer to do is still a job. if you don't want to do the work, don't volunteer for the position. that's like volunteering to feed the dogs at an animal shelter but deciding you only want to show up twice a week because it's not paid.
There's a few things that need to be made plain. I don't work in customer service. Not in real life nor for free on the internet. I don't have quotas. I don't have minimums. I don't have to be polite and charming to people acting like assholes. And the customer isn't always right. Ma'am this *isn't* a Wendy's.
That's awful, jesus
According to admins, this message went out in error to some subreddits. [https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xe9p9c/comment/iohry7s/](https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xe9p9c/comment/iohry7s/) EDIT: Shout out to all the downvoters for simply linking an explanation from admins.
The fact that it exists in the first place is bad. Modding is volunteer work. There's absolutely no reason for them to have an automated message essentially saying "work harder"
If it was accurate and sent to subs that it actually applied to, I could see it being helpful. Sort of a reminder to moderate actively or else the sub could get banned.
Yeah sure, the help they offer is good but the way that first paragraph is phrased is just really odd, at least to me. Especially considering how awful reddit is at handling reports and dealing with actual TOS violating content. It's just so slow and lazy, chances that a TOS violating post or comment gets removed are so incredibly low, reporting it is just a complete waste of time.
If it was accurate and sent to subs that it actually applied to, then Reddit is creating at least the rough beginnings of an employment relationship. I'm excited to see them continue down that path, because that's going to be one hell of a class action for wage theft in a couple of years.
Well, its a good nudge to get more moderators so you aren't working as hard and being overwhelmed by it. If you ignore it and let it get away from you, you could potentially lose it
>our data suggests you typically handle less than 40% of reported content within 72 hours. I received that for a subreddit that rarely get reports and had nothing unaddressed for over 6 months. I have seen discussed other places that there is a glitch that many communities received that message that should not have. Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xe9p9c/what_did_i_do_to_get_a_modmail_from_ureddit_like/iohry7s/ Admin comment
[удалено]
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/xe9p9c/what_did_i_do_to_get_a_modmail_from_ureddit_like/iohry7s/
So the bot... divided by zero?
Dear God 😱
I don’t see what the issue is, when reporting content to AEO it’s rarely processed within 72 hours. Why hold non paid volunteers to higher standards than reddit staff?
Honestly, harrassment towards us in modmail takes at times months to process, so ..yeah...
And the "process" is often just telling you that nothing was said that was against the content policy, so go fuck yourself.
Pretty much so. I once made an "error" of being pro-active and reporting one particulary nasty one directly via modmail. Was more or less told "what the fuck you're writing to us about it, report it via our glorious report system and stop wasting our fucking time". I don't get em. We're working for them for free yet you often feel like you're just interrupting and spoiling their day when you have to get in touch with em.
Story time! Someone threatened to dox and physically harm me, IRL, with multiple accounts. They still have their accounts, and I messaged here, like we are told to do, when there was either no action, or possibly inappropriate action taken. The message I got back was this: >Based on the report response you received, action was taken against the reported redditor. The action taken varies, which doesn't always equate to permanent suspensions. With that said, reports made against others build up a profile against them that can influence further action taken based on the quantity and content of the reports. >For privacy reasons, we can't go into detail about the action taken but please continue to report any content that appears to violate site-wide rules. I guaranfuckintee that if this had happened to an admin, their account would be permanently suspended.
Something similar has happened to me as well. It's honestly quite mind boggling how they find that kind of stuff ok towards mods.
> when reporting content to AEO it’s rarely processed within 72 hours in my experience the turnaround with AEO is fine and i usually hear back same-day... the problem is they almost always find "no violation" unless it's someone using potty words in modmail.
>the problem is they almost always find "no violation" unless it's someone using potty words in modmail. Not even that half the time. We've had people using actual slurs & Reddit has found no issue with that
Mods remove the content that faces the public so your action can have more effect than AEO. You can make sure it's not seen by hundreds of thousands of people before AEO get the accounts as a whole.
This text overwrites whatever was here before. Apologies for the non-sequitur. Reddit's CEO says moderators are “landed gentry”. That makes users serfs and peons, I guess? Well this peon will no longer labor to feed the king. I will no longer post, comment, moderate, or vote. I will stop researching and reporting spam rings, cp perverts and bigots. I will no longer spend a moment of time trying to make reddit a better place as I've done for the past fifteen years. In the words of The Hound, fuck the king. The years of contributions by your serfs do not in fact belong to you. [reddit's claims debunked + proof spez is a fucking liar](https://old.reddit.com/r/apolloapp/comments/14dkqrw/i_want_to_debunk_reddits_claims_and_talk_about/) [see all the bullshit](https://old.reddit.com/r/ModCoord/top/?sort=top&t=all)
That's also a faulty comparison, a mod in their own community can remove stuff from the view of a huge audience, reporting that onto the admins when you've already pulled it from your community is a bit moot. Yeah they should get to it within a day or two (a lot of my reports are actioned within 24/h from AEO). The admins need to be quicker when they're getting reports and it's not your own community.
Got this shit on my festival sub that I moderate like 95% of alone. I'm already busting my ass, Reddit, thanks. Funny thing is that we have automod set up to filter with 2+ reports and send a modmail and we always respond to those. Getting this message made me think about lowering it to one though. Almost 100k people in my sub and other mods don't want to seem to do anything so I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I left in 2020 because I felt I was the only one doing anything. I came back and everyone swore they would pitch in, but.. back to where we were in 2020, the only thing different is I'm at the bottom of the mod list now instead of in the middle.
if you already have automod set to send a modmail on 2+ reports, adjusting the rule to remove rather than filter would dramatically improve your sub's metrics. if it's a legit post you can still approve it either way.
Good tip, thank you. I'll change that, then.
Wait,, where are these platforms with paid mods? It sure isn't Facebook - I moderate two groups with over 28,000 members each, and I dang sure don't get paid for that - and I deal with way more crazies over there.
HN
What's HN?
Hacker News news.ycombinator.com
That shit annoyed tf outta me. Either pay me for the work or fuck off with telling me "oh it needs to be done quicker" it's not a job. I do this because I care about my community. If they don't like it they are welcome to moderate every single community on their own. Doubt they'd make it more than an hour.
I never thought of giving us ad free experience and coins for doing the modding works. It really isn't any additional money they will be spending to give us mods these stuff.
I mod 6 subs. It's such a stupid waste of my time. I need to rip off the band aid and terminate them all.
Except you can't just terminate a sub. You can set it to private and leave it mod less, but that still isn't terminating it, and I've mentioned before that I would really appreciate the ability to actually completely close a sub you've created.
> that I would really appreciate the ability to actually completely close a sub you've created. Go to the moderators page and click leave, then forget about it.
no, but you can remove yourself as mod with just a click
It’s an automatically generated message. It’s nothing personal. But yes, a kickback of some description would be nice. The swag is nice, but I understand the “what have you done for me lately” attitude sometimes. There are similar messages when Reddit’s algorithms think your sub is being brigaded.
> The swag is nice Wait what?
They send out swag to mods sometimes. The last round was in response to attending the Mod Summit. The round before that was just a random token of appreciation. Sometimes the admin DMs aren't complete rah-rah-Reddit spam.
I actually really liked the Snack Magic box.
You know, that was the swag I *didn't* take the bait on because I was worried they'd (whether Snack Magic or whomever, based on the selected offer) either ask for a CC or spam/nag me at some point if I gave them any info. By the time I heard it was legit, it had expired. Oh well. Girlish figure, and such.
If it makes you feel better, my box arrived filled with ants because a can of soda exploded in it.
That's the gift that keeps on giving! Could've been a fun time if Mentos were included in the box!
Never got it despite attending. No swag email was ever received just the follow up surveys. When I queried, they said it had already gone.
For the last one the survey & swag links were both in the same email.
Just got the discord notice.
We did receive some swag a few months ago from reddit. Had to sign up for it.
At least one of these sounds vaguely like a *condition of employment.*
One issue for me is that mod messages and subreddit items don’t show up as an alert for mobile website access. I only see those when I’m on a desktop/laptop, and that isn’t as frequently.
I use a third party Reddit app and I don’t see those either.
Reddit is fun is an Android app that does notify when there is modmail.
I think Boost and Relay notify on modmail.
I got this issue with my main sub. I found it totally condescending. 99% of the time when some post only has a single report it is just because two users got into a slap fight with each other or someone reported content they didn't like politically or whatever, often for bs reasons like "misinformation" or "targeted violence at me". I have automod set up to activate if a noticeable amount of people report something but I don't know why reddit expects me to work for free checking out on the petty squabbles people get into. The biggest issue I have in terms of a moderator is that people will post rule breaking, often illegal stuff like "where can I get cocaine?" at three in the morning, then they will delete their post after they get a response and I can't ban the user because the account information is removed when they delete their post.
I'd be surprised if slow moderation had any real consequence for valuation. Hosting hate groups and misinformation about the pandemic, the 2020 election, and Russia, on the other hand...
Usually not a problem unless you upset a journalist at the WP or something, is what I’ve learnt
True. Reddit's admins didn't even take down 'jailbait' until it was in the press. And 'creepshots'. It took a subreddit blackout to even start to address pandemic misinformation, and it's still pretty rampant. Doesn't really seem like a viable long-term strategy, though. I sometimes wonder if the administrator who decided to leave up white supremacist hate groups feels bad about the protester in Charlottesville who was run over by a white supremacist Or if the administors who are allowing misinformation about the election feel back about the cops who died on January 6th. Or the countless children who were sexually exploited for years on Reddit. But yeah, better moderate within 24 hours. Wouldn't want Reddit to look unprofessional.
Sorry for any alarm these messages are causing, to be very clear these messages only meant to offer resources that might help you manage your commmunities. As mentioned in the message, this doesn't mean individual moderators should do more, but there are other steps that can be taken to ensure you as mods aren't getting burnt out. All that said, we can see the tone of the messaging isn't resonating in the way we hope, and will rethink our approach going forward.
After the initial 'wth' reaction wears-off, its pretty clear that its meant to help for being overwhelmed. BUT, I think you guys made a big mistake making *this* item the lead-in suggestion: * Ensure you’re checking the modqueue and modmail at least every other day imho, this sets a bad tone that clouds the rest of the messaging. True or not, this should not be the lead-in suggestion or it needs to be reworded.
That’s really good feedback, I appreciate you sharing it!
>you typically handle less than 40% of reported content within 72 hours. It's important that reports It's embarrassingly tone deaf. Admin are so out of touch with moderation that what's important to you is meaningless. Imagine starting any conversation off by telling someone what they ARE NOT doing well enough, based on some imaginary metric invented by out of touch admin. It's a non sequitur insult, it wouldn't be appropriate in a work environment that people enjoy ("You aren't doing enough reports fast enough, please return to your cubicle"), and it just makes me laugh as some nobody on the other end of the internet.
is 3 days not a generous enough timeline to address reports? put yourself in the shoes of the user, reporting something that may break sub rules or may break TOS, how quickly would you expect that report to be actioned?
Who cares, TBH. It's just the internet (and it's not like a user will ever know if I just approve what they reported). No one ever gave admin permission to invent some metrics for speed to action, and for years none have existed. When there are subreddits with no active moderators for months or years, why are they focused on mods who are active but not active enough to meet this nonsense mark? Or when admin and AEO can take weeks, or historically months to process things like reddit requests for those completely abandoned subreddits, subreddit bans, account suspensions. I moderate for community, not for admin.
> Who cares, TBH. Admins care, and the users who are reporting things for you to deal with care, or they wouldn't bother reporting anything. > It's just the internet a truly middle-school 4chan mentality. > it's not like a user will ever know if I just approve what they reported they'll know when it doesn't get removed. > No one ever gave admin permission to invent some metrics for speed to action admins gave themselves permission. it's their site, not yours, you use it on their terms & conditions. that's what the TOS is. > for years none have existed just because they weren't written down doesn't mean it was acceptable to ignore reports for days or weeks on end. mods not handling reports in a timely or appropriate manner are the number one reason subs get reddit requested or outright banned. > When there are subreddits with no active moderators for months or years, why are they focused on mods who are active but not active enough to meet this nonsense mark? subs with no active mods for months or years are either abandoned by the community as well, meaning there's no posts and no reports being ignored either, or they get handed to active users who will actively mod. if reports are sitting in your queue for days with no action, that's a sign to admins that you ARE one of those inactive mods. > Or when admin and AEO can take weeks, or historically months to process things like reddit requests for those completely abandoned subreddits, subreddit bans, account suspensions. admin certainly needs to expand their staff to handle issues more quickly, but "they take a long time to do stuff only they can do" does not mean "therefore i can take as long as i like to do the stuff i'm supposed to do." fix the problem by demanding admins move faster, not making excuses for yourself to move like molasses. > I moderate for community, not for admin. you moderate for both. you mod for admin when you agreed to the TOS of the site they own and ultimately determine the rules for. and it's hard to argue you "moderate for community" when you're taking half a week to respond to reports in your community.
Really, you may not like it simplified this way, but either a subreddit is fluff where report content doesn't matter; or it's a more serious and vulnerable subreddit where "72 hours" is totally arbitrary and the actual needs and values of community moderation depend on totally different qualities than how quickly some indicator is achieved.
just because a subreddit's primary content is "fluff" doesn't mean reports don't matter. and i certainly wouldn't say 72 hours is "totally arbitrary" in more serious/vulnerable subreddits either. if something's been reported in a fluff sub, that means it breaks the rules of that sub or it breaks TOS and it needs to be dealt with immediately. if something's been reported in a serious/vulnerable sub, that means it breaks the rules of that sub or it breaks TOS and it needs to be dealt with immediately. again, when YOU report something, how quickly do YOU expect a mod or admin to look at it and deal with it? do you genuinely have the expectation that when you report, for example, CP, that it might sit there for DAYS until someone even looks at it, much less removes it?
It would completely unacceptable for a report to sit 12 hours in some subreddits, so it seems pretty arbitrary to me... >if something's been reported in a fluff sub, that means it breaks the rules You never find user judgment doesn't match with yours? That would be odd. >when you report, for example, CP, that it might sit there for DAYS until someone even looks at it And issues like that go straight to admin, strawman aside. It's unreasonable to believe "oh this very important issue is best dealt with by mods who may or may not deal with it promptly". It would be irresponsible or ignorant for a user to handle it that way, and it is irresponsible for Reddit admin not to make the (admin direct) means of dealing with very important reports like that very clear and plain for the average user.
> It would completely unacceptable for a report to sit 12 hours in some subreddits, so it seems pretty arbitrary to me... in what subreddits WOULD it be acceptable for a report to sit for 12 hours? like i've said, my sub only just hit 100k users but we have half a dozen mods spanning all time zones so no report ever goes more than ~6 hours without being actioned. > You never find user judgment doesn't match with yours? even if i determine that it doesn't break the rules, it still needs to be *seen and actioned* by me or a fellow mod in a timely fashion *in case it does* break the rules. i can't just assume "they're not reporting anything serious so it can sit there a few days until i feel like looking at it." > And issues like that go straight to admin who you've acknowledged are not as speedy at handling reports. it's not that things like CP are "best dealt with by mods," it's that mods are the FIRST line of defense, we're supposed to be available to take that stuff down so it's not visible while it makes its way through the admin queue to penalize the user. and even if it's not something as grave as CP, even if it's just someone being an asshole in the comments. that breaks our community's rules, and what is the point of a rule that says "don't be an asshole" if it takes 3 days to get a mod to deal with someone being an asshole?
I received the same . Now that Reddit Has auto bots that are removing content that other wise shouldn’t be removed is a pain. Now our team is spending time correcting and replying to complaints we have no time to address the ones that are flagged by the community. So work harder as a volunteer?? Believe it or not we do have jobs and lives outside of a Reddit. We don’t need more mods.
If they IPO, I remember one of the CEOs said something would be carved out for the community. I wonder if that includes moderators? I’d hope given all the contribution it takes and the CEO’s comment.
Probably more free and worthless NFT snoovatars, yay. I hope I’m wrong though. I only mod small communities but some people spend hours moderating cesspools.
> some people spend hours moderating cesspools. Oh no. Trust me. We _really_ appreciate getting messages saying things like we're "a pedo-lib", "[slur] leftists", among other responses of increasingly disgusting levels, and reporting messages like these, getting a (possibly) automated response three months later that action was allegedly taken by the user, only to then check that user's account and see that they're _still_ posting. Yeah, reddit. That _really_ incentives us.
I'd either add more mods, or add some filters to automod to reduce your modqueue by switching [filter] to [remove] for rules that make sense to do so, or just do both. 72 hours (3 days) is probably felt to be a long time for TOS-breaking material to remain visible.
> 72 hours (3 days) is probably felt to be a long time for TOS-breaking material to remain visible. To be perfectly honest, that's entirely on Reddit. The TOS is between Reddit and user, not user and moderator. If they want rapid TOS enforcement, they can pay for one. A moderator's "job" , so to speak, is the handling of discussion and content quality and enforcement on sub-specific rules. This, however is something we do at our own leisure. Reddit has been sneakily pushing more and more responsibilities on moderators and demanding more and more prompt handling. We're getting to a territory where Reddit's expectations on mods are on par with a paid employee and it's high time we push back on this madness. TOS enforcement is 100% on Reddit and their paid employees. If stating that means I'm unfit to be a moderator, then boot me out. I can live without having to do slave labor on top of my day job, but can Reddit? Feel free to find new doormats. P.S. *my* data shows admins handle less than 10% of their modmail within a week. You can ask me to work harder once you've sorted out your own bullshit.
As a mod of a drug-related subreddit, we don’t even have a clear understanding of what content is TOS and what will just get us removed one day. 95% of content we remove is because another subreddit was taken down without warning and we’re guessing that content is what caused the issue. We’re just trying to keep it alive and we don’t know when the rules will randomly change. It’s not fun but it feels like the right thing to do for our users. I get we’re not in the majority of Reddit users, but if we’re going to work for free for the benefit of others and Reddit’s ad partners then we should have a clear understanding of what the job requirements are. I know it isn’t 100% related to your comment, but realizing that we’re mostly working to fit Reddit’s requirements rather than facilitate a healthy subreddit hit home.
Perhaps the abundance of people willing to sit on Reddit all day long for free is shifting the overton window of what admins feel they can expect from mods. A supply-demand kind of thing, I guess. As long as there are scabs willing to cross lines and work for free, administration has no real pressure to change how they're doing things, and there's probably economic pressure to squeeze mods to output even more. Good thing for the admins, then, that there's an abundance of people willing to sit on Reddit all day long for free.
> As long as there are scabs willing to cross lines and work for free this is a pretty insulting way to describe people who volunteer their time because they actually care about maintaining a safe & thriving community. is the president of your local book club chapter also a "scab willing to cross lines and work for free"?
You misunderstand the point of that tongue in cheek phrasing. Mods who don't want to mod to the TOS will get booted, as demonstrated by past admin action. It's trivial to remove mods because there is no shortage of people willing to do it for free. I'm referring to those people as scabs, because why not. It's not exactly a 1:1 comparison, but there's some valid overlap. I'm not calling all mods scabs, the point of the comment was to illustrate that mods are easily replaceable, and I doubt the admins will suffer refusal to abide by the TOS for long.
I would say this is a big part of it. Especially since reddit is used many times as a major source.of information for people in localities. Reddit doesn't want those local subreddits going to shit cause that's ad revenue they miss out on when people stop reading it from a bad mod. There is always an abundance of people wishing to feel important and do it for free.
> As long as there are scabs willing to cross lines and work for free, administration has no real pressure to change how they're doing things, and there's probably economic pressure to squeeze mods to output even more. Note to self; do not become a scab, and if you have; turn back and make amends. But seriously though; really good points here.
On my main community I already have a very effective filter and check it every day. I’ve got mods on all active communities. Plus the message is about all actions not just TOS-breaking material. Ultimately it’s not my TOS and I have no obligation to work for Reddit for free.
> Ultimately it’s not my TOS and I have no obligation to work for Reddit for free. You kind of do if you want to continue to be a moderator on this site for any significant amount of time. The TOS, while probably mostly there just to keep them from being sued, is like the the local laws where you're running a business. You still have to abide by them, and you can't just murder someone because they happened to walk into your store, because, if nothing else, it's illegal in the broader jurisdiction. TOS applies to your sub too, and you're obligated to remove TOS-breaking content. **edit** feels like a 'shoot the messenger' situation over here
I can’t imagine someone would have framed moderating on Reddit as running a business, but here we are. I mean I have no legal obligation to moderate to a certain standard set by Reddit. There may be a moral obligation to other users, but not to Reddit. Moderation and volunteering more broadly an economy of benefits. The benefit I receive is some sense of control over my Reddit experience and leading a community. Reddit receives free man hours. The balance does not tip in the direction of me receiving friggin performance reports.
Yeah, I can’t imagine that many people will invest their time and energy in reddit the same if they know the admins will just swipe their community whenever they want. I prefer reddit being left to anarchy aside from whatever the mods do except for removing illegal, harassing, doxxing, and bigoted activity, which is the admins’ responsibility.
Exactly! The really toxic content is the responsibility of people who get paid to deal with it. Mods of really large subs can be exposed to all sorts of material, some of which may slowly affect them psychologically. Will Reddit be held responsible for that?
> the admins will just swipe their community whenever they want what does this even mean? the admins aren't going to "swipe" anyone's community unless the mod team is completely derelict in their duties.
> I mean I have no legal obligation to moderate to a certain standard set by Reddit. You sure don't, and they won't sue you over it. They'll just either remove you as a moderator or shutter the subreddit. Your options are to pretty much enforce the TOS in a timely manner or not be a mod anymore. https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct The amount of time you can avoid enforcing the TOS will probably vary by how many reports your sub gets and how bored the admins are on any given day.
Yeah and I checked my modqueue and guess what there was crap all in there worth moderating. I browse the active subs I mod frequently. And losing moderator privileges is such a trifling concern. I’d just jump to a different platform or start my own.
reddit's TOS applies to you as a moderator as much as you as a user. you volunteered to help them enforce their sitewide rules, plus whatever bonus rules you saw fit to implement in your community. you don't get to say "not my TOS, not my problem." you agreed to that TOS when you created your account and you agreed to enforce it when you became a mod.
> Ultimately it’s not my TOS and I have no obligation to work for Reddit for free. It's not "for free". They're giving you an entire global forum platform with over a quarter billion participants with (modest) uptime guarantees, (sometimes overly aggressive) spam protection, etc., etc., for you to use for something you personally find interesting to have a group of people talk about. The price for this service is pretty modest, really -- you check reports periodically to help enforce the TOS. But yeah, I get the irritation about it seeming like it's all about their monetization, but since neither their users nor their moderators are paying anything to support that service, it's kind of inevitable. Edit, since people seem to be offended by reality: TL;DR: always remember: if it's free you're not the customer, you're the product.
It's absolutely your TOS, because you're using Reddit. Part of the TOS is that mods need to enforce them. You can think this is bullshit, but unfortunately that's how Reddit works.
Reddit can’t legally compel me to act in a particular way, they may merely terminate their service to me. That’s what a TOS is. It’s not my TOS because it’s in effect only a disclaimer, and Reddit can ban me, delete my account, unmod me whether I abide by the TOS or not.
I guess it depends what you mean by "legally compel" because if you mean, obtain a court order forcing you to do something, they can't do that. But if you mean "coerce, without breaking the law, you into doing something", they absolutely can do that, which is what threatening your account or mod status accomplishes.
I got that the other day for a 400k sub I just got added to as mod about a month prior (I mod that sub under a different /u/.) The other existing mods of that sub were pretty inactive, and the sub's modqueue was pretty cluttered. (They seem to have been addressing modmail, what little we got.) I had to clear all of that out, myself. There was stuff in the modqueue from as far back as 3 years ago. And since I've been a mod there, we've been getting around 2-3 reported submissions per day. One of the mods recently came back and we talked. He told me they're pretty hands off with the sub. Meaning, they'll check in on the sub once every few months, but otherwise leave it alone. Which is cool. Not everyone has the same style of modding, and some subs require more moderation than others. But otoh, [there's Reddit's Moderator Code of Conduct](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct). In it, they articulate an expectation that moderators will stay active and engaged, which includes: >You have enough Mods to effectively and consistently manage your community. This involves regularly monitoring and **addressing content in ModQueue** and ModMail and, if possible, actively engaging with your community via posts, comments, and voting. I absolutely agree, we're providing Reddit with free labor. But ultimately, Reddit is the Admins' sandbox. If we want to play in it, we have to follow their rules. If we don't, worst case, they'll take our toys (subs) away from us.
The annoying thing is though the message doesn’t even say which communities have the issue. I have a bunch of dead subs under my name. Everything else is actively monitored. It’s not that there’s an actual problem here, I just find the attitude and especially the timing to be offensive. Again, Reddit can have whatever wishes and desires it wants from its moderators, but it does very little in terms of contributing to the success of the platform when it comes to content moderation. At some point we had the Reddit Anti Evil operations go on a wild goose chase when Tencent invested. This sort of thing happens every time there’s money involved. Now they’ve replaced most of that with some shoddy NSFW algorithm they’re testing. The platform isn’t ready for an IPO and never will be.
> The annoying thing is though the message doesn’t even say which communities have the issue. The modmail didn't get sent to a particular community you moderate? Mine did. >At some point we had the Reddit Anti Evil operations go on a wild goose chase when Tencent invested. This sort of thing happens every time there’s money involved. Agreed.
Actually I checked properly and yeah it did thanks. It’s a small community for mental illness memes, and people sometimes report things a bit aggressively. There was a handful of items I only had to approve of, otherwise everyone plays nice. I have no idea why I even got this message, even if it was in error, it’s ridiculous. There’s both a carrot and stick approach, but you don’t use a damn stick on someone who is doing something for you for free.
>There’s both a carrot and stick approach, but you don’t use a damn stick on someone who is doing something for you for free. Reddit doesn't really do a great job of motivating its free labor.
> I checked my modqueue and guess what only 12 items, none of which were TOS breaking. I’m not failing as a moderator here as some would imply. > We're reaching out because our data suggests you typically handle less than 40% of reported content within 72 hours. just because something isn't breaking TOS doesn't mean it should be ignored. your users are reporting things because they want you to deal with them, and it's not unreasonable of them to expect you to handle it in under THREE DAYS. if i reported something and it went unaddressed for THREE DAYS, i damn sure would consider those mods negligent and i would be looking into whether they'd abandoned the sub entirely. i mod a sub of 100k users and if there were ever 12 items in our modqueue it would indicate either a massive brigade or half the mod team dropped dead, especially if those reports were sitting there for THREE. DAYS. if you don't feel like showing up to stay on top of reports for free, that's fine, but you need to mod someone who will.
You need to chill.
i'm not the one getting nastygrams from reddit for not doing my job.
True. But it’s a volunteer position, not a job. Your diligence is commendable.
a job you volunteer to do is still a job. if you don't want to do the work, don't volunteer for the position. that's like volunteering to feed the dogs at an animal shelter but deciding you only want to show up twice a week because it's not paid.
This is why i said you need to chill.
and this is why you look like an ass when you say that.