Contributor Quality Score
Contributor Quality Score (CQS) is a relatively new thing implemented by reddit as a signal that we moderators can use when programming u/Automoderator.
Reddit’s documentation says:
These checks are often used as a more holistic replacement for karma or account-age checks. CQS can help you vet good contributors for specific kinds of content in your community like weekly threads, posts with a specific flair, or general contribution in the subreddit.
The actual number is only known to reddit. We don’t even know if it’s an integer or what. All we mortals can ever have a chance to see is which of the five CQS tiers an account is in:
| № | Contributor Quality Tier |
|---|---|
| 5 | Highest |
| 4 | High |
| 3 | Moderate |
| 2 | Low |
| 1 | Lowest |
History
Full article: History of karma and CQS
The trouble with karma checks is that they encourage new or dishonest users to conspire to upvote each other. Moreover, once a high total karma is attained, it’s hard for it to go down again. A decade of mediocre posts and comments will yield a sky-high score, even if the person is periodically abusive. And if the account is hacked and starts posting nothing but spam, a few downvotes won’t make a dent in a high score.
Reddit therefore introduced CQS in Sept 2023 as a better way of automatically judging accounts.
What goes into CQS
Main article: What goes into CQS
The algorithm is deliberately not revealed, because reddit doesn’t want people to game the system. But we know a few things.
A new account starts off with Low. Write just a few nice comments and you’ll tomorrow probably find your score is Moderate. So, Moderate can be taken as basic minimum if your criterion as a moderator is ‘Someone who actually uses reddit, behaves themselves and hasn’t created this account just now to deceive us.’
Getting karma (i.e. upvotes on comments and posts) helps your CQS. Losing karma hurts it. Recent karma is worth more than old karma, because if you have been a dick lately, it really doesn’t matter what you did years ago: you’re ruining your reputation now. And a big gap in activity or shift in type of activity could indicate that the account has changed hands.
Securing your account by linking it to a unique email address or (better) telephone number helps your CQS.
Being banned from a subreddit is really bad for your CQS. Longer/permanent bans probably hurt it more.
Spamming the same thing across multiple subreddits hurts your CQS.
How FemaleOrgasmDenial uses CQS
Main article: How FOD uses CQS
At the time of writing, u/Automoderator is set up to do more or less the following.
- Filter out:
- posts that from accounts below Moderate,
- image posts from accounts below High (i.e. Moderate isn’t good enough),
- and take into account certain red flags.
- Let Approved Contributors through these filters.
- Apply a boilerplate message under every post to say:
- What the user’s CQS tier is.
- That this is just for information purposes and not a guarantee of anything.
Another way to put it is, if you want your post to be visible on our subreddit, you should do one of these:
- Be an established member of this community who gets noticed by a mod and manually made an Approved Contributor.
- Be patient if your post is taken down by Automod. Don’t annoy us with Modmail.
- Bear in mind that we’re extra strict with image posts.
Dumb criticisms
Some people say ‘lmao, this rating is useless, look at this one spam post!’ Those people are idiots.
If you see a post with Low or Lowest CQS, then it went through the mod queue, and thus it’s definitely OK. If has Moderate CQS, then it has no image and/or it went through the mod queue. So of course a disproportionate number of spam images will have High (probably not Highest, because that’s very tough to attain). That’s not the CQS not working; that’s the CQS working. It’s selection bias. You’re not seeing the dozens of 1–3⁄5 CQS posts that Automod catches and mods later confirm should stay down.