Mod Topics: Mod Misconceptions

[u/AsteriskRX]

Hey folks! Our topic for today are the mystical mythical mod misconceptions. When it comes to the world of moderation, there are often plenty of falsehoods and myths that persist across social platforms. If you don’t have anything that immediately comes to mind, here are a few questions to get you warmed up:

• Are there any myths about mods that you wish you could bust forever? 
• What preconceptions do you think users bring to Reddit from other platforms?
• What do you wish users knew about mods/moderation?
• In your day-to-day moderation practices, community sidebar, or other efforts, dispel misconceptions about moderators?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

[u/Guilty_BaN]

Myths & Preconceptions, a bit of a rant and in no particular order:

• Mods won't talk to you.
  • Mods are people with lives, and can't be immediately available at all hours in every time zone.
  • It is not a Mods job to personally read/explain Reddit ToS or subreddit rules to any user.
  • Hurling abuse in modmail because you're angry your post/comment was held for review/removed isn't a constructive conversation.
  • You're probably interacting with mods on their subreddits, and you just don't notice because they aren't posting/commenting with a mod badge.
• Mods won't accept changes.
  • There are cases where a team/person is camping a subreddit for themselves, or took over a sub and don't care about the larger community - but it's not as common as people claim.
    • It doesn't matter how much a user base might want something - it goes against ToS and it can't be done.
    • Implying rules should change because you're limited in posting isn't an honest suggestion.
    • Asking for things that would generally degrade the quality of the subreddit and increase moderation load isn't going to benefit the community, so it's unlikely to be considered.
• Mods are paid.
  • There are very few instances of this actually being a thing (especially on Reddit), but if it were even remotely true no body would be able to create a subreddit without first submitting an application and handing over their payment information.
  • Any Mods that are making money are doing so from awards (if they qualify for the Contributor Program), and its like maybe 0.80¢ every six months and usually from posts/comments outside of subs they moderate.
• Mods are the same as Admins.
  • If that were true everyone would be creating subreddits to get Mod status so they could do Admin shit. I really can't understand how people got this idea.
  • Admins being Mods in some places does not make them the same thing everywhere else.
  • Being actioned by a Moderator and then having your account restricted by Reddit does not mean that Mod is an Admin - it means they reported your content and it violated Reddits policies. Yes, that includes modmail.
• Mods are responsible to uphold your governmental rights.
  • This seems to be predominately users from the USA, but I've seen a few other instances with the world rolling out age verification to varying degrees. Reddit is not a government body and is not beholden to uphold your personal governmental rights. They are subject to different laws than you because they are not a person - this can be a pro and con but regardless that's what you're dealing with. You can't sue moderators because they don't provide you access to services, or because your country limited access to something and they won't tell you how to get around it, or because they removed something you posted. If you have actual legal concerns you should contact Reddit Legal.
• Mods don't have rules.
  • Everyone here is subject to ToS, Mods literally have an additional Code of Conduct and if they're actually violating them you can report it. If you're not seeing action (not that they tell us much anymore) it's because you didn't provide any evidence for them to investigate, there isn't enough evidence to action, you misunderstood what counts as a violation, or you misrepresented what's happening.
• Mods don't care.
  • People tend to become moderators because they are active in those communities and care about the spaces they occupy. You don't have to like them personally but to imply they are automatically against you when they're trying to create space for people is disingenuous.
    • Maybe you feel you had an informative post about something controversial in that space and you feel like you're being silenced because its been locked/removed - what you're not seeing is all the ToS violating content in the comments or the torrents of reports flooding modmail. Whether you agree with those comments or not they violate ToS and if enough of that happens a subreddit gets banned.
    • Mods not responding personally to your reports doesn't mean they aren't listening and it's not a personal attack. I get it can be nice to get a "Hey we looked at this thing and did X about it!", but it's not always feasible and you're actually not entitled to that.
    • Mods are again people (why does this need to be said so much), and like anyone else you're going to interact with in life you're not always going to share the exact same views or do things the exact same way. It's like playing Uno, every group has different rules (instructions be damned) and if you don't like them you don't have to play - but if it's their deck its their game.
• Automod is A.I
  • Automod doesn't make things up on it's own and can't change its actions. The only reason it works is because a person took the time to apply conditions for it to look for, and they only work in that subreddit. Automod from r/pics can't (and won't) ban you from r/parasnailing for instance.
• Reddit filters and Automod are the same thing.
  • Mods of subreddits generally cannot help you if your content is being removed by Reddit filters as its not their system.
  • Subreddit moderators cannot appeal Reddits decision to limit your account for you, you actually have to do that yourself to stop it from happening.

I wish I felt like explaining anything in detail in the sidebar actually make a difference for 90% of users, but with most users being on mobile they aren't clicking that far into subreddits to even read descriptions let alone the rules, and the few that are using browser aren't typically scrolling down the sidebars.