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Well, that's accurate and indeed a major problem. Subreddit moderators, like unfortunately usually moderators everywhere, can act arbitrarily and there is no w

by devit 3y ago

Well, that's accurate and indeed a major problem. Subreddit moderators, like unfortunately usually moderators everywhere, can act arbitrarily and there is no way for users to remove or punish moderators. So this means that /r/$FOO is not actually a subreddit about $FOO, moderated so that exactly any non-spam discussion about $FOO is allowed, but rather a dictatorship ran by whoever happened to grab the name first. So for instance if a company creates a subreddit about their product before it's announced (which they are guaranteed to succeed at) or perhaps buys or acquires it afterwards, they are allowed to censor it arbitrarily to remove negative opinions or anything they don't like. Amateur moderators can instead moderate according to their personal agenda. The advantage that something like Reddit can have other normal forums is the existence of an higher authority that users that are banned or censored can petition to to have them ban the moderator instead, and it was pretty absurd that there used to be no way to do that.

xoa 3y ago
>The advantage that something like Reddit can have other normal forums is the existence of an higher authority that users that are banned or censored can petition to to have them ban the moderator instead OK, so now rather then an endless number of small competitive kingdoms, where if you don't like the actions of mods on a subreddit you can just make another subreddit (including in your company example, if the company does /r/$NEWPRODUCT and removes all negative opinions people can easily to /r/$NEWPRODUCT-community and run it as they wish instead) and then it's super easy for everyone to vote with their feet, you are arguing in favor of a single total dictatorship from which there is no escape except leaving the site. How is that an improvement? Why is it "pretty absurd" that all power wasn't completely centralized? >Amateur moderators can instead moderate according to their personal agenda. How does going to a "higher authority" (that is going public and fully driven by next quarter's numbers) change anything here? Why do you think that Reddit the public corporation is going to be somehow immune to any sort of amateur or arbitrary moderation actions you don't like?
htag 3y ago
A subreddit is not a dictatorship. Everyone that participates in the subreddit it doing so voluntarily. Your argument that Reddit has a higher authority that can deal with bad moderators just kicks the can. What if the Reddit universal mods abuse their power in the same ways your described?
- joshstrange 3y ago
  Yeah, I mean what if a Reddit admin abused their power by like, I don't know, editing a user's comment. How would you address that? I guess you could punish them by letting them continue to be CEO or something.
  - hn_go_brrrrr 3y ago
    Hypothetically speaking, of course.
    - joshstrange 3y ago
      Obviously, do you really think someone could do that and keep their job/credibility? I just thought it would be a fun thought experiment, maybe it was a little far-fetched though.
  - George83728 3y ago
    > what if a Reddit admin abused their power by like, I don't know, editing a user's comment. How would you address that? You (user) can most readily address it by not using reddit. That is the ultimate answer to all of this. If you don't use reddit, then problems with reddit aren't your problems anymore.
nmz 3y ago
I wouldn't classify it as a major problem but as a failure of the system itself. If the system was self moderating, then you wouldn't even need mods.
- denton-scratch 3y ago
  If you've devised a system for running a self-moderating forum at scale, then I might be interested in shares in your business.
sebstefan 3y ago
You have been muted and can no longer communicate with the moderators of /r/ycombinator
cellularmitosis 3y ago
It would be great if there were a mechanism which provided some transparency around the decisions being made by the mods. If I could see a list of all of the posts and comments which they have removed, I could get a sense of how reasonable their moderation is.
lamontcg 3y ago
> a dictatorship ran by whoever happened to grab the name first. voting certainly ain't the answer. that just means that the mod teams backed by the best AI bots will win. (which probably means spez and reddit itself will just control the mod teams of all the highest traffic subs)
- MagicMoonlight 3y ago
  They’ll just set the votes obviously. And the powermods will run ban scripts on anyone who won’t vote for them… because banned users won’t be able to vote in the subreddit.
  - lamontcg 3y ago
    Yeah, further incentivizing banhammering anyone who displays any independent thought.
LightHugger 3y ago
My favorite solution requires a bit of tech work but is very viable. Users can subscribe to a subreddit, but also to specific moderators. If you don't like how someone moderates, unsubscribe to their moderation, and their changes and actions get removed from your feed. Simple. This ties back into how "freedom to listen" is way more important than "freedom of speech" Though freedom of speech is a prerequisite for freedom to listen. If person X wants to say something and person Y wants to read it, moderator Z shouldnt be allowed to interfere. But you still need moderation or the webpage gets filled with spam and crap. So the solution is simple, if you don't like a moderator, unsubscribe from them and it's done. Or if you see something you don't want to see, click a button to block it, then you get a popup with a list of moderators who have already moderated it, and the user gets an option to subscribe to them after looking at their mod history.
- bhaak 3y ago
  > My favorite solution requires a bit of tech work but is very viable. Users can subscribe to a subreddit, but also to specific moderators. If you don't like how someone moderates, unsubscribe to their moderation, and their changes and actions get removed from your feed. Simple. And then you will find out that most users don't configure their apps. They will complain loudly though. Users also don't know how mods moderate. They would have to see what gets moderated otherwise they can't make informed decisions. > Or if you see something you don't want to see, click a button to block it, then you get a popup with a list of moderators who have already moderated it, and the user gets an option to subscribe to them after looking at their mod history. Opt-in is too cumbersome for most users. Most users don't configure their apps (again). That's why good defaults are important. You can't solve social issues with technology. Technology might help but only so much.
  - LightHugger 3y ago
    your suggestion isn't a problem, you can have defaults based on popularity and then the defaults get controlled by what most of the users who do configure their stuff choose. Don't make the mistake of thinking a mod is above people and needs to tell users what they are allowed to see. I included in my suggestion that you can see what gets moderated, obviously. Any website with non-public moderation logs tends towards horrible abuse of moderation powers.
coolhand2120 3y ago
There are options, now it seems these options are under threat. A good example is /guitar. The mod was a tyrant, now there is /r/guitars. It may seem a bit silly and you may say it does not scale, but for the last few years it’s worked. Never let perfect stand in the way of good enough. For me the point is moot, I refuse to return to Reddit. So far it’s like stopping smoking.

by devit 3y ago

xoa 3y ago

>The advantage that something like Reddit can have other normal forums is the existence of an higher authority that users that are banned or censored can petition to to have them ban the moderator instead OK, so now rather then an endless number of small competitive kingdoms, where if you don't like the actions of mods on a subreddit you can just make another subreddit (including in your company example, if the company does /r/$NEWPRODUCT and removes all negative opinions people can easily to /r/$NEWPRODUCT-community and run it as they wish instead) and then it's super easy for everyone to vote with their feet, you are arguing in favor of a single total dictatorship from which there is no escape except leaving the site. How is that an improvement? Why is it "pretty absurd" that all power wasn't completely centralized? >Amateur moderators can instead moderate according to their personal agenda. How does going to a "higher authority" (that is going public and fully driven by next quarter's numbers) change anything here? Why do you think that Reddit the public corporation is going to be somehow immune to any sort of amateur or arbitrary moderation actions you don't like?

htag 3y ago

A subreddit is not a dictatorship. Everyone that participates in the subreddit it doing so voluntarily. Your argument that Reddit has a higher authority that can deal with bad moderators just kicks the can. What if the Reddit universal mods abuse their power in the same ways your described?

joshstrange 3y ago
Yeah, I mean what if a Reddit admin abused their power by like, I don't know, editing a user's comment. How would you address that? I guess you could punish them by letting them continue to be CEO or something.
- hn_go_brrrrr 3y ago
  Hypothetically speaking, of course.
  - joshstrange 3y ago
    Obviously, do you really think someone could do that and keep their job/credibility? I just thought it would be a fun thought experiment, maybe it was a little far-fetched though.
- George83728 3y ago
  > what if a Reddit admin abused their power by like, I don't know, editing a user's comment. How would you address that? You (user) can most readily address it by not using reddit. That is the ultimate answer to all of this. If you don't use reddit, then problems with reddit aren't your problems anymore.

nmz 3y ago

I wouldn't classify it as a major problem but as a failure of the system itself. If the system was self moderating, then you wouldn't even need mods.

denton-scratch 3y ago
If you've devised a system for running a self-moderating forum at scale, then I might be interested in shares in your business.

sebstefan 3y ago

You have been muted and can no longer communicate with the moderators of /r/ycombinator

cellularmitosis 3y ago

It would be great if there were a mechanism which provided some transparency around the decisions being made by the mods. If I could see a list of all of the posts and comments which they have removed, I could get a sense of how reasonable their moderation is.

lamontcg 3y ago

> a dictatorship ran by whoever happened to grab the name first. voting certainly ain't the answer. that just means that the mod teams backed by the best AI bots will win. (which probably means spez and reddit itself will just control the mod teams of all the highest traffic subs)

MagicMoonlight 3y ago
They’ll just set the votes obviously. And the powermods will run ban scripts on anyone who won’t vote for them… because banned users won’t be able to vote in the subreddit.
- lamontcg 3y ago
  Yeah, further incentivizing banhammering anyone who displays any independent thought.

LightHugger 3y ago

My favorite solution requires a bit of tech work but is very viable. Users can subscribe to a subreddit, but also to specific moderators. If you don't like how someone moderates, unsubscribe to their moderation, and their changes and actions get removed from your feed. Simple. This ties back into how "freedom to listen" is way more important than "freedom of speech" Though freedom of speech is a prerequisite for freedom to listen. If person X wants to say something and person Y wants to read it, moderator Z shouldnt be allowed to interfere. But you still need moderation or the webpage gets filled with spam and crap. So the solution is simple, if you don't like a moderator, unsubscribe from them and it's done. Or if you see something you don't want to see, click a button to block it, then you get a popup with a list of moderators who have already moderated it, and the user gets an option to subscribe to them after looking at their mod history.

bhaak 3y ago
> My favorite solution requires a bit of tech work but is very viable. Users can subscribe to a subreddit, but also to specific moderators. If you don't like how someone moderates, unsubscribe to their moderation, and their changes and actions get removed from your feed. Simple. And then you will find out that most users don't configure their apps. They will complain loudly though. Users also don't know how mods moderate. They would have to see what gets moderated otherwise they can't make informed decisions. > Or if you see something you don't want to see, click a button to block it, then you get a popup with a list of moderators who have already moderated it, and the user gets an option to subscribe to them after looking at their mod history. Opt-in is too cumbersome for most users. Most users don't configure their apps (again). That's why good defaults are important. You can't solve social issues with technology. Technology might help but only so much.
- LightHugger 3y ago
  your suggestion isn't a problem, you can have defaults based on popularity and then the defaults get controlled by what most of the users who do configure their stuff choose. Don't make the mistake of thinking a mod is above people and needs to tell users what they are allowed to see. I included in my suggestion that you can see what gets moderated, obviously. Any website with non-public moderation logs tends towards horrible abuse of moderation powers.

coolhand2120 3y ago

There are options, now it seems these options are under threat. A good example is /guitar. The mod was a tyrant, now there is /r/guitars. It may seem a bit silly and you may say it does not scale, but for the last few years it’s worked. Never let perfect stand in the way of good enough. For me the point is moot, I refuse to return to Reddit. So far it’s like stopping smoking.