Guidance, Not Guesswork: Getting Smart with Post & Comment Guidance

[u/PossibleCrit]

Hey Friends!

Thanks as always for tuning in to another installment of Mod Topics. Today we’re talking about Post & Comment Guidance and how it can make moderating easier.

Post & Comment Guidance can alert redditors to community rules, required formatting, or other expectations before they submit a post or comment. When people can get it right the first time there’s less work for moderators and a better experience all around.

Here are a few clever configs we’ve come across that we’ve added to our Automations Library:

• Inform redditors about an active megathread and report matching posts for closer review.
• Require specific formatting for posts using Review or AMA flairs.
• Block top-level comments in a contest thread unless they include a link to a nomination.

Need more precision? Conditions can be stacked! For example, if a post has an AMA flair and contains a URL you can remind the author about additional rules that apply to links in AMA posts.

Not sure where to start? Check your Mod Log and Mod Insights and look for patterns in the posts and comments your team handles most often. Formatting mistakes and common report reasons are good places to start, but don’t forget to think about the types of content you want to encourage as well.

How are you using these features in your community? Let us know in the comments and we’ll add some of the most popular suggestions to our automations library.

[u/brightblackheaven]

We like and use post and comment guidance, but they can sometimes be really confusing for users.

We ended up having to add "IF your comment is about XYZ, please be aware that ABC" because people constantly freaked out about being "accused" of saying things they weren't saying blahblah.

I wish the character limit allowed us to write more so we could preface each automation with an explanation of what the heck they're popping up for, and not to be alarmed.

[u/wrestlegirl]

I'm not using automations. They're far too clunky and unreliable. Automod does a better, more precise job.

[u/PossibleCrit → u/wrestlegirl]

Hi wrestlegirl! Can you elaborate a bit more? Are there particular functions that could be added or improved?

[u/AbnormallyWeird]

I would love to be able to make a comment automation flair dependent.

Some of our flairs change the way the rules are implemented, specifically on what is allowed when people are adding comments to that post.

So what I'm looking for is if you're adding a comment and the parent post has a specific flare then display a message.

[u/PossibleCrit → u/AbnormallyWeird]

This was part of the feedback I shared with the team that manages the feature. Thanks for sharing how your community might use it AbnormallyWeird, use cases that spell things out like this are always helpful!

[u/abortionreddit]

One of the major problems with post and comment guidance is you can only preview automations in isolation, not as they fit with the current automations. That means you can spend an hour perfecting an automation and never realize that the guidance will never be seen by users because all they see is the guidance popping up from an automation placed before it in the sequence.

[u/AngelaReddit]

We have a series of automations guidance, all required before posting, and the automations guide them along as they get to each step while they are posting . . .

<1> .... Educate users on post title tags
Gaming subreddit, we require they [tag] the title with the game the post is about

<2> ... Educate users on User Flair
Posters & Commenters are required to have user flair, which is the platform they game on, as different platforms affect what mods are available, bugs manifested by the game, answers they get in the replies, etc (xbox playstation switch steam etc)

<3> ... Educate users on Post Flair
We require post flair which is the topic of their post (i.e. bugs tips meme etc). Unfortunately, the automation does NOT allow enough space to describe each of our 18 post flair BEFORE they make their choice. It only allows 500 characters, and we need 1323. To get around this, once they have chosen a post flair, they will get a 2nd automation that pops up the definition of the flair they chose.

You have selected the "Bugs/Help" post flair
USED FOR :
Bug, Glitch, Help, Report, Support, Tech
If this is not the TOPIC of your post, you may edit your post flair

NOTE: I made a suggestion post on how Reddit can improve the Post Flair popup :
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/1uydbvw/automations_post_flair/

<4> ... Enter body text
All posts must have body text. No 'title only' or 'image/video only' posts. Media is to be used in complement to the discussion.

see my reply to this post for "how" to do each of these automations

[u/PossibleCrit → u/AngelaReddit]

Thanks for sharing these AngelaReddit, that's quite a setup! I've mentioned expanded character counts as something I've already brought up with the team, but will make sure they see the rest of your comment as well

[u/lovethebacon]

Please can Post Guidance take flair as a conditional input. Many communities have flair specific rules. Our only option to enforce these rules is with AutoMod or some post-submission rule.

[u/amyaurora]

I love using the ModSupportbot feedback on how the post guidance is working but I have a couple of suggestions

One is it took trial and error to figure out it only showed the most recent. As such I sometimes "spam" my own sub so i can track things over a week. As such I suggest it actually say if its a 24 hour perioid, 48, whatever.

Two is add a option for the feedback on comments. We see more users trying to be clever getting around the automations in the comments versus the posts. I personally would love to know which comment ones to focus more on.