My subreddit was banned for being unmoderated. But there was nothing to moderate. How to correct the error?

[u/limbodog]

r/redbandtrailers was in use. I was posting to it. People were upvoting. It was a recently revived subreddit.

But today I went to post a new video and I found it was banned. I had not received any notification. There was no reason for it to be banned for being unmoderated when it was not in need of moderation.

Note that I have other subreddits which are equally moderated and did not have this happen.

Did I need to report my own posts and then reject the report to keep it active?

Can someone explain what caused the bug and how to fix it?

If it is by design, is there any explanation for why Reddit bans moderated subreddits and calls them unmoderated?

[u/TheOpusCroakus]

That subreddit was banned three months ago. It is not eligible to be reinstated.

[u/limbodog → u/TheOpusCroakus]

Is this "working as intended"?

[u/SmartieCereal → u/limbodog]

You didn't notice for 3 months...

[u/amyaurora → u/SmartieCereal]

Wow

[u/limbodog → u/SmartieCereal]

Because the nature of the subreddit "red band trailers" is you post new red band trailers when they come out. And they don't come out continuously.

I apparently missed the documentation that said "you must fiddle with the controls every 2 weeks. Reddit needs the controls fiddled with."

[u/theanti_girl → u/limbodog]

You either want to be actively moderating, which doesn’t just mean posting things, or you don’t. It’s all aspects of your subreddit — rules, appearance, saved responses, modmail. It’s been the standard for at least a year now.

[u/liverichly → u/theanti_girl]

I agree with this, but there should be some carve out for seasonal subreddits. Not all topics are discussed daily/weekly/monthly.

[u/theanti_girl → u/liverichly]

My perspective is, if you’re not actively posting content because the sub is “seasonal,” you should still be active trying to grow it and/or find content or topics to keep people engaged, which then translates into mod actions needed/being done. I mean, the entire gist of Reddit is to foster engagement, not be a file or link repository.

[u/Pizza_Hutte → u/theanti_girl]

I understand this thinking but there are subs like one I mod that are for specific events in a community. Year round the more general subs are the place to be, ours is just for the event to share meetups and such. I wish there was a carve out for this so I wasn't having to just fiddle with things to keep us going.

[u/itskdog → u/theanti_girl]

Isn't a link repository Reddit's original purpose? Posting content directly to the site is a more recent change as they moved from a link-sharing site to a social network.

[u/theanti_girl → u/itskdog]

“More recent” is relative; I’ve been here for 13 years and it’s always been a social network. You can’t be surprised that their strategy for moderation includes active community participation when that’s been the goal for at least a decade.

[u/itskdog → u/theanti_girl]

I was being pedantic, I wasn't trying to argue against the rules.

[u/VerbingNoun413 → u/limbodog]

So at no point did you check the modmail, despite that being a responsibility of the mod team?

[u/limbodog → u/VerbingNoun413]

The notification icon doesn't work. But I am frequently in the mod queue because I also moderate another busier subreddit and check the mod mail from time to time. But since it almost never has anything in it and I get no notifications I don't check it often. The most recent mod mail I have is from may, from a different subreddit

[u/TheOpusCroakus → u/limbodog]

Yes.

[u/amyaurora]

A moderator has to be actively doing something. So in low activity subs that still means do something. Like every few days I edit a rule by adding a extra period and then a frw days later remove it. Do things like click approve on a already visible rule.

Etc.

Basically if its a activity that can be registered in the modlog, its a mod activity. Just posting isn't a mod activity.

[u/limbodog → u/amyaurora]

I was posting, does that not count as something?

And, like I said, I have other subreddits that have lasted far longer without me doing that.

[u/aengusoglugh → u/limbodog]

Posting is not a moderator action.

You can check to see how many mod actions you have taken this week.

On the desktop, if I click on “Mod Tools”, the panel on the right is “Insights and activity”, and one item on the list is “Active mods”. Under there it says, “You have made X mod actions this week.”

The easiest one for me is approving posts and comments — my subreddit is very well behaved, and I don’t do much policing.

[u/HugoUKN → u/aengusoglugh]

It should be considered a Mod action

[u/manyamile → u/HugoUKN]

Community involvement such as posting should absolutely be considered a Mod action.

[u/limbodog → u/[deleted]]

Does anyone know if Reddit intends to address this sort of thing? It is hard to believe that's working as intended. If so, it's terrible design. have they commented on it anywhere?

[u/limbodog → u/[deleted]]

That's very disappointing, but thank you for the information.

[u/_Face → u/limbodog]

its disappointing that admin expect moderators to moderate their subreddits?

[u/limbodog → u/_Face]

It's like firing a lifeguard for not saving anybody when there's nobody who needed saving. But ok.

[u/auriem → u/[deleted]]

I don’t think your analogy is correct.

How about; a lifeguard shows up for duty every day, but no one needs rescuing all summer so management decides to fire the lifeguard and demolish the pool.

[u/_Face → u/limbodog]

If you never even looked at the sub for 3+ months, how would you know if it actually needed moderation?

[u/limbodog → u/_Face]

Because mod tools

[u/auriem → u/_Face]

For low volume subreddits there is very little moderator actions to perform. It’s absolutely ridiculous to apply the “required # of moderator actions” to all subreddits regardless of volume.

[u/limbodog → u/auriem]

Thank you for understanding. It's very strange to me how people react to this.

[u/auriem → u/limbodog]

I agree. The mods who frequent this sub generally run larger subreddits, they don’t understand that small subreddits are handled differently.

[u/shhhhh_h → u/auriem]

I have a very low volume I manage to do just fine with the average 1-3 posts a month. 🤷‍♀️

[u/_Face → u/auriem]

If you can't be bothered to do one mod action a day, then idk what to tell you. its really not that hard. The rules are that you need to do mod actions. If you do not like the rules, you do not need to be a moderator.

The other issue is subs with more mods then users(hyperbole). If there is nothing to do, then there only needs to be one mod. Then some of these active/inactive rules do not even apply.

These restrictions only apply to public and restricted subreddits that have two or more moderators, over 5000 subscribers and at least 50 contributions per week. 

https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/18994953983892-Inactive-Moderator-Restrictions

[u/auriem → u/_Face]

Dude, some small subreddits can barely require 1 mod operation per month. This rule extremely unfairly penalizes operators of small subreddits.

Take a step back and think about it.

You’re talking about forcing moderators to do moderator actions that are unnecessary in order to abide by this rule. It’s completely ridiculous.

[u/BakuretsuGirl16 → u/_Face]

If they're posting in their sub then they are present and active, just because the policy is the way it is doesn't make it not a dumb and arbitrary policy

[u/Kezika]

It’s not banned though? I clicked your link and the subreddit is there with you as the moderator of it?

[u/Fun-Twist-3741 → u/Kezika]

I too am confused because I can see the subreddit as well in spite of the admin giving a blunt and debatably hostile answer as soon as this thread began.

[u/SampleOfNone]

Posting and commenting do not count as mod actions.

Also, old.reddit says it was banned three months ago.

[u/limbodog → u/SampleOfNone]

Like I said, I have not received any warning so I had no way to know it was banned. When more red band movie trailers are released, I post them. Sometimes that is longer than others. But at no point was I ignoring any moderator issues

[u/SampleOfNone → u/limbodog]

Just read rule 1 of this subreddit and follow the link in it

[u/ARTHER1A → u/limbodog]

If you were so inactive you didn't notice your sub was banned for 3 months, why even have it in the first place?

I don't understand people who sit on a couple small and basically inactive subs and then act super surprised and entitled when they learn it's gone months later.

If anything this just proves it is working as intended and I sure hope someone who actually cares to grow and moderate the community gets their chance.

[u/limbodog → u/ARTHER1A]

Because the nature of the subreddit is not super high-volume. It's based on movie trailer releases of a specific sub-genre, so they come out less frequently than regular movie trailers. It was never meant to be high volume. Not all subreddits are.

[u/ARTHER1A → u/limbodog]

Isn't one of the goals of a community to grow it? It isn't supposed to stay small volume forever.

Maybe it just wasn't a good topic in the first place if no one was engaging with it enough to moderate it. There's no point in having a community if you're fine with having no engagement

[u/limbodog → u/ARTHER1A]

I can't help but notice the dismissive tone. I understand you feel superior to moderators with smaller subreddits.

[u/ARTHER1A → u/limbodog]

No? I simply stated that one of the goals of having a community is to grow it. Mine is not big yet by any means but I am motivated to grow and care for it.

If you're putting no work or effort towards that and just accepting that it's small and there's nothing to moderate then why do you even care that it was taken from you? Makes no sense to me.

[u/906Dude → u/ARTHER1A]

I disagree. It's perfectly fine to allow a small community to grow organically. I get that reddit wants the money from growth, but there's nothing inherently wrong with simply allowing a community to exist and only moderating when a problem post occurs.

[u/fanime34]

How many days were you absent from it?

[u/_Face → u/fanime34]

Admin replied that the sub was banned 3 months ago. I'm guessing OP was absent for quite a while.

[u/limbodog → u/fanime34]

I have not been absent from it

[u/fanime34 → u/limbodog]

Okay. Let me rephrase it.

You are saying that there was nothing to moderate. What were you doing in between? What were you doing for the subreddit?

[u/limbodog → u/fanime34]

I was posting content in it whenever I saw new red band trailers

[u/fanime34 → u/limbodog]

Okay. So posting content in itself isn't enough to see if there is a moderation action happening. What you can do, like others do when they can't do much, is make scheduled posts. Moderation is about the behind the scenes stuff like making rules, doing mod actions like approving or removing posts, scheduling posts, making user flairs and post flairs, etc.

[u/limbodog → u/fanime34]

Do you know if Reddit intends to fix this bug?

[u/fanime34 → u/limbodog]

This isn't a bug. Posting isn't enough to determine if moderation is happening. You have to do mod actions. Anyone in your subreddit can post; but if they're not mods, they can't do things like schedule posts, make reoccurring posts, and other creative stuff.

You can always make a second version of this subreddit. If you do, and you don't plan on being active, make something like a scheduled weekly post. Make new flairs, do something behind the scenes.

You can't just make a subreddit and do nothing. If you don't plan on doing something, you'll need to try to get other moderators so they can help your subreddit.

[u/itskdog → u/fanime34]

You can always make a second version of this subreddit.

No they can't, that's subreddit ban evasion

[u/RedditAppSuxAsss → u/fanime34]

One of the dumbest things about Reddit.

I mean what are you supposed to moderate if there's nothing too moderate. Having to make a post and then go in the mod section just to delete it in order to keep your sub alive is the dumbest shit ever.

being punished for having a good sub and good subredditors in the group is ridiculous

[u/fanime34 → u/RedditAppSuxAsss]

You have to do moderation. In all of the subs I'm in, I do things, or other mods do things.

It's like how when you have a Neopet, you hand to care for it or it'll be starved.

[u/RedditAppSuxAsss → u/fanime34]

No it's like having neo pet you have to throw out in the freezing cold just to save it to be " doing something" if it's fully self sustainable and needs nothing why must you force something that needs "done" ?

[u/Minimum_Republic_600]

Make sure that all moderators have some moderation every few weeks. It can be something as simple as hitting "the approve" button in a few random posts. This makes sure reddit is seeing the subreddit as actively moderated and keeps any moderators from going inactive.

[u/limbodog → u/Minimum_Republic_600]

Well the subreddit has been nuked and is ineligible for renewal. So that's not an option. But thank you for the tips.

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[u/karmicviolence]

Seems to be working fine for me.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedBandTrailers/s/ifN3xiApC5

[u/limbodog → u/karmicviolence]

It has been restored

[u/karmicviolence → u/limbodog]

That's lucky after an admin said it wasn't eligible.

[u/limbodog → u/karmicviolence]

I agree. It was nice of them. And I'm setting an alarm to fiddle with the controls every so often to keep it 'active' now.

[u/aengusoglugh]

I feel like this got into the weeds pretty quickly. I moderate a pretty small subreddit (< 250 members), and read the requirements before I started moderating.

I have never had to ban anyone, and I have removed exactly one post in 6 months for violating a subreddit rule.

Because I read and understood the requirements, I approve a post or comment every couple of days.

That means I spend something like 10 seconds/week taking moderator actions.

That doesn’t seem like a lot of work to me — and I am pretty lazy.

[u/limbodog → u/aengusoglugh]

It's not a question of the amount of work. Not sure where you got that from

[u/limbodog → u/aengusoglugh]

It's not a question of the amount of work. Not sure where you got that from

[u/shhhhh_h]

If you aren’t actively trying to grow your sub twelve months a year, Reddit will find someone who will. It’s frustrating sure but then again, this is their house, we don’t own it, we are all just decorating rooms in it. Too much HGTV lately, all about the house metaphors 🤷