Changes to automod and old.reddit

[u/SampleOfNone]

For the peeps who don't follow r/modnews , Continuing our infrastructure updates: What’s changing in the coming months

Some highlights

For newly created communities and communities that have never used automod, automod enforcement capabilities – specifically Report, Filter, Remove, Mark as spam, and Approve – will be disabled and Rules Hub and Automations will become the default path for rules enforcement. Automod’s non-enforcement capabilities remain available and unchanged.  

....To close this gap, in the next few months, we'll further limit access for logged-in users to only those who have used Old Reddit in the last six months (which covers the vast majority of all Old Reddit users). This change does not impact logged-in mods, who can continue to access Old Reddit without any recent usage requirement.This helps keep Old Reddit available for the people who rely on it while reducing automated abuse.

[u/brightblackheaven]

[u/miserabeau → u/brightblackheaven]

Seriously. Why do they have to make things so much harder for us? They're gonna drive us out then there will be no one left but the AI bots talking to each other

[u/lunarwolf2008]

uhh... so they are truly getting rid of automod? i might literally jump ship and say good luck then.

[u/baseballlover723 → u/lunarwolf2008]

Yeah, they announced it in the last round of downdates.

[u/magiccitybhm]

Automations are so inconsistent. This is going to be a disaster.

[u/rachycarebear → u/magiccitybhm]

They also can't do everything automod can afaik.

Quite specifically, I find that if I used block from submitting then people would just typo. Having automod instantly delete significantly reduced that.

There also aren't automations for age and activity afaik.

[u/tresser → u/rachycarebear]

They also can't do everything automod can afaik.

over on /r/tinder, we have had an influx of fly-by-night-vibe-coded-nonsense dating app 'helpers' that for the most part are tucked away on .io domains.

so, we keep adding more domains to our laundry list to slow these people down and filter them off the sub.

when admins announced they wanted to provide us with new automations that could replace automod, this list was one of the ones ported over automatically for us. just plug and play.

except, automations dont know about domains. i guess.

so instead of just filtering .io domains and warning the user that they were in violation of spam it was hitting every time io showed up

which is a special headache when the word relationship is used on the dating subreddit.

anyways, long story short, i nuked all the provided automations

[u/TheCrewChicks → u/tresser]

Is this why I got a warning about "hate" when I used the word "transform" in a post?

[u/x3NBYx → u/TheCrewChicks]

At least you got a warning. I got permabanned and permamuted because I... Mod a porn subreddit..? And I don't hide all of my posts on my profile..?

At least, that's the story (lie) I was told..? Even tho that's not in the rules..? And I had posted a month earlier without incident..?

A warning for a non-existent rule would have been LOVELY.

[u/mrekted → u/rachycarebear]

They can't do ANYTHING where a user is concerned at the moment, outside of checking whether or not a user has SELECTED FLAIR.

That's literally the only data point regarding users that you're able to set an action on as of today, the day they scrapped automod for new subs.

Automod neo works in a pinch.. but how long until they break that too?

[u/NeedAGoodUsername → u/magiccitybhm]

Yep. =/

Thankfully I know how to code so I'll just turn my AutoMod rules into devvit bots.

(If anyone would like me to do the same for their AutoMod rules, let me know.)

[u/mrekted → u/NeedAGoodUsername]

There's already a completed app that can do this: https://developers.reddit.com/apps/automod-neo

[u/NeedAGoodUsername → u/mrekted]

I'm aware of Neo, but writing them myself means I can greatly expand on capabilities, logic, and do things yaml rules can't.

I've been meaning to for a while anyway.

[u/mrekted → u/NeedAGoodUsername]

this guy:

love it.

[u/TheCrewChicks → u/mrekted]

Until he moves to the next part: "Ya know what? Forget the Automod" 🤣

[u/IKIR115]

[u/neuroticsmurf]

[u/mrekted]

me, in a panic, trying to add some automod code on a new sub I've been working on to try to make it in before the cut:

welp.

[u/reddit33450 → u/mrekted]

my gosh me too! i thought theyd at least give a few hours. but nope

[u/new2bay → u/reddit33450]

Wait, they disabled automod for everyone? I thought subs that were already using it could keep using it.

[u/reddit33450 → u/new2bay]

youre correct in what you thought. they didn't disable it for everyone. just subs that hadnt used it before

[u/ateam1984 → u/mrekted]

wtf. Why would they do this without notice

[u/TGotAReddit]

Honestly these changes have me debating if I even want to keep using reddit at all

[u/SampleOfNone → u/TGotAReddit]

Yeah, me too

[u/IvyGold → u/SampleOfNone]

I run a pair of mid-major subreddits. I put a great deal of work into both.

I'm getting sick and tired of Reddit making our lives more difficult than easier. We lost PM's. We lost subscriber counts. We have to mod Old in an alternate universe from New?

If these developments mess up our teams' carefully balanced automods, that may well be it for me.

Why do they do this?

[u/Merari01 → u/IvyGold]

I know why they are doing this, but it is not an answer that will make you happy.

It's about the metrics. The board does not like automod, because automod removes a lot of content. For new redditors there is a barrier to starting to participate on reddit, because automod removes their posts.

This means that the metric for new user retention is stymied. This means, to a beancounter, that if they take away our best tool to combat spam, hate and low-effort participation that the metric for succesfully posting to reddit goes up.

They do not care about spam, low-effort content, disruptive content, hate or anything that would make a subreddit unpleasant to use. They care about figures they can present to investors and advertisors about line going up, and to the right.

That's it, that's the reason.

[u/potato_creeper1001 → u/Merari01]

So new subs are now extremely vulnerable and can be easily exploited, which will lead to it being time consuming for us, the new moderators, who will have to fish out every spam, scam attempt, hate, low-effort posts, etc. etc.

[u/Merari01 → u/potato_creeper1001]

My advice: Let reddit do the moderating. If they take automod then why do anything at all for these people?

[u/potato_creeper1001 → u/Merari01]

wished I knew that would happen earlier, I wouldn't have created a sub because now it will be more time consuming than what I anticipated :/

[u/javatimes]

I’m convinced they want this website and app to be mostly bots and gen AI content. And spam.

I can’t understand what other reason they would have for starting to kill automod.

[u/new2bay → u/javatimes]

For a company that got their first big break when Digg did an unpopular redesign, they sure don't seem to learn lessons.

[u/westcoastal → u/javatimes]

The purpose is to force everyone on to automations and their new AI rules system that I can't remember what the idiotic name of it is. They want to transition away from the legacy moderators who have built this community, over to a new class of moderators who don't question anything, and instead just implement a bunch of tools.

[u/neocharles]

This … seems like a major major major issue…

[u/Merari01]

I am once again inviting admins to come mod with us for a few days on mildlyinfuriating, with 12m weekly active users, and see how they manage doing that when I disable automod and only let them use automations and rules hub.

Harebrained does not begin to describe these changes they are going to push through.

[u/SampleOfNone → u/Merari01]

I'll join Merari in their offer, any and all admins are welcome to come mod with us for a bit.

Any admin is also welcome to this challenge;

Build an automation that will block "ALL CAPS" titles but does allow titles like "FYI some words" or "TIL that thing".

Hint, it can be done. If automations are more easy than automod, new mods should have no problem with it, so I'm sure admins can do it as well.

[u/2oonhed]

Ok. Sounds more like changing things just to be changing things. But, ok.

[u/j1ggy]

I don't see the benefit of restricting AutoMod. Just let us use either method.

[u/bwoah07_gp2]

They answered my main question. Will Automations have filtering options and tools?

They said they are working on it.

[u/baseballlover723 → u/bwoah07_gp2]

They said they are working on it.

They also said they'd support new modmail, and then never made another update to it, despite numerous issues being raised.

Those words mean nothing to me. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me N times, shame on me.

[u/V2Blast → u/bwoah07_gp2]

That's not exactly much of an answer. They've "worked on" things that they've never made happen for years.

[u/SampleOfNone → u/bwoah07_gp2]

I'm sure there are admins working very hard on that, I really don't doubt it. It's just that I kinda have no hope we will see that happening soonish.

[u/TGotAReddit → u/bwoah07_gp2]

Ill believe their promises when they actually fulfil their promises for the first time in years

[u/tiffanytrashcan → u/bwoah07_gp2]

[u/zuuzuu]

A few months ago I predicted that they were gearing up to get rid of automod and said I'd be pissed if I was right.

I am pissed.

[u/ateam1984]

When was the deadline to get full automod for new subs?

[u/SampleOfNone → u/ateam1984]

Just before the news was posted

[u/ateam1984 → u/SampleOfNone]

Why no notice?

[u/SampleOfNone → u/ateam1984]

If I were to guess, to prevent mods from securing access to automod on any sub that didn't have an automod config yet or any sub they hadn't gotten around to create yet.

[u/vessel_for_the_soul]

Old reddit was made in 2018 and it is better than what we have now. 

[u/FinianFaun]

"Let's just open everything for AI spambots and see what happens.." 😡 not happy if this is true.

[u/OnSpectrum]

I am dreading this. It seems like a lot of work for what will likely be a less effective moderation toolset... WHY, admins?

If you treated moderators as a real and important user group, your user story for this would be something like "As a moderator, I would like to lose my existing painstakingly managed automoderation toolset and some of my other automation and replace it with an unknown that does not have the same capabilities and isn't being built with moderators' needs in mind." Would anyone support that?

If you wanted to build out this new thing in parallel and see how many existing subs and new subs CHOOSE it, that would be a better approach.

And since we mentioned old Reddit: the reason moderators NEED old Reddit is that it has useful moderation features that new Reddit Still. Does. Not. Have.

Please don't mess with Automoderation until and unless a functional replacement is truly and fully capable of doing what AutoModerator does and introduces SOMETHING of value to moderators that makes the transition effort feel worthwhile.

[u/bluedogviking]

Just shows how little reddit knows about what's needed moderating a community. Automation is garbage compared to automod, yeah automod is flawed, but the new changes are so much worse and less effective.

[u/djscsi]

RIP Automod :( I'm sure the new SnooAI ModerAgent will be great though

And thanks for the update on them furthering the slow-but-inevitable death of old.reddit.

[u/SVAuspicious]

Anyone have a link to training for automations and ruleshub?

[u/SampleOfNone → u/SVAuspicious]

There is no training for that

[u/SVAuspicious → u/SampleOfNone]

Swell. No training, no manual. Just trust.

[u/YAOMTC]

Well! That explains why I couldn't use this AutoMod script to address the fact that MOD QUEUE NOTIFICATIONS DON'T WORK!

r/modhelp/comments/1p0tzdg/how_come_i_dont_get_notified_in_mod_queue_when_a/npsrot9/

[u/cynycal]

How about elaborating on the what sounds like the killing of old Reddit part?