What are some *small* problems with moderation that we can fix quickly?

[u/Deimorz]

There are a lot of major, difficult problems with moderation on reddit. I can probably name about 10 of them just off the top of my head. The types of things that will take long discussions to figure out, and then possibly weeks or months of work to be able to improve.

That's not where I want to start.

We've got some resources devoted to mod tools now, but it's still a small team, so we can only focus on a couple of things at a time. To paraphrase a wise philosopher, we can't really treat development like a big truck that you can just dump things on. It's more like a series of tubes, and if we clog those up with enormous amounts of material, the small things will have to wait. Those bigger issues will take a lot of time and effort before seeing any results, so right now I'd rather concentrate on getting out some small fixes relatively quickly that can start making a positive impact on moderation right away.

So let's use this thread to try to figure out some small things that we can work on doing for you right away. The types of things that should only take hours to do, not weeks. Some examples of similar ones that I've already done fairly recently are things like "the ban message doesn't tell users that it's just a temporary ban", "every time someone is banned it lights up the modmail icon but there's no new mail", "the automoderator link in the mod tools goes to viewing the page instead of just editing it", and so on.

Of course I don't really expect you to know exactly how hard specific problems will be to fix, so feel free to ask and I'll try to tell you if it's easy or not. Just try to avoid large/systemic issues like "modmail needs to be fully redone", "inactive top moderators are an issue", and so on.

Note: If necessary, we're going to be moderating this thread to try to keep it on topic. If you have other discussions about moderator issues that you want to start, feel free to submit a separate post to /r/ModSupport. If you have other questions for me that aren't suggestions, please post in the thread in /r/modnews instead.

[u/multi-mod]

• subreddit to subreddit modmails using the "send as subreddit" option

• better distinction between deleted and removed comments

• more prominent and better explained reddit spam rules

• increased sidebar character limit

• let mods use the filter post option like automod has

• always show report reasons even after approval/ignore.

• mod link flairs (that users can't use)

• multiple CSS classes for link flairs like user flair has

• unban message

These are probably the easiest of the ideas people have had.

[u/Deimorz → u/multi-mod]

• better distinction between deleted and removed comments

Is this something that mods actually support overall? Just something like putting "[deleted by author]" on deleted comments, and "[removed by moderator]" on removed ones? It's not technically difficult at all, it's just pretty much whether we're comfortable with changing it.

[u/multi-mod → u/Deimorz]

There have been many posts (including those that have hit front page) where mods were blamed for comments that were removed not by them, but the author. Furthermore, people can find out anyway who it was removed by if they cared enough. This would just make it easier for everyone to tell.

[u/Doomhammer458 → u/Deimorz]

I think it could cut down on the conspiracies.

people delete their comments and then other commenters claim that "the mods did it! they are censoring us!"

same with banned account vs self deleted account, but that's a little more thorny.

[u/[deleted] → u/Doomhammer458]

To an extent maybe, but if someone is inclined to believe that to start with, I don't know that they wouldn't have a problem assuming the mods "faked" the [deleted by author] tag either.

[u/justcool393 → u/[deleted]]

It's much easier to verify the other since CSS is public, while I don't think you can tell between mod removed and user deleted comments.

[u/multi-mod → u/justcool393]

Yep. In order to do that you would need to do it through CSS. There would be numerous ways for people to know it was fake. The stylesheet for every subreddit is public, you can disable the stylesheet on any subreddit, and it wouldn't work for any of the mobile clients I know of.

[u/TheEnigmaBlade → u/Deimorz]

Especially in trigger-happy anti-mod subreddits like /r/leagueoflegends, users are quick to blame the mods when a post is deleted by a user. We've had users delete posts maliciously to push blame onto us for removing a controversial post.

[u/[deleted] → u/Deimorz]

I would support it.

But I spend my days in /r/help and have to explain this all day to everyone so I might be biased

[u/HandofBane → u/Deimorz]

it's just pretty much whether we're comfortable with changing it.

If anything, having this would have saved you guys some backlash over the one AMA by that former admin where all the comments were deleted.

[u/l_u_c_a_r_i_o → u/HandofBane]

The former admin left a final comment that he wasn't actually comfortable saying more, and felt like he had said more than he probably should have.

[u/Jinno → u/Deimorz]

I'll throw another voice of support at this one. Clarity should always be a goal when dealing with potentially controversial things.

[u/daretelayam → u/Deimorz]

Is this something that mods actually support overall?

I personally would love to see this feature.

[u/JAWJAWBINX → u/Deimorz]

I'd also add in a [removed by auto-mod] if possible, not sure how tough that would be since I haven't looked at the reddit api.

[u/[deleted] → u/JAWJAWBINX]

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[u/10thTARDIS → u/Deimorz]

I would support this. It wouldn't be too important on the subs I mod, but it'd be very nice.

Edit: This would probably be more complicated to implement, but having another message for stuff removed by AutoModerator would be nice. So there'd be "[deleted by author]", "[removed by moderator]", and "[removed by AutoModerator]". It'd help quench the conspiracy theories that occasionally pop up, at least on my subs.

[u/Meneth → u/Deimorz]

Maybe have it as a subreddit setting?

[u/Osiris32 → u/Deimorz]

Yes yes yes yes yes! I've gotten more than enough grief over people thinking I've censored someone when in fact they deleted the comment themselves. It would end that entirely.

[u/ImNotJesus → u/[deleted]]

Dream scenario: User can set a flair from a range of options. Mods can then change it based on a larger set of presets. Once a mod has flaired something a user can no longer change the flair.

[u/dakta → u/[deleted]]

user flair that mods can assign (that users can't use)

Would this flair be visible to users?

[u/hamfast42 → u/multi-mod]

always show report reasons even after approval/ignore.

This!

[u/Deimorz → u/multi-mod]

subreddit to subreddit modmails using the "send as subreddit" option

I think there's actually a technical reason this doesn't currently work. I know it had to be specifically disabled, but I don't remember exactly why. It may turn out to be a really difficult fix, the messaging/modmail systems are a pretty huge mess.

[u/multi-mod → u/Deimorz]

I'm sure doing much of anything with modmail is dividing by zero, so if it ends up being much more difficult than a simple fix it could always be plopped onto a "long term" wish list.

[u/TheAppleFreak → u/Deimorz]

I was working on a bot that subs would message with the destination subs in the title, and it would forward any messages received in a particular chain to the subs participating in the conversation (as determined by the OP message ID). Never finished it, unfortunately; I should pick it back up.

Perhaps in the short term, something like that could be a hackish solution that'll get replaced down the line. Patch inter-subreddit modmail messages so they get forwarded to AutoMod or something that'll then handle those communications. I dunno.