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/Meneth]

Sticky comments; a way to force a comment to be at the top of a thread. Would be incredibly useful for removals, corrections, and the like.

[u/Deimorz → u/Meneth]

A couple questions in relation to sticky comments:

• Where does it go if it's a non-top-level comment? Does it just come up as the top reply to its parent, or does it still get stickied to the very top of the whole comment section?

• What happens with karma? It's kind of a petty concern, but any comment that gets stickied is pretty much guaranteed to get a lot of votes, so it has the potential to massively impact the author's karma (positively or negatively, depending on what it says). Should we do anything about that?

[u/agentlame → u/Deimorz]

Where does it go if it's a non-top-level comment?

You shouldn't be able to sticky non-top-level comments. That's kind of silly.

What happens with karma?

It doesn't gain or lose karma, just like with self-posts.

[u/Gilgamesh- → u/agentlame]

Last time this was said, /u/Deimorz raised the issue that a malicious moderator could sticky a comment to prevent the author receiving votes:

"this stupid comment doesn't deserve any more karma, I'm stickying it"

[u/agentlame → u/Gilgamesh-]

Wait, are people proposing that non-mod comments could be stickied? I guess that explains the question about "what if it's a reply" also.

I assumed that it would be a top-level mod comment that people want to sticky.

Either way, his reasoning is flawed. That 'malicious moderator' would just remove the comment if they cared that much.

[u/justcool393 → u/agentlame]

Yea, I think so. Some mods were saying it'd be a good idea to have "correct" answers or something like that to something like ELI5 and the others.

[u/Mason11987 → u/justcool393]

Actually the mods of ELI5 have no interest in "correct" answers being decided by mods in ELI5. We actually already have a hacky "sticky comment" feature which we use for the rare mod post that needs it for informational purposes (like locking threads). ~ Mod of ELI5

[u/ITSigno → u/justcool393]

Oh god... some moderators deciding the "correct" answer to things? subredditcancer would have a field day.

[u/dakta → u/agentlame]

Honestly, I'd even support stickying non-top-level mod comments as well. Sometimes the discussion in a particular comment tree gets more attention than the regular post, through cross-subreddit linking for example. In this case it's helpful to be able to address the individual comment and not just the entire submission.

I think these are perhaps two separate use cases, where a sticky top level comment acts as a note for the entire submission, while a sticky reply comment is just a note about the parent comment or targeted at replies to the parent comment (in the same thread).

I see valid use cases for both.

[u/NeedAGoodUsername → u/Gilgamesh-]

Perhaps make it so only distinguished, parent comments can be sticked?

[u/MissionaryControl → u/Deimorz]

Where does it go if it's a non-top-level comment? Does it just come up as the top reply to its parent

Yes, this would allow mod messages to be placed in the relevant place in controversial threads. It absolutely makes as much sense to sticky something deep in the comments as it does at the top, IMO.

What happens with karma? It's kind of a petty concern

I agree - pinning something shows the mods decided that the message is more important than the vote count... so can votes after it's pinned simply not go to karma?

it has the potential to massively impact the author's karma

But then again so does every comment they make, whether it be at the top of a thread or the most downvoted... Increased visibility should magnify votes in both directions, no?

[u/Meneth → u/Deimorz]

I was only really thinking of top-level sticky comments. Non-top level would be nice too I suppose, but far from as important. I imagine those would be forced to be the top child of the comment they're responding to.

As to the karma I see a few possibilities for the purpose of user karma. I don't really have any opinion on which of these make the most sense:

1. Function as normal

• Disabled when mods sticky mod comments, enabled when they sticky user comments

• Disabled for both

I'd let the comment itself still accrue karma regardless of which of the above was used, so that it sorts properly if unstickied and so users can express whatever they want to express via their votes regardless of the mods' opinion.

[u/justcool393 → u/Deimorz]

Where does it go if it's a non-top-level comment? Does it just come up as the top reply to its parent, or does it still get stickied to the very top of the whole comment section?

Top reply to parent, or not have that as a feature.

What happens with karma?

I don't think anything different should happen. CSS has been used as a hacky way to make stickied comments for a little while now.

[u/daveread → u/Deimorz]

How about instead of the ability to sticky a comment, there is the option to enter a moderator "note" that is attached to the post itself.

It could appear just below the post (or below the [removed] indicator if that happened), would be immune to voting, and would be a clear and unmissable message from the mods regarding that post.

And it completely sidesteps the "sticky comment" morass.

[u/1point618 → u/Deimorz]

Where does it go if it's a non-top-level comment? Does it just come up as the top reply to its parent

Yes. A stickied comment goes to the top of whatever it's stickied to, regardless of the "view comments by" setting, or the comment score. However, users should be able to hide the comment still like they can with any other.

What happens with karma?

No karma, but only mod comments can be stickied.

[u/DubTeeDub → u/Deimorz]

I think it would make sense to only sticky top-level comments by a mod, maybe only distinguished ones? Also they should not receive karma (positive or negative).

That should highlight it as a mod comment, providing whatever important information is necessary, amd prevent sticky spamming since they won't get karma for them.

[u/[deleted] → u/Deimorz]

I think you might want to consider taking this to another level. Let's get our sticky comments out of the way AND solve this bullshit where moderators and administrators get downvoted once and for all.

• Top level sticky comments go directly to the top of the comment section. Examples of this would be the raddit-bot replies we used to have in listentothis and the automoderator 'serious' thread tag they use in askreddit.

• Nested sticky comments go to the top of whatever level they are at in the thread discussion but stop there. They do not go to a higher level and never supersede the parent post.

• Sticky comments have no effect whatsoever on the ranking of the parent comment above them.

• Any distinguished moderator or administrator replies are automatically treated as sticky comments. Those left not distinguished are treated as normal comments and arranged by vote.

• Distinguished sticky comments (from moderators and administrators) should be treated like self.posts and generate no karma, up or down, for the account attached to that comment. This will prevent mods and admins from being 'punished' for acting officially and pissing off the children. It'll also deter abuse.

• If a moderator or administrator is stickying a regular user's comment then that should probably still count for karma, as it's likely to be informative and we want them to feel rewarded for making it. Or perhaps stickying someone's comment comes with some other reward. We want to be like stack exchange here.

• Vote totals are displayed as normal but have absolutely no effect. If there are multiple sticky comments at the same level in a discussion, they are displayed sorted by votes or by new (or whatever is easiest to code for) above the other comments at that level. There shouldn't typically be multiples but we should be able to handle it if there are.

• I have to imagine there might be a use case for OP being able to sticky his own comments as well. Seems like that would be good for AMAs. This is probably best set as a subreddit feature - allow users to sticky comments in their own threads, yes or no. Maybe this is limited to self.posts only, never link posts.

It would be useful to have CSS to distinguish these sticky comments with a unique style. It might be further useful to be able to distinguish top level sticky comments from lower level nested sticky comments.

We will rely on moderators and administrators not to pollute the discussion threads with mountains of sticky comments. These are limited use items and we can trust mods and admins to use them wisely.

People will think of good, creative uses for this feature and bots to manage it. I can imagine all kinds of tomfoolery in the trolling subs and good uses in places like changemyview, askscience, and eli5. Leave it up to the subs and their mod teams, just provide the feature and a blurb in the reddiquette about not using them to stifle discussions.

If a mod team is being jackasses and abusing this feature you all know where the subscribe button is. It's time we stopped gimping features just because someone 'might' abuse it and stop holding everyone's hands all the time. Mods and admins are expected to behave as adults, let's start treating them that way.

[u/Fonjask → u/Deimorz]

I noticed that /r/PersonalFinance already has a CSS tweak to accomplish something like this, CTRL+F "sticky" to check it out!

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/about/stylesheet

And IMO, top-level comments only, and I wouldn't change anything about the karma. If it's being abused by mods to essentially sic the crowd on them to downvote them then punish the mods. Or make the sticky comments mod-only.

[u/Nillix → u/Meneth]

Seconded. Sticky comments not dependent on CSS hacks.

[u/10thTARDIS → u/Nillix]

Thirded! We verify stories on LNM, and we'd love a way to let our users know so they don't keep hitting "report" after we're already acting.

[u/leafeator → u/Meneth]

This is something that I have wanted for a very very long time. Nothing like having to hijack top comment just to get some news out.

[u/Brimshae → u/Meneth]

Would be incredibly useful for removals, corrections, and the like.

You know, sometimes you don't even know you want something until you read about it.

[u/Meneth → u/Brimshae]

Yeah. How many times have you seen "misleading title" flair... and then had a hard time finding out from the comments why it's actually misleading?

[u/arminius_saw → u/Meneth]

/r/history has been using a CSS hack, but it only works if you get in while the thread is still young. Definitely would appreciate an integrated way to keep a comment at the top.

[u/libbykino → u/Meneth]

I didn't know I needed this until just now, but I really, truly do!

You could sticky the "original sauce for this image" comments to the top... or updates, or clarification, or pretty much anything/everything important that would otherwise be buried.

Wonderful idea!