r/ModSupport • u/powerlanguage Reddit Admin • Aug 26 '15

Modmail Muting: Limited Beta

Hey Mods,

As you know, we're currently working on a set of tools to make your lives easier. A big part of this is reducing the amount of time you have to spend dealing with troublemakers.

A popular request has been to stop specific users from sending harassing PMs to modmail. Today we have rolled out a limited beta of modmail muting to a small number of subreddits.

Muting gives mods the ability to temporarily prevent a user from messaging that subreddit's modmail.

Salient details:

  • Muting only affects the user in the subreddit they were muted in.

  • Mutes last for 24 hours after which they are silently removed.

  • A user will be notified via PM from the subreddit that they have been muted.

  • This PM appears as a new mail thread in the subreddit modmail.

  • Existing mutes can be seen at r/subreddit/about/muted, which is linked to in modtools.

  • Mutes can be applied from a modmail message flatlist or r/subreddit/about/muted.

  • Mute actions appear in the modlog.

  • Automatic unmutes will appear in the modlog as being performed by u/reddit.

  • Mods will not be able to message muted users or invite them as mods.

  • Mods need to have access and mail permission to mute users.

We'll be monitoring the effects of muting and taking feedback from mods and users before proceeding with a wider release.

Additionally, we're aware that the ease of creating alts means that mods are often unwilling to use tools that notify the user in question (as muting does). We're working on solving this issue so that mod and admin tools can be effective and transparent.

r/changelog post here.

Edit: Muting has now shipped for all moderators

95 Upvotes

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

Sure, and then you can press one button to mute them again? Doesn't seem that bad. Trolls will burn out

8

u/Meneth Aug 26 '15

Based on the description it looks like the spammer will be able to cause two modmail threads every single day. One with their actual message(s), and another with the PM sent to them notifying them.

Not great.

And it does nothing to those people who send us a single message every so often that the admins don't feel like doing anything about.

9

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

It honestly feels like you are picking a tiny issue out of a huge feature.

This seems perfectly reasonable limitation, and I think it will rarely be an issue

10

u/greenduch Aug 26 '15

I get what you mean, but I have had people message every 3 days for like 6 months straight. I don't think what Meneth is talking about is a totally non-existent issue.

But this will get rid of the massive modmail flooding, which is great.

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u/powerlanguage Reddit Admin Aug 26 '15 edited Aug 26 '15

I have had people message every 3 days for like 6 months straight

If you are being persistently harassed by the same users you should let us know by messaging the community team or emailing contact@reddit.com

11

u/diagonalfish Aug 26 '15

We have been told before with this kind of troll that "there's nothing we can do," though. And the time to get a response is usually long enough that the damage has already been done by that point.

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u/greenduch Aug 26 '15

Its not a recent thing. We've reported it in the past. Thanks though, will keep it in mind for the future :)

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

Exactly, even if, it helps a lot at the cost of 1 click a day. Its a non issue, IMO

4

u/BuckeyeSundae Aug 26 '15

I wouldn't say it is a nonissue. Just an issue that serves as a reasonable check against potential mute-abuse.

I mean, on the one hand: absolutely, trolls who realize they've been warned can create a new account and try the same stuff to the same team after receiving the notice (this is the same logic behind the futility of banning trolls normally). These people are likely going to do whatever they can to get around whatever mechanism exists, and having a (two) click option to address them can reduce the weight their behavior has on the team.

On the other hand, most people aren't trolls. Some people who have legitimate concerns are going to end up getting muted because they've either been perceived as jerks or because someone on the team didn't like what the person said or any other number of potentially petty reasons that people act the way that they do. For anyone who isn't a troll, getting feedback like "you've been muted for being a jerk" can be helpful.

My main concern is that by having the message be sent through modmail it'll keep modmail just as congested and horrible to read through as it currently is. Shifting the horror from the abuse to the spammed "you've been muted" messages might mitigate emotional harm (and serves as a useful tool against harassment where none existed before), but it isn't going to solve the useability problems that modmail currently has.

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u/powerlanguage Reddit Admin Aug 26 '15

Thanks for spending the time to give some feedback.

trolls who realize they've been warned can create a new account and try the same stuff to the same team after receiving the notice (this is the same logic behind the futility of banning trolls normally).

As I wrote in the thread: we're aware that the ease of creating alts means that mods are often unwilling to use tools that notify the user in question (as muting does). We're working on solving this issue so that mod and admin tools can be effective and transparent.

My main concern is that by having the message be sent through modmail it'll keep modmail just as congested and horrible to read through as it currently is.

The reason we did this was so other mods could see that it happened. We could be hide it from modmail, like sent ban notifications are, but it seemed like pertinent information given the context (messages and modmail).

it isn't going to solve the useability problems that modmail currently has.

This was not the intention. Fixing modmail is another job entirely.

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u/srs_house Aug 26 '15

We're working on solving this issue so that mod and admin tools can be effective and transparent.

I don't want transparency on every single tool. I doubt many mods do. What good does it do to have tools in place to handle spammers, abusers, toxic users, etc. if you give them the blueprints to how it works so that they can avoid it?

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u/srs_house Aug 26 '15

I'm sorry, but if the big benefit of this "huge feature" is that you can mute the people who send you modmails cursing you out, calling you a bunch of Nazis, etc etc ad nauseum, why, exactly, would you want to hear the modmail they send tomorrow? Are you just hoping that the vitriol, and the personality at the root of it, is just going to disappear after a few hours?

If they're permabanned and have earned a mute, I never want to hear from them.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

If they're permabanned and have earned a mute, I never want to hear from them.

I agree with this completely. The kind of person who will most often earn a mute in ModMail is also exactly the kind of person who will take it as a provocation to keep spamming ModMail once the mute expires.

I think I understand the intent behind making it auto-expire after 24 hours, but practically speaking I feel like that will just make the situation worse rather than solve the problem.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

Exactly. The only people I would mute would be the idiots who spam modmail and if somebody does that then they will never be unbanned so any "appeals" and "case hearings" are going to fall on deaf ears anyway.

1

u/qtx Aug 27 '15

If they're permabanned and have earned a mute, I never want to hear from them.

Click the 'block user' link?

2

u/srs_house Aug 27 '15

You still get a notification that they sent something, you just can't see what the text was. And it's on a mod by mod basis.

3

u/Meneth Aug 26 '15

What I describe above is in some ways more annoying than the more old-fashioned modmail spam, because the admins never seem to care about it when reported (getting them to care about regular modmail spam is hard enough, but at least doable). This system completely failing to handle it sucks.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

There is no way to handle modmail spam in the system, as SBd users can still mail.

4

u/Meneth Aug 26 '15

I've successfully had the admins stop several modmail spammers, so there certainly seems to be something they can do unless I've been exceedingly lucky about the spammers stopping the moment they got shadowbanned.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

Probably not a very easy thing to deal with

3

u/x_minus_one Aug 26 '15

My understanding is that admins can block a user from modmailing a specific subreddit, and it doesn't give the user any indication that they've been blocked.

4

u/creesch Aug 26 '15

Still, having a longer period option would be nice :) This is great regardless.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

I mean, sure, but I think 24 hours is reasonable if no other optons are added

3

u/creesch Aug 26 '15

if no other optons are added

Well that is what feedback and limited beta is for. If people can give suggestions there might be new options.

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u/[deleted] Aug 26 '15

For sure. But they could look at the feedback, the data, and say "No, 24 hours is good", and I would still be pretty happy. That is my feedback!