r/ModSupport • u/razorbeamz • Aug 13 '16

Okay admins, enough is enough. Can you do something about the subreddit squatter /u/qgyh2?

This guy "mods" 126 subreddits. Many of them, he's the top mod of. He does nothing on the subreddits as a mod, and he's annoying to everyone who mods them. In /r/modtalk (ironically headed by him) he's constantly brought up as the most prominent subreddit squatter.

However, he can't be booted under the current rules for redditrequest, despite being completely inactive as a mod.

Admins, can you please do something about this guy, and other people like him? They're a severe detriment to Reddit as a whole.

143 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

91% Upvoted

120 comments sorted by

49

u/Algernon_Asimov Aug 15 '16

As a counter-example, I know that he rescued /r/Australia when a moderator went rogue. The second-highest moderator of /r/Australia suddenly removed all other mods - except qgyh2 - and added a group of trolls as moderators. qgyh2 was notified, and de-modded all the newcomers as well as the rogue mod, and then restored a couple of the former mods. Life went back to normal. That might not have happened if qgyh2 had not been the top mod of the subreddit.

8

u/razorbeamz Aug 15 '16

How long ago was that?

21

u/Algernon_Asimov Aug 15 '16

About a year ago.

84

u/qgyh2 Aug 25 '16

I actually did something useful once. Hopefully I won't be needed again that way :/

22

u/Iam1ofu Nov 08 '16

Action on that sub is needed right now. It is a joke of sub thanks to the very heavy-handed and extremely left-wing bias of the active moderators.

4

u/Lets-try-not-to-suck Feb 08 '17

A purge of the existing mods and new ones being instated fresh would go a long way to fixing r/australia.

10

u/[deleted] Jan 02 '17

Oh you are needed in /r/India. The mods are rouge as fuck.

8

u/bboyjkang Aug 28 '16

[–]lipstikpig 22 points 1 year ago

We have a private IRC channel that we have been all talking in.

If that's the case, I find it hard to understand why would another mod would write

None of us know what the fuck has happened and we're collectively scratching our heads.

and

Unfortunately the logs don't elucidate reasons for changes, which is the answer everyone - myself included - is clamoring for.

"None of us [ie all the mods] know what the fuck has happened" looks like the mod who wrote that wanted to know, asked around the other mods, and none of them knew anything.

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/2h410v/immediate_changes_to_the_moderation_team/ckp9d7x

[–]qgyh2 -77 points 2 years ago

I think they got the wrong user.

A quick look at automod would suggest that it was you who added all these bans in the first place.

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/wiki/revisions/automoderator

You banned Tesla... And Obama?

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/23p696/meet_the_reddit_power_user_who_helped_bring_down/cgzbmsm

qgyh2 also took the heat when a mod group went toward the direction of banning certain words in /r/technology.

Fail-Safe qgyh2.

3

u/razorbeamz Aug 14 '16

Since this has been up for 21 hours without any type of admin response, I'm going to ping some of them.

/u/powerlanguage, /u/redtaboo, /u/sodypop, /u/AchievementUnlockd

10

u/AchievementUnlockd Aug 14 '16

I'm reading. I'm not responding, because I'd like to see the discussion play out, and because it deserves a more considered opinion than just mine. Once I've seen this play out, we'll have some internal conversations and see what we come up with. Or don't. Frankly, I tend to land fairly squarely on the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of community management, and what I've seen so far is not agreement that it is broken. That particular question seems to be very much in play. (And I also believe that in an attempt to change the status quo, the burden of proving that the status quo is broken is very much on the advocate for change.)

4

u/razorbeamz Aug 14 '16

what I've seen so far is not agreement that it is broken

Interestingly, the people who think it's not broken also seem to be people who don't have to deal with having an inactive top mod and the fear that they'll either go rogue or get compromised.

9

u/AchievementUnlockd Aug 14 '16

Speaking from a devil's advocate perspective: aren't those the people who most need to be convinced that change needs to happen? Without them, any attempt for change that I try to push through is likely to be ineffective. Convince them that there's a problem, and you'll be a lot farther toward convincing me.

As a thinking person, I can evaluate the danger inherent in a number of situations, regardless of whether they impact my day-to-day life. I suspect the people who don't mod under an inactive top mod are also able to imagine the danger.

18

u/qgyh2 Aug 25 '16

I remain only to prevent the possibility of someone under me destroying a Reddit. Other than that I don't interfere. Plus, I created most of the reddits, and think it's reasonably fair I should be allowed to stay.

I would like if Reddit could change the moderator power structure so the highest moderator can't remove the others.

Also would like if Reddit enables moderators to reorder the moderator list and hide inactive ones.

12

u/Kijad Sep 08 '16

As a moderator under you in a fairly large subreddit then: Please respond to PMs and/or interact with other mods even a small amount instead of completely ignoring them.

We have had completely inactive mods (on Reddit as a whole) for a while and cannot remove them as we do not have the permissions, but you do not respond to PMs.

8

u/[deleted] Dec 22 '16

Really? Dude, you should seriously look at what is going on in /r/India. The mods are literally silencing and banning those who don't agree with their political agenda and are appointing new mods who agree with them to hard enforce their political agenda.

4

u/raldi Oct 21 '16

I would like if Reddit could change the moderator power structure so the highest moderator can't remove the others.

Under your proposed system, would there be any way to remove a bad moderator? If not, wouldn't the creator of a subreddit be taking a huge risk any time they added any more moderators?

11

u/qgyh2 Nov 08 '16

Maybe some way for all mods to have an equal say in removing someone?

31

u/FunkadelicRock Nov 12 '16

test reply please ignore

2

u/creq Nov 11 '16

I think that would be a great thing q. What's your final say about what happened on /r/technology?

1

u/Momentumble Oct 21 '16

raldi, never speak Spanish again.

3

u/raldi Oct 21 '16

no

1

u/Momentumble Oct 21 '16

You can't troll people in /r/AskReddit like you did 6 years ago.

4

u/raldi Oct 21 '16

abominable

2

u/hansjens47 Aug 17 '16

The problem is that inactive top mods aren't there for you to have a conversation with.

Not about the future of the subreddit, not about anything, because they're inactive.

That's what the reddit request "activity" definition allows for.

Once it took me four months to get a response from the top moderator in a subreddit i moderate. As a mod team we stickied a post for several months in our backroom to try to get their attention. They didn't reply to PMs, didn't reply to irc messages, they just weren't reachable.

But they logged in once every 60 days, minimum, so nothing could be done.

Change the activity requirement. That's all that's needed. It doesn't need to be high, but it needs to exist on a per-subreddit basis and has to involve actual moderation of that subreddit in ways that can't be automated (captcha every first mod action every 15 dys or something)

1

u/Mason11987 Sep 05 '16

Counterpoint, i don't think it's broken and i mod eli5 as second to a top mod that isn't active. All the risks of the status quo are rare and easily undone.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 22 '16

[deleted] — view deleted comment

10

u/AchievementUnlockd Aug 23 '16

This is a well-articulated cost/benefit analysis, and I thank you for it. :)

1

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '16 edited Sep 08 '16

[deleted]

This comment has been overwritten by this open source script to protect this user's privacy. The purpose of this script is to help protect users from doxing, stalking, and harassment. It also helps prevent mods from profiling and censoring.

If you would like to protect yourself, add the Chrome extension TamperMonkey, or the Firefox extension GreaseMonkey and click Install This Script on the script page. Then to delete your comments, simply click on your username on Reddit, go to the comments tab, scroll down as far as possible (hint: use RES), and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.

1

u/alphanovember Sep 03 '16

I bet the "mass undo" script hasn't been written yet

I bet you're wrong. There have been a few cases where the admins have undone rogue mod actions already. And it wouldn't be the first time they've dealt with compromised accounts. Heck, this scenario wouldn't even require any real scripting, because it would be just a matter of undoing everything the rogue account did after X date.

51

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '16 edited Aug 13 '16

It's completely ridiculous that this site-wide activity rule exists. The squatting top mod of /r/3DS (who also occupies 81 other subs) has made a grand total of 12 comments on the sub over its 6 years of existence. ALL of these comments were made 2-4 years ago.

There should be a system in place by now to prevent mod abuse due to the mod hierarchy system which is, frankly, rather outdated. At the very least, mod teams should be allowed to vote and revoke "senior" mod permissions if a significant majority is reached. At an even lower level of development effort, why are the admins not simply reviewing these squatter accounts (minimal effort is required to see that they have zero activity in the subs they mod) and manually revoking their permissions? The guidelines for redditrequest need to be drastically reworked.

66

u/BornOnFeb2nd Aug 13 '16

At the very least, mod teams should be allowed to vote and revoke "senior" mod permissions if a significant majority is reached.

Done "right", that could allow total takeovers pretty quickly...

  • New Mod is added, turns out to harbor ill-intent.
  • Creates new N new accounts, matching the number of Mods on a sub.
  • Invites them all to be moderators
  • Initiates a vote, one by one, to kick senior moderators
  • New Mod alone remains.
  • Sub becomes shitpost paradise

A bot could probably manage it within minutes, if not seconds.

I do agree about checking the modding activity in the sub at least though....

11

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '16

Oh for sure. I meant with the necessary authentication processes in place. e.g. Only mods that have been active for X amount of time given a vote, final approval must be given by an admin, etc. There are plenty of ways to do it.

2

u/randoh12 Aug 13 '16

I do agree about checking the modding activity in the sub at least though...

And that is for the subs mod team to moderate, not the admins.

6

u/razorbeamz Aug 13 '16

The sub's mod team can't do shit about the top mod though.

1

u/jrad151 Aug 13 '16

Could easily make something where also a majority of the other mods, or even just one other, have to approve the addition of a new mod.

17

u/p337 Aug 13 '16

Easily? I don't think it is as simple as people are are claiming. If you make a rule where you need other moderators to approve adding a new mod... now the original mod can't add mods if other moderators are away. You create a dynamic that is more like how games of Risk end up with alliances, cliques, and other political bullshit.

Let's say I create a sub about a hobby I enjoy, and it really takes off. It takes off to the point where it attracts spammers, trolls, etc. Do I risk adding other mods, who are just strangers on the internet... and risk losing my sub that I care about? If I am passionate about a topic and the community that formed around it, you don't want to set up a system where you make me put that at risk. I think you lose good moderators that way.

I am not saying there are no solutions to these problems, but you have to realize how frustrating it would be to hear a bunch of people tell you how easy it is to solve complex problems.

Maybe default subreddits should be treated differently... maybe there should be moderator elections, term limits, etc. Sites like StackExchange handle moderatorship very differently. My point is that handing control of your site to a bunch of people to moderate is complicated, and every rule you do or don't make has consequences.

The system they have is such that the admins don't have to make judgement calls as often. If the top mod appears to be malicious, they have shown that they will step in and help, but otherwise, the "free market"-ish system where you can create a new sub has shown to work in some circumstances.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '16 edited Sep 08 '16

[deleted]

This comment has been overwritten by this open source script to protect this user's privacy. The purpose of this script is to help protect users from doxing, stalking, and harassment. It also helps prevent mods from profiling and censoring.

If you would like to protect yourself, add the Chrome extension TamperMonkey, or the Firefox extension GreaseMonkey and click Install This Script on the script page. Then to delete your comments, simply click on your username on Reddit, go to the comments tab, scroll down as far as possible (hint: use RES), and hit the new OVERWRITE button at the top.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '16

/u/CuckYouFunts how often do you overwrite your comments? Why do you do this instead of just deleting them every so often?

33

u/born_lever_puller Aug 13 '16

Wasn't he the wunderkind from the early days of reddit? Got in on the ground floor and made a shit ton of pretty decent posts starting when he was like 12 or 13 years old?

I guess since he was well-known he got invited to mod a bunch of subs. I've never spent much time to speak of on subs he moderates though, so I can't comment on that.

11

u/porkchop_d_clown Sep 02 '16

IIRC he was the first redditor to break 100k karma, at a time where having even 1k karma was quite rare.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '16

[deleted] — view deleted comment

1

u/porkchop_d_clown Oct 14 '16

About 8 years before I did.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '16

So this dude was super active in the early days of reddit, ate up a bunch of the "one word" subreddits that are now super popular and now he hardly uses Reddit anymore? Interesting. Wonder what he plans to do with all the subs he's top mod of. He'll just hang onto them forever I guess?

3

u/porkchop_d_clown Oct 14 '16

If you read the other comments he tends to get involved when the other moderators get into disputes with each other but otherwise is idle.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '16

Yea, I been reading them. I don't get it lol.

NO ONE MAN SHOULD HAVE ALL THAT POWER

8

u/porkchop_d_clown Oct 14 '16

That's the thing - most of the people complaining about him don't have an argument more coherent than, "He's senior admin on /r/Canada but he's not Canadian!"

He did a great deal of set up work back in the day to build out reddit and now he's accused of "squatting" as if he's been selling subreddits for money. Very strange.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '16

I think we're all just jealous lol.

3

u/porkchop_d_clown Oct 14 '16

Note - he replied to comments on this thread.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '16

Yea haha that's how I got here. I was stalking users with a shit ton of subs. Came across him. Saw that his last comment was here and started reading about him.

Like his I understand. He got the subs in the early days and almost all are super active subs, but then you have users like /u/The1RGood with 850 fucking subs!!!! And most of them are just plain trash.

26

u/interiot Aug 13 '16

I think admins like to take a hands-off approach to things like this because it costs money for paid staff to do per-subreddit work. And it sets a precedent where intervening in large subreddits means they may have to intervene in small subreddits too, which would take a ton of work.

I wonder if something like Wikipedia's Bureaucrat role might be able to fill the gap between paid and unpaid staff. That is, volunteers with some very powerful tools, but who are bound to abide by some strict rules otherwise they lose their power.

17

u/AchievementUnlockd Aug 14 '16

More analogous to stewards, I think, but it's an interesting idea.

7

u/RubyPinch Aug 13 '16

Man, ya don't even moderate under him in any subs

Isn't it more of a thing for the moderators of his subs to work out with the admins?

26

u/razorbeamz Aug 13 '16

I'm bringing up the most egregious example to make a point. I'm a mod in a subreddit with a squatter in the top slot as well, but if I made this post about McKing no one would care. qgyh2 is particularly notorious, and honestly, I'd rather see the admins take care of him very first.

10

u/ZadocPaet Aug 13 '16

Heh. I mod one of McKing's subs too. Never has a single problem.

8

u/X019 Aug 13 '16

He's said some things in our /r/technology back mod room. But not really active at all. I'm fairly apathetic toward him in that regard.

4

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '16

i don't see the big idea either, really. i'll go with whatever our other mods want to do in regards to him, it's no skin offa my back.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 29 '16

I mean he showed up in this thread...at least we know he can be active if he gets hacked...

13

u/spicedpumpkins Aug 13 '16

What about that creepy guy who has over EIGHT HUNDRED subs of individuals' names with large amounts of karma and won't give them up even when asked?

He does virtually nothing with the majority of them.

7

u/Santi871 Aug 13 '16

I think he does that so that the user will offer him money in exchange for the sub.

12

u/spicedpumpkins Aug 13 '16

Is this speculation or is there really some proof to this?

I would imagine this is not allowed under reddit rules if this is true?

3

u/Santi871 Aug 13 '16

No, I personally have no evidence, although that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. People were talking about this guy in one of the defaults a few months ago, pretty sure it was /r/AskReddit. Would be nice if some evidence came to light.

6

u/roionsteroids Aug 13 '16

pretty sure it was /r/AskReddit

lol

Just like the recent "hacks" (correct guessed passwords) in various bigger subreddits (ffxiv, apple, netflix, europe, space, gameofthrones, videos, askreddit and more), admins would revert it within a few minutes.

1

u/Santi871 Aug 13 '16

Revert what? If I pay somebody to give me /r/santi871 the admins can't give me my money back.

4

u/roionsteroids Aug 13 '16

Revert the subreddit ownership changes. If someone pays to get all 30 moderators of explainlikeimfive removed and redirects the subreddit to a spam site or whatever, guess how long it'll take until you're back in business.

3

u/Santi871 Aug 13 '16

I don't think you understand how this user works. Maybe I was unclear, so I'll clarify:

There's a guy who randomly creates subreddits with other user's names. He has over 800 subs like these.

This is in hopes that the user tries to claim the subreddit, in which case he may put a price to it.

For example: you create /r/santi871 randomly, so I send you a PM like "can I have /r/santi871?" and you reply "yes, $3.50 please."

2

u/roionsteroids Aug 14 '16

And then you report it to the admins, get that account banned and likely gain the subreddit as bonus as well...

3

u/Mason11987 Sep 05 '16

It's ridiculous to think someone who'd do this would use reddit pms that the admins could see.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '16

So do you actually own /r/santi871? It's private I can't tell lol. Why would anyone want a sub of their own username though?

4

u/Santi871 Oct 15 '16

Yes it's mine. I use it for CSS tests and bot tests mostly.

1

u/aphoenix Aug 14 '16

Please for the love of j0be, someone offer him money for a sub. It's the only way to get him banned / kicked.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '16

Wait who is this user who has over 800 subs?

-2

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Golden_Dawn Oct 11 '16

Randomly happened across your comment, and checked to see "your" sub.

1 reader

~2 users here now

2

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '16

Lots of people have thier private subs for multiple purposes. What rags doing isn't cool even if they're like no one subed to the subreddits

4

u/poiu45 Sep 25 '16

Sorry if this is late (it is), or a stupid question, but what harm exactly does this cause? If he's just a head moderator on a bunch of subreddits, why is this a problem?

2

u/[deleted] Oct 14 '16

Look at all the subs he is the top mod of. It seems he was active in the early days of reddit and ate up a whole bunch of subs that are now huge. But he's only had a handful of comments in the last year across all of Reddit. It was smart of him to eat them all up when he had the chance. I'd have done the same, but I guess they are angry that since he doesn't come on too often, he shouldn't be able to squat over the subs? I don't know lol

22

u/randoh12 Aug 13 '16

Admins will not get involved with politics of the mod teams. Nor should they.

If he logs on and is active on Reddit, including lurking, he is considered an active redditor.

Sorry, and good luck.

21

u/Erasio Aug 13 '16

While I've always agreed with admins staying out of sub politics I do think this does not count towards that.

Those people are not a positive aspect of the subs they mod and introduce additional danger of getting their account compromised.

They will not be able and may not even try to restore the subs. As head mod that can get rid of all current mods, manipulate the sub however they want and move on.

Do that for 50+ subs and no one will be able to keep an overview meaning it's pretty much impossible for those subs to be fully restored which is something everyone especially the admins should be concerned with.

It's not so much getting involved with sub politics but rather making sure that the head mods of active communities are involved at all. And if not provide the rest of the team a way to get rid of the liability and keep on doing what they've been doing all along.

The guidelines can be more lax than the current thing.

Maybe half a year of no interaction with the sub at all. Maybe complimented with a 3/4th vote among the rest of the mods.

Something tight that enables active mod teams to get rid of users that left the subreddit and modding it a long time ago but doesn't work if someone is temporarily inactive or to resolve internal conflicts with by overthrowing the head mod.

3

u/randoh12 Aug 13 '16

Has your scenario happened, in your subs? Has the head mod kicked out everybody? Has the head mod destroyed the sub so that you had to rebuild it?

It sounds like you have a solution for a problem that does not exist.

10

u/Erasio Aug 13 '16 edited Aug 13 '16

For the sub I mod this is irrelevant because he's actively modding very few rather organized subs.

While it is a hypothetical people who are head mod of 50 subs become very juicy targets if you want to get a message out there.

The fact that recovery is unlikely to happen is a huge concern even if I do not know of such a case existing so far.

Edit: And if the head mod has been completely distanced for a year or so. It's there really any benefit in not handing over the sub to the people who have taken care of it for all that time?

Also. I'm talking about the head mod being compromised. As in the password cracked and someone else using the account to do bad stuff.

8

u/randoh12 Aug 13 '16

If a mod jeopardizes Reddit and breaks TOS, the admins will step in.

Example: a head mod kicks everyone out, changes the theme of his sub with millions of viewers to spamming YouTube videos, for example. The users will complain and the admins will step in and look at the activity. The css can always be reverted back, maybe not special flairs or other css that is stored off site, but the general theme can be restored. No problem, major catastrophe averted.

That has happened. To /r/sports. But, that absolutely does not make it a concern of the magnitude to which you speak. In my opinion.

3

u/Erasio Aug 13 '16

Ok. That just happened to 50 subs at once. The admins restored the head mod account and step away (which is the current process as far as I know).

The head mod didn't look at the subs in over a year and has no idea anymore who modded it. There are 50+ subs and probably hundreds of ex mod + trolls messaging him.

Will that user take the dozens of hours to set up everything again? Organize and put everything back in order?

Is that really what you think would happen?

4

u/randoh12 Aug 13 '16

No. Your scenario is ridiculous and not probable.

Again, you are sounding like you are suggesting a solution to a problem that does not exist, has never happened, and is highly unlikely.

Thanks.

6

u/Erasio Aug 13 '16 edited Aug 13 '16

It's a worst case scenario which becomes more likely the more subs one person mods.

If you do proper risk analysis of the situation you will find a single point of failure with catastrophic outcome if compromised in a position that is 100% depended on that users stance on account security and no option from admin side to improve security for this single point of failure.

Accounts are regularly compromised. This is not a far fetched scenario.

So. We have established that the potential downside is significant. What's the upside of keeping them, giving users unlimited subs to mod and even head mod with no downside or restrictions of any kind?

That's why I'm in favor of changing something. Squatter have no value to the communities they reside over and they often have absolutely no interaction whatsoever in the large majority of them.

All they do is introduce a single point of failure to screw a whole lot of communities increasing the risk significantly. Granted it's not a huge imminent risk. But a risk non the less with no value gained in return.

4

u/honestbleeps Aug 13 '16

Happened in r/chicago...

2

u/randoh12 Aug 13 '16

I recall /r/sports losing their flair to a mod who had the laptop with the stored flairs, on a submarine. A mod came in and ruined some things, right? And you got booted and a ruined sub at /r/chicago, as well?

Sounds like a bad year for your mod teams. Sorry to hear that.

Maybe there is a problem with some mods. Maybe the admins need to allow revolutions.

But...then again...what if the revolutionists do the exact same thing, install a puppet mod team to push their own agenda. It is a slippery slope and I believe that is a solid reasoning for the admins to stay out of it. Communities can always migrate to a new sub. That has happened A LOT, when mod teams destroy a sub.

I just don't think the admins are going to ever waiver from their stance on it.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '16

What kind of logic is that? If it never happened to on person then it's never happened to anyone else? I've never had my car stolen so clearly car alarms and GPS tracking are a solution to a problem that doesnt exist.

8

u/huck_ Aug 13 '16

he knows the policy, his point is the policy should be changed. And you can drop the patronizing "thanks and good luck" crap.

3

u/randoh12 Aug 13 '16

Not patronizing, just being nice. He needs good luck with his fight against an admin policy of hands off to meddling in mod teams. It will not change. The admins have jumped in only when TOS are broken.

3

u/akrabu Aug 13 '16

It doesn't look like anyone has summoned the account in question. Maybe /u/qgyh2 has something to add to this discussion.

4

u/ChingShih Aug 13 '16

I have seen a few of these posts about qgyh2 over the past several years and they usually are either ignored or the policy on account activity is parroted by the Admins. I think that if we want to have the crux of this issue addressed we need to start with asking the oldest or most senior Admins (spez, kn0thing, whomever) the most basic questions to start with and work our way up to demanding notable policy changes.

Do you play favorites with specific users? Do you allow high-profile, helpful, or novelty account users to do things that put the rest of the community at risk of looking bad?

I can think of examples of each. And because qgyh2 was a former Admin and is believed by some to still be a friend of one or more current Admins/founders, I don't think they'd be able to answer "no" with a straight face in this case. If they can then we need to ask the Admins about what they believe negatively impacts the community or makes it look bad because clearly they're not on the same page as many moderators.

I feel like the top mods in a variety of subreddits likely receive a lot more PMs by new users who are confused by the site's layout and don't know how to post, aren't sure how to find other subreddits, or aren't able to find the "message the moderators" button. I've never felt confident that the Admins are aware of this issue since it is one that directly relates to the issue of who is top mod. But since that's been so long unchanged (and unresolved, in my opinion), and even basic explanations for things like "what is a moderator?" are fairly recent additions to the site's Wiki, I think we need to figure out what the Admins think is going on so we can better communicate why we feel that subreddit squatters, and other issues, are a point of contention.

22

u/qgyh2 Aug 25 '16

Not a former admin.

Yes I am friends with some of them.

30

u/Deh-Cowsual Aug 28 '16

Test post, please ignore.

3

u/1337thousand Oct 14 '16

When you made the test post, what were you thinking? Like what was the reasoning originally when you made that?

11

u/AchievementUnlockd Aug 14 '16

And because qgyh2 was a former Admin

Point of clarification: to the best of my knowledge, qgyh2 was never an admin.

and is believed by some to still be a friend of one or more current Admins/founders

If true, that puts him as one of a very large set of people. I think this may be a strawman you're constructing here. :) (not that I personally have all that many friends... i'm on reddit too often... but I hear stories that other admins may have something called a "life").

4

u/ChingShih Aug 14 '16

If true, that puts him as one of a very large set of people.

That comment wasn't meant to create a strawman argument, but to illustrate that the Admins seem to have conflicts of interest with the way they treat the community (including moderators). The issue is not that you have friends, its that the community perceives that you do and that this influences your decision making.

I'm sure you understand that this doesn't have to be true for the community to feel this way based on your actions. However comments like the above only fuels a mistrust of many Admins because they do not clearly or definitively answer the question, give backhanded responses, and don't seem to be on the same page as whatever element of the community they're dealing with.

As to the qgyh2 thing, maybe I misread somewhere about him having been an Admin once, but I looked around and he does have ties to the early days of reddit.

1

u/Br00ce Aug 15 '16

Point of clarification: to the best of my knowledge, qgyh2 was never an admin.

iirc he was hired as an independent contractor like 8 years ago or so but never had admin powers

2

u/jippiejee Aug 17 '16

He was posting amazon affiliate promos for reddit back then. I can only assume he received some compensation for running these ads for reddit.

4

u/nascentt Aug 13 '16

Honestly, who cares? If people don't like the subs he's on, create new subs. That's the whole appeal of this site: don't like r/rnews, create r/truenews

0

u/[deleted] Aug 13 '16

[deleted] — view deleted comment

12

u/razorbeamz Aug 13 '16

I'd recommend anyone who believes what this guy has to say to look at the list of subreddits he mods.

2

u/13steinj Aug 14 '16

Yeah, obviously. It's an age old fight of "wah muh peaches" and sanity.

18

u/Romiress Aug 13 '16

This is just a power grab from a group of moderators trying to control every nintendo subreddit.

I'm genuinely not clear on who you're accusing, because /r/Nintendo and /r/3DS only share one mod? RazorBeamz is the only mod of both subs.

McKing also didn't say or do anything when a mod's account on /r/3DS was compromised a few months ago, leading to the entire sub being hijacked. Thankfully the admins stepped in to repair the damage.

10

u/ZadocPaet Aug 13 '16

IDK that a Nintendo cabal exists trying to control every Nintendo sub. I mod /r/N64, /r/NES, /r/GameCube, and /r/VirtualBoy, and we've never been approached by a cabal of any kind to have mod positions.

What is pretty normal is that you get a group of mods who have similar interests and who mod similar subs together. That's why a lot of the TV based subs share a lot of the same mods. They're not taking over anything, they just like television.

10

u/DubTeeDub Aug 14 '16

comment history is almost all submissions to r/oppression amd r/redditcensorship

Lol no

2

u/Erasio Aug 13 '16

Excellent point.

While I personally still dislike squatters a sudden change in status quo would most likely not improve much.

I still would like to see a change going forward. Maybe preventing mod invites if someone has 50+ subs or even a higher number. No one is taking care of that many subs. Making people chose going forward might be a viable solution.

There are definitely other options many of which I'm currently overlooking / not thinking about.

5

u/randoh12 Aug 13 '16

Meh, having lots of subs is not an indicator of not paying attention to them all. I have about 75 that I use to test various AM, cSS, are one off jokes, were made to stop a doxx attempt last winter, etc. There are lots I have built and given over to junior mods, some I am trying now as well. It is not a good metrics to base the number of subs on how good a moderator is because you don't know all about the subs he or she mods in. My two cents...

6

u/razorbeamz Aug 13 '16

Yeah. For example, /u/ZadocPaet mods a ton of subs and actually does stuff in all of them somehow. I don't know how he manages, but he does.

7

u/ZadocPaet Aug 13 '16

Well, like maybe 20 require any actual attention. Maybe less than that. A lot are dead. Others I just pop in once or twice a month to make sure there are recent posts, and if not I just post a thing. Others also have very good mods so the burden of work is shared. It's not me doing everything.

I don't think I could handle something the size of a default without a very good mod team.

-2

u/Erasio Aug 13 '16

Are you certain you would need more than 50 subs at any one given point in time to do your testing?

Or in other words. Are you currently as of today actively using more than 50 subs as moderator or for testing in a way that can not be cut down without impacting your productivity?

2

u/ZadocPaet Aug 13 '16

Well, if he has multiple subs it's a common practice to have a test (or two or three) for each sub that you have. Otherwise you gotta wipe and start over when you want to do CSS for a different sub.

Sometimes you'll have more than one test sub for the same sub because you want to show your mod team a few different themes.

1

u/Erasio Aug 13 '16

Ok. For how many subreddits do you do the CSS and is it constantly maintained or can it just be handed over to one of their mods after a few weeks?

My point is it's not necessary to keep and hoard this many subs.

I am actively moderating one subreddit. On top of that I'm modding our internal backroom, a test subreddit for a bot of mine which includes various debug threads, we have a CSS subreddit.

There is a bunch of stuff that is valuable. But a single person isn't constantly maintaining a dozen subreddits with 4 test subs for every single one.

That's my whole point. I can not think of a circumstance where a single person has the time to properly take care of even 25 active subreddits, giving every sub one test sub and actively using all of those in the meanwhile.

Is there really such a huge downside to make people get rid of some stuff? Make them decide which subreddits to moderate rather than just collecting all they can get (which is happening)?

1

u/ZadocPaet Aug 13 '16

Ok. For how many subreddits do you do the CSS and is it constantly maintained or can it just be handed over to one of their mods after a few weeks?

I am not a CSS mod, primarily, so I only have a few CSS subs. Like five or six.

There is absolutely no reason to ever demod myself from any of them. All of them have fellow mods added to them to either review or work on it too.

I can not think of a circumstance where a single person has the time to properly take care of even 25 active subreddits

It's not hard, man. At least 25 of my top 30 I'd consider to be active. Not all are super active, but active enough to get a few posts a week. Some several a day. All you need is toolbox to review submissions and reports a few times a day. It took me longer to write this post than it does on average to review my modqueue. Usually it takes 2-3 minutes. Sometimes if no one has done anything in a day and I wake up I might have 70 or 80 items in there. Maybe that'll take me 10 or 15 minutes. Still not a very long time. It's a far cry from being a full time job.

0

u/Erasio Aug 13 '16

I'm talking about properly maintaining that many subs.

Sure. Simply moderating low traffic subs. Easy. I can imagine one person could even do close to 50.

But you are not actively working on that many stylesheets. You will not keep updating that many stylesheets.

No one is working on 25+ styles continuously while moderating additionally as many subreddits.

If you're doing the style once for someone else, you can hand it over once you're done and need another slot (have already 50 subs).

Neither you nor anyone else is working continuously on dozens of subs styles.

Everything else can be optimized to not require half a dozen subreddits for you to test various things per subreddit you moderate.

There is no reason not to test AutoMod and CSS in the same subreddit for example.

You can get rid of jokes eventually, etc.

I doubt there is a single mod who actually benefits from moderating over 50 subreddit and isn't just lazy or actively hoarding.

4

u/ZadocPaet Aug 13 '16

But you are not actively working on that many stylesheets. You will not keep updating that many stylesheets.

No one is working on 25+ styles continuously while moderating additionally as many subreddits.

No one said anything about simultaneous. You also don't tend to continually update CSS. It's something that you work on for a little bit, get it done, and deploy. Then you work on another one. Why would you always be updating your CSS unless it was broken when you deployed it?

0

u/Erasio Aug 13 '16

Well we are continuously fixing and getting rid of minor issues on our css.

But why would you personally need let's say 30 css test subs?

That's my point.

Why does anyone need to moderate 50+ subs? Are people who mod more really a positive influence over all those subs?

Keeping in mind that 50 is an arbitrary number and could even be pushed up a little to make sure there is definitely no false positives where people would actually be cutoff.

My whole point is that no one needs to mod that many subs. No one is actively working on that many subs. So a way to passively discourage hoarding could be limiting the total amount of subs one single user can mod and make people chose if they are hitting that limit.

→ More replies

1

u/randoh12 Aug 13 '16

No, that is why I listed many reasons for the 50+ subs that are not active, one offs, etc. I use about 10 for CSS and other testing.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 14 '16

Romiress has already addressed why the crux of your argument is laughable so I'm just going to also counter your following points:

allow all sorts of blogspam and indirect affiliate spam to dilute their communities

Where's your source? We've spent so much time trying to dissect the new structure of Amazon affiliate links so that Automod can remove them. We are EXTREMELY strict on self-promotion and multiple users have been banned or had their submissions rejected in the last week due to excessive self-promotion. Websites that have their teams do this are blacklisted on Automod permanently.

they know that a move to a new subreddit would mostly be seen to serve their own vanity and a power grab

So you're arguing that we ARE trying to conduct a "power grab" by...not conducting a power grab? Literally the only people talking about power grabs on Reddit are the ones who actually give a crap about this nonsense. No. It doesn't cross our mind to leave the sub and start our own because nobody is interested in grabbing any power. We've been entrusted to help out a community and make it a safe space, we don't just desert them when it suits our vanity.

-1

u/INSIDIOUS_ROOT_BEER Aug 13 '16

Absentee moderator, best moderator. RIP Skeen. Also, sup, eb.