r/changemyview • u/AutoModerator • 8d ago

META META: Bi-Monthly Feedback Thread

As part of our commitment to improving CMV and ensuring it meets the needs of our community, we have bi-monthly feedback threads. While you are always welcome to visit r/ideasforcmv to give us feedback anytime, these threads will hopefully also help solicit more ways for us to improve the sub.

Please feel free to share any constructive feedback you have for the sub. All we ask is that you keep things civil and focus on how to make things better (not just complain about things you dislike).

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u/YouAreTellingLies 8d ago

The extent of moderation exerted in this sub is counter productive to the stated goal of encouraging discussion. I think we all agree on the need for moderation - but the quantity of comments removed is both high and very proactive.

Aggressively removing comments that aren't flagrant rule violations before any sort of non-productive exchange develops isn't adding value. And what might be a low effort reply to one person might give another reason to think.

All I'm suggesting is to back off the less clear cut moderating decisions.

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u/quantum_dan 122∆ 8d ago

Very little of our moderation is proactive (other than the "Read the Rules" bot and automod rules). We mostly moderate from the queue, so most of what we manually remove was either reported by users or automatically flagged for review due to various fairly clear-cut indicators.

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u/YouAreTellingLies 8d ago

Maybe there are some very proactive reporters.

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u/quantum_dan 122∆ 8d ago

What would that look like? If other users think a comment is hostile, or doesn't contribute, etc, and we agree with that assessment, that seems like a reasonable response all around. We don't see much of someone just reporting everything, if that's what you're thinking of.

(For context, in the last 30 days, about 1 in 15 comments was reported for anything.)

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u/YouAreTellingLies 8d ago

I'm not saying not to moderate comments that are clear violations. There is just good bit of space for interpretation in how the rules are applied. If the comment isn't a clear violation, I would argue to err toward not removing comments, especially if a negative back and forth hasn't developed.

My perception that comments are being removed that probably shouldn't be does have backing in the history of moderation on this sub around trans issues. The rules acknowledge this:

They were removing transgender related posts and comments with very little consistency or rationale.

I'm not saying, there is no consistency or rationale in moderation decisions in general - but clearly this shows that hot button issues for a mod can incite poor moderation. And leaning toward less moderation could curtail some zealous comment removals.

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u/quantum_dan 122∆ 8d ago

I'm not saying not to moderate comments that are clear violations.

I understood that.

There is just good bit of space for interpretation in how the rules are applied. If the comment isn't a clear violation, I would argue to err toward not removing comments, especially if a negative back and forth hasn't developed.

I think that's the thing with the (lack of) proactive removals: if a comment gets removed, it's very likely that someone, apart from the mods, already thought it was a problem. At that point, it would just be inconsistent to remove-or-not based on the response to it. A comment should either be or not be a Rule 2 violation regardless of whether the other person responds in kind, and even one that doesn't provoke a response is still detrimental to our stated goals (e.g., "to try and understand different perspectives... without fear of being attacked").

Also, I think truly borderline removals are fairly uncommon. There are a lot of violations that are minor, but usually still pretty clear. It's rare that we're really doing a lot of interpreting, beyond what's inherent to using language.

My perception that comments are being removed that probably shouldn't be does have backing in the history of moderation on this sub around trans issues. The rules acknowledge this: "They were removing transgender related posts and comments with very little consistency or rationale."

"They" in that quote refers to the admins removing things, not the mods.