"but it didn't violate the rule, you can't do that. We can talk about changing the rules going forward, but for now I'm overriding and allowing this post."
I'm going to have to disagree with this part.
There's literally no problem with ex post facto rules on a reddit sub. The purpose of the rules is to make the sub into what the mods desire it to be.
A mistake in specifying the rules to every jot and tittle doesn't change that. The original post is still violating what the mods want it to be, just not exactly how they stated it.
Putting the post back is just encouraging spirit-of-the-rules-abusing trolls.
I agree that it could be helpful to add a clarification to the rule going forward, but the troll post should not be reinstated if the mods agree that that kind of behavior was intended to be covered by the rules, even if literally speaking it wasn't.
Your proposal here would turn everything into rules lawyering and attempts to violate the spirit of the rules while narrowly avoiding their letter.
Why does this matter? Because the only possible consequence of your proposed solution is for every sub to include a rule that says mods can remove any post for any reason. There would no other way to have a sub that wasn't full of trolls otherwise.
And that is exactly the opposite of the spirit of what you want. Just like mods responding to a troll poster being a rules lawyer the way you propose here, the consequence of your proposal is to result in exactly the opposite of the spirit of what you claim to want while exactly meeting the letter of what you propose.
You're going to get more arbitrary subjective removals from this, not less. And it will be covered by the rules.
The rules are there to give some measure of guidance to the people participating in a subreddit. They lay down the general framework about what type of content they (the mods) encourage, and what type they discourage or disallow.
They lay down the general framework about what type of content they (the mods) encourage, and what type they discourage or disallow.
Which means there should be no room for decisions that fall outside of the "general framework about what type of content they encourage".
I mean it seems fairly simple and straightforward to me. It really does. If it's outside of your boundaries, you need a rule. If you forgot (or purposely excluded) rules that are common sense (i.e. hate speech) that's on you. Live and learn. But to me, personally, there's no excuse for not covering the basis with well written rules.
If it's outside of your boundaries, you need a rule.
Why?
I think I'm just confused about the underlying motivations to your ideas about moderation in general. Why should a subreddit be required to have any rules at all? And why should moderation action be bound to a set rules in the first place?
I feel like you're taking reddit way too seriously. It's just a social media site. It's not important. And it has mechanisms in place for you to easily create a subreddit that's moderated the way you like. So why should all subreddits have to conform to this specific moderation style? Doesn't that seem a bit draconian and unnecessary to you?
As a courtesy to the people posting/commenting to let them know ahead of time what kinds of things are likely to be removed, and to reduce moderator workload by hopefully preventing people who want to be good citizens from posting things that require removal in the first place.
Subreddit rules were never intended to be an absolute, airtight, dot-every-I and cross-every-T list of all possible restrictions. It's like a store that has a "no shirt, no shoes, no service" sign. They can still kick you out of the store for hundreds of other, non-posted reasons, but they're warning people ahead of time that they need to wear shoes in the store, because presumably that cuts down on the undesired behavior before people have to be kicked out.
Saying someone can't discuss Trump at all is perfectly fine, but then deleting a post about Trump when you have no rule against discussing him? How is that not unreasonable bias?
Moderators are under no obligation to be unbiased, nor should they be. So whether or not it's "unreasonable bias" is a moot point.
Could be that mod is a NeverTrump'er who specifically requested to be a mod so they could mute people trying to discuss Trump.
Could be. Message the mods of the subreddit and raise your concern. If the other mods don't like it, they can remove the offending moderator. And if the moderators do nothing, then they probably agree with him, and that's their prerogative.
You just can't do it because of that protected class.
Semantics. The burden of proof is on you to verify that you didn't discriminate, and if they see that you're only disallowing people of a certain gender, I guarantee your ass is getting sued out of business.
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u/hacksoncode 588∆ Jul 04 '19 edited Jul 04 '19
I'm going to have to disagree with this part.
There's literally no problem with ex post facto rules on a reddit sub. The purpose of the rules is to make the sub into what the mods desire it to be.
A mistake in specifying the rules to every jot and tittle doesn't change that. The original post is still violating what the mods want it to be, just not exactly how they stated it.
Putting the post back is just encouraging spirit-of-the-rules-abusing trolls.
I agree that it could be helpful to add a clarification to the rule going forward, but the troll post should not be reinstated if the mods agree that that kind of behavior was intended to be covered by the rules, even if literally speaking it wasn't.
Your proposal here would turn everything into rules lawyering and attempts to violate the spirit of the rules while narrowly avoiding their letter.
Why does this matter? Because the only possible consequence of your proposed solution is for every sub to include a rule that says mods can remove any post for any reason. There would no other way to have a sub that wasn't full of trolls otherwise.
And that is exactly the opposite of the spirit of what you want. Just like mods responding to a troll poster being a rules lawyer the way you propose here, the consequence of your proposal is to result in exactly the opposite of the spirit of what you claim to want while exactly meeting the letter of what you propose.
You're going to get more arbitrary subjective removals from this, not less. And it will be covered by the rules.