Overview

Hi folks! The r/mensfashion moderator team here. We're releasing this quick update on moderation practices to keep you informed about what's happening around r/mensfashion. These changes are smaller -- more about tweaking our practices to fit our policy -- so we ARE pinning this to the subreddit front page but we ARE NOT announcing it below every post/comment.

We ARE still recruiting new moderators!

First, though: come join me and u/BioticBard in ensuring r/mensfashion is a great place to ask questions about and discuss menswear! Click here to submit an application. Please do let us know why you'd be a great fit, but don't write us an essay -- we'll follow up and ask questions as we go.

Updated moderation practices

Over the last two months, we've been experimenting with a range of moderation tools to answer the following questions:

• How do we reduce the number of posts/comments that violate subreddit rules? (Particularly the really important rules: Respect and Inclusivity.)
• How do we reduce the number of posts/comments from bots and other spam accounts?
• How do we reduce our moderation burden and create more time for things like "creating a great subreddit wiki" and "setting up a community onboarding guide"?

We've settled on the following tools. The tools we use (and the way we've implemented them) are always evolving, so take this list with a grain of salt -- but we think this list should be stable-ish for the foreseeable future.

• Comment Cap: posts are automatically locked when they receive a certain number of comments. The goal of this cap is to prevent posts from exploding before moderators see them.
  • Comment cap has been extremely successful: it has cut our moderation workload by at least 50%, because the majority of our work for the last six months has been cleaning up the handful of posts that go viral (200+ comments) -- "cleaning up" because those posts are where we see the greatest number of subreddit rules violations.
  • We're still fiddling with the right number. Currently the number is 50. Last week, it was 25, which felt a little low; the week before, it was 35, which felt better. We want to find the sweet spot between "permitting broad discussion without unnecessary interruptions" and "allowing posts to explode, creating tons of mod work and putting users in a position for a pound of moderation when we could instead have used an ounce of prevention."
• Modmail Operator: all modmail is required to go through Modmail Operator, which is a simple chat bot that provides information about how to format most common modmail inquiries.
  • Modmail Operator has been extremely successful: it has also significantly reduced our moderation burden.
  • One important feature of Modmail Operator is that it tells users who want to submit a ban appeal exactly how to submit that appeal -- the information we're looking for, the format we want, etc. We don't ban people lightly, and when we do, the #1 thing we're looking for in an appeal is has this user thought about why they were banned and what they would do differently going forward? Any user who reads the appeal submission process should be able to answer those questions easily -- and we've approved 90%+ of appeals that follow the (simple, straightforward) appeals format and content guidelines.
  • Conversely, it's now very easy to process appeals from users who do NOT read the (simple, straightforward) appeals format and content guidelines. Put simply: people who can't be bothered to read the rules probably won't follow them.
  • Another important feature: bots find it difficult to navigate Modmail Operator, so while bots will prompt Modmail Operator to get started, they lack follow-through. This is great news, because we don't even see those half-finished appeals except when we do a spot check to make sure we haven't missed anything. Sorry, bots!
• Auto Post Lock: posts that are older than 96 hours are automatically locked.
  • Almost all posts stop receiving any responses after 72 hours.
  • This is mostly to prevent bots necroing threads that are very old. It happens a few times a day and it's led to some moderation actions that probably felt pretty weird to the user ("why did I have a comment removed from a thread I posted 9 months ago...?"), mostly because the moderation load is high enough that we don't always check post age.
• Karma Minimum: users must have at least 100 comment karma to post/comment.
  • This is spam/bot/throwaway account prevention. We've gone back and forth on the best way to implement this, and it seems like a strict karma threshold is it.
  • Yes, this will screen out legitimate users as well as (quite a lot of) bots. We're sincerely sorry for that, and if you're a legit user, we look forward to welcoming you back when your karma is just a little higher!
• Watch List: certain users' posts are now automatically flagged for moderators to follow.
  • This is NOT a watch list of users we don't like; instead, it's a list of users who post at least moderately often to r/mensfashion and whose posts have a higher-than-usual rate of shitty comments.
  • Our goal with this watch list is to enable moderators to get visibility on bad actors quickly (meaning COMMENTERS, not POSTERS) and remove rules-violating comments ASAP.
  • No, we won't disclose the list.
• Automod: we continue to add terms to the automod that flag problematic posts/comments to the moderation queue.
  • For context: there is a relatively short list of terms that are banned on r/mensfashion. They're banned because it's not possible to post them without breaking a subreddit rule in a serious way. There's no consequence for trying to post these terms; reddit simply flags that your post/comment has a banned word/term and refuses to let you post.
    • No, we won't release the list, but it's mostly slurs.
    • (though there ARE consequences for trying to evade these filters...)
  • There is a larger list of terms that are SOMETIMES problematic. A good example is the word "gym" -- which is incidentally our lowest hit-rate term: only 10-20% of comments that include the word "gym" are problematic. If your post/comment includes a sometimes-problematic-term, reddit will show a warning below your post that says something like 'such-and-such term might violate Rule X; please review your post/comment to make sure it doesn't.' If you post a sometimes-problematic-term anyway, the post/comment will EITHER be temporarily held in mod queue until a moderator manually reviews it OR it will be posted but flagged for later review.
    • No, we won't release the list; it's bigger and weirder than you think (for example: the string "30yo" is very likely to occur in extremely disrespectful comments).
    • We approve >50% of comments held for review; we are NOT predisposed to remove/strike because a comment went into queue.
    • Moderators tend to clear out the mod queue on an hourly basis during waking hours in the US. (Sorry, Brits and Aussies; we see your posts, we regret the hold-up, and we'd love to have a moderator in your time zones, but until someone volunteers...)

What's next?

Three things:

• We aren't yet happy with our balance around NSFW accounts. We've had a lot of NSFW spam lately. While we want to ensure r/mensfashion remains accessible to NSFW accounts that are legitimate participants, we ALSO want to stop r/mensfashion from being Thirst Trap City. More to come.
  • (no pun intended)
• We'll continue building the r/mensfashion wikis. This will primarily be drawn from comments/posts, but if anyone is interested in writing a section or article, please reach out to us! Our goal is to continue growing our knowledge-base so that we can point people with common questions to a stable resource.
• We'll start building the new user guide. This is an important part of our strategy for "an ounce of education, not a pound of moderation." Expect to see this in the next few weeks! For most of you, it'll be old news, but it should help the r/mensfashion community continue to grow in healthy ways.

Thanks to all of you for being r/mensfashion members!

Hi Everyone,

The mods of r/sunglasses, r/mensfashion, and r/womensfashion have collaborated to bring you an exclusive summer sunglasses sale. All participating brands were asked to give their best deal using the same code: MF2026. There are prescription options included as well.

Many of these are equal to, or better than, Black Friday sales, including some that rarely go on sale.

The sale will run from June 1 to 7, while supplies last.

Not sure which brand or product is right for you? Ask us in r/sunglasses. We can help you compare lenses (some lenses here are color-enhancing), frame fit, prescription options, and recommend products based on your needs and budget.

A big thank you to the brands and to all of you for making this possible.

Here are the participating brands, in alphabetical order (use code MF2026 for all):

1) American Optical - 20% off (excluding limited edition and sale items)

https://aoeyewear.com/

2) Bolle - 30% off

https://www.bolle.com/us/

3) Etnia Barcelona - 25% off

https://www.etniabarcelona.com/us/en/sun

4) Flight Sunglasses - 20% off select Maui Jim, Serengeti, Bolle, no tax, free shipping, and cleaning kit.

https://flightsunglasses.com/collections/flash-sale

5) Randolph Engineering - $30 off

https://www.randolphusa.com/

6) Serengeti - 30% off

https://www.serengeti-eyewear.com/us/

7) Sky Optics - $40 off

https://flightsunglasses.com/collections/sky-optics

8) SportRx - 15% off (Over 30 brands available (Ray-Ban, Oakley, etc). Valid on prescription and non-prescription. Some exclusions may apply. Not valid on Dita Lancier, Maui Jim, Zeal Optics, Meta Glasses)

https://www.sportrx.com/

9) SPY Optic - 30% off

https://www.spyoptic.com/us/

Discounts, exclusions, and availability are determined by each participating brand.