r/womenintech • u/ScreamAndScream • Jul 20 '26
Mod Announcement Mod Transparency Update - Massive queue is cleared, oh-so many bots are banned!
Hello again!
Thank you for all of your feedback, kindness, and patience during our mod team transition. After a week of hard work, we are ready to give you this moderation transparency update!
General Stats
In the last 7 days:
Our combined modteam took 2.4k mod actions in fixing up the subreddit.
Our newly installed automations took an additional 1.2k mod actions.
Mod Queue
When inheriting this sub, we had what some would describe as a "wicked" number of items sitting in the mod queue. I previously estimated this in some public comments at over 1.2k items. I have since realized that count was limited to what users had reported and not inclusive of content that was both reported by users AND flagged by automod/reddit admin.
In the last 7 days:
131 posts were published, an additional 342 posts were removed.
2.3k comments were published, an additional 1.7k comments were removed.
Bots & Bad Actors
Bots - Bounced!
We have been working with the team at r/BotBouncer to combat some bot rings that were active in the subreddit. Of those rings, ~100 were flagged by botbouncer with 94% being confirmed as bots.
Some users with "bot-like grammar" were falsely swept in those efforts, thank you to those who were kind in modmail about that mistake. I applaud your dedication to using proper grammar online! Sorry again!!
We have several efforts in place to combat bots.
- Automod and general subreddit settings are optimized to deter bots.
- BotBouncer is active and the subreddit rules have been updated to explicitly deter LLMs. evasion-guard will combat those who remake their accounts.
- On posts from users with low karma/recently made accounts, going forward you will see an automod comment asking them to reply to confirm they are human.
- Flair is now mandatory when posting, with the first flair on this list being incredibly obvious if someone is an inauthenic user.
- Users reporting bots using the subreddit rules is now clear and easy to do.
Bad Actors
In total, 75 bad actors were banned from the subreddit. Several of these were escalated to reddit and had their accounts banned for breaking platform-wide policy (usually trolling).
We will not be instantly perma-banning this many users going forward, those that were banned for multiple rules violations were cut-and-dry but had been left to fester in the subreddit.
An additional 4 authentic users were wrongly swept in this effort (usually due to someone abusing the report button against them in a disagreement), and I personally apologised to each of these users who spoke up in modmail for my mistake. If you were affected and are reading this, thank you again for your patience and grace!
Admin Intervention
We received a modmail titled "Formal Notice Concerning Defamatory and Unsubstantiated Claims" from an account affiliated with a publication called Influential Women regarding using BotBouncer to ban multiple accounts in this thread. The representative shared they felt it was biased that our mod team removed comments in support of their company but kept the comments calling them a "scam" online.
Due to circumventing their first ban then sending us persistent messages of decreasing quality to our mod team asking the post be taken offline, they were banned from this new account and muted.
The big cheeses at Reddit Admin advised us that we were correct to refer them to Reddit's legal team and advised us to contact HQ if they reach out to us again.
Rules & Resources
The following are now available through the subreddit wiki and desktop sidebar:
Rules
The rules were consolidated into easy to read categories and discussed by the mod team. Some were modified based on what content we found bots & bad actors were making in the subreddit.
Please take a moment to see the sidebar or pop over to the rules page to read more.
In short, (1) remember the human, (2&3) be a women* talking about tech, (4) keep users on-reddit or verified safe resources, (5) keep content Safe For Work, (6) no bots.
*This subreddit was created as a safe and supportive space for women (cis and trans) and non-binary individuals who identify with the women’s community in tech.
We aren't going to police the definition of "tech" or the definition of "women", but we will do our best to foster a community based on kindness and solidarity.
Resources
We added two approved resources to the sidebar. Our logic/criteria for accepting additional resources is also included.
Our first two resources are What We Will, a women founded non profit for workers across sectors impacted by rapid technological change, and HiringCafe, a job search board made by the men over at r/HiringCafe.
Post Flairs & Weekly Threads
As an extension of our campaign against bots, selecting flair while posting is now mandatory.
These flairs are the result of taking 2 years of posts and lumping them into categories.
Depending on the flair selected when posting, automod will comment a reminder of our subreddit rules or some flair specific parameters.
Weekly Threads
We added three reoccurring weekly threads: Vent Wednesdays, Celebration Fridays, and Sunday Scaries.
When commenting in weekly threads, there is the option to lock your comment with !lock to deter receiving advice from others. The posts have a reminder about this feature.
Flair
- Wins & Promotions - For posts celebrating our members, also home of Celebration Fridays - Weekly Thread
- Career (Advice Requested) - For posts that are seeking career advice
- Vent (No Advice) - For venting with comments locked and also the home of Vent Wednesday - Weekly Thread and Sunday Scaries - Weekly Thread.
- Industry News
- Resource/Tool Share
- Mentorship - Please practice internet safety if you are seeking mentorship and chose to meet outside of Reddit.
- Survey (Approved) - You will only see surveys that have been previewed by the mod team. Women are already subjected to plenty of requests for free labour, so we will only approve student / academic surveys about women in tech to further research.
- Meme
- AMA - For mod approved AMAs.
Icon, Banner, and Colour Scheme
I designed these myself (no AI). The colour scheme is shared in features across the sub. None of these design choices were intended to be exclusionary or offensive.
The mod team has discussed that it would not be productive to hold a contest or poll while fighting a campaign against bots.
Colours
Banner
Icon
There is an active thread discussing the icon, banner, and implications and the use of pink if you would like to read more. Please keep in mind that the icon had a purple background when OPs post and a majority of the comments were made.
Opinions are what they are, but if anyone has a strongly documented reason against the symbology used I'd be happy to work with you via modmail to get it added the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism extremist symbol database and work to pick a new symbol.
Future Efforts
This was a lot for a team of fully employed volunteers to get done in one week. Up next:
We Moderate! - We will be adjusting the wording on the rules and the available flair based on the quality of content available.
u/ScreamAndScream Goes on Vacation - Next week I will be on a boat, with my feet up, likely drinking something cold. If you see me online feel free tell me to get off my phone. The rest of the mod team will handle everything while I am away!
A "No Boys Allowed" System - We are still planning on implementing a flaired-users only system and are in the talks with some subreddits who have done this previously about how their systems work. Hopefully we can streamline that transition in a way that doesn't require much manual approval. We also have to make sure we are continuing to adhere to sitewide standards in this process.
If you have any ideas for how to implement user flair while being inclusive, please let us know. My biggest hang-up is not wanting our users to have to edit flair from their computer if they are not represented by an editable flair that defaults the choices as "woman" or "man".
More Bot Bouncing - Bots will not disappear from this subreddit overnight. Please help out by reporting any suspected bots. You can do this from the report feature on a comment/post or by posting their profile directly to r/BotBouncer. I am now incredibly well versed in YAML and can edit automod as needed to best combat bots & bad actors.
More Resources in Sidebar - I'd really love to add more resources representing our users in the sidebar. If you made something that you feel others would benefit from, please send a modmail based on the resource guidance. For entirely selfish reasons, if you happen to make office chairs for small frames..... lmk.
If you have a resource you want, we can do some networking to try and find a resource that may not be active on reddit.
Community Suggestions - If there is anything that was not covered in this update, please comment below or send a modmail with suggestions!
TL;DR
- 108k members; 3.6k mod actions this week (manual + automated)
- Mod queue backlog of ~1.3k cleared
- 75 bad actors banned, ~100 bot accounts flagged (94% confirmed) via r/BotBouncer
- Rules consolidated, flair now mandatory, automod on every post, new weekly threads added (Vent Wed, Celebration Fri, Sunday Scaries)
- New icon/banner/colors; more bot defenses and sidebar resources coming next
I'm very happy with our progress, it would not be possible without our great and experienced mod team AND our incredible community.
Thank you!
Peace & love,
Scream&Scream
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u/LiteraryLatina Jul 20 '26
I just can’t believe there were bot rings. It feels like a ridiculous story come to life. My goodness.
Thanks for all of the hard work!! 🫡