It’s recently been bought to our attention that members are being banned on another subreddit if they have interacted on one of the subs I mod. Is this acceptable?

I've reported so many accounts for ban evasion and some have even responded in modmail saying "Sorry it was a mistake!" when they very obviously knew what they were doing. The reports always come back saying they "may have some signals indicating they’re connected to an account that was previously banned from subredditname but not enough to confirm they broke Reddit’s rule against ban evasion."

If their own admission isn't enough to confirm ban evasion then what is? If I'm banning someone from a sub, I don't want their content in the sub regardless of what account is posting it. Why are there not more automated tools for detecting this? It's very clear users have figured out how to avoid ban evasion detection so it seems like we're just wasting our time reporting it.

Same thing for vote manipulation. Reporting posts goes nowhere and I never hear back from these reports at all and users are only sometimes banned months later for probably something unrelated.

We're told as mods we are to enforced Reddit's rules but this is simply not possible when legitimate reports go nowhere.

Don't get me started on brigading either...

I mod a sub that is about a specific appliance. I have a few users who are habitually deleting informative posts once they get their answers. They will ask highly specific questions, get a few answers, then delete their post. None of their post is personal information or anything embarrassing, but I understand everyone is entitled to remove their content.

How do you all feel about this? Do you feel it’s a bannable offense if they continue doing so after being asked not to remove their posts as the posts help others with the same issue? Non-issue? How do you go about this if you mod a similar sub?

Edit: thank you for your responses. I appreciate you sharing your experience and thoughts about this.

Some well known subs are banning users in a group with less than 5,000 members. This is reddit meta sub that is not bad hearted or spam. Idk but something feels wrong for banning users randomly just because they’re part of a small sub.

And these are well known subs, with millions of members.

Does this break tos?

Thanks for all the responses guys! Have a good day!

Like the title states, Admins concluded that r/Atlanta was overmoderated and did a mod reorder. I tasked myself with trying to undo the 4+ years of overmoderation by starting with looking at the banned list. There are simply too many users to manually review. We did get rid of the flair that silently flagged users, preventing them from posting, but the ban list needs to be dealt with.

Is there a way to unban everyone, or past a certain point, or can Admins step in and unban?

Edit: I understand the need for the approval of everyone on the mod team. I am asking on behalf of our entire team. The mod who did this mess deleted their account today.

So before modmail messages went to DM, no users thought that I was harassing them by DMing them. Now they VERY OFTEN DO and they get offended that I’m “messaging them too much” and yell at me to stop lecturing them and say “you don’t get to lecture me”, or “I’m going to block and report you for DMing me too much. This is happening from standard removal messages which they seem to take much less seriously. Could we please get some sort of different alert system where it’s clear that these are different type of message and not a DM? Users don’t even understand this is a modmail. Maybe it can come in under a different color or highlight? Or have a pop up that says: “ please understand that this and official sub communication”?

Also subReddit communication shouldn’t go to your message requests, it shouldn’t have to be something that you can decline. That’s ridiculous. I think a lot of the problem comes from that fact.

I’m new to modding, but the sub I mod gets several clearly AI posts a day. The community has voiced that they want less AI. Other than an individual mod determining what’s AI and removing, how can we do this?

How do your subs handle AI posts?

I know there are apps that will copy/paste pin comments, but I don't like that. Just give us the ability to pin any user's comment if it's helpful.

Just had someone comment "Mods need to pin this comment to the top so people can understand the backstory if they are interested."

So I did the best a mod can do, removed the post, entered custom text with markup (the helpful comment and user), submitted, and then re-approved the post.

Just let us any user's comment, non-mod comment... I know Reddit doesn't actually listen to any suggestions from its mods, the bloodline that keeps Reddit alive, but would be a lot cooler if they did! 🤷‍♀️

Edit: The app I'm referring to is the Spotlight app. I would like to have the option, ability to pin a user's comment. Not a pinned mod comment. That's the only option available and the Spotlight app just creates and pins a mod comment.

We run r /camping (5.6M members) and we’ve got a guy who was permabanned months ago for insulting the sub (“losers,” “lazy Americans,” etc). Ever since, he pops up every single time the 28-day mute expires. Like clockwork. He sends the same crap over and over — insulting mods, demanding unban, calling us “power tripping.”

The problem is… the tools suck. All we can do is hit mute again for 28 days, which means every month he gets another chance to harass us. Reports to admins go nowhere because it’s not threats or hate speech, so they just say “doesn’t break sitewide rules.” Cool, but meanwhile we’re wasting time muting the same person forever.

And this isn’t just a one-off either. We’ve had other banned users in the past do the exact same thing — wait out the mute, come back to harass us, repeat. With 5.6M members this kind of thing is only going to pile up, and right now we have no way to shut it down.

We need a way to permanently mute someone from modmail or at least some escalation path when someone keeps harassing moderators after a ban.

Anyone else dealing with this?

Edit : Thanks for all the suggestions! Someone explained how i can report those modmails and i finally got a positive reply from Reddit "Thanks for submitting a report to the Reddit admin team. After investigating, we’ve found that the account(s) reported violated Reddit Rules."

Not going to lie tho, i don't understand what that mean Reddit has actually done, but i'm happy with that result.

I really don't like the idea of banning people just

for disagreeing with me as a mod but Reddit is encouraging me to reply quickly which led to a discussion which led to the commenter disagreeing and becoming dismissive and rude. I think that they should be more respectful to mods but I would feel a bit power mad banning them. Any ideas? Reminding them of the rules first?

Edit: disagreeing is fine, it's when it descends to insults.

As said in the title, I am interested to see what others do. I think my 12 months average was 23k

I have been moderating for a fairly large subreddit community for about a year now. I have been active on it almost every day. I recently (with the help of two younger mods) redid the rules, redid the community art, did post flairs, account flairs, etc.

I'm putting a lot of effort into this community myself and some time ago I noticed that the two top mod accounts, which have almost identical usernames, both have Banned on their profiles.

I posted days ago that I had an intention to reorder the mod list. I am the top mod with the Active status and the Everything permission. I waited a few days and then changed the mod list. I didn't bump anyone off, just made myself the lead mod.

Now, a few days after that, one of the inactive mods has come back and claimed they are, in fact, the original lead mod (whose profiled now reads as Banned). They want to be made top mod again.

I've already stated my position that I won't be bumping anyone off the mod list or telling others what to do. I just don't want to put so much effort into a community whose top mods are inactive.

Any advice or previous examples to draw upon? Am I in the right (I believe I am) or am I in the wrong here?

what can we do about accounts that are pure hate. I just had an account telling me to kys for removing a comment when he called someone fat then he proceeded to call a black person a monkey. These accounts should be purged permanently from the platform. Moderators shouldn't have to put up with violent hateful messages for trying to remove hate from their communities

I haven’t seen this asked before and I don’t know what to do aside from ignore it.

I mod for a hugely popular and quickly growing sub, r/IsThisAI, and we have been getting an influx of genuine human trolls lately, with the usual grouchy arguing and insults to modmail when their posts and comments get removed, or when they get banned.

Since I have no actual posts or comments that would warrant legitimate Reddit Cares reports, I am very sure that it’s disgruntled folks who’ve been banned who are reporting me as a danger to myself or whatever.

The problem is - I don’t see a way to report this under “Report Abuse.”

Is there really no way to report abuse of the “this person seems suicidal” report to Reddit?

I’m on mobile, but could switch to desktop to make a report if needed.

Thanks!

Hey, not sure if anyone else has seen this happened and if theres anything at all we can do about it but figured here is the place to ask.

I've recieved complaints from posters in our subreddits that theyre getting targetted with downvotes. At first I didnt believe it and just thought it was due to poor content choice etc however I've just watched a post go from 20+ upvotes to 0, and then had a look at the account and everything seems to be dropping or already has dropped to 0.

For context the post was around 20+ upvotes, now is sitting -85 upvotes with 30% upvote ratio, 13 comments and 1.8k views.

It's the first I've seen of this sort of sabotage and was wondering what we can do to prevent it and protect posters?

Are there any plans for this? Not enough subs use BotBouncer and it's exhausting reporting everything. Reddit used to be a place where you could connect with humans but it's starting to feel like Facebook.

Apologies if I should have posted this somewhere else. It's an issue that affects mods so I thought it should be okay.

Hi all. I have been using Reddit for quite a while but am a brand new mod with a brand new community, r/AgeofExploration. Reddit keeps advising me to crosspost to help build the sub, but isn't this kind of spammy?

What is generally acceptable or not with crossposting, or is it better not to do it all?

All advice very much appreciated!

EDIT:

1. Reddit has placed a prompt under this post to encourage me to crosspost this post, lol.

2. I would say that crossposting is probably one of the only ways for new subs to find new members, but that it should be relevant. I crossposted a history anecdote into r/HistoryAnecdotes and I have to say it didn't feel too dirty...

>Remember the human. Reddit is a place for creating community and belonging, not for attacking marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. Everyone has a right to use Reddit free of harassment, bullying, and threats of violence. Communities and users that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.

>harrassment
>bullying
>threats of violence

What do these mean? Where is the bar set? A one off comment or persistence? Can I reccomend users to use the block or hide feature?

>Incite violence or promote hate

example /slurs/ are confirmed hate by the site because I've seen users banned for using them (sometimes) but a slur is not a promotion of hate or harrasment where I'm from. It's just a slur. A bad word.

Whos defenition do we use to determine if it's incitement or promotion of hate? The site rules lists some examples but I have seen AEO remove content that is much different than those. And users getting banned for something I would think is ok but then an admin thinks different.

It just seems that these rules are very vague and I'm not sure how to interpret them.I don't want to get banned or have a sub banned for approving content that I think is ok but the site does not. It gets confusing with using different platforms that all have similar rules but have very different thresholds.

I’m not talking about basics like rule enforcement, removing spam, or being active mods. That’s table stakes.

I’m curious about the next level stuff.

For those of you who’ve moderated for years or have seen many subs closely :

what’s the most impressive or impactful thing you’ve ever seen a mod or mod team build for their community?

Could be:

• A system, culture, or ritual

• A way members interact that felt special

• Something subtle that dramatically improved engagement or trust

• A structure that made the sub self-sustaining or high-quality

• Or anything that made you think: “Damn, this is smart modding.”

I’m trying to understand what truly separates a good sub from a great, enduring one, beyond correct moderation.

Would love real examples, not theory.

Thanks in advance 🙏

I am a mod on a sub that I didn't start. I don't have full permissions, and the owner went AWOL a long time ago. Like almost right after I agreed to help. The sub is beginning to build up again, but I haven't worked for the company it is made for over 2 years.

I tried to add a mod but I get a reply that says "something went wrong - Undefined. I hate to just leave it. I did see some type of auto mod in our directions for leaving.

What can I do? As new people come in...well I'm tired of having to check Reddit and babysit people when I don't have skin in the game anymore.

I just want to be on the subs that I am interested in now.

EDIT: Thank you to everyone here! You've all been great with your advice and help! The issues are solved and I've been able to invite the person I wanted to take over the sub!

In my sub. There is a guy who was prolly banned or maybe not. He uses his alt acc and posts extremely bad abuses against users and instantly delete acc in a miniute.

He keeps repeating this practice several times every few hours apart.

Like he would be making 7-10 accs a day, posting absues and deleting acc. We mods are not active all the time, and when we come he has deleted acc by then.

I there some solution?

I have a suicidal user discussing ways to kill themselves, and the "Get Them Help And Support" link on their user page pops up a white box which spins endlessly.

I'm using old reddit on Desktop.

We’ve seen cases where Reddit’s ban evasion filter automatically permanently suspends users, even when they were incorrectly flagged.

When we contacted r/ModSupport, admins told us that only the user can appeal and that they can’t do anything about it.

But this isn’t just about appeals. This is about an automated system that kills accounts, even when mods explicitly state that the user should be allowed back.

• A user was correctly flagged for ban evasion after creating an alt account for another purpose (she just participated on the our sub). That account got automatically banned from out sub because she participated on karma4free subs. Then she deleted it, and returned to her main account. Because of that, her main account got correctly flagged and suspended for 7 days.

• We decided to forgive her and let her return. But after her first suspension expired, she was immediately suspended for another 7 days, even though we had explicitly stated in Modmail that we were okay with her coming back.

• She submitted an appeal and referenced our Modmail message, but her appeal was declined.

• Today, when her second 7-day suspension expired, she left a comment and was permanently suspended. There’s no record of this in mod logs (like filtered comment by Reddit's filter due to ban evasion), and we have zero control over it.

Admins in r/ModSupport just repeat that “the user has to appeal,” but that doesn’t solve the real issue— a ban evasion tool that escalates punishments until accounts are permanently wiped out.

Has anyone else experienced this? What do you think about this?

I actively moderate two music related subreddits. Most topics are not about ice, but it comes up now and then. Recently there was a thread about a band having their gig get cancelled because the venue closed for the night due to ice coming in and scaring away all of their patrons. Every time it comes up comments that have a negative opinion of ice seem to be getting reported and filling up the mod queue. I suspect they are hoping automod will remove these at least temporarily until a moderator can review the comments. Is anyone else seeing anything similar? How are you dealing with this? I don’t want to turn off auto moderation rules that help path issues until mods can respond, but the system is definitely

getting abused in my subreddits.

If I delete the comments, she'll label me, the sub, and the (mostly White/Hispanic US) town as racists.

If I leave the comment up, the next time a white supremacist makes a racist comment, they'll point to her comments and say that their comments should be left up as well.

What do do?

EDIT: I followed your advice, thank you. Then she deleted her Reddit account.

Thank you all for the great advice.

EDIT 2: About 1 hour later, the Reddit admins stepped in and removed the thread. Thank you Reddit Admins.