Under new rules rolling out over the coming months, a small number of users will be required to leave some of their moderator posts so that they aren't moderating more than five subreddits with 100,000 monthly visitors.
Reddit said the change only affects "0.1 percent of our active mods" and will help enable "diverse perspectives and experiences." But mods whom Ars Technica spoke with have different views.
New limits on how many subreddits users can moderate
A recent post on the /r/modnews subreddit announced plans for new restrictions on how many subreddits users can moderate. Those who currently don't meet those restrictions will be asked to leave their post(s) or seek an exemption(s). Reddit hasn't finalized the requirements for exemptions but says it's working on them with moderators.
A Reddit admin known as Go_JasonWaterfalls on the platform (Reddit doesn't disclose employees' usernames for privacy reasons) explained Reddit's rationale:
What makes Reddit reddit is its unique communities, and keeping our communities unique requires unique mod teams. A system where a single person can moderate an unlimited number of communities (including the very largest), isn't that, nor is it sustainable. We need a strong, distributed foundation that allows for diverse perspectives and experiences.
Further, subreddits will stop displaying subscriber counts and instead show their "unique number of unique visitors over the last seven days, based on a rolling 28-day average," Reddit's rep said. Notably, old.reddit.com will not get these new stats but will still lose subscriber counts.
Reddit screenshot
Subreddits will also display "contributions per week," which is the "number of posts and comments made in the community in the past seven days," per a Reddit support page. Credit: Go_JasonWaterfalls/Reddit
Reddit shared a schedule for the changes that start on December 1, when users currently moderating five or more subreddits averaging 100,000 visitors or more every 28 days won't be able to accept new mod invites for subreddits also hitting that threshold.
By March 31, Reddit expects mods to comply with the new rules. Per the announcement:
Mods who remain over the limit will be transitioned out of moderator roles, starting with communities where they are least active, until they are under the limit.
Reddit said affected mods can seek an exemption; step down and seek Reddit's "Alumni status," which doesn't include any mod abilities; or become an advisor for the subreddit, which is "a new, read-only moderator set of permissions for communities where you'd like to continue to advise or otherwise support the active mod team," Go_JasonWaterfalls said.
Again, Reddit claims that only a small percentage of active mods will be affected. We don't know how many mods Reddit has, but in December 2023, it said that it "had an average of over 60,000 daily active moderators" that month, which, at the time, would mean that 0.1 percent of all mods equals 600 people.
Mods respond to new restrictions
Most mods that I've spoken with about the new rules were concerned that Reddit would lose valuable volunteers.
One Redditor, who will have to stop moderating numerous subreddits and requested anonymity over concerns about blowback, told Ars Technica:
This change means that many subreddits will become isolated and will no longer have expert moderators who know how the site works [and] who know how to moderate efficiently and skillfully, and many subreddits will have to do without minority representation.
Reddit mods spend hours working on their communities, and some claim rare expertise, intimate and personal connections with the subreddit's subject matter, and long histories with the subreddits they moderate. This all makes finding replacements difficult.
Further complicating matters is Reddit's tumultuous history with moderators, who have provided the platform with free labor since its launch. Reddit sparked outrage in 2023 when it forcibly removed protesting mods from their positions. The mods had made the subreddits they monitor private or read-only to protest Reddit's new API access fees that ended up shuttering most third-party Reddit apps. Reddit said that in keeping the subreddits locked, mods broke the Moderator Code of Conduct. Meanwhile, ousted mods worried about the growth of inaccuracies, insults, and misinformation.
Similar concerns are now resurfacing. A second mod who will be forced to leave some mod positions and who requested anonymity for privacy concerns described the changes as "bullshit" and believes they are a response to previous mod protests. They added:
[Reddit] made a mountain out of a molehill. This was a combo of punishment for the few abusive mods who moderated hundreds of subreddits and would squat on them, performing no actions but lording over the users and other mods ... and the few mods that took their [subreddits] private and held them hostage every so often when [Reddit] enacted an insanely boneheaded policy decision.
Some users are supporting the restriction, with a popular argument being that the new limits will address Reddit's "power mods" problem or the belief that some Redditors have too much power over the platform because they mod so many subreddits. Some mods at /r/Conservative, for instance, have praised the changes, citing concerns about Reddit being overly moderated, often by power mods.
Ars asked Reddit if the new limits are a response to power mods, and Reddit spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt responded:
This is not a judgment of any specific moderator or mod practices; it's a structural change. Establishing limits sitewide creates a solution for both the present and the future that is not tied to any individual mods.
Reporting changes
In addition to concerns about the new mod limits, several mods I spoke to worry that Reddit will announce that it will no longer reply to reports about user behavior or removed content. Also, moderator-removed comments will automatically disappear from user profiles. Currently, "that content continues to appear on the user profile until it's reported and additionally removed by Reddit," per Go_JasonWaterfalls. They noted that Reddit will still review all mod reports.
"[M]ost violative content is already caught by our automated and human review systems," the admin said. "And in the event we make a mistake and miss something, mods are empowered to remove it."
There's concern among mods that these changes will result in users not being actioned against when they should be, and Reddit missing things that warrant alerting authorities.
In response, Rathschmidt told Ars via email:
Keeping Reddit safe and healthy is our highest priority, and a goal we share with mods. This will not change how we action users who break Reddit Rules.
However, there remains concern about Reddit overlooking bad content.
"They are claiming that... they correctly action the vast majority of reports they get, but experience from our mod team suggests that isn't the case," a mod who requested to be referred to by their username, Gregory_K_Zhukov, for privacy, told Ars. They said that they've seen problems with Holocaust denial and "clearly aggressive and racist" use of the n-word persisting on subreddits.
The second mod, who requested anonymity, shared a similar view and perceives Reddit's recent policy changes as attempts to "eschew responsibility."
"Xenophobia, slurs, transphobia, outright death threats and hate speech, calls for violence, disinformation, and spam are let to run amok because of these policy decisions," they said.
Gregory_K_Zhukov also questioned whether Reddit automatically deletes mod-removed comments from profiles. They argued that this makes modding harder by limiting the amount of information available, including whether or not Reddit has previously punished a user for similar behavior.
The primary reason that Gregory_K_Zhukov reports content to Reddit, they said, isn't to have offensive content removed but because they think that the user in question should be banned or receive a site-level warning that could lead to banishment. They predicted that the new policy would lead to more "bad faith actors" on Reddit because "fewer reports are going to be getting actioned," and without direct response from Reddit, "fewer mods will even bother any more."
Changes ahead
Many dedicated mods are struggling to understand and accept the logic behind Reddit's new rules. Even though Reddit says it will continue reviewing mod reports and punishing users who break its rules, mods are skeptical. The company's epic spat with users over API fees may be hurting Redditors' ability to trust Reddit's decision to push any mods out.
The 2023 Reddit protests showed how seriously moderators take their positions. Forcing such dedicated volunteers out will likely impact subreddits. But it's too early to know how serious or widespread that impact will be.
Reddit and mods should both be invested in ensuring that content is safe and valuable. This is especially true for Reddit, which is a public company that is heavily reliant on advertising and licenses content to AI companies. It's reasonable to think that Reddit believes the new rules will enhance the site. And mods are bound to take offense to Reddit's announcement, especially given the company's history.
Regardless, Reddit has stayed steadfast on controversial changes, so we expect these new policies to take effect as planned.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...e-of-them-out-again-this-will-break-the-site/ (Archive)
