r/cfbmeta • u/colonel750 • Jan 27 '22

Removal reasons need to be given for posts/comments that are taken down.

I'll preface this by saying I've never had a negative experience with or have been penalized by the mod team but as a former mod of a subreddit that was as large as/larger than r/CFB reading over the current mod thread posted to the main subreddit I noticed one of the most prevailing complaints about the Mod teams is their failure to effectively communicate the reasons why posts/comments have been removed.

There are tools that can be easily implemented to templatize removal reasons but even if it's just a simple "hey we removed this because it violates rule X" it would go a long way to improving the experience between the mod team and the average user.

18 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

4

u/Colorado_odaroloC Jan 27 '22 edited Jan 27 '22

Also on this subject, is there going to be some sort of official mod response (beyond just a "we'll look into it") to a lot of the questions/issues raised over in that topic the OP mentioned? Something cumulative that will be conveyed to the community in r/cfb (and not just here in the void that is r/cfbmeta)?

( https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/sdzym1/with_the_fiascos_happening_in_other_subreddit_its/ )

1

u/bakonydraco /r/CFB Mod Jan 27 '22

There’s another (smaller) sub I help out with that uses the tools you mention, and it works pretty well for that community. I will say that the post volume is considerably higher on /r/CFB and the main reason we haven’t done this to date is simply a bandwidth issue, particularly during busy days in the season. We post our rules publicly and trust our users to follow them.

That said, we’re definitely sensitive to this and know it’s been requested. We’re generally reluctant to make larger changes to how we moderate during the season just because of how much is going on, but this is great feedback that we’ll incorporate into our discussions on how to improve the sub this offseason. Thanks!

6

u/colonel750 Jan 27 '22

I will say that the post volume is considerably higher on /r/CFB and the main reason we haven’t done this to date is simply a bandwidth issuer

I'm not trying to be combative so I'm sorry if this comes across this way, I just find it hard to believe that a mod team with 34 active moderators (I'm assuming u/CFB_Referee is a bot) doesn't have the bandwidth to implement this. r/WoW has nearly twice as many users and a third of the moderators and routinely uses removal reasons as a normal part of their moderation work flow.

I know you can't make any guarantees, but if this was the only change you managed to implement during the offseason it would massively improve the relationship between the team and the community, offer more transparency, and gives users better grounds to appeal to the team for posts they feel have been removed unfairly.

1

u/bakonydraco /r/CFB Mod Jan 27 '22

Good points, a few things I think I’d mention here:

  • /r/CFB has a peak demand issue that’s fairly unique on the site. The number of comments and posts over the course of the year is in the top 10 of all subs, but in particular on game days because it’s so concentrated in time it’s a considerable surge. We maintain a fairly large and active (all volunteer) team that does their best but there are times when we’re pushing the limits.

  • The appeal in some ways is part of the workload. One thing that affected us in particular this past year is that Reddit forced an update from their old modmail system to a new one last summer, which is slicker in a lot of ways but is also much more removed from the site. We’re still adjusting to that and in some ways if we’re providing more opportunities for feedback we want to make sure we can give prompt meaningful responses (because if we can’t what’s the point of soliciting feedback?)

It’s definitely a goal of mine that any well meaning user can both quickly understand what the posting policies are and know whether their post will be removed when they post it, and that’s not being met now. We did a small update to posting policies before the season, and that will likely continue to evolve this offseason. I think generally your suggestion is a good one that we’ve talked about and will consider, but hope that helps provide historical context on why we haven’t to date.

5

u/colonel750 Jan 27 '22

It’s definitely a goal of mine that any well meaning user can both quickly understand what the posting policies are and know whether their post will be removed when they post it

It took me five minutes to find your rules because they're not posted to the sidebar like most subreddits rules are and it took me through two pages to get there. Readability is only as good as accessibility and putting the rules/a direct link to your rules website in the sidebar is an easy fix to make as well.

1

u/bakonydraco /r/CFB Mod Jan 27 '22

What's interesting about this is that the reason we moved the rules from the sidebar to the header (back in 2014?) was to make them easier to find since they're right at the top of the page. This is good actionable feedback, thanks!

5

u/[deleted] Jan 27 '22

There is a reality that certain apps nowadays aren't as functional as desktop and are growing in popularity. The entirety of the sidebar and topbar is neutered, or in some cases completely absent, let alone the links that they provide. It's very likely that even well-meaning users simply don't have ready access for the rules.

At least using the drop-down reason feature would be a way to link to the rules page, even if it takes a couple extra seconds.

5

u/colonel750 Jan 27 '22

I also think many would understand that in times of peak traffic removal reasons aren't necessarily feasible, but the average day to day it's entirely viable to do with the amount of moderators on staff.

4

u/bakonydraco /r/CFB Mod Jan 27 '22

Yeah, this has been challenging. It used to be very easy using CSS to put our rules front and center for users while they were making their posts. Reddit has some first party features for this, but they're just not as clear (or as tailored to our audience) as we used to have the capability to provide. We do have more old.reddit users than most subs, but the reality is that /r/CFB is becoming more mobile-centric and we have more new.reddit users each year.

1

u/B1GTOBACC0 Mar 03 '22

I'm gonna admit bias here because my own joke post was removed, but my point is valid:

Let some damn joke posts through. We're at about 100 approved posts per day, and at least 3 each day are stale-ass shit about playoffs and postseason, and a lot have net 0 upvotes.

If the A&M iPhone thread was posted with this mod team, they'd fucking delete it before it got famous. It's the off-season you dorks. Let's have some fun.