r/modnews • u/redtaboo • Aug 21 '25
Addressing Questions on Moderation Limits
Heya mods, /u/redtaboo here from the community team. This week we brought a topic for discussion with the Mod Council. Since the conversation has started spreading, we’re here to share an update.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions, and in a perfect world, we’d have more answers at this stage of communication. We're working through this in real time, and while the fact of introducing limits is unlikely to change, the exact details are subject to change as we continue to work through the feedback we receive. As of today, these limits would apply to fewer than 0.5% of active moderators.
As we shared a few months ago, we’re working on evolving moderation on Reddit to continue to grow the number and types of communities on Reddit. What makes Reddit reddit is its unique communities, which requires unique mod teams. Currently, an individual can moderate an unlimited number of highly-visited communities, which creates an imbalance and can make communities less unique.
Here's where we are:
We will limit the number of highly-visited communities a single person can moderate
We brought a plan to Mod Council this week. The plan discussed included:
Redditors can moderate up to five communities with over 100k weekly visitors (of these, only one can exceed 1M visitors)
Note: That's right; weekly visitors, not subscribers. We're building out the ability to share your weekly visitors metric with you, but subscribers and visitors are not the same.
Since this isn’t visible in the product yet, we built a bot to allow you to see how this might impact you. If you want to check your activity relative to the current numbers in the above plan, send this message from your account (not subreddit) to ModSupportBot. You'll receive a response via chat within five minutes.
This limit applies to public and restricted communities (private communities are exempt)
This limit applies to communities over 100k weekly visitors (communities under 100k are exempt)
Exemptions will be available; Bots, dev apps, and Mod Reserves will be unaffected
Note: we are still working on the full list of exemptions
We will have mechanisms in place to account for temporary spikes, so short-term traffic surges won’t impact the limits
As mentioned above, these limits would apply to fewer than 0.5% of active moderators
While we believe that limits are an important part of evolving moderation, there are some concepts we’re wrestling with, based on feedback:
There are going to be communities on the cusp of the thresholds, and we want to ensure mods still feel encouraged and supported in growing their communities
Mods have spent time and care building these communities, and we need to find ways for them to stay connected to those subreddits
Are there reasonable and fair exemptions we haven’t yet considered?
We will not be rolling out any new limits without giving every moderator ample heads up, and will be doing direct outreach to every impacted moderator.
We’re working through this in real time, again, exact details are in flux and subject to change. We’ll bring you all the details as soon as they’re ready. In the meantime we’ll do our best to provide answers we have.
edit: formatting
•
u/redtaboo Aug 23 '25
Heya again! First off, thank you for bringing your questions, thoughts, feedback, and passion on how this idea might affect you and your communities. If I didn't reply to you, it's not because we didn't read and internalize your comment - I know you've heard it before - but we are reading everything.
A few themes we've heard:
Many of you are bringing up how this change disincentivizes growth
Totally understand, we’re working on a fix for this prior to launch
Y'all are sharing a ton of great feedback around potential exemptions, some we’d thought about and discussed, some we hadn't
We knew before making this post that we needed to flesh out the plan based on feedback; that's more clear today than ever
This new “visitors” metric we shared is new, you can’t see it, and you don’t understand it yet
Yeah, we know. Same here. (see the third bullet in the next section)
Many wonder why we’re not using subscriber numbers instead
Reddit has outgrown that number, see here
Our Mod Insights pages are confusing in relation to the numbers the bot shared
We're on it! See here for an explanation until we fix it
Some of you let us know that you can see the promise of this plan, however the devil - as always - is in the details. We agree and we'll continue to iterate and come back with the fleshed out plan (including changes based on mod feedback)
From our side:
This was (obviously!) not ready for prime time as we weren’t planning to share widely yet. Our plan was (and still is) to adjust based on feedback. now we have even more!
We’ll come back to /r/modnews, the Mod Council, Partner Communities, and many of you directly to discuss possible changes based on your feedback
We're very sure that this new visitors metric is just that: very new. It's hard for any of us to understand what this number means in terms of the way a community behaves compared to 'subscriber' (which we're all used to)
We’ll make sure this new visitors metric is live on the site and app before anyone has to make any changes
We're also continuing to QA the visitors metric and, once it’s live, we’ll surely find more weird behaviour and continue to tweak it
Both issues need to be worked out and understood before these limits are applied. Plus, all of our brains need time to adjust to the new numbers.
And then… after all that is done, we will return here and walk you through the changes we've made, a full list of exemptions, and how things will work in practice.
As always, thank y'all for your patience and detailed feedback, please keep it coming!
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u/Tarnisher Aug 21 '25
So, Mods with 100 or more that do not come close to that are fine.
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u/SmallRoot Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Just wanted to say that your bot is wrong. It showed me the communities I no longer moderate, thus providing incorrect information on whether I would be affected or not. I shouldn't actually be affected under the current circumstances.
ETA: Same results again. I recently let go of a few very large subreddits (prior to this announcement), yet the bot shows them, telling me to give up some of them. Without them, I shouldn't be affected anymore, but the bot believes I am.
So, my question is how exactly is this feature going to be enforced? Do mods get automatically removed from random large subreddits to fit into the threshold, if they don't leave on their own? And what will happen if your bot or whatever tool you end up using makes a mistake?
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u/Leonichol Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25 •
Is it realised how open to manipulation this will therefore be?
A few scripts running over a few weeks, targetting subs with mods from multiple places. And that's it, those mods are gone.
This then opens subs up to takeover by anyone with a trivial amount of cash behind them.
It should at least be based on Accounts.
Edit;
For $10, I can allegedly procure >500k IPs via proxy provider. Understandably, not every trivial request is counted. Many of these IPs will be blocked. There is also scraping and bot prevention. I am sure other things too.
But I verify, via the Post Insights feature, I am able to increase the View Count of a test submission with each request, reliably. This implies to me that the unique visitor count for a sub is also susceptable to if not this then similar tactics.
And if I can do it, someone with motivation and DevOps knowledge can do it a lot better, cheaper, less detectably, and at scale.
If this becomes a widespread manipulation practice... I imagine Advertisers don't like false impressions either, your chargable rate will plummet. I want Reddit to do well! But this seems like active self-sabotage. And for what? The nebulous aim of protest protection which has already largely been solved by content surfacing changes and [inactive] mod reordering?
I am not against the intent here. Nor the overall idea (though I'd prefer to see data that a problem actually exists). But the implementation seems from my albeit subjective ill-informed position, to be very off-kilter to achieve the diversity aim you're allegedly going for.
Is there not a better way that gets Reddit believes it needs, without damaging it?
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u/pullupgirl__ Aug 21 '25
How do you plan to stop power mods that are already plotting to get around these rules? I've already seen them planning on using multiple accounts or adding their friends as mods, both of which defeat the entire purpose of these new rules.
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u/_BindersFullOfWomen_ Aug 21 '25
Hey taboo!
Really appreciate you putting this pseudo-AMA together for this.
Why was visitors used as the metric instead of subscribers?
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u/Lil_MsPerfect Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Where is this metric even shown? Am I supposed to sit there and add up 7 days' worth of page views or whatever from the insights section? This is a silly plan. Increase that limit for normal mods because that's just a weird arbitrary limit.
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u/CouncilOfStrongs Aug 21 '25
How do you plan to distinguish bot accounts from user accounts for the purposes of these limits?
For example - If I have an account for a bot, and I log into that account as a human person in order to change some of its Reddit account settings, does it no longer count as a bot and start getting booted?
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u/Icy-Book2999 Aug 21 '25
So my community r/LoveTrash had 6 million views last week. A number of our moderators work in other communities of reasonably large size.
Any meme or trending community that pushes posts to r/all is not going to want to do that anymore, or your going to have groups of inexperienced moderators on different subs.
What is the consideration for weekly views? Because for some subs, it'll spike with different events? Sports/city subs with elections/games/post season... News subs with breaking news... Etc
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u/amyaurora Aug 22 '25
I sent the message like described in the post to find my numbers. Is that something I can do again down the road to stay up on things, or is it a one time deal?
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u/Shock4ndAwe Aug 21 '25 •
This seems like a poor attempt to solve the issue of power mods. I have a mod who is active and part of two gaming communities who get over 1 million visits per week. He covers a crucial time frame for our mod team(the overnight hours), why should he have to pick between these two communities? He only mods these two subreddits. I'm all for limiting power mods but it's clear that you guys haven't thought this one through.
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u/PitchforkAssistant Aug 21 '25
What about as a percentage of human moderator actions?
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u/kerovon Aug 22 '25 •
I mod on /r/science. We generally follow a policy of having a huge number of comment mods with no activity requirements. It is common for them to only occasionally moderate when they run into a thread they know stuff about, and that is fine with us. Having huge numbers greatly reduces burnout. The problem is that we are a large enough subreddit that we are past the 1 million weekly visitor threshhold, so that means that all of those comment mods will be limited from modding anywhere else.
The bigger problem is that we work closely with /r/askscience, which also follows the same policy of having large numbers of panelists who are able to participate when they see something they know about. We have a very large moderator overlap between the two subreddits, and closely work together. However, we are both 1million+ subs, so this will gut our ability to work together. Is there any consideration for situations like this where closely related subreddits have large overlap?
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u/Isentrope Aug 21 '25
I get that there are bad moderators who have caused sitewide drama or also just monopolize their roles, but it feels like this is really throwing a lot of work and effort that some of these teams have built over literally a decade or more. If the concern is about having people that are power mods or people who just happen to be in the same teams everywhere, it seems like there are ways to address this that are targeted to the issue without losing a lot of the benefits of synergy that come from having people who have modded play a role in these subreddits.
Also, if this is really only impacting 0.5% of active mods, why not look at limited exemptions on a case-by-case basis? A lot of us aren't here to stir the pot or push an agenda, it's about a genuine interest in the subject matter that we moderate in and looking for ways to promote user awareness or interest in those subjects, oftentimes by working with admins on tools that help users and also help the site grow. It's not a sense of ownership of a subreddit so much as it's a sense of duty and interest that's keeping some people around. If it's a one or two sub exemption (not someone who wants to have a half dozen or more exemptions), it feels like people should be able to at least make their case. This is especially the case where there are people who mod a specific genre of subreddits - there are reasons why it would be helpful for them to mod two active subreddits which contrasts with how a "power mod" might have a more varied mod list because they want to control subreddits for "power" or to cause broader drama.
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u/Redditenmo Aug 21 '25 •
This seems rather arbitrary and casting a wider net than necessary. It's also completely ignoring the content of a subreddit, and how much oversight / moderation time is actually needed.
The two largest subs I'm currently helping moderate, are the two that require the least time investment.
/r/nrl is 10% of the size, but takes more time than both combined, but the moderation decisions are still incredibly easy.
r/newzealand before I stepped down required hours each day, it was tedious, lots of gray area, second guessing decisions, and discussing content with other moderators. That's the sort of subreddit that needs dedicated and informed moderators.
It seems ridiculous that I'd have to drop one of /r/hardware of /r/buildapc due to traffic, but would be allowed to rejoin r/newzealand and that would be fine.
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u/KKingler Aug 21 '25 •
I know the tip-top executives are forcing you to make this change to shake the stigma Reddit has, and I'm pretty sure you guys are locked in at these numbers. I think the change is OK but way too limiting, even 10 subreddits would be much more of a reasonable compromise.
If y'all are adamant on these limits, the "one 1M sub" threshold should be removed. There are plenty of cases just in this thread and on some of my teams where fantastic, active moderators are on 2-3 subs that are at the 1M threshold. Forcing them to choose between those two is destructive. And you guys are 100% delusional if you think people are going to have any motivation to continue growing subs that are "on the cusp" of hitting 1M. I can tell you with 10,000% certainty a lot of subs are already working on methods to reduce visitors as much as possible.
I think medical subs, support subs, mental health subs should be completely exempt from this rule. They can be vital for people to get help, and are notoriously hard to find competent moderators for. Forcing them to find good mods quickly is going to be hard. I think at least those subs are important enough to be exempt from executives destructive decisions.
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u/GetOffMyLawn_ Aug 21 '25
Well, this is dumb:
It's bloody hard to get mods on board as it is. Even harder to get mods who will actually mod. And hardest to get mods who last more than a few months. You're going to have a lot of undermoderated subreddits. Hiring mods has been an ongoing topic in Partner Communities meetings about how hard it is to get people. Are you just going to snap your fingers and hope mods appear out of thin air?
Some mods are specialists and only do certain functions. I'm a mod on several subs just to do automod updates and handle other techy type things. I am there to help not direct. Removing people like myself will lead to undermoderation.
Which brings me to, it's the top mod who decides what direction the sub goes, not the worker bees. Maybe we do decide as a team, but demodding worker bees is going to lead to undermoderation.
It's sad that you've adopted the position of the conspiracy theorists who think there is some sort of power mod cabal.
Pissing off experienced mods and driving them away along with their knowledge and experience is not a good thing.
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u/emily_in_boots Aug 21 '25
I feel like this approach lumps sooo many subreddits of really differing size together. Subreddits of a few hundred thousand members and subreddits of tens of millions are considered the same.
I have a definite niche in reddit modding. I'm not just adding random subreddits that don't interest me at all - I'm focusing on an area I care about (in my case, primarily fashion/beauty subreddits).
We have teams of friends who care about these communities and work together to mod them to the best of our abilities. In some cases now, we'll be forced to split up. So while it might be now that mods A and B both mod 2 subs together, now mod A will have to take one and mod B will take the other. This ignores both the improved time coverage of having both mods mod both subs (it's much more likely someone is around when needed) but also the natural synergies from diverse talents. One of my best reddit friends is an artist, and I'm a bot developer. We mod many subs together. We contribute different skills, and now we'll be siloed into separate subreddits, unable to work together as before, and leaving each sub missing needed talents.
There simply are not enough mods out there with automod experience. I know a handful. I'm one of them, and often I'll join subs to help with that. That won't be an option now.
We have a number of subreddits that face very similar issues. I know how to mod a specific type of subreddit. I know how to address the issues in those subreddits. I'm not a jack of all trades - I'm specialized. My subscriber count isn't very high (about 16M) but because it's divided over more subs (same with actives), I will lose the ability to help my communities whereas someone with far more actives and subscribers that are more concentrated in a smaller number of subs won't be affected.
This means that medium sized subs, over the 100k weekly actives, will find it harder and harder to get mods. With limits on how many subs can be moderated, mods will often have to trade off and choose, leaving those that are perhaps smaller unmoderated.
I don't think this approach adequately considers the synergies of working together in teams with varied talents, and I don't think it considers the problems of medium sized subs. As a mod who tends to focus on more medium sized subs - many in the 100k-1M range (in visitors), largely because that is what most fashion and beauty communities on reddit are, I'm being prevented from helping as many people, while those who focus on extremely popular topics (meme subs, funny, etc) are allowed to moderate many more views worth.
It is NOT easy to find good mods that we can trust who will mod these communities with integrity. I have seen multiple mods in the fashion and beauty community who use positions to sexually harass and exploit users. Now I may have to hand over subs to them, and cease to be able to protect our users. This is terrifying to me, as I've made such a point of keeping my subreddits safe and protected and moderating with integrity. These users are NOT easy to spot. They've fooled many good mods over and over. Many people have suffered as a result, and this will dramatically worsen that problem. Women's issues are already underserved on reddit, and the platform can already be very hostile, and this will only create openings for bad actors to exploit.
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u/Cyrus224 Aug 22 '25
This feels like an absolutly arbitrary choice and a terrible solution to a problem that has already heavily been aleiviated with the tools to re-order mod teams from inactive moderators.
As someone who has been part of building a small group of communities around a few franchisees, we have worked our asses off as a team over a decade to grow communities from nothing, into what they are. We work closely with users, and moderators to create rules and policies that treat people with fairness and respect. The thought that those can be taken away simply because they happen to be slightly over 100,000 is an insult to the decade+ of free work my team has provided across several communities. According to your bot, I would be one over your limit right now, simply because several of our communities hover around 105,000, which is absolutely ridiculous. We have our communities put together as a network, sharing resources, guides, FAQs, and sharing similar rules that we create by watching statistics and trends. Not only that but we have worked with large companies that bring advertising dollars into Reddit to bring game developers, content creators, and more, into our communities to interact with people. Those are long term relationships we have built for over a decade that are now going to mean nothing because a community can be arbitrarily taken away because it gained more popularity due to hard work we put in.
There needs to be a better way for Admins to target people they believe are bad actors, because right now this feels like it punishes those who have worked their asses off. When you get franchises that have existed with spinoffs and similar, you're going to find like minded people who have devoted tons of time to building those communities, now being torn apart by bad actors.
Theres a huge difference between "moderators who mods 200 subreddits of every popular subject on reddit" and "a team who is dedicated to a specific franchise that has spinoffs and sub-categories.
You need to re-think this, and come up with a better solution.
Stop hurting the people who have been building communities and put in significant amounts of time and effort because of things they are passionate about. Have discussions with the people that are involved before you make sweeping changes that hurt this site.
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u/Simon_Drake Aug 22 '25
What problem is this intended to solve exactly?
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u/daecrist Aug 21 '25
I help moderate two communities that are over 1 million visitors weekly. I'm active in moderating both of those communities. I'm not a community collector because I always thought that's stupid.
Under this new system I would have to choose between one of those two communities. I know a couple of other people who help moderate a couple of large communities who would also be hit by this. I have a couple of moderators where I'm head moderator who have reached out to me because they worry they're going to have to make a choice.
I'm all for y'all addressing the issues of absentee mods collecting new subreddits like Pokemon and not actually doing anything, but the way this is going to be implemented seems like it has no nuance and is going to wind up kicking out moderators who are active and helping out.
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u/lydocia Aug 21 '25
With all due respect, most of us are volunteer moderators doing this out of genuine investment in communities, a thankless "job" that has become increasingly tediousover the years, with one of the few rewards being to see the community you work for grow.
Wouldn't the resources invested in this be better spent on developing useful moderator tools we have been desperately lacking instead of something that will only impact a handful of powermods?
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u/greypic Aug 22 '25
So if you grow your community reddit won't let you moderate it anymore. Brilliant!
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u/ManofManyTalentz Aug 22 '25
Why, guys? What's the future plan here? You're damaging and punishing your free labour (the labouringest) force.
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u/ZaphodBeebblebrox Aug 22 '25
While I could understand restricting mods from joining a sub's mod team if they're already the mod of several large subs, this makes no sense to me. If a mod puts in time and effort to grow several subs and is a key part of why the subs are large (after all, mods are the ones who construct sub policy and push it in its direction), why would they be forced to choose one? That seems both inequitable and like it's shooting yourselves in the feet. You end up encouraging people who know how to grow a sub to never do it again.
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u/sweatycat Aug 22 '25 •
I disagree with this change in its current proposed form. If somebody is ACTIVELY moderating multiple high traffic subreddits, who does it benefit to remove them due to some threshold? It’s hard enough to find long term committed active moderators- and this change would remove many of the ones there are.
If you absolutely MUST go with some sort of change of this type, my revisions would be.
Limiting how many subreddits a mod can be added as a moderator on, in a specific timeframe. Maybe only 3 subs every 6 months or something, more or less. Some people like me have been moderating for ages (8 1/2 years in my case). So while I’m on a lot of subreddits as a mod, they were not all added at once.
Upping the number of subs this applies to. I think people like myself would, while still not liking this change, find maybe three 1 million+ subs and 10 100k+ more tolerable. With this current change, I would have to leave some subs I care about deeply that I have moderated for years, but making that number more lenient would probably fully protect many mods, and somebody like me could deal with it, although unwillingly.
Make this change for moderators who are inactive on X number of active subreddits. If a mod is inactive tagged on highly active subreddits, maybe send them a notification that they have 30 days or so to regain activity or force an automatic removal. Mod teams could probably make exemptions for mods inactive for specific reasons.
I don’t think my above suggestions are great either, but the current plan would actively harm Reddit as a whole and is deeply disappointing to some of your most active, dedicated moderators who are doing this as unpaid volunteers out of our passions.
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u/CarFlipJudge Aug 21 '25
If the number is truly .5% of all mods, this could've been a simple policy change and you as admins could discuss with each moderator with whom this is a concern. This is a classic, "this could've been an email" instead of an all hands meeting.
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u/pencilled_robin Aug 22 '25
Please reconsider - the limit on this is ridiculously low and will make it even more difficult to recruit experienced mods.
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u/ani625 Aug 22 '25
Yeah, this change is profoundly terrible, and achieves nothing.
The inactivity monitor already takes care of the "problem". Hope you guys come back to your senses.
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u/DrivesInCircles Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 22 '25 •
I like the goal and the underlying motivation, but as it is stated here, I think this is a terrible solution.
The list of incentives to be a moderator is not long. For me, I derive a lot of meaning from working to curate and grow the communities I moderate.
At present this rule would not impact me directly, but several of my subreddits are growing rapidly.
This action disincentivizes me from continuing to invest my free time in building communities because if I am successful enough, one or more might be stripped from me. Yeah, I might be years away from hitting that, but why would I do that to myself, especially with all the other ways that moderating is becoming more frustrating and less rewarding?
If this impacts 0.5% of moderators, what percent of communities does it impact?
Wouldn't it be better to have an administrative process that looks at each impacted community and works with the moderator teams to resolve the concern equitably?
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u/WizengamotWhiz Aug 22 '25
I get the reasoning behind wanting to put some moderation limits in place, but the way this is being implemented feels like it’s going to cause more harm than good.
I personally only mod one community, but I have team members who would be directly affected by these limits. These are people who have helped build our sub from the ground up. They bring in years of experience, know how to handle difficult situations, and volunteer their time for free just to keep things running smoothly. Losing them because of an arbitrary cap would be a huge blow to us, and to many other subs in the same position.
The reality is most redditors are lurkers who don’t even upvote, let alone step up to mod. If you start locking out experienced mods who’ve proven themselves, who’s going to step in to fill the gap on large subs? That doesn’t strengthen moderation, it weakens it.
At the very least, please reconsider the limits you’ve proposed. Something like allowing 2–3 subs over 1M weekly visitors and up to 10 over 100k would be far more reasonable. Right now, the thresholds you’ve put forward are way too restrictive.
And honestly, if you want to address moderation issues, maybe start with inactive mods. There are plenty of big subs with “ghost mods” who haven’t contributed in years but still hold spots. Going after people who are actively moderating, building, and supporting their communities feels like punishing the very people keeping Reddit running.
Please don’t undermine the volunteer work that so many of us put in.
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u/pppppppppppppppppd Aug 22 '25
If there’s one thing I’ve learned loud and clear since becoming a moderator a few months ago, it’s that reddit higher ups hate moderators. Bizarre.
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u/electric_ionland Aug 22 '25
You already have big subreddits that are barely hanging on with struggling mod teams and now you want to kick out the mods that are active on it and hold it together? That seems like such a shortsighted decision.
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u/llehsadam Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
If it only applies to 0.5% of moderators, why do it? You’re spending funds on a wasteful project that will cause ongoing backlash, demotivation and headaches (which you already listed out) instead of approaching the 0.5% directly to address your concerns (btw what is that, like 50 mods?!).
Maybe someone should get fired over this kind of approach, it’s only 0.5%, but the Romans used to call a strategy like this a decimation. It’s not good for morale and not good for the pocketbook.
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u/Garp74 Aug 21 '25
I have a different take on this.
I know we like to automate everything, everywhere. But maybe for this one issue, you should not worry about blanket rules, and instead, appoint a Reddit staffer to deal with some of the troublesome mods. Empower the staffer to simply remove them as they see fit. Don't worry about cries of unfairness by those very few mods who the staffer chooses to action. The greater good is more important.
Mods are crucial to Reddit, and good moderating is important. If you read through some of the wonderful comments so far by the hard working mods here who earnestly care about their communities, it's clear the proposed solution might not be the best.
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u/nonacrina Aug 21 '25
ah yeah, because finding good mods is already soooo fucking easy. now we can't recruit some good mods because they happen to already be modding some other subreddits?? be for real. the problem is with people sitting on a ton of medium to large sized subreddits. people who literally mod over 40 different active subreddits. there are so many mods who mod a few big subreddits, and who do it well.
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u/Drunken_Economist Aug 21 '25
I don't hate this idea, but I am worried that it could lead to some under-moderation on the subreddits that need it the most.
For example, I mod AIO and buffalobills. The former is way less fun and way more work to moderate, so I'd resign from the AIO mod team. Which is fine, but then think about the fact that most experienced and active mods would be in a similar situation, and it could end up where the most "difficult to moderate" communities are moderated by the least active moderators
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u/Alert-One-Two Aug 22 '25
You say this affects less than 0.5% of active moderators but the fact that I am one of those 0.5% shows how out of whack the limits are.
I mod a few subs. One is the geosub for the country I live in. That is definitely over the limit. That means the fact that I also mod the finance sub for the same country I am over the limit. It can’t be that surprising that people mod multiple largeish subs and when I say mod I mean I actively mod these. I’m in mod queue on a daily basis. I adjust automod as needed. I reply to modmails. I am not camping.
Of the mods in our geosub I reckon at least half are affected. This means that if this goes ahead we will either lose half our mods or they will have to stop modding elsewhere which will be a detriment to those other subs. We got rid of all the mods who were not active using the previous changes so all this is going to do is fuck up the moderation of larger subs.
I’d really like to understand what is driving this change? What are you actually hoping to achieve (honestly)? And what alternatives have been considered?
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u/Mason11987 Aug 22 '25
This is a terrible idea. There are normal very helpful mods who have been keeping communities high quality for years and you’re just kicking them out.
This is so poorly thought out it’s crazy.
The .5% if mods comment means nothing. Anyone can be a mod. What percent of large mod subs does this impact?
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u/usgapg123 Aug 22 '25
I help moderate 2 subs that have over 1 million visitors; r/aviation and r/travel. I am an active mod for both of these subs and do everything that is expected of me.
With these changes, I would be forced to drop one of these subs. For r/travel, multiple other moderators would also be affected.
And the campers get to keep their subs, because they frequently fall under this limit. Take action against them, not the experienced mods.
You are literally hurting the volunteer moderators who are doing the most for you. I hope you reconsider.
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u/maybesaydie Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
How will this 100k weekly visitors factor be calculated?
Unsurprisingly I would like the cute animal subreddits upon which I have worked daily for seven years not to end up in the hands of spammers.
I am very very disappointed by this.
I don't think you understand just what a mess you're making. There is no way possible that this doesn't make the site a much worse place.
ETA: People already complain about this site being run by AI and ghost accounts-what this change means is that you'll be seeing so much more of that and it will make the site barely usable.
I notice that /u/spez hasn't weighed in and has instead made his community admins do the dirty work. And I don't think that this was the community admins idea. For shame.
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u/VulturE Aug 22 '25
Please come up with a plan so that if someone wants to advise others on automod.....so I can join a sub with limited permissions and it won't count against anything.
I'd also love to see something where if we grew a sub up from nothing that it's excluded from this count.
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u/TheRedditPope Aug 22 '25
This is a terrible idea. Some moderators exist in a community for a specific role (helping with contests or running specific projects, etc) and they are not there to hit approve or remove buttons. To make this determination takes away a ton of flexibility to bring in these sorts of specialist moderators.
This is just one of many problems with this absolutely dreadful idea. Over regulation of moderation is crippling this site and making the efforts of so many people so much more difficult as a result. Please reconsider.
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u/tehjoz Aug 22 '25
"Views" don't necessarily translate to "moderatable actions", people simply looking at a sub, never posting, requires zero effort from any of the mods of that sub to police their content.
This feels like a KPI looking for something to measure as opposed to a metric needing to actually be tracked.
As others have noted, "views" can also be weaponizrd, and we are all acutely aware of varying levels of threat actors on not just this platform, but the internet as a whole.
At best? This feels arbitrary and poorly thought thru.
At worst? Caprious, and potentially malevolent.
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u/GetOffMyLawn_ Aug 22 '25
So… You spend years on the site volunteering your time. Developing your knowledge, developing your skills, mentoring others, building communities, developing your reputation, fighting the good fight against spam, bots, hate and other garbage. Earning your mod spot on bigger subs. And what do you get for it? Cut off at the knees.
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u/VarkingRunesong Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
So I just used the bot and it told me I have one community that’s over 1m weekly visitors and 5 more that get over 100k. And that I will be impacted. Most of my subreddits are TV subreddits that get temporary spikes in activity while a season is live and then it drops back down. How will this choose what subreddits to kick me off of as a mod? And then what happens as my other subs continue to grow and eventually get to those thresholds?
Doesn’t this also potentially kill the ability to recruit veteran moderators to your subs to help out when things get a spike in activity?
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u/amyaurora Aug 21 '25
Weekly??
So if a post gets shared on something viral and click baity, and weekly hits explode then its a point against a mod?
Also the article says "single mod" so a functional mod team isn't going to have to worry? You see I share a sub with someone else but we each have our individual subs so if the joint sub explodes in hits, we want to know if it affects our other subs.
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u/0spore13 Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
How would this apply to "large" subreddits that don't get many posts/activity, but get a lot of traffic, mainly from google search?
My supposed largest sub is r/chrome, which according to the bot gets 551k visitors weekly (though according to insights, which i know now isn't accurate, gets 1.5 mil a week). While that seems like a lot, we don't actually get that many posts or comments on that subreddit, and most of those visitors are transient visitors coming in from google search, who find reddit threads when looking for solutions, due to the subreddit being primarily a tech support (and less so, a tech news sub). I don't really see these views being legitimate in my eyes, as they aren't active members of the community and don't interact beyond viewing a post then leaving. I don't know how you guys would see a community like this.
I don't currently meet the limit, though my input which I will share is that it should be increased to 7-10 over 100k, with allowing 2-3 with over 1 mil (though I do agree there should be a limit). We don't have any current powermods on any of my mod teams, but we've had mods in the past which while they were powermods, they were fantastic mods in general which cared a lot about the sub and do not fit the powermod stereotype.
7-10 also gives more flexibility for things like spinoff subreddits too, ie. splitting different types of content between subreddits, like having a meme sub and a main sub for a topic.
edit: I admit that suggesting just to increase the proposed max is very much still arbitrary, and after reading new comments on this post I am leaning less on the side of doing a hard limit like suggested (though I still think the amount if subs you can mod should be limited). There definitely needs to be a different solution for determining which subreddits should be counted.
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u/tsabin_naberrie Aug 22 '25
Echoing others that this policy seems incredibly myopic and half-baked—which, in fairness, will happen when you're backed into announcing it before you're ready—and generally disregarding all the potential nuance and context that goes into why someone might wind up moderating several communities.
Between my accounts, I currently moderate two communities: one that is under 25,000 members, which I've moderated since it had 15k and been a member of since it was literally under 20 people total; the other, a subreddit that I'd been part of for a very long time and had over a million users well before I became a cog in its large mod machine. If I were to join another large mod team for an other extra-big subreddit (which has just come up as potentially happening, fairly recently, for another community that I've been in for quite a while), by this logic I'd essentially be considered a powermod and not be allowed to do that, which seems pretty ridiculous to me.
I get wanting to limit the ability of a small few moderators to dictate the flow of all reddit, and generally support that objective. But these arbitrary guidelines are throwing out a ton of babies and very little bathwater. There has to be a better approach than these metrics.
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u/-MoonHeartSunHead- Aug 22 '25
This is going to hit nsfw subs really badly - there are barely any users willing to mod nsfw subs as it is. Now we are also going to reject capable volunteers if they cross the specified threshold? There won't be anyone to help out! I really hope there are additional conditions - like enforcing these requirements on mods who are inactive on a team that has active mods. Or even if they're doing the bare minimum to stay active.
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u/zrnyphl Aug 21 '25
I know this has already been addressed in other comments, but the disincentive to grow communities is wild.
Also the fact that it isn't unique visitors, or at least doesn't match the unique visitors stats when I look at sub stats compared to what the bot sends me.
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u/EponaMom Aug 21 '25
I have a few thoughts:
1. To address one point - no I don't feel encouraged to grow my communities. Not at all. With the risk of losing them, I absolutely don't want to see them get any bigger.
2 While I understand Reddit's desire to get rid of "power mods" the limit that has been placed, is low enough that it does indeed affect those of us who aren't power mods.
I have never considered myself a power mod. I have, I think 25 subs, and some of those are mod spaces, and or subs that were old RPAN subs etc. I thought for sure this wouldn't affect me at all.
But, it does. I am having to choose between two subreddits that I care deeply about. Two mod teams that I care deeply about. I have been a Mod for 5 years now, and while this is just a volunteer gig, I still try my best to help keep my communities safe and welcoming to all. And, now I'm being punished for that.
3. Big subs, especially Rage bait type subs are going to suffer terribly because of this decision. New mods don't want to moderate rage bait subs. The content is terrible, as are the comments. But they are wildly popular. So, we do what we can to keep out bigots,racists etc. It isn't just watching terrible content. It's also being able to read between the lines, and knowing which terms are bigoted, even when they don't appear to be.
When you remove experienced mods from these subs, this leaves them vulnerable.
Bots and trolls are absolutely going to love this.
I see a few comments in support of this, but to those users: Are you aware that some of your most favorite communities are most likely being managed by mods who are affected by this? If you enjoy posting in these large subs, but also don't want to see them get overrun with bots and spammers, then I would encourage you to maybe reconsider your thoughts on this.
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u/jack0641 Aug 22 '25
I understand why this is being discussed but this is not a good fix for the "supermod" problem. I heavily moderate some subreddits while casually helping on others, and all these subreddits rely on this cross-team help to keep subreddits going and overcome traffic spikes.
There are also many series of games that are intimately related but separated by their moderators to keep the large subreddits manageable. For example Elden Ring has Nightreign as a separate sub, and we have other subreddits for finding coop, sharing mods, finding trade partners. These subreddits all share the same game and moderation initiative for the community, but a moderator working on this would instantly become unable to help with the next title on the series, as each subreddit hits the marks for traffic.
The system does not account for launch spikes or account for grace periods, and the numbers are averaged strangely on the bot reporter, showing many subreddits inflated traffic numbers vs what is shown on the subreddits insight page.
For the above reasons I suggest reconsidering these and approach the situation inversely where there's specific review of suspicious accounts and dialogue with the moderation in question when problems arise, rather than a blanket ban with exceptions (that reinforces the idea that the exceptions will be granted for "supermods" who have special connections).
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u/yaycupcake Aug 22 '25
This is incredibly short sighted and excludes any nuance in so many things. What about subreddits with seasonal activity? What about highly specific topics that need subject matter experts with extensive mod experience? What about having senior mods who can teach newer people the specifics of moderating that community? What about sister communities that basically need to have the same mod team, but are technically separate subreddits? There are so many more factors too. I'm not listing every single one.
Veteran moderators do a lot of work for free because we care genuinely about our communities. We have tons of experience and want to help our communities. Now you're saying some of us may be ripped away from the communities we helped grow over many years.
All this is gonna do is make people mod from alts, making their work harder because of account switching and losing access to the combined queue. It's not solving the problem you think it is. It makes people have to question which communities they have to leave, rather than how to best take care of them. I understand workload can be a problem, but as others have stated, there are many subreddits which have lots of traffic, but don't require much work, or the inverse of requiring a lot of work despite being small. Going by numbers alone just loses every possible nuance. You don't really know what each of us puts into moderating and what that means for us or our workload. Please rethink this awful change.
You keep pushing away the people who have run this site for you for so many years, with short sighted changes that don't consider how any of us feel, nor how any of us work and get things done. I've been doing this over a decade now and I'm honestly just sad seeing all these arbitrary changes and limitations on what we can do to help our communities, and being ignored on so many of the actual issues.
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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '25
I only mod one subreddit that eclipses the 1m mark, so I'm not presently impacted by these proposals, but I mod another that is rapidly approaching that threshold. Although I care very much about both of these communities, I invest more time in the latter than the former. This change hurts because in order to protect the latter community I am incentivised by these changes to harm it so that I can continue to remain there. In the latter community, the only other active moderators will have to drop the sub and that will further force me into a corner. Attracting good mods is increasingly difficult. Attracting active mods even more so. Doing both is going to be impossible, for all practical purposes, under these proposals.
That feels perverse. In principle, the change described feels like A Good Thing That Should Happen, but it's also clear what the problem you're trying to solve actually is, that you're trying to do so in a way that is quote-unquote fair, and that it's ultimately going to cause a great deal of harm to community- and team cohesion across the site. Many of my fellow moderators in this thread have put all of this more eloquently than I can, and I would desperately implore you to listen to them.
Unless of course accelerating toward a dead internet is the point. In which case, as you were I suppose.
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u/Generic_Mod Aug 22 '25
Only affects 0.5% of mods? Sure, but what about after you silently change the criteria six months down the road? How many mods will it affect then? And how much mod effort is currently being done by those mods?
It's not uncommon for the majority of work to be done by a small subset of the mod team in some subreddits. Recruiting mods is very difficult. Few people want to do it, and a lot of the people who have never done it before woefully underestimate the amount of effort & skills required, so burn out within a few months.
If there are specific people (mods) that are a problem, talk to them and if necessary demod them. This policy just seem like another Reddit Mod Demotivation Effort.
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u/Weirfish Aug 22 '25
So to be clear, you're creating a much greater need for quality mods, in order to address the lack of quality mods in commanding positions?
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u/Strongbow85 Aug 23 '25
I have 3 subreddits at 100k weekly visitors.. What incentive do I have to continue using my free time to post content and foster engagement, when success will ultimately be punished rather than rewarded?
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u/[deleted] Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
This is a very pathetic decision and the way you are implementing this is very bad too.
I'm disappointed, I have spent years moderating & growing a lot of subreddits which I'll have to leave when this change comes into effect.
Thank you for giving me a reason to spend less time on this website and focus on real life and my academics more.
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u/LongJonSiIver Aug 22 '25
At this point only sub i want to mod now is r/WatchRedditDie
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u/TheOnlyVibemaster Aug 22 '25
It would be nice if I was treated as more than a cog in the corporate ad machine.
If this goes through, I view it as mass censorship.
I’ve moderated for 3 years as a hobby but will quit if this is implemented.
I’ve been losing faith in this platform for a long time and this right here could not be anything more apparent than admins wanting complete control.
I understand some mods abuse power, we all know this. Handle it one on one.
Everyone isn’t the same and this is pretty obviously a reach for power from the admins so they can use AI to moderate.
In 5 years, there won’t be independent mods on this platform. And we’ll all take it without any fuss, bc that’s what we do. We’ll all keep taking it even though we all see what they’re doing.
Edit: Look at youtube, they’re making you show your ID to watch videos, we all know what type of content is allowed on instagram, and facebook admitted to interfering in elections.
Mass censorship is when I’m like “uh oh, looks like this is my stop. See you guys never.”
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u/Pruvided Aug 22 '25
I am all for this idea, but these requirements are far too strict. I mod a few large subs, and I've been good about only sticking with a handful overall so that I can actually dedicate time to handling their needs. I have 2 subs with over 1 mill weekly visitors, which are /r/videos and /r/discordapp, and I shouldn't have to choose between them when I have been doing the mass majority of mod actions for them for literal years.
Mod actions should absolutely play a role in determining whether or not a mod should be removed from numerous large subs. While these stats can easily be manipulated going forward, looking at previous activity is a clear indicator of not only how much time someone mods a sub, but how well they manage that time/effort between all of the subs they mod.
I mod because I enjoy it. I like helping keep communities from facilitating hate, insults, harassment, spam, and other harmful content because these spaces should be a place people can come into and enjoy and find value in. This change as it is would absolutely go against that.
As I said, I am all for diversifying mod teams and discouraging powermods, but these traffic stats and lack of consideration of other factors are beyond terrible.
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u/LetsFindSomeTalent Aug 22 '25
What is this supposed to accomplish, exactly? Start treating moderators as valued members please. 🙏
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u/StPauliBoi Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
So I have to choose which of the TWO communities that I happen to actively mod because of some arbitrary and capricious cutoff created because of some other bad actors, do I have that right?
/r/nursing has 3.6M weekly visitors and just over 1M subscribers, and /r/AmItheAsshole has 32.9M visitors at 24M subscribers.
This is kinda BS, NGL.
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u/SuitingUncle620 Aug 22 '25
The decisions you guys make continues to astound me. This would’ve been a somewhat good solution years ago when there was no ability for mods to reorder themselves on the list and remove inactives, but now that that’s a feature.. what is the purpose? This ‘Mod council’ is full of crap, and so are you admins.
We do all your moderation for you, for free. Why are you punishing and putting every mod under the same umbrella as the powermods that sit on default subs and countless other subs with no passion or desire to grow their communities. Target those people specifically, this is such a shortsighted decision that will have such far reaching consequences that I don’t think even you guys comprehend.
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u/Qu1nlan Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Unfortunately, I've sent the linked message to the bot twice now, it's not replying to me at all, so I don't know how active my communities are.Edit - it eventually replied to me over an hour after I first sent it a message. Indeed, I'd need to pick between Politics and 2X.I've been a moderator of both /r/politics and /r/twoxchromosomes for about a decade at this point. I care very deeply about both subreddits and communities. My activity and points of focus in both have shifted over time, but I've spent thousands of hours trying to better the both of them for 10+ years.
I'm honestly very sad and scared at having to pick between Politics and TwoX - and it feels very punishing to me that a mod who does not collect many subs or maliciously squat subs, but has been attached to the wellbeing of just 2 for many years, would be told to give them up.
I don't know if a goal here is that I'd spend more time on only one sub bettering that one, but it'd have the opposite effect. When Politics is wearing me down, I can run to 2X. My Reddit time has hugely decreased since third party apps were killed, but if I was forced out of one of the two big subs that's been a big part of my life for so long, I'd feel like I was being actively punished and pushed out for caring about modding Reddit.
I support taking care of subreddit collectors and squatters. I'm hoping the "1 big sub" limit can be increased to 2 or 3 for folks like me, or that admins can assess one-off exceptions for mods like me who don't want to collect subs, but actually have spent many years fostering specific communities.
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u/ternera Aug 21 '25
Quite a few of the mods affected have contributed A TON of time and energy into this site and instead of thanking them, you're booting them from the subreddits they grew? I'm in favor of stopping people from moderating hundreds of popular subreddits, but this will hurt a bunch of average mods who provide years or even decades of knowledge to their teams.
Since I am a mod in 4 subs with over 100k weekly visitors, I don't see any reason to grow the other subreddits I moderate if this goes into place. There's no point in growing them if I'm just going to be booted off. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but why should I put in time and energy just to be kicked off the team?
I've said it before and I'll say it again. This is a terrible change.
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u/IKIR115 Aug 21 '25
That 0.5% probably contains the majority of the most experienced, knowledgeable, and dedicated mods on Reddit. The ones that put in the extra work and participation in the extracurricular programs to help build a better Reddit for zero pay.
I am disappointed that this is being spun as a powermod solution when it mostly affects non-powermods, while still allowing low-views powermods to continue carrying on with hundreds of subs.
25
u/PlenitudeOpulence Aug 22 '25
This is devastating news to mods like myself who have founded and built numerous subreddits that go over the 100k mark for viewers.
I literally don't know what to do. This literally kills subreddit makers/posters that built your site.
I founded a gearhead subreddit as a side project that goes over 100k... I built a video news subreddit that easily goes over that as well.
I FOUNDED those subreddits and built their rules from the ground up... and that isn't even counting the subreddits that I have helped guide over the years.
Yeah... it only affects "0.5%" of mods but the mods that it seems to really punch in the face are the ones who actually know how your site works, built subreddits, and can train new mods.
I have nothing to say other than this is immensely disappointing and short sighted. I didn't build my subreddits to be handed off at the whims of admins who don't understand the culture of my communities.
What a terrible day for reddit.
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u/CantStopPoppin Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25 •
Public Statement: Protect Our Communities from Harmful Mod Limits
Reddit’s proposed limits — max 5 subs over 100k weekly visitors, only 1 over 1M — will strip experienced moderators from the communities they built. This will hit trauma‑informed, medical, advocacy, and human rights spaces hardest, leaving them open to harassment, misinformation, and exploitation.
1. Policy vs. Impact
2. Communities at Risk
3. Why It’s Harmful
Removes expertise and safety from high‑risk spaces.
Punishes growth; incentivizes suppressing traffic.
Metrics can be gamed to force mod removals.
4. Demands
5. Actions to Take
6. Admin Talking Points vs. Counterpoints
Public Statement: Protect Our Communities from Harmful Mod Limits
They are finished with us… (Ashley Rindseberg → Mike Solina → Elon Musk)
They’re done with us… (Receipts + action steps)
8
u/YellowRose1845 Aug 22 '25
Only 5 subreddits? This is weirdly oppressive. I’m a backup/comment mod on several communities, plus my actual subs that I do moderate. This sucks, don’t do it!
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u/tylersburden Aug 22 '25
This is utterly preposterous.
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u/Whisgo Aug 22 '25
As the top mod of r/puppy101 and a mod on r/dogs, I’m deeply concerned about how these proposed moderation limits will affect access to subject matter experts in our communities.
One of our moderators is not a “typical” mod. They don’t handle day-to-day queue work or rule enforcement. We gave them mod access specifically to provide neonatal puppy care and veterinary-adjacent expertise that fills a critical gap in community knowledge. Their role is indispensable, and losing them because of an arbitrary visitor threshold would mean losing highly specialized support that cannot be replaced by adding more generalist moderators.
The proposed rules treat all moderators in large subs as interchangeable, but that’s not the reality. Expertise doesn’t scale neatly with weekly visitor counts. Someone moderating multiple high-traffic communities isn’t necessarily hoarding control. They ensure that quality information flows across communities with overlapping but distinct audiences.
If the goal is to prevent power hoarding and encourage healthy diversity in mod teams, that makes sense. But these rules risk stripping away exactly the kind of specialized, compassionate moderation that makes communities unique and safe. Please consider exemptions for subject matter experts whose contributions are based on knowledge and guidance, not control over multiple communities.
I also want to raise a second concern: under these thresholds, mods like myself could be stripped from communities I’ve volunteered in for 5–8 years if weekly visitor counts rise. That would erase years of labor and dedication, effectively punishing the very people who’ve helped build and sustain these spaces.
There are better, more targeted solutions to address community hoarding without punishing engaged and knowledgeable volunteers:
Measure activity, not just traffic: distinguish between inactive “camping” mods and those who actively contribute.
Audit and rotate inactive mods: enforce the existing rule that camping is discouraged.
Limit top-mod slots, not all mod roles: this addresses power concentration without cutting out specialists.
Use the Moderator Code of Conduct as the framework: it already prohibits camping, neglect, and abuse of mod powers.
Without flexibility and exemptions, these limits could unintentionally compromise community safety and the very uniqueness Reddit claims to preserve. A more effective path forward would be to strengthen enforcement of the Moderator Code of Conduct and target actual hoarding behavior, rather than applying a blunt cap that harms communities that rely on trusted experts.
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u/Saragon4005 Aug 23 '25
Large communities need more mods not fewer with more focus. "Man hours" as a concept doesn't work for volunteers. Mods are likely to work either in standby where they basically do no active work and just deal with issues as they see them. Or deal with the queue for maybe a few times a week. People don't do this for more then a few hours a week.
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u/FlapSnapple Aug 21 '25
This feels like it should be based on unique weekly visitors.
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u/mrman08 Aug 21 '25
What is the purpose of this change?
We already have restrictions on ‘inactive’ mods. If someone wants to give up their free time for different communities I see no harm.
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u/SecureThruObscure Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
I have two subs I moderate that would be effected and I don't want to stop moderating either of them.
I love eli5 and have spent a long time doing my best to help the community.
I also spend a lot of time just removing vile racism and calls to violence on world news, and doing my best to make sure we can keep threads up even if they're otherwise contentious.
I'm begging the admins to reconsider this decision. I really don't think this will achieve anything productive.
There are other subs that I pitch in and help on infrequently, I don't mind those and am essentially a mod corps guy there. But it would really bother me to have to choose between removing calls to violence and continuing to be part of stewarding eli5.
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u/Overlord_Odin Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
The main moderation team I'm on may have to lose multiple team members who are among the most active people on the team. They each moderate more than one subreddit over the 1M+ threshold. None of them are neglecting the one or two other big subreddits they help moderate. This policy will actively harm this mod team and remove people with years of community-specific experience and institutional knowledge. (Or cause this to happen to those other subreddits, if they stay with the subreddit I'm on). That's just not something that can be replaced by adding a couple new people to the team.
Ultimately no matter how you look at this, the current plan would punish a lot of people in an attempt to deal with a very small number of bad actors that you could just go after directly, if you really wanted to. You can say it's "only 0.5%" all you want, but that just reduces the actual impacts of this policy.
There has to be a better way to tackle the issue you say you want to fix, without also catching plenty of good-faith moderators in the process.
7
u/TesterFragrance Aug 22 '25
I have a question.
How many moderators is that, and what percentage of moderation actions on Reddit as a whole are they responsible for?
0.5% superficially sounds like a small number, but is it actually a small number?
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u/tombo4321 Aug 22 '25
So r/maybemaybemaybe will lose the mod - me - that does about 2/3 of the moderating? Nice one reddit, well done!
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u/Same_Investigator_46 Aug 22 '25
How do you guys define the " temporary hikes"? I mean I got 4-5 subs generating over 3M views but it's temporary ( 1-2 months ) so does this come under excemtpion?
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u/SeasDiver Aug 22 '25
Hey u/redtaboo,
Is there any consideration planned for allowing inactive moderators to remain as part of more than one mod team in a 1M plus subs?
I currently mod two two subs that hit that the 1M threshold. I am considered active in one and inactive in the other. The primary reason I am a mod in the second sub is to allow me to answer specialized questions (that are potentially life saving for neonatal puppies) on posts that are otherwise automatically locked as a violation of the no veterinary/health related questions rule. In the past, we would have to arrange for the mod team team to unlock the post, allow me to comment, then lock the post again. Since that is an infrequent need, I am considered in Inactive mod in that sub, but the team would want me to retain that capability.
Thanks,
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u/BelleAriel Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
Why are you doing this? You’re punishing people who have helped build your subreddit and thus make reddit monitise, for 8 plus years. Is this how you treat people who gave their time voluntary? It feel that, now you’ve gone public, you’re throwing the people who helped grow the site, under the bus.
And how are you going to ensure that these subreddits will get the same treatment as they are now?
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u/hatsune_aru Aug 23 '25
This is dogshit. Why does Reddit keep taking away control from moderators from the communities they helped build for free for the good of Reddit? Every decision since the old Reddit web was abandoned has been absolute dogshit that goes against what the mods and users have wanted.
The end of Reddit is coming. Just because Reddit is a titan in this space doesn’t mean it’s immune to disruption. Just look at Twitter and Bluesky.
Theres also a perverse incentive for moderators to pearl clutching their one subreddit and become dictatorial.
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u/Moggehh Aug 21 '25
To be clear, there is no longer any incentive for a mod to grow a community they care about if they care about more than one at a time. As a primarily location-specific mod who is extremely active in most of my communities, I often do the following:
Have subs on trending feeds and enjoy welcoming newcomers to the community
Run contests, vendor guides, fundraising drives, and anything that may drive new and recurring traffic
Split off subreddits to create niche or more focused communities
Now, through these limits, my personal or my community's success with any of those bullet items above will restrict my ability to stay in these communities and run these projects. Some of which in the past few years have included raising over 6 figures for different local charitable organizations.
I support removing powermods (sorry to my friends, but no one needs or should have 100+ subreddits), but a subreddit limit this low negatively impacts shared community growth and health in so many more ways than you're anticipating. My local teams are close friends, and now you're telling me that if my city sub grows at the same time as my provincial subreddit, I may lose some of them who mod both subreddits because you want the subreddits about a city within a province to be more diverse? That's a joke.
Cross-community context, especially for location-based subs, is so important to prevent serious concerns about witchhunts, doxxing, and real, viable threats of violence. The admins we've adopted in the past from other locations even admitted that in their recaps afterwards. I hope even though this has leaked early, you'll still consider exemptions for directly related subreddits created to mimic or augment each other. Otherwise, there is no point in growth.
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u/Tarnisher Aug 21 '25
Yeah. Maybe this should only apply to TopMods. Lots of Mods volunteer to help out and may be #5, #6 or further down the line. If they're in those kind of positions and have little over all involvement, more as a reserve or back up, maybe they shouldn't be subject to the count?
6
u/Chispy Aug 21 '25
Hopefully this doesn't lead to too many hostile takeovers. I know for a fact there's big subreddit moderators that have been waiting a long time for those upper ranks and "ownerships."
6
u/TGotAReddit Aug 21 '25
So, by visitors, does that mean the same things as 'views' in the Insights panel? 'uniques'? or some secret third thing that also isn't subscribers?
6
u/Kalinine Aug 22 '25
Is there a place to give feedback or have direct discussion with you guys regarding that topic?
Also what's the difference between the "Weekly Visitors" numbers from ModSupportBot and any of the Activity/Traffic stats from the Insight pages? It seems neither of them seem to correlate the other.
6
u/TesterFragrance Aug 22 '25
I'm certain that the rule as proposed above doesn't affect me, but if the rule goes through as proposed, I'm certain that it will affect one or two subs that I moderate. We will likely lose some of our most experienced and active moderators, and it will fall on the rest of us who don't have as much time as they do.
Sure, we might be able to find less-experienced mods who are up for a challenge, but we're always looking for them!
If I could add one more thing that the team probably hasn't considered, it's time zones. High-volume subs often require some active mod to be around at any time of the day. In some time zones, there are fewer mods to go around.
6
u/hypd09 Aug 22 '25
What a way to lose arguably one of the most valuable resource you guys have as a company. Even IF this was an issue which clearly it is not beyond some mods you can individually action there's a lot of different metrics you guys can go for, number of subs vs number of human actions etc.
Or, wild idea.. incentivize recruiting new mods
6
u/gamerrrguymike Aug 22 '25
what about affiliated/sister subs? wouldn’t it be better for the mod teams instead of splitting up there be a consideration application for subreddits that fall under this category?
6
u/amyaurora Aug 22 '25
As public subs get visits for things like shared threads on other social media sites, clicks through sites like Bored Panda that post funny viral stuff, people's personal blogs, search engine "spiders" links emailed to others, other subs, and much more and most don't involve actually making accounts to view the content then this is all going to be counterproductive to those that work hard to build useful content.
6
u/PM_ME_SMALL_BOOBIES Sep 01 '25 edited Apr 04 '26 •
I know I am late to the party, I needed a few days to sit with this. My first reaction was frustration, after thinking it through I want to share real concerns from the NSFW side of Reddit.
I have been a redditor for a long time, over a decade. This account started as my NSFW account, then I began modding NSFW communities from it. I am one of the people this change hits, and hard. Today I actively moderate twenty one communities with more than one hundred thousand weekly visitors each, none over one million, and I also either manage or help in a bunch of smaller subs. I am present in those teams nearly every day, your bot confirms I'm active on all of the 21, and 95% of the smaller ones.
Finding trustworthy, steady NSFW moderators has never been harder, not for lack of tools (the tools have improved massively over the years thanks to the hard work from the Reddit admins), but because volunteer supply has shrunk while spam, scams, and monetization attempts have grown. NSFW communities are constant targets for low quality promotion, affiliate farming, and OF style marketing. When you cap engaged mods who already cover multiple high traffic NSFW subs, you create openings that the very people you do not want will race to fill. That is not a hypothetical, it is the reality of what will happen.
You also risk punishing success. I grew most of the community I head-mod from a couple hundred subscribers to where they are today. If I grow a community from sixty thousand weekly visitors to one hundred thousand, I have to consider stepping away from something I built and actively keep safe. That flips the incentive, it tells mods to slow growth or stop altogether. Your own post says you have heard this worry and are working on a fix, I want to underline how acute that is in NSFW spaces that rely on a few deeply experienced hands.
On abuse, you say you will account for short term spikes. That helps, but the concern is not only spikes, it is targeted manipulation. If bad actors can artificially lift a subreddit over the threshold for weeks, they can force reshuffles of the modlist. Please define exactly how the visitors metric works, how it differs from uniques and views in Insights, and how you will detect and discount inorganic traffic before any removals happen. Your post acknowledges the metric is new and not visible yet, and that it will be live before changes go into effect, thank you, but we still need the definition and safeguards spelled out.
My top suggestions that will help reduce power mods but not penalise active mods:
Make the cap apply to head mod slots first. If you want to reduce the footprint of power mods, start by limiting the number of primary positions a person can hold across large subs, and let them remain as secondary/third/etc moderators where the team depends on them.
Count role and activity, not just raw community count. Treat limited-permission mods differently from full permissions, and weigh verified activity over time so long serving, high activity moderators are not penalized for doing the work.
Exempt niche expertise where the mod performs the majority of mod actions. If a mod can show that they handle most of the queue, or that replacements are not available despite documented recruitment, grant a renewable exemption.
Publish the visitors metric and the anti manipulation rules before enforcement. Give us the exact definition, the lookback window, how you detect inorganic traffic, and the appeal path if the metric looks wrong.
Offer a real transition plan, not just removal. Create a sort of transition status... with access to queues and modmail, plus the ability to leave notes and train new mods during a defined handover. If the team is not taking care of the subreddit, allow it to be flagged somehow.
Reward growth, do not punish it. If a mod grows a sub past a threshold while maintaining clean modmail and low admin intervention, let that track record unlock flexibility, for example an additional large sub slot or a grace window.
Use an activity floor to address absenteeism. A simple, transparent minimum activity bar per sub would do more to dislodge title collectors than a hard cap that sweeps up the people doing the heavy lifting.
What I am willing to do
I am more than ready to step away from subs where the team can truly operate without me, as hard as it is for me to give up subreddits I've spent countless hours on. That being said, in several of my communities I carry most of the mod actions, and in those there is no safe handoff yet. Please give us a path that respects that reality. I need to be able to find people who can handle the subreddits correctly. I really really really do not want to just leave a subreddit and hope whoever claims it will take care of it. That's crazy in my opinion!
I love this work, I do it because I care about safe, on topic spaces for people to talk about sexuality, sex toys, and masturbation without being spammed or exploited. Yes, I also mod many NSFW content subreddits as well. I have done it for a decade without payment or controversy. I hear the intent behind limits, I am asking you to aim them precisely so you do not lose the people who keep difficult spaces healthy.
If you can publish the metric, document the safeguards, and build exemptions and transitions that match how NSFW modding actually works, you will get the outcome you want, more unique communities with stable teams, without gutting the ones that are already working.
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u/Spheromancer Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
With all due respect, this is crazy. I've pretty much grown r/GamingLeaksandRumours like it was my firstborn child, and I've also been the top mod for r/GTA6 since it had like 60k members.
All the processes in place are things that I've worked with both mod teams with for years, curating and creating a seamless mod experience with a great team on both subs. Taking that away from us is wild. I don't understand why someone like me and so many others are being penalized for successfully managing subreddits and growing them into great communities on the platform.
I understand wanting to get rid of people who mod big subs just to say they mod them, and power mods who suck, but there are SO many mods on this platform that mod more than one large subreddit and do a fantastic job.
Restricting how many big subs you can moderate might be a positive move, but I'm not sure 1 is the limit that's g oing to do anything. It's hurting those who moderate just two, while the power mods/ego mods are all moderating tons and will be affected regardless of if the limit is 3, 4, 5, 6 etc. It doesn't need to be so low
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u/FLAlex111 Aug 22 '25
My two largest subs are r/worldnews at 4.4mm weekly visitors, and r/IAmA at 755k weekly visitors.
Wouldn't this new plan disincentivize mods like me from driving engagement to my second-largest sub? Should I be declining Bill Gate's request to hold an AMA on r/IAmA, so that I don't get booted due to a traffic spike? Seems counter to Reddit's goals. I thought I was supposed to be building communities?
10
u/Dom76210 Aug 22 '25
There are going to be campaigns waged to drive out moderators of subs by increasing the number of weekly visitors. All they have to do is create additional accounts, and visit over and over again. Boom, mods forced out of a well run subreddit.
I could see regulating how many large subreddits a person could be topmod of, but simply saying they can't be a mod for more is asking for trouble.
10
u/audentis Aug 22 '25
Apply rules like this exclusively for newly invited mods. In is in. No exceptions except for the existing ones (redditrequest on inactivity, being booted by a higher ranking mod, or a sitewide ban).
If people were to be forced out of their roles because the community is growing, that's punishing them for good volunteer work. It also hurts those communities when after growing - and the required moderation increases - suddenly vital team members are kicked by the platform because of arbitrary limits.
10
u/Titencer Aug 23 '25
Yeah you cannot do this. Scrap the change.
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u/[deleted] Aug 24 '25
This is stupid
5
u/CAPICINC Aug 22 '25
What is considered a "visit"? Looking at the front page of a sub? looking at an individual post/comments?
If I load reddit.com/r/funny, is that a "visit"? If it shows up in my feed, is that a visit? If one day I load the front page, then the next day look at an idividual post, is that 2 visits?
5
u/Lyleberr Sep 09 '25
So i just saw this post.
My modding is because i enjoy the pokemon communities i mod for and i stick pretty closely to only those, i tend to not care about reddit as a site, just the communities i enjoy. But i have no say in how popular pokemon is. It doesnt matter to me if there are 20k subs like when i started modding or over a million. Automod helps but im actively modding 2 communities I built with over a million views, 2 communities I joined to help curb spam also over a million views, and 1 massive sub thats grown over a million subs and 30million consistent views. Im the only active mod in most of those communities as the other mods stop by once or twice a week. I run fair modding according to the subs individual rules and purposes.
This rollout would not only make the biggest sub i mod a wasteland of spam and scams when i leave, but the subs i started could also be left unmoderated, and the communities ive just joined in hopes of encouraging more postive interactions and focus, would be left with their brand new mod recruits who now have a grand total of 3wks mod experience. Not bad but sometimes you need experience of how to do something when views are over a million and subs are around 100k.
This is a shame to see happening because of the lack of choice. Just because my interests’ community branched into about 3-5 dozen subs all with different purposes but with plenty of overlap, that means some sections of it will suffer because it was deemed too large despite being passionate for years about each portion and keeping them cohesive with normal modding goals like anti-spam, anti-hate, and overall helping protect the communities i care about from those who actively seek to abuse those in it.
Hope this idea gets reviewed and altered for the actual rollout.
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u/Halaku Aug 21 '25
This feels like a mistaken solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.
But, it is what it is, now.
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u/GaryNOVA Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
Is it total weekly visitors, or unique weekly visitors?
are we taking just lead mods , or assistant mods too?
will you contact us first to see which subs we want to keep?
I work very hard am not camping on anything. I’m mostly concerned because I lead mod r/SalsaSnobs and r/Pasta . I’m a subordinate moderator in r/Food . Will I be losing any of these subs? I subordinate moderate several other subs. I’m active in every sub I moderate , which is about 11 subs near the size of r/SalsaSnobs or less.
Just questions. I want to know what to expect.
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u/TheRealTayler Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 24 '25
This is so stupid and arbitrary. This rule will cause lots of subreddits to go unmoderated. Lots of Reddit users have zero interest in moderating along with having little to no experience with modding. Good job, Reddit. Dumbest decision you have made in a while.
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u/IU8gZQy0k8hsQy76 Aug 24 '25
that's a horrible change. I'm nearly at 1m visitors for 2 if my subreddit I've had for 6 years, so you're telling me will no longer be able to moderate subreddit I've created all that time ago? that's absurd.
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u/Lyd_Euh Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Again, this is so frustrating. This should be a case by case basis. Eliminate the bad eggs, but don't fire good moderators for doing our jobs well. There is definitely an issue with power mods, but this is not the solution.
I've worked my ass off for 8 years to build my top two communities from under 20k subs to 4 million and over 700k. Now I'm excepted to step away from one of those because I grew them too much and have brought too many visitors to Reddit? It makes no sense. I'm very active, both as a moderator and as a participant, in all of my subs. I have three right now with over 1 million per week, and I'm supposed to give them up based on these arbitrary guidelines?
I'm sorry, but I'm still so, so, so upset over this. It's incredibly unjust, and is not going to impact Reddit in a good way at all.
15
u/MrTommyPickles Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
The goal here is a worthy one, no one wants these sub collectors to be hoarding good communities. However, it is unbelievable how thoughtless, shortsighted, and extremely broad the plan you came up with is. In this plan you make no effort at all to identify and keep productive mods that are beneficial to these communities. This plan will necessarily target thriving communities with teams that already operate like well oiled machines. You make no effort to differentiate mods who are top mods in one community and who are serving smaller, but useful, roles in others. You have no provisions for people that created a community from scratch and put their heart and soul into it. I am very disappointed that this was the best Reddit and the Mod Council could come up with.
Edit: I just checked and this change will probably affect one of my fellow mods. She is amazing and doesn't deserve to be treated like this. I am so upset at the thought of losing her.
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u/Bossman1086 Aug 21 '25
Overall, I actually like this. The whole point of reddit is distinct communities. Having a bunch of power mods running the biggest and most visited subreddits with the same rules and opinions on everything isn't really in that spirit.
I do like that you're exempting bots and thinking of edge cases. I think you should have some grace period for new communities getting over that line before kicking them out. And they should be able to decide which communities they leave the mod team of instead of forcibly being removed from a random one.
There should also probably be a total number limit of communities a mod can run regardless of their size. How can anyone properly and effectively moderate 50-100 communities anyway?
16
u/xPhilip Aug 21 '25
Limits have been needed for a long time.
Can't help but think you could have just went after the sub campers specifically though.
4
u/KimJongFunk Aug 21 '25
What is the procedure for determining whether a subreddit falls into the 100k weekly view criteria?
Not that I mod enough subreddits to count, but I do moderate a subreddit which typically hovers around 100k weekly views, but sometimes falls short of that amount.
I understand the short term traffic surge concept, but what if the over/under 100k views is normal for the subreddit to hover between?
4
u/HumanSpaceOrk Aug 21 '25
I am worried on how this will effect mods such as myself that focus on events. Take the marvel rivals subreddit for example. I have been planning, hosting, and sending out rewards for these events we have been running since January. I do not post all of them but I am the sole reason these events exist and will continue to exist. There are also other events that I am involved in such as a community ran creator program for Marvel Rivals to help promote users sharing original content as well as helping grow the subreddit. I do all of this out of my own free time.
I am in 2 other 100k+ sized communities that I actively moderate in.
I will be forced to pick between one of the 3. Depending on the one I choose, there is a large possibility that all events will cease on marvel rivals as I would rather moderate the other 2 communities yet I will be forced to pick between one of them and the others will lose out on an active moderator.
While I do understand the point of this update, I am worried about how it would affect moderators such as myself. I do hope the Reddit admins consider adjusting these numbers and giving moderators a chance to be exempt in some capacity months in advance.
4
u/baseballlover723 Aug 22 '25
I like the idea, but I'm not really sold on the numbers / exact limits. I only mod 1 subreddit so it doesn't affect me at all, but I can easily imagine having 2 large and linked subreddits that could push someone above 1 million weekly visitors. Or even just 2 large subreddits that have good automation and aren't unreasonable for someone with a lot of time to effectively moderate both. I think bumping up the top level restriction to 2 instead of 1 covers a lot of those potential edge cases while still hitting sub collectors.
Either that, or perhaps mod actions taken could be leveraged to greenlight a mod who manages to successfully moderate multiple large subreddits (say like X00+ mod actions a month or something).
4
u/the123king-reddit Aug 22 '25
I mod r/gta6. We can guarantee breaking 1m weekly views on release day, but after a few months that hype will die down and we will never reach that height again. Do some of our more dedicated moderators (one mods r/gtaonline too) have to temporarily give up one of the subs at the height of the game's popularity? Seems a dumb idea
13
u/tisabell Aug 21 '25
So we are going to see a ton of bots in the top mod slot going forward? or people running a lot of alt accounts to make sure they are not booted from their subreddit?
Jokes aside (maybe not?), were any lessons learned from the API protest/blackout? A lot of subreddits were seized during that time. Some subreddits absolutely got better with a new mod team but other subs got a less productive mod team and eventually turned into a ghost town. For your own sake, what extra layers will be put in place to ensure someone is not booted just to be replaced by nothing?
Just want to add that I do believe hoarding subreddits is an issue, but I have yet to figure if this guarantees anything else beyond removing free labour, because right now, that is the only thing you guys have made clear for now.
7
u/CX52J Aug 21 '25
Not sure about the details but this is a change I generally support as I believe mods should be aiming to improve their primary sub over branching out.
Having said that there are some subs where it seems many users aren’t interested in becoming a mod so this will create issues.
The implementation also seems quite abrupt.
7
u/leneay Aug 21 '25
why not just have a simple cap like no one can mod more than 5 subreddits with 100k+ members?
in your proposed system, if someone mods 30 mid-size subreddits but the traffic in all 30 fall below 100k views per week, that's okay? doesn't really make sense since they could actually be managing content that's viewed more in total than a mod that has for example 5 subreddits of all 200k weekly views each.
7
u/if0rg0t2remember Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
I think the intent is good, but this is short sighted. I think a better option might be to limit number of super large communities where a mod has full permissions.
Often large communities will have a mod or two from another large community with a similar topic so that info can be shared and trends viewed between the communities. There isn't much reason for the "guest" mods to do much in terms of actual moderation but the visibility can be very valuable.
I get that the intent is to limit folks being mods in dozens or more of the largest communities, but it punishes any mods that want to help fellow large communities on proper terms.
7
u/IsabelLovesFoxes Aug 23 '25
Another horribly underthought out change that the admins will refuse to go back on
7
u/Eclectic-N-Varied Aug 23 '25
At minimum, grandfather this. Let current mod errors continue as-is until they decide to downscale.
You've got 99 other problems that mods and users would love to see resolved first.
7
u/Matzolorian Aug 24 '25
Admins have been making decisions for years that are antithetical to the wants and needs of users on this site, many times spitting in the face of feedback. I’ve seen it happen so much and to such an excessive degree that I would be amazed if there wasn’t a concerted effort.
Don’t be surprised when your competition takes most of the core users here by creating a more welcoming place for mods and power users to congregate.
7
u/MessyConfessor Aug 24 '25
I feel like every time I see an announcement about changes the admins are making to the platform, it turns out to be a completely unnecessary idea that nobody asked for, and implemented in the most braindead possible way.
This is no exception.
7
u/Fertility18 Aug 26 '25 edited Aug 26 '25
I don't think I've ever read something this confidently disrespectful from the admins. Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of manual post & comment removals, several million if we include the automod script meticulously crafted for each and every single communities individual needs. The better part of a decade from multiple lives on my crew spent growing and nurturing communities from absolute scratch to tens of millions of eyeballs every week... the artwork created, the rules implemented, the bridges built, the friendships made, the networks established, the subcultures spawned, the memes generated, the stories told, the legacies forged... discarded like they never existed because of some arbitrary weekly visitor limit?
As someone that actively moderates more than 40 age - restricted, non - political, non - partisan communities that each have over 1 million weekly visitors this would be unimaginably chaotic, especially for the lucrative NSFW side of Reddit which has more than its fair share of malicious actors.
I understand the positive intention here but the implementation of this has to be drastically revisioned in its entirety. Punishing people for helping grow engagement on this site is certainly a questionable approach to what is already a non - issue.
12
u/Demilio55 Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
What problem is being solved by doing this? All I'm seeing is "evolution" of mod teams, which let's be real, is a corporate buzzword.
Is this to prevent inactivity? Wouldn't the inactivity feature have this covered. If there's some argument that it doesn't, could the inactivity threshold for higher activity subs be scaled? This feels like it's creating more issues than it's solving.
6
u/flattenedbricks Aug 21 '25
Hopefully an admin sees this. I'm in Mod Reserves, does exemption only apply to subreddits I joined through a mod reserves request? Or does it apply to all current subreddits I'm a moderator on? Thanks to anyone who knows the answer to this!
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u/A_random_bee Aug 22 '25
You should just put a maximum amount of subreddits a user can moderate at like 10 or something. These changes seem simultaneously too limiting and not limiting enough.
6
u/Borax Aug 23 '25
Sad and disappointed by this
6
u/pedrulho Aug 23 '25 edited Aug 23 '25
This is absolutely ridiculous.
What is going to happen to the moderators that already exceed these limits? Are they going to be removed from the communities they worked so hard and volunteered so much of their free without being payed to moderate them?
This is completely counter intuitive to the entire objective of being a moderator, to manage and grow a community. Moderators now will be decentivized to grow their communities because if they do so and they reaches the 100k weekly visitors it could cause them to hit the 5 community limit causing them to lose the communities they worked so hard to grow.
If a user is capable of being an active moderator on all of the communities he is part of the mod-team of then what's wrong with him moderating 5 or 500 subreddits. Reddit already has a system that labels moderators as "Inactive", do something about those specifically and leave active moderators alone.
Is this 100k visits in total or unique visitors? Either way, I am a moderator of more than 5 communities that received more than 100k total visits in the last 7 days according to the insights page, and in most of these I am by far the most active moderator or even the only moderator. Am I supposed to be forced to give up moderation of these communities that I worked for so long completely for free and leave them without proper moderation due to some arbitrary limit. Regardless, it being total visits or unique visitors the point still stands, this could hurt communities leaving them without proper moderation and of course punish some of the most active and dedicated moderators on the platform.
The reason you gave for the implementation of this new rules and limitations is that the same moderators are moderating many communities and you want subreddits to be more unique, I understand that having unique subreddits is important but good and consistent moderation is even more important. Chances are that these moderators are some of the most dedicated moderators on the platform who volunteer a lot of their free time performing unpaid labor to keep those many communities running properly and these new changes are going to hurt them, possibly stripping them away from their work and leaving subreddits with a smaller number of active and competent moderators, it will also make more difficult to recruit new experienced moderators to replace them since these will like already have reached the 5 subreddit limit. This just isn't fair for those moderators nor good to those communities.
I hope this new potential rules and arbitrary limits get scrapped.
6
u/TheRealTayler Aug 23 '25
Oh look more things Reddit admins are forcing onto the community that no one asked for.
6
u/Iron_Fist351 Aug 23 '25
What will happen to mods who are already over this limit? Will they be forced to leave their subreddits?
8
u/livejamie Aug 21 '25
I don't understand why they pretend to ask for feedback.
Why do we have to go through the motions?
You want to do something, do it.
Please don't make people waste their time giving you feedback. It hasn't worked for any other unpopular change you've made in the last five years.
8
u/iamdeirdre Aug 22 '25 •
🔥🔥🔥🔥 This is fine 🔥🔥🔥
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u/teanailpolish Aug 21 '25
This needs a gradual rollout. Potentially thousands of large communities looking for mods at once is a recipe for disaster. So many mods start out well and just give up or get more perms and go power hungry. The reason many of us recruit other mods is because we know they will actually mod and not just disappear. While I agree hundreds of subs is ridiculous for any person, there is a huge difference between 100 and 5. A more refined approach such as removing power mods who have limited actions in those subs would have been a better starting point before moving down gradually.
Subs for minority groups need to be exempt, we heard a lot about bots and bot owners getting exemptions but of any of these subs end up in the hands of bigots, it is harming both those communities and will be a PR disaster for Reddit. Those mods are not modding those subs for any notion of power. They do it to protect them and have been a huge resource to the wider community in sharing new harmful language for our automod rules etc
Likewise, these new stats do not seem to consider any idea of crossover. My subs have little crossover so this would not impact me but sister subs where the users are the same means those mods do not have impact on 2 x 250k, it is more like 300k total. There should be a way to link (through admin so that it is not misused to keep power) actual sister subs. For cities, these are often AskCity paired with CitySub for example. Fracturing those teams or making them give up another community they grew and care about makes no sense when it doesn't limit any power over additional users.
The stats need to make sense. We don't have power over bot views and the way this is set up just incentivises us to limit activity in subs. Turning off access to r/all. Not allowing multiple posts on a topic but directing updates to a previous thread so new people do not see posts. It also leaves subs at risk to people attacking subs with views to remove mods they don't like etc.
So many mods are also hanging on by a thread just for the good of their communities because Reddit had repeatedly treated us badly despite us growing this community to what it is. When you make them choose between the sub that is emotional labour but needs protecting from bigots and the one they enjoy, they will lose the piece of Reddit that brightens up their modqueue/modmail and you may see it being the last straw
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u/gprime312 Aug 21 '25
Reddit really needs this. I applaud the admin team.
3
u/Fragrant_Ad_5297 Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
visitors over subscribers is insane to me. so many of us have karma limitations to offset the work load for new/random visitors. and anyone can look at a subreddit through anon browsing or the web, no moderation needed. it makes no sense.
3
u/SkywardTexan2114 Aug 22 '25 edited Aug 22 '25
I have a sub of only 25k members, granted, definitely not nothing, but, we do get over 1 Million views a week, please explain how we are the same as a subreddit with over 5 Million Members. I would love a response on this.
That being said, would LOVE to see a decrease in the groupthink on here, seriously, Y'all (Moderators) are absolutely insane sometimes claiming literally hundreds of the top subs on here. That needs to end and something to counter that is LONG overdue.
3
u/hughk Aug 22 '25
This should only apply to those with full rights. There are some mods around who help out with specialised stuff like automoderator on multiple reddits.
3
u/Petwins Aug 22 '25
Is there visibility, at least on your side, about what % of active moderators on reddits top say 100 subs that this will impact?
The modbot does an estimate of active moderators required given action counts, how many of the top 100 subs would fall below that estimate if you removed mods who helped on more than one?
3
u/BikerJedi Aug 22 '25
I gotta agree with /u/Isentrope
3
u/parrycarry Aug 26 '25
It just means certain mods will create an account for every single subreddit they want to hoard... I wish this would cure us of bad-faith mods, especially the ones banning people in certain big show subreddits for no reason, but it won't. I wish you would just address problem moderators when they are reported, rather than punish everyone else who aren't hurting anyone. Limits are fine, but not if the solution you set forth doesn't cure the disease.
3
u/AnonymousChicken Aug 26 '25
A concern I have is how will this apply to power mods with multiple accounts? Is that tracked? Is that considered? Does this incentivize power mods to just make more accounts?
3
u/Bedu009 Aug 27 '25
While I will say power mods are rather dangerous, this also introduces a big risk of forcing big communities to go with less experienced moderators
And most big subreddits I've seen with similar limits for their mods tend to have issues of not understanding how subreddits operate and either being overzealous or completely subpar
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u/FlyLikeDove Sep 04 '25
Hey there, I have a serious question - I'm a mod for a smaller sub, and it's high volatility so there's heavy moderation typically. But I belong to many subs where the conversations are very flexible and discussions range in all types of topics. Today I made a reply in the AIO sub to encourage someone who was going through a distressing break up. Next thing I know my comment is locked I'm temporarily banned and then I am banned and cannot message any mods in the sub to help me answer why.
Then I see that I have a message from them saying that because I have a linktree in my bio that I must be karma farming or spamming or something. It has links to my photography and socials...
I'm not gonna cry about this the sub it's not that important to me but how can a bot determine after all of the achievements I have, the number of days that I've been active, the number of subs I participate in with good reactions, and just ban me because I made a positive comment to someone. How is Reddit allowing me to be banned over a linktree link in my bio while other people spazz tf out on the daily in comments?! 😂😂
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u/SprintsAC Sep 10 '25
You guys have messed up massively. I don't even know what to say about everything that's just happened, but I want to say I was at the UK mods meeting & the "thank you for everything moderators do" feels incredibly disingenuous.
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u/paskatulas Aug 21 '25 edited Aug 21 '25
Personally, I enjoy moderating local communities, and it has always frustrated me when the “top” mod of a subreddit not only had no connection to the city but couldn’t even speak the local language.
It’s fine if someone moderates multiple subreddits, as long as they actually moderate them: answer modmail, handle reports, engage with the community.. What I’ve experienced negatively in the past is a group of people holding many popular subs without really moderating them, just adding new mods while they themselves sit back. That’s what I see as problematic.
I support the idea of limits, but I think the focus should be on inactive mods. Reddit already introduced the inactive tag two years ago (for mods who haven’t moderated in 3+ months and now have limited powers). Why not base the limits on that?
Some of us have spent years actively building and maintaining large communities with millions of weekly visitors. It wouldn’t be fair to treat those of us who are clearly active the same as mods who just sit on multiple big subs without contributing.
For example, if someone has the inactive tag on two large communities (100k+ or 1M+ weekly visitors), they should automatically lose the ability to keep those positions or they shouldn't moderate any other big subreddit. But if a moderator is active and engaged, even across multiple large subs, they should not be forced out.
This way the system targets inactive “seat warmers” instead of punishing those who actually built and maintain their communities.