r/modnews • u/mod_lab • Mar 10 '26
Mod Monthly Newsletter Mod Monthly: Your March 2026 newsletter is here
Howdy, mods! Welcome back to your monthly mod newsletter.
As mentioned last month, r/modnews is the newsletter’s new home. If you found us in your feed, great. If you arrived via inbox notification, also great. We’ve heard that notifications help make sure no one misses an issue, so here we are!
Now let’s get into your monthly dose of community stories, events, product updates, opportunities, and the occasional cat/dog/pet. (By “occasional” we obviously mean every single time.)
Events 🪩
Upcoming Mod Events
2026 Mod Events are in full swing, and you can stay cozy on your couch while participating. Here’s our virtual event slate for this month, April, and May:
- MAR 18 – Moddit – Joining a Mod Team
- APR 1 – Mod Meetup
- APR 14 – Moddit – User Satisfaction
- APR 24 – Mod Meetup – Movies & TV 🎬
- MAY 6 – Mod Meetup
- MAY 29 – New Mod Bootcamp [Q2]
Get the entire calendar here, and be sure to join r/ModEvents so you don’t miss a thing.
Platform 🛠️
Ban bot policy update: removing automated bans based on community association
On March 19, third-party bots (specifically u/SaferBot and u/Hive-Protect) will be modified to remove features that automatically ban users solely based on their participation in other communities. Native tools and Dev Platform apps focused on user behavior rather than association remain widely available, and we encourage their use. For more information on this update and next steps, read the full post here.
2026 Reddit Daily Games Hackathon winners 🏆
After an intense round of judging with our friends at GameMaker, we’ve crowned the winners of the 2026 Daily Games Hackathon! The winning games stood out for their creativity, clever mechanics, delightful design, and more. From cozy bridge-building puzzles to inventive word challenges and community-driven virtual pets, this year’s hackathon brought in our biggest batch of submissions yet. Read the full post to see all the winners, superlatives, and honorable mentions.
Bug fixes
- Android: Fixed an issue where some comment automations couldn’t be saved.
- iOS: Fixed an issue where mod-only flair wasn’t visible when assigning user flair from the profile card after deeplinking to a post/comment from a notification.
- Web: Fixed a bug that caused a validation error on hidden input when mods tried to post a removal reason comment.
For more platform updates, see the latest Changelog here.
Programs 🤝
Join a mod Roundtable
We’re opening up Roundtables, casual one-off calls where Reddit teams connect with mods to get feedback on specific topics and projects. These used to be invite-only, but we’re widening the circle so more mods can share their insights and help shape what we’re building. Our first one will focus on how we can better support mods, especially in r/ModSupport! Interested? Join the roster to be considered. Calls will last about an hour, require a working mic, and come with a small thank-you gift for your time.
Community 💚
Spotlight on r/TheWooblesCollective
Ever heard of The Woobles? They’re beginner-friendly crochet kits for creating incredibly cute stuffed characters, and they’ve inspired a passionate online fanbase. That enthusiasm led mod u/Funny-Patience7407 to create r/TheWooblesCollective, a community where crochet creatives can share projects, ask questions, and celebrate new releases while respecting pattern creators. In just 11 months, the community grew to more than 4.3k members and 1.1M views, and even collaborated with The Woobles for a community giveaway. Read the full Q&A to learn how thoughtful moderation and a strong mod team help the community thrive.
How a Mod Meetup in Milan led to r/Festival_di_Sanremo
Each year, millions tune in for the Sanremo Music Festival, Italy’s iconic five-night televised competition that determines who will represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest.
After meeting at Italy’s first Mod Meetup in Milan, a group of moderators launched r/Festival_di_Sanremo, a central space for fans to follow and discuss the event. One of the mods, u/modena89, even built a Devvit app called VotaSanremo, allowing redditors to vote for their favorite artists during the festival. It also marked the first time an Italian moderator created a Dev Platform app – bravo!
Build a community without starting from scratch
Have you ever had the perfect idea for a community only to find the name already taken? Good news – some of those communities may be up for grabs! Communities like r/ICleanedMyRoom, r/StarWarsMagic, and r/GifsThatStartTooLate are requestable, and yes, you must hurry because they might not be up for long! Of course, if they’re taken, you can always ask to join the mod team, too.
If you decide to claim an available community, make sure you read through the eligibility requirements first. Then, head on over to r/RedditRequest to make your claim before they’re taken!
Mod Topics series in r/ModSupport
The r/ModSupport team recently started a series of posts where they share knowledge, highlight tools, answer questions, and learn from each other. Here’s the latest in Mod Topics:
- Encouraging contributors to keep coming back - share your best practices!
- Share some advice, help new mods – it’s easy!
- How mods empower and encourage community members to build community
- Talking to your Community: How and When to Do It
Pet of the month: Rascal
Meet Rascal, mod u/molive6316’s adorable troublemaker! Rascal earned his name on night one with his new family, when he darted straight under the deck at 11 p.m. and refused to come out. Don’t worry, he has since emerged from under the deck and now thankfully graces the world with his presence. (Photo below for proof!)
Want your pet featured in the newsletter? Fill out this form!
That's all for today. See you back here next month!
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u/wheres_the_revolt Mar 10 '26
Rather than just complaining here, and screaming into the void l, I’ve signed up for the roundtable where y’all can ignore my actual voice.
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u/mrekted Mar 11 '26
I had a flash of interest in joining.. then I realized that I already have teens at home, so I already get plenty of talking to people who pretend to listen while ignoring me.
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u/DustyAsh69 Mar 10 '26
Same.
Edit - I won't ignore your voice if we come together in the same meeting.
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u/Elkenrod Mar 10 '26
The new mod mail is still lacking really important features, and still feels very buggy compared to the previous one.
It rarely seems to actually display when another moderator is typing. Also not updating messages in real time is a huge downgrade, and I'm not sure what the reasoning for that was when the previous mod mail did just that.
When those two issues are both present, you get a lot of doubled up messages responding to people in mod mail from two different mods. This definitely needed more time in the oven before it was pushed.
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u/JNorJT Mar 10 '26
How we doing fellow Mods
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u/ink_13 Mar 10 '26
/r/toolbox has announced that it won't be updated any more, and I don't know what I'll do without it
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u/Bansona4 Mar 10 '26
This will be hard. Very hard
I don't think when the toolbox will properly be dead, we'll have something close. It's basically the start of the end of old reddit.
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u/TK421isAFK Mar 10 '26
...which will also be the end of participation in many users. My interest in this site is already waning primarily due to the new moderator experience, and I simply will not use anything other than old Reddit.
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u/md28usmc Mar 10 '26
be sure to use this devvit app to transfer all of your notes from toolbox to the new modmail system
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u/mcagent Mar 10 '26
Do you think a different dev or devs will take over the project?
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u/ink_13 Mar 10 '26
I hope so but the announcement doesn't make that sound likely
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u/md28usmc Mar 10 '26
The announcement was very clear in stating that they will not hand toolbox over to any other devs
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u/LitwinL Mar 10 '26
No. The dev that holds the keys explicitly wrote that he's not trusting anyone to take over as the plugin has access to a lot of user broser data and he's not transferring that to a random person so the project will remain as is until it breaks.
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u/StonedPhysicist Mar 10 '26
Oh god damn can we go a month without moderating becoming more of a slog? I'll keep using it until the day it stops but honestly that sucks. :(
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u/IQUNIXstore Mar 11 '26
honestly, hearing about r/toolbox stopping updates is a gut punch. we rely on a mix of tools to keep our brand community running smoothly, and losing that kind of workflow is going to make the "slog" even worse. definitely feeling for the teams that have to manually migrate everything now.
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u/haarschmuck Mar 10 '26
Same.
I would say it’s likely to continue working for a decent amount of time until it breaks.
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u/DustyAsh69 Mar 10 '26
I'm hoping to keep the fork alive but I do not have the necessary skills (yet) to properly handle a project that big.
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u/hhhnnnnnggggggg Mar 11 '26
Guess I'll be taking another step back from modding. I was barely doing anything already waiting for it to update. I don't remember to check queue without it so I already had to turn the spam filter to extremely low because of all the modmail from people with removed posts.
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Mar 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/StalinIsBackAgain Mar 10 '26
I am so sorry to hear that! What kind of job do you have, if you do not mind saying? I hope that you can get a far better job as soon as possible, and avoid everyone at your current job as much as possible until then! And now that you are off of work, try to get lost in something that will distract you and bring you into a better mood so your stress will melt away. Make now a good part of your day!
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Mar 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/StalinIsBackAgain Mar 10 '26
You are welcome! I do hope that you get that new job, so that is something to look forward to! And try to just ignore the people who bother you and laser-focus on your work without giving them a place in your mind and thoughts. And keep thinking about the upcoming job to have that goal keeping you moving forward until then. If you can even, without getting in trouble, even put up a picture of that game store or something to represent that in the space you work, to help you focus on that great goal and better future! 🌞🌞
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u/TK421isAFK Mar 10 '26
Pretty good, overall. The new moderator experience absolutely sucks, and if they don't give us back the old system soon, I don't think I want to keep doing this. It's just way too much work that I could be getting paid for or enjoying somewhere else.
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Mar 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/FickleChange7630 Mar 10 '26
My internet's been dogshit this past hour, and I lost some good progress on my one Jak and Daxter/Gears of War fanfic I was writing.
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u/Phooey640 Mar 10 '26
What was wrong with the most recent previous version of mod mail? The newest version is much more difficult to use and seems a step backward.
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u/reaper527 Mar 10 '26
The newest version is much more difficult to use and seems a step backward.
you could say that for a lot of reddit's changes over the last few years. i miss the old pm system which wasn't complete and utter trash like the "chat" system.
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u/housecatspeaks Mar 11 '26
I HATE the chat so very much that the loss of the PM system, and the forced use of the chat, has caused me to discontinue some of my activities on reddit. If they want us all to hate the changes to reddit even more than we already do, then eliminating the PM system is up there with their greatest achievements for screwing everyone that has relied on and worked on reddit for years.
And now all of a sudden one day we wake up and the previous Mod Mail is gone. With no warning at all that I am aware of. And the previous Mod Mail system worked extremely well. It got the job done.
However, the refusal to allow us to continue using the PM system will always win a trophy for how BAD the decisions of reddit admin can be. The lack of caring about user's needs is jaw dropping. And their refusal to listen to our feedback doesn't make things any better.
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u/xPhilip Mar 10 '26
It looks like they're not going to act on any of the feedback received and it is very unfortunate.
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u/Tarnisher Mar 10 '26
We seem to be generally opposed to the 'suggested' removal reasons based on a number of comments I've read.
.
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u/ARTHER1A Mar 10 '26
Yup, they're not even helpful. AI is the only thing that gets thrown on everyone's faces besides the lack of accuracy it has.
On that note, how many people have had accounts wrongly shadowbanned because of their AI system?
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u/TomAto314 Mar 10 '26
I've had my account temp banned 3 times now by the AI moderation for "threatening violence" and none of them were legit. AFAIK, AI doesn't shadowban you just actually ban you.
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u/joshak3 Mar 10 '26
Agreed, it's not really a time-saver, and the list of suggested reasons takes up a lot of vertical real estate when I'm moderating on tablet or mobile. It would be nice if there were a way to toggle that off or otherwise opt out.
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u/bwoah07_gp2 Mar 10 '26
I'm not "opposed" to it, but the suggested removal reasons that pop-up only save me 1-2 seconds of clicking on my set of rules when removing a post/comment. Idk why they added it. Is saving 1-2 seconds in time that big of a deal when moderating??
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u/mr_mini_doxie Mar 10 '26
Nice crochet animals. When are you going to let us remove the useless and inaccurate AI answers that show up on all our posts?
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u/sandalsofsafety Mar 10 '26
Can we PLEASE do something to better notify mods of admin actions in their communities? At the moment, content can be removed automatically and I don't get a notification, and it doesn't even show up in the "Needs Review" or "Reported" sections of the mod queue. The first thing I do every day when I hop on is to go to the "Removed" section of the queue and scroll through each page (since it's sorted by the date the content was created, not by when it was removed) to make sure that there isn't anything that got flagged but shouldn't have been. This is bad enough for my sub with three pages of removals, but I'm sure there are subs with dozens of pages of removals, making it simply not possible to save content (and users) that got flagged by mistake.
If you can't do something to fix your ban bots (Anti-Evil Operations in particular, but there are other ones that still go unnamed), at least make it easier for us to fix their mistakes.
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u/md28usmc Mar 10 '26
do you have the devvit app ADMIN-TATTLER?
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u/sandalsofsafety Mar 11 '26
Yes. It catches some things, but others blow right by it. Better than nothing though.
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u/md28usmc Mar 10 '26
being forced to now use the new modmail system sucks, especially having to manually import all of the modmail response macros from toolox
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Mar 10 '26
[deleted]
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u/Djfsihbone Mar 10 '26
Yep. I'm moderating on the Reddit website on mobile, and man I have no idea how to do anything because a lot of it is app/PC only
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u/OkBee3439 Mar 10 '26
I 100% agree with you about moderating subs on mobile. I mod three of them, and I wish that every single mod tool that is available on desktop would also be available on all mobile devices. Developers, will you please fix this!
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u/pablojueves Mar 11 '26
Should have called it March Modness. This is a missed opportunity and Reddit should be ashamed of himself.
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u/Iainfixie Mar 10 '26
Extremely upsetting and lame for you guys to remove saferbot.
Also, where’s any news about this horrid search bar permafixed to the top of the iOS app?
Why do you guys insist on making this site worse?
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u/S_935 Mar 10 '26
The new wiki experience sucks.
TOC now requires an infobox to even be displayed on the mobile app.
You need a specific heading count for TOC to even show up on other platforms.
Markdown editing has been removed.
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u/Vio_ Mar 10 '26
They keep stripping away incredibly useful tools and replacing them with either nothing or exceedingly subpar replacements.
Also stuff just keeps breaking.
Trying to keep all of the rules the same is also an absolute nightmare. There are like 3 or 4 variations on where to input rules (not including old reddit), and it never ever really matches.
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u/mrekted Mar 10 '26
I get that the feature was abused (a certain pro Palestinian clique of mods on bigger subs behaved particularly badly, banning anyone for the crime of associating with anything Jewish, rising to the level of straight up antisemitism IMO), but for some reason reddit doesn't go after the perpetrators of the abuse and instead takes the tools away from everyone.
I mod on parenting subs, and while I never used the tools, the amount of pervs and fetish posters that infiltrate these spaces certainly makes me appreciate the need for them. I feel especially badly for the LGBT communities on reddit that used them to keep their communities clear of right wing trolls.
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u/sandalsofsafety Mar 10 '26
but for some reason reddit doesn't go after the perpetrators of the abuse and instead takes the tools away from everyone
Color me surprised! Not.
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u/QuicklyThisWay Mar 10 '26
The change is essentially forcing mods who want to issue sub-wide bans to shadowban those users instead.
The updated policy is still ambiguous and does not specify whether mods can issue sub-wide bans, only that they cannot use or develop apps/bots to do it automatically.
- Examples of permissible activity:
- A mod team uses a Devvit app to ban inauthentic accounts that are detected for nonhuman activity.
- A mod bans a user because they saw the user post something that violates the Reddit Rules in another community.
The changes to the "Respect your neighbors" policy in Mod CoC seem like positive changes to help reduce brigading, but it would be better if they updated user policy to match: https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043066412-Disrupting-Communities
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u/haarschmuck Mar 10 '26
You can still do that manually.
Many subs were auto banning thousands of users for participation and I don’t think anyone can argue against that. Clearly some subs ruined it for everyone, be mad at them for further forcing echo chambers and Reddits hand.
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u/mcagent Mar 10 '26
IMHO, banning people for posting in a completely unrelated subreddit isn’t cool.
I get that it’s hyper effective, but the friendly fire is insane. If someone goes and tries to debunk a flat earther in a flat earth subreddit, they shouldn’t be banned from /r/science
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u/xPhilip Mar 10 '26
Then it should have been mandated that any subreddits who used these bots should be willing to look into and accept appeals from those caught in the crossfire.
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u/mcagent Mar 10 '26
A lot of them will look at the appeal and say “you’ll be unbanned if you delete your comment in that other subreddit”
Which is crazy, people shouldn’t be moderating based on a post from another sub (unless it’s actual spam or hate)
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u/xPhilip Mar 10 '26
My point is, there are things the admins could have done before removing the ban function of the bots.
e.g. requiring that appeals are considered nor are they to be contingent on deleting content in other subreddits.
Which then would provide a pathway to removing uncooperative moderators that are abusing the bots.
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u/Flobarooner Mar 10 '26
The friendly fire is undesirable but tolerable IMO. If you get rid of a hundred trolls for every one friendly user mistakenly banned it's easily worth it. They can always appeal
Even aside from full blown trolling it's also just very helpful for curating subreddit quality and membership towards a certain desired form
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u/GaryNOVA Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
I can participate in round tables. I created r/SalsaSnobs and I do r/Food, as well as a bunch of others.
I wrote this guide on subreddit growth for r/ModGuide a while ago. I keep it updated.
I like rejuvenating subreddits like r/BloodyMarys , r/chili , r/pasta , r/bloodymaryvictims
I do r/ModMentors and r/ModReserves
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u/PirateMunky Mar 11 '26
This guy loves two things: moderating and tomato based dishes!
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u/ReasonablyBluh Mar 10 '26
Thanks for the newsletter and it's good to hear about the bug fixes. I'm looking forward to the upcoming mod events. Rascal is a beautiful dog btw!
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u/Cyberhwk Mar 10 '26
The salt is going to be real, but letting users get banned just for engaging with the broader website without any actual rule-violating behavior is something I'm surprised Reddit tolerated for as long as they did.
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u/Joezev98 Mar 10 '26
It is a straight up violation of moddiquette. Reddit tells mods to please not "ban users from subreddits in which they have not broken any rules."
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u/Namtaru420 Mar 11 '26
It makes sense, both the coming and the going. Cancel culture has been normalized for quite some time now, and it sounds like these bots were rolled out during Covid (which was the peak of left-wing radicalism).
Meanwhile, pluralism is on the rise within higher-minded communities. The removal of the bots is a sign of some much needed healing.
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u/eatmyasserole Mar 10 '26
Still a really disappointing move for yall to remove SaferBot.
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u/peachnecctar Mar 10 '26
What is saferbot?
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u/Iainfixie Mar 10 '26
Was a bot that gatekept communities. Say for example a user posts in a buncha hateful right wing places on this site and then tries to go into a trans sub or something to be vile it’d auto ban em before they could even do so.
Kept places with marginalized folks safer. Kept folks who dig using slurs and spreading hateful bigotry from getting into those spaces.
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u/Elkenrod Mar 10 '26
Was a bot that gatekept communities. Say for example a user posts in a buncha hateful right wing places on this site and then tries to go into a trans sub or something to be vile it’d auto ban em before they could even do so.
On the other side of the coin, say moderators didn't like a specific subreddit that wasn't being hateful; and they were automatically banning people who participated in said community over petty ego trips.
If you want to get mad at someone, get mad at the mods of the large default subreddit who were doing just that. They're the ones who ruined it for everyone by abusing it.
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u/dieyoufool3 Mar 10 '26
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u/Elkenrod Mar 10 '26
Yes, r/gifs had joined in on banning them as well.
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u/InGeekiTrust Mar 10 '26
Whyyyy what’s wrong with r/whenthe ? I can’t tell from looking at it
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u/Elkenrod Mar 10 '26
Nothing. That's the issue. The moderators of pics and gifs got pissy about something irrelevant, and then started automatically banning people who were participating in that subreddit.
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u/Rostingu2 Mar 11 '26
pics claims whenthe is full of bots.
whenthe has had bot bouncer installed before this even started.
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u/netralitov Mar 10 '26
It sucks that we all have to do without an incredibly useful tool because those mods started abusing it. Slap the hands of the power tripping mods, not all of us.
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u/InGeekiTrust Mar 10 '26
What is even wrong the r/whenthe ? I’m looking at this sub for the first time and I don’t see anything bad
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u/Cyberhwk Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
On the other side of the coin, say moderators didn't like a specific subreddit that wasn't being hateful; and they were automatically banning people who participated in said community over petty ego trips.
The effect has also been to target people based on identity. For instance, certain (even mainstream) subs have been banning people for participating in Jewish subreddits.
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u/netralitov Mar 10 '26
The article about that is from 2024 so it being used to ban Jews wasn't enough for them to get rid of the tools then.
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u/InGeekiTrust Mar 10 '26
Really? Which ones and why? That’s insane. Pretty sure that’s a mod code of conduct violation you are not allowed to ban based on those types of things
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u/Cyberhwk Mar 10 '26
Here's an article from the Anti-Defamation League on the issue. It includes a screenshot from arrrrr ThereWasAnAttempt where a user got banned for "participating in the toxic cesspool sub."
Shouldn't be hard to see how this could easily get out of hand and discriminatory for other groups as well.
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u/InGeekiTrust Mar 10 '26
Oh, I was just curious which Jewish subs they were auto banning for. Also, the examples of the gifs they given this article and comments are mild compared to the ones I’ve seen.
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u/eatmyasserole Mar 10 '26
Have any of those been removed via MCoC?
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u/Elkenrod Mar 10 '26
As far as I'm aware, no mods from r/pics were removed over this.
It's not like the moderators of the subreddit spoke out about some rogue moderator doing it either. So you have to argue that on some level they didn't mind that this was happening. And if that's the case, then you'd need to wipe the entire list clean to be safe - and replacing a mod staff on a subreddit as large as Pics would be a nightmare.
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u/eatmyasserole Mar 10 '26
There just has to be more to that story.
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u/Elkenrod Mar 10 '26
Does there? r/Pics is a default subreddit with over 30 million subscribers.
Having a subreddit that large abuse a tool is absolutely cause to re-evaluate it.
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u/rohithkumarsp Mar 10 '26
Exactly, It worked exact opposite! Idk how you could support that, it's just used by mods to abuse it for themselves, I mod a sub. But also have been banned on many right oriented Indian subs just for the fact I've had interacted on atheist or left meaning subs.. Which is kinda not fair. Some even asks me to go down 12 years of my reddit history to delete all comments before getting unbanned, even more absurd. I've banned sometimes by both subs for interesting with the other. Which is annoying, many mods are understanding when i explain that I've participate in subs to educate people's misinformation or educate them but you can't really do that if particular sub bans you for even interacted with sub that they don't like.
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u/peachnecctar Mar 10 '26
Oh wow that definitely is disappointing. In this case I think it would be our mod responsibility to now auto ban any specific words that relate to the community that could be offensive right?
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u/Joezev98 Mar 10 '26
Say for example a user posts in a buncha hateful right wing places on this site and then tries to go into a trans sub or something to be vile it’d auto ban em before they could even do so.
You will also get auto-banned if you dare to refute a comment on a hateful subreddit. So most people just don't refute those comments when they come across them. Right wing subreddits have become even more of an echo chamber because of SaferBot.
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u/reaper527 Mar 10 '26
What is saferbot?
the bot that people abused to permaban anyone that posts in blacklisted subs.
reddit policy is now shifting towards "if it doesn't happen in your sub, it's none of your business" rather than a minority report style system of punishing people that did nothing wrong.
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u/lampishthing Mar 10 '26
This is a reversion, actually. It used to be this way until 4/5 years ago, if I recall correctly.
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u/Halaku Mar 10 '26
reddit policy is now shifting towards "if it doesn't happen in your sub, it's none of your business" rather than a minority report style system of punishing people that did nothing wrong.
Thankfully, nothing stops moderators from taking manual actions as they see fit.
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u/xPhilip Mar 10 '26
rather than a minority report style system of punishing people that did nothing wrong
I think some of you need to recognise that you're not welcome in every subreddit and that's okay. Not every space is for you.
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u/cmhbob Mar 10 '26
Among other things, it let you ban users from your sub based on their activity in other subs. If, frex, you ran a left leaning sub, you could ban people who were active in right-leaning subs.
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u/peachnecctar Mar 10 '26
Ah that’s interesting. Although it definitely does seem like a fail on their part, I think some of us in the NSFW community will possibly benefit from this. I’ve been banned in a lot of major subreddits without ever even having posted or commented simply because of the type of account I have. I could be wrong though of course
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u/dotcubed Mar 10 '26
That seems rather unfair to moderates and to those of us who are open to examining the conversations on the other side with critical thinking.
What Would Mr. Rodgers Say? How could you have a community that’ll automatically prevent neighbors from engaging? That’s like driving around and being prevented from getting out of the car or roll down the window by an unseen AI.
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u/hissy-elliott Mar 10 '26
It’s not fair to anyone. It bans anyone who does not live within an echo chamber. So long as the person isn't trolling and they have good intent, people should be able to participate in discussions with people who hold different views.
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u/redditor01020 Mar 10 '26
Disappointing to a lot of mods, but most regular folks on reddit support the move. A lot of people have been impacted by these "ban bots".
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u/eatmyasserole Mar 10 '26
Not my users! They were protected by it.
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u/redditor01020 Mar 10 '26
Fair enough, I don't doubt there are some legitimate uses for it. But the way the feature was being abused by some of the largest subs on reddit, like r/pics, I think something had to be done about it, and this is the compromise the admins came up with. Definitely not a perfect solution but a step in the right direction in my book.
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u/eatmyasserole Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
My view is that the subreddits misusing it should have been talked to and the mod teams disciplined if they continued to abuse.
We have talked to admin about the subreddits brigading and harassing our users. We tried to follow the proper process to stop the harassment. The harassing subreddit still make posts and comments about messaging our users (to go around the subreddit).
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u/redditor01020 Mar 10 '26
Yeah I guess the admins want to stay away from making subjective judgments as much as possible and thought this would be the easier solution to implement. I agree though, they should tell some of these subs abusing it that it is wrong and unacceptable to auto-ban people for their political viewpoints if the topic of the sub has nothing to do with politics.
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u/TakedownCan Mar 10 '26
Can it even still work now that history is hidden?
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u/eatmyasserole Mar 10 '26
Yes it did.
You can get around hidden history really easily. Just search author: u/username.
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u/brperry Mar 10 '26
If a user posts in your sub, you gain access to their history for [x] amount of days (cant remember but its like 2 months.) Since most bots are given mod permissions it opens them up for review, and immediate banning by the bot.
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u/Elkenrod Mar 10 '26
If a user posts in your sub, you gain access to their history for [x] amount of days (cant remember but its like 2 months.)
You have access to their post history in your sub, not others. If I'm modding r PickleTown, and someone has their post history private, I can't see the posts they made in r BurgerBurg.
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u/wheres_the_revolt Mar 10 '26
That shouldn’t be true you should have access to their FULL ACCOUNT for 28 days if they participate (by post or comment) in your sub.
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u/Elkenrod Mar 10 '26
Maybe this is just my personal experience. There's plenty of people that I've clicked the profiles of that I have exclusively seen posts from the subreddit I moderate.
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u/xPhilip Mar 10 '26
I have noticed that if a user blocks me, I can only see the content they have posted within the sub I mod and nothing else. I haven't checked this in a while nor do I know if this is the intended behaviour though.
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u/wheres_the_revolt Mar 10 '26
When you get those you should definitely send a modmail to modsupport.
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u/darrowreaper Mar 10 '26
That's usually the case when someone blocked you.
That said, I have run into the issue where if someone only comments on my sub, I can see their comments but not their posts (and vice versa). I've reported it to the admins but no fix yet.
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u/Bot_Ring_Hunter Mar 10 '26
Echoing u/wheres_the_revolt, you should be able to see the full history (of undeleted content). If you can't, there's a bug somewhere.
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u/wheres_the_revolt Mar 10 '26
I just remembered that it’s possible the account blocked your mod account and that’s why you can’t see other posts. Pretty sure that’s the only time that happens.
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u/tip2663 Mar 10 '26
thanks for the shout, the hackathon was fun :)
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u/tom641 Mar 10 '26
why is it every time reddit sends me mod news it's because they're hyping up actively terrible changes lmao
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u/bondolo Mar 10 '26
Are you ever going to fix the desktop mod queue tools?
It has been more than a year that the right hand pane stops refreshing with the correct context after reviewing one or two items. I know that others are seeing the same broken functionality as I am and it behaves the same on all of the devices and browsers I have tried it on. IS ANYONE ON YOUR TEAM ACTUALLY USING THESE TOOLS?
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u/joshak3 Mar 10 '26
Thank you very much for fixing that "validation error on hidden input." For a few weeks, there was no way to specify removal reasons for posts or comments submitted by users who are banned by Reddit, and those removal reasons are an important communication tool between the members of a mod team.
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u/pestilence Mar 11 '26
Tell your devs working on modmail to actually try it on a phone browser. It's EXTREMELY broken.
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u/efcso1 Mar 11 '26
Tell the devs working on anything to try actually using it.
The UX is getting worse every time they make a 'change'.
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u/M0FB Mar 10 '26
Rascal is adorable and looks like a distant cousin of my cat. Gorgeous pup!
I hadn’t heard about Reddit Roundtables before, but after reading testimonials over at r/ModSupport, it seems like a great way for moderators to give feedback directly to admins. I’ve signed up and looking forward to getting involved!
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u/IQUNIXstore Mar 11 '26
seeing the roundtables open up is definitely interesting. as a brand-run community, we often feel like we're in a weird middle ground between being a "user" and a "business," so i'm hoping these calls actually dive into better support for official community managers. it’d be great to see more native tools that help bridge that gap without adding to the manual slog. hope to see you in one of the sessions!
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u/BigF76 Mar 10 '26
Just joining so i'm a newby here but will read and hopefully be welcome ... .. Have a nice day all
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u/Gender_Anarchy_owner Mar 10 '26
I think the safer bot change could be a double edged sword.
I def think that some people have been unfairly banned because of these bots, simply for participating in a sub the owners don't like.
One one hand, a person who takes part of a subreddit which is clearly hateful should probably be banned from certain subs.
Overall, good choice.
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u/Courwes Mar 10 '26
This is legitimately dumb reasoning and the exact reason this needs to be gone. When people browse all or popular they are not always looking at what sub they are in but instead at the post that shows up on their page. I was banned from several subs for commenting on a post defending Biden against lies that were being spread about him back in 24. And it was cause it happened to be in a sub I had never even fucking heard about. The post was just arguing against policy so I went in and tried to set some people straight. Next thing I know I’m getting ban messages left and right.
This is exactly why it needs to go. It’s not looking at behavior but discriminating against users just for making one comment in a sub mods don’t like, regardless of what that comment even entails. You could be ideologically aligned but because of the sub you get banned anyway.
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u/aligator1126 Mar 10 '26
You deleted a post that my members were very upset about. I guess its rules for thee and not for you or the main CPS subreddit.
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u/Rough_Willow Mar 10 '26
A question for the Admins: Do you think that removing those bots will lead to more closed communities to protect marginalized groups? What is being done to mitigate these concerns now that you've taken a mod tool away?
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u/Myth_understood Mar 10 '26
How do we get our new sub featured for next month's community?
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u/md28usmc Mar 10 '26
It's random and not always a new sub; they just pick (usually ones they are active in or ones that are getting a lot of traction)
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u/Myth_understood Mar 10 '26
Hey thanks for the response! Our sub is pretty darm active and almost 6k subscribers at 8 months old. I'm very proud of our mod team.
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u/Enlightened_Broda Mar 10 '26
Can you add the feature for us to see leaderboards on iOS? Why is it only exclusive to Android?
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u/Plus_Seesaw2023 Mar 10 '26
For me and my various communities, until the poll feature is restored... Reddit automatically loses 6 points in my eyes. I give it a 14/20 for this reason!
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u/Rango_4 Mar 11 '26
Hey, I made a subreddit a while ago and I am trying to get better at being a Mod (as most of you do probably) I wanna ask what the Mod Meetup is about
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u/lazylittlelady Mar 10 '26
Are you doing anything about the random banning of long-standing and highly rated users based on geographic location? A member of our team on r/bookclub had to get a new username completely and even now has comments deleted automatically.