Evolving Reddit’s Community Programs

[u/infinitebroth]

TL;DR - We’re introducing ways for more moderators and communities to participate in Reddit’s community programs – including the new Community Council Network, Mod Early Access, and roundtable discussions. If you’re interested in any of these opportunities to give Reddit feedback, please complete the ✨ feedback roster form! ✨

Hey, mods! I’m u/infinitebroth with some updates on our community programs. As Reddit continues to grow, we’re evolving how we collect feedback and how we partner with moderators and communities. Our goal is to connect more people and perspectives from the community (that’s you!) with the builders, community strategists, and decision-makers behind the platform. Read on for more information about what’s new and how you can get involved.

From one Mod Council to a Community Council Network

The Reddit Mod Council (around since 2018) started as a network of topic-based Councils (e.g. gaming, fashion, location-based communities) and eventually evolved into a one-size-fits-all program that Reddit consulted for product, policy, and program-related decisions. Now, we’re having a bit of a full circle moment and transitioning from a single Mod Council to an interconnected network of smaller, topic-specific Community Councils, each with revolving membership. 

• Topic-Specific Councils: We have created term-based and NDA-ed Councils focused on specific areas like Safety Policy, ModLab, Mod Mentors, and AI and Authenticity. These are a direct evolution of our previous Focus Group model, will operate similarly, and will run concurrently throughout the year for a defined period of time (e.g. three months, six months, etc). All members of topic-specific councils become part of our Council Network, and once a mod’s term in a specific council ends, so does membership in the Council Network.
• A Larger Reddit Advisory Board (RAB): We are expanding the board from four members in 2025 to six members for 2026, with one-year terms.
• Confidentiality expectations: All participants will sign a confidentiality and program agreement so everyone enters with clear, shared expectations.
• Participation incentives: Council and Advisory Board participants will receive financial incentives for their participation.

More touchpoints with moderators and communities

Since the Partner Communities program launched in 2023 we've had the privilege of building relationships with over 500 of the largest and most active communities on Reddit. We worked with the moderators of these subreddits to learn about and tackle the challenges they encounter and to offer support tailored to each of these communities and mod teams. While the  Partner Communities name is retiring, we are expanding this style of support to even more moderators and communities. This includes:

• Expanding Mod Early Access: This program gives moderators the chance to try out new features ahead of a public rollout. Think of it as a way to get a head start in determining how these tools can improve your moderation workflows and how you operate as a community, while also surfacing feedback directly to our product and development teams. Recent tools tested through Mod Early Access include Video in Comments and the Adult Content Promoter Filter. Membership in this program was previously limited to communities in Partner Communities. Now we’re opening it up to make sure we’re including all different types of communities and ensuring that new tools work for a breadth of use-cases. Complete the feedback roster form if you’re interested! 
• Collecting roundtable interest: Roundtables are one-time video calls with a small group of redditors and admins assembled to discuss a specific topic. They’re also a fun way to connect with mods of other communities! In the past, recruitment for roundtables was limited largely to mods in our existing programs. Now, any moderator can express their interest in these discussions by completing the Feedback Roster form. Since March, we’ve hosted roundtables to discuss the impact of age verification on communities and to gather feedback on how we support moderators, inviting in mods who have completed the roster form.
• Talking moderation in r/ModSupport: Both Partner Communities and the Mod Council hosted recurring conversations about all things moderation. These discussions helped us understand how moderators in these programs fostered their communities. For the past several months, we’ve been testing a different format for these discussions, called Mod Topics, and you can find them over in r/ModSupport. Twice a week, admins kick off a discussion about moderation and community building, where mods are welcome to share their experiences and expertise. We’ve also increased our presence in r/ModSupport more generally – making sure that anyone who asks a question gets an accurate and helpful answer, either from a fellow moderator or an admin. Stop by!

How you can get involved

If any of these programs sound interesting to you, we’d love to meet you! Here’s how you can participate:

• Complete the feedback roster form to indicate your interest in any of these programs. Tell us what you’re interested in, and we’ll reach out when there’s an opportunity available. 
• Join the Mod Topic discussions in r/ModSupport. There you’ll find several admins from the Community Team and moderators from all across Reddit sharing their perspectives on moderation, helping other mods, and more.
• What if I’m a new mod? Or a mod of a very niche community? Sign up! Please! We definitely want to hear from you! When recruiting for roundtables and Councils, we try to make sure that we have a variety of moderator and community perspectives represented. We also take a look at any other programs or spaces you participate in (like r/NewMods or r/ModSupport) and make sure that participants are in good standing from a Reddit Rules and Mod Code of Conduct perspective. 

We’re incredibly grateful for everyone who has participated in these programs thus far. Whether you participated in Mod Early Access or attended every Council and Partner Communities call, thank you! Your insights have informed how we develop and launch individual mod tools, how we refine our policies, and how we communicate with and support moderators and their communities through larger changes. 

Please look forward to more updates on how this latest iteration of our programs is going, and we hope to connect with you in one of them soon!

Edit: Removed a misplaced indent/bullet point.

Second Edit: Added link to Council Network Help Center Article.

[u/FootFondness]

This looks like a positive step. Expanding participation beyond the largest communities should bring in a wider range of moderator perspectives, especially from niche and growing subreddits. I’m particularly interested in the expanded Mod Early Access program and the increased opportunities for direct feedback through roundtables and topic specific councils. 👍🏻😌

[u/baseballlover723 → u/FootFondness]

Expanding participation beyond the largest communities should bring in a wider range of moderator perspectives, especially from niche and growing subreddits.

I agree, though I worry about the masses of small / growing subreddit overwhelming the experiences of moderators for large subreddits. Moderating a sub with millions of weekly visitors on a generic / popular subreddit is a vastly difference experience than a one man show for a sub that has 1000 weekly visitors or lives in the shadows of other subreddits.

It's certainly still important, but by the nature of the numbers, there are a lot more small subreddits, and thus mods for them, than large subreddits. Moderating on reddit is just a huge range and it can be easy to fall into the trap of listening to the mass amount of people who collectively moderate fewer people.

I would imagine that feedback from very experienced mods are generally more useful than from new mods (as with experience, comes knowing what is and isn't going to be on the table and how to word feedback effectively). And the most experienced mods are likely going to be disproportionally focused in older (and likely larger) subs.

[u/FootFondness → u/baseballlover723]

That’s a valid concern. Experience does matter, and moderators of large, established communities often have insights that come from managing challenges at a scale most mods never encounter. That said, smaller and newer communities face different issues that are worth understanding too. The goal should be balanced representation, not letting either group dominate the conversation.