Hey !
My name is Josh and I'm the Reddit Team Leader for . You may have seen me make podcast announcements before or address things within the community!
I'm writing this to discuss certain aspects of unrest within the community, as we believe that communication is the most important thing in ensuring not only a healthy community but a happy community. The comments to this post will be unlocked and I will reply to as many questions/queries as possible if you have any questions.
This statement is primarily focused on witch-hunting, however if you do have any questions or anything you'd like to know, then please send away!
People may be unsure as to what witch-hunting is... so what is it?
Witch-hunting, by definition is "a thread or comment that damages or threatens to damage a specific person or entity's reputation or resources".
Witch-hunting is against Reddit's Content policy, which you can read - this therefore equates to a permanent ban from the subreddit due to a violation of Reddit Terms of Service (TOS), which, as you can read in the Moderator Code of Conduct, (you can also read this ), means we must take action upon these submissions.
We often see posts which call out the moderators for removing these posts, and I often make comments on the posts to address points, however this obviously isn't seen by all users, so this post can be used as a Megathread. We, as moderators, can understand the frustration that you may have when these posts are removed, however this is a policy in which we must follow to uphold standards of the community and reduce harassment.
You may also be wondering, "what happens to people of predatory concerns then?"
Since I was appointed as a mod, I have advocated for us to strike down on all predatory nature, in which we have seen extremely positive progress, in which predatory concerns has been almost eradicated *within* the subreddit. We have multiple processes in place to prevent predatory nature in our subreddit. This includes, but is not limited to:
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Automod code which locates keywords within posts and prevents them from reaching the subreddit.
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Our own bot which takes action and prevents any predatory nature from entering the subreddit by flagging it to us instantly.
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Report options for users to either report submissions directly to us or by sending a modmail for us to take a look at them from there.
These systems are in place to protect users on the subreddit, and there has been a significant reduction in predatory nature, in which we will continue working on new methods of reduction. You may also know we used to report predatory nature directly to the child safety department of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in which we are attempting to reconnect to not only report directly to Reddit but have law enforcement work with us, too.
People report people of predatory nature to us in modmail- which we take appropriate action to. Sometimes, these individuals have no submission history within the subreddit, so we give steps to report directly to Reddit and ensure that they can and will not return to Reddit. Also being a partner community, we have the privilege of having direct access to Reddit Admins, where we report users, submissions and even subreddits- all of which have seen positive action.
I hope I have alleviated any concerns you may have about the safety of users, and also addressed any quarrels you have with how and why we moderate.
Myself, and all of the moderators, top concern is keeping you safe, and we do everything within our power to ensure this. I've also implemented more internal changes to ensure that modmail is responded to in a much quicker fashion.
If you have any questions at all, please comment below, or if you'd prefer, send us a modmail and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Thanks a bunch!
-Josh
EDIT: wrong wording
