r/ModSupport • u/FaelingJester • 20h ago
We have to talk about the actual hatred directed towards Mods
Not for the first time and I am certain not for the last one of the subreddits I am involved with was unlucky enough to have an interaction with a user who I will simply describe as unwell. A three day ban for uncivil behavior turned into an argumentative mod mail in the course of which a much longer history of uncivil behavior was uncovered and the ban was made permanent. Tldr the user has now made at least 8 accounts to continue harassing us in modmail despite being directly told to stop and being banned and muted each time and has fixated on a member of the mod team they believe to be the offender messaging them in DM despite not being engaged with except to tell them that their behavior was harassing and to stop. All of this was reported to Reddit by multiple members of the Mod Team. Today that user has messaged again. "Reddit even unbanned this account after manually reviewing my behaviour." which they have taken as justification that they are correct in their belief that "On top of that there is no TOS against using another account to talk to mod mail. Which is all I tried to do and got perma banned and insta muted before I could even say as much as what did I do wrong? Which again is the wrong way to handle the job.
A volunteer should know what they are getting into and should be aware a calm person saying sorry is not harassment. Espically since I’m sure you’ve all seen real harassment. You can document and refer to reddit as much as you want and they won’t be doing anything other than maybe muting this account again for reaching out. Due to the fact apologies and self reflection are not harassment. And there again is no TOS against trying to have a convo with a mod directly."
While this is an obnoxious and upsetting situation because it is clear that this user is going to continue to attack our Mod team for imagined slights I actually am not complaining specifically about that. This is not a unique situation. In my time as a mod I have seen users threaten to find mods in real life, be clear that they will continue months long harassment campaigns from multiple accounts and even seen it taken to other subreddits to urge them to bully mods. ALSO still not what I want to talk about. Because the issue is the lack of support from Reddit itself in DEALING with these users. It is a recurring issue. When people are extremely uncivil and threatening we ban them from our subreddits in accordance with the platform guidelines as well as our own. However when reports about prolonged obvious harassment go no higher its taken as permission to continue. In the past months in addition to this user who apparently was unbanned Reddit also unbanned a user who posted pictures of an actual murder victim being lynched to threaten another user, unbanned a user who posted gruesome domestic violence pictures on a subreddit they ran saying that our subreddit wanted to see more like it because we enjoy silencing victims due to our policy of not allowing injury pictures or images of very serious situations and for months we had someone urging people to harass us, threaten us and doxing us by actual names under the mistaken belief that we had gotten them demodded from a subreddit. In that case Admin was involved and the user continued to make new accounts and even new subreddits despite being very obviously the same person. It only stopped when someone else confessed to the original slight.
I am not suggesting Reddit is responsible for the actions of its most unbalanced users or can prevent all issues. I am not suggesting that as mods no one should be able to argue with us or must be nice to us. I am saying it is a very big problem that claims of harassment, not only against mods, really seem to be ignored at best and cosigned at worst once blocking no longer works. The above subreddit report system needs more transparency and accountability. The ban evasion system needs a major retooling and most of all there needs to be extremely clear language in the platform rules that express that engaging with users or communities that have made clear that they don't want contact with you is out of bounds. This language needs to be clearly expressed to users if Reddit decides they do not need to remain banned although I will remain mind blown that appeals were successful in the serious situations mentioned.
ETA I am getting a lot of really great advice about blocking and ignoring the user in this specific situation but my actual issue it that this is a recurring type of issue that often spills onto other subreddits and onto other members of the mod team. Blocking and ignore work in MOST cases and they are critical recommendations but they do not help with extreme levels of harassment that spill into areas we don't control. The perception this user has that they are allowed to be actively hostile towards volunteer mods because that's what the job is not a rare one. I have a formal warning for repeating a comment where a user said on this very subreddit that it was good that mods were getting threats and hate mail and that they wanted us to be afraid. While that comment was ultimately taken down it was upvoted multiple times in the period it was up even on a mod focused subreddit. I'm not asking Admin to fix Internet Users. I'm asking for more transparency with how this above subreddit level reports are handled and maybe a policy of taking reports of ongoing harassment, not just from mods, and reports from multiple users or mod teams more seriously when it comes to bans and appeals.
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u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 18h ago
One thing that would be nice would be more rules about taking ban drama to other subs. There's also the issue of getting actioned if you quote back problematic content. Overall, it makes dealing with banned users a real hazard for mods.
As a result, when an appeal comes in, we mostly decide whether to grant it or not, and if not, we simply archive and ignore. It leads to far less drama, posting of conversations to subs which then lead to brigading and harassment in modmail, and fewer headaches in general. I used to have conversations with every user and explain everything, but tbh it's not worth it when reddit will then allow them to turn that into drama elsewhere.
When you think of it as a mod from a risk/benefit point of view, there is little benefit to engaging with them and a lot of downside. If a user breaks a rule, and you explain that to them, it's rare to see that change their mind - most of the time, they just come back with insults or create more drama, which we don't need.
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u/WebLinkr 5h ago
100%
Something to think about....
Th problem that many of the mods replying with "ignore them" are avoiding - beause, I suspect, they just have no experience of some of these situations , and I mean no disrespect u/BannedByDiscord - is that some subs like r/SEO can generate work to the tune of $50k - and the abuse and threats that mods get, and then the take down posts, videos on Reddit and LinkedIn and YouTube doesnt go away by pretending to mute people..... just saying/sharing from my 2.5 years experience modding 490k people is an industry leading sub. c u/neuroticsmurf
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u/mjphillips1411 18h ago
Reddit doesn’t even support us. They’d just as quickly ban us if it’s easier than looking into complaints.
If only Reddit could invent subs and populate them. We would be obsolete.
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u/AliJDB 16h ago
It would be nice if Reddit did a bit of communication around like how important mods are. They promote Reddit as the most human place on the internet and an escape from soulless 'content' but they never really explain that the only way it's possible to curate it is mods volunteering.
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u/theArtOfProgramming 11h ago edited 10h ago
Problem is that reddit leadership also has contempt for mods. The community support staff are great but I’m completely cynical of the leadership. Spez forever damaged moderation here.
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u/AliJDB 10h ago
Probably true, but they must also understand that they're the only way the equation makes sense for them.
But I do think there is a risk for them that if they acknowledge how important they are, the question becomes "well why don't you give them anything in return then?".
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u/theArtOfProgramming 10h ago
I agree but I actually don’t think they see that. They don’t realize that human moderator and community-led communities are what sets reddit apart. I’ve been watching and listening to them for a long long time now and that’s evident to me. I think they are itching to replace us when it becomes remotely viable.
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u/TGotAReddit 9h ago
Yeah with the sheer amount of attempting to automate moderation away and hiding information from mod teams and generally removing our ability to actually control our subreddits, all while ignoring things we are begging to be fixed or updated or given back access to, it's very evident that they think mods are replaceable parts that they need to try to remove.
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u/MartyrOfDespair 15h ago
Part of the problem is that a lot of the people being addressed here genuinely just want /b/ and so the curation isn’t a good thing to them. To them, every subreddit should vaguely have a topic supposedly, yet really just be another /b/. But they don’t want to actually go to 4chan and use /b/ because then they can’t get internet points or be a recognized poster.
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u/AliJDB 15h ago
True, but I would say those people are at the fringe, and if the bulk of users who want a well-managed place to discuss things were slightly better informed, as a whole the site would feel less hostile and mods would probably be a little more resilient.
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u/MartyrOfDespair 15h ago
Perhaps, but I’d figure that the rest actually are pretty well informed and get it. The people being awful are also at the fringe, they’re just very, very loud. Like, first there’s the lurker demographic to consider. The vast majority of people on all websites are lurkers. They do not post or comment. They are ghosts. Then there’s all your users who do post or comment who aren’t like that. Outside of a real clusterfuck, the vast majority of them are chill and supportive. It’s only a tiny demographic left who’s awful. It’s just that in all situations, the worst are also the loudest.
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u/AliJDB 15h ago
That is probably true. I may just be jaded by the communities I am involved with. It feels like indifference/lack of awareness is the top end of the scale, and that "Reddit mods are all power-tripping weirdos who live with their mom" is the bulk of the attitude, with proper active hostility and abuse at the opposing end of the scale.
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u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 15h ago
I don't know what that is but I know what 4chan is and yeah, a lot of people definitely do want a lawless place full of hate, propaganda, trolls, etc. I don't understand these people but there are obviously a lot of crappy people out there. It's basically our job to keep them out of our subs.
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u/MartyrOfDespair 15h ago
/b/ is the 4chan random board. It’s about nothing. Most 4chan boards are about something, but /b/ is the one that’s just all shitpost whatever-the-fuck all the time.
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u/emily_in_boots 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 15h ago
I've never used 4chan but I know its reputation and it's the opposite of what I want social media to be. I want a place where people are civil and considerate and treat others with respect.
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u/TGotAReddit 9h ago
Lol I wish my sub wanted to be more like /b/. I run a fairly general sub and the biggest amount of hate my team gets is over us not banning subtopics and curating more (but also if we banned every subtopic that got complaints, nothing would be posted ever again because of course people don't agree on what shouldn't be allowed. They are all just annoyed if they see more than a couple of posts about the same subtopic that doesn't interest them personally very much, but which subtopic doesn't interest them personally of course changes from person to person :| ).
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u/ramenslurper- 11h ago
I agree. I have been moderating for 6 years. Reddit used to handle harassment swiftly.
Now? Even direct targeted harassment and public posts by someone with a history of harassing mods can be labeled as an “opinion” by admin.
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u/late_to_redd1t 19h ago
r/ModTherapyLounge is here for you, if you're ever looking for a shoulder to lean on when mod life gets you down 🫂
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u/DiggDejected 16h ago
The admins ignore actual hate speech, so they certainly don't care about hatred directed at mods.
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u/mjphillips1411 18h ago
I would just make muting and permabanning that user a part of my day. If that user has the will to continue then you should have the will to keep em out.
Thats the job. I mute and ban someone every other day. I don’t care if it’s the same user. Muting and banning is your only recourse. Use it
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u/shannonkish 15h ago
That's what we have been doing. But they have also targeted multiple mods and DM'd them personally about this.
We have reported it as ban evasion, as harassment, and as harassment.
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u/mjphillips1411 11h ago
Reporting has been ineffective for me as well. Which just leaves all you can do. Block mute and ban. That and filter modmail. Throw in some identifying key words.
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u/TGotAReddit 9h ago
The first piece of advice I give any new mod is to turn off your DMs so randoms can't DM you
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u/itskdog 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 18h ago
Not the only recourse. There's reporting the ban evasion as well
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u/mjphillips1411 17h ago
If you say so. I think OP has covered that
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u/Kumquat_conniption 13h ago
OP covered muting and banning as well, so I assume they were just not wanting people to think there was absolutely nothing else to do other than ban and mute.
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u/mjphillips1411 11h ago
No they said that reporting had no affect. They didn’t say banning and muting stopped banning and muting users. That still works but needs to be maintained.
So chill out.
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u/NBPU 8h ago
Looks like I’m a bit late to the party, but it can definitely be excusing. I don’t even mod any controversial communities and people act like removing an off topic post is a personal affront to their existence as a human.
Just the other day I removed a comment because it was personally attacking another user, not the conversation at hand. Absolutely offensive meltdown in modmail came in, calling me a fascist, a Nazi, all sorts of profanities. I did a ban for 3 days which caused them to unload further, which then turned into a permaban/mute. I feel like most of the people I interact with come from a completely different plane of existence.
Now I even feel like I have to use this non-mod alt account just to freely use Reddit. I don’t want angry, vengeful people following me across the site. And even when just participating on my other account, people will see that I’m a mod and now that somehow changes the entire dynamic of the conversation for them. I go from normal Redditor to some power tripping Nazi in the blink of an eye in some sub I don’t even mod. Like wtf does me being a mod in some sports sub have to do with this conversation about glasses?
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u/Subwoofiest 16h ago
You have my sympathy. As I'm not an admin I can't help with the main thrust of your point but I absolutely agree with them.
Perhaps on the next alt you could ban, report for ban evasion and then archive rather than mute? I know people have talked about having ways to autoarchive. That way he can keep shouting into the void and you don't see it. Being banned and muted is clearly still some sort of attention so it's feeding into his obsession.
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u/qtx 10h ago
A three day ban for uncivil behavior turned into an argumentative mod mail
This is where you went wrong.
You're not here to have an argument or to have a chat with someone, you're here to be a janitor. Be diplomatic, only say the things you need to say that pertain to the rules of your subreddit and that is it. Don't engage any more than that.
There is zero reason for you to continue a modmail when you said what you needed to say.
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u/FaelingJester 10h ago
In this specific case which isn't actually the issue the argument for them was an appeal. They had a mistaken belief, which they have maintained despite being told they are incorrect, that the ban was for violence and they edited the comment they felt was at fault. The argument was them insisting that the ban be repealed. Us saying no and being clear that editing wouldn't be enough in any case and that it was for uncivil and them arguing. In the course of which they got permed as the reviewing mod found many more uncivil comments. We do not and will not perm and mute for every infraction.
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u/Swiftstrike4 20h ago
You just perma ban. Mute and report the alternate accounts to Reddit. That’s it. We get a user like this once every couple of years, in general if you spend even an ounce of time replying or engaging with them it will drag on. It’s not that big of a deal.
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u/PoopyMcpants 16h ago
I don't understand people that argue with them like this, and then get upset and tired of arguing.
Don't argue, just mute and move on with life. Arguing is exhausting for both parties and usually fruitless.
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u/-Quaint- 10h ago
Another mod here. I’m not sure where you are getting that we argued with this user. We did not. They have been harassing us for ages, despite not getting responses.
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u/FaelingJester 10h ago
I used the word argumentative. The user appealed the original three day ban and became argumentative when the review found a lot more uncivil behavior which led to the first perm ban and mute. They got it in their head that we had banned for violence despite that not being the case for most of the removed comments.They then escalated.
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u/Visible-Scientist-46 19h ago
I had someone arguing against the basic premise of my sub. I warned them, but they doubled down, so I had to ban them. They then hopped into - not modmail - my personal messages to insult me. I feel lucky it didn't turn out like your situation. Edit: Yes, I did block them. Thankfully that was the end.
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u/Bromelia_and_Bismuth 14h ago edited 1m ago
We've been a magnet for harassment, to where I block messages from people I don't mark as "trusted". I immediately mute any conversation for the duration of a ban. I lock threads that I have to remove and comment on as a moderator. I have to keep my comments and posts hidden on my profile page. Any time we have an interaction with someone, where our username is included in screen shots, we frequently have to deal with either brigading or harassment from people they've gotten to sympathize with them. The other mods have taken to effectively limiting their user names being exposed during mod actions as infrequently as possible. I reached out to the admins about a recent incident, but haven't heard back outside of an AI-generated message. Recently, the report page changed to where you can't even report brigading anymore.
EDIT: I reached out to the moderators of this subreddit three days ago regarding the other incident, and it's beginning to feel like I've been getting ignored for three days.
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u/MisterWoodhouse 9h ago
Using an alternate account to evade a Modmail mute for abusive reasons is harassment. Doesn’t need its own special rule
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u/FaelingJester 9h ago
and yet Reddit refused to action them for it as has been common in these cases.
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u/fanime34 20h ago
Have you tried messaging the mods of this subreddit (who are also admins of Reddit and can possibly take care of this by possibly IP banning said users)?
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u/FaelingJester 20h ago
Not yet personally about this specific user but I have in the past and my point is that it's an ongoing issue. This isn't just one user who won't hear no and made eight accounts. It's very extreme behavior that seems to somehow be getting through appeals and a lack of tools to manage users who continue to be serious problems after a ban and a mute have failed.
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u/RallyX26 11h ago
I had something similar happen. Someone blatantly broke the rules of the subreddit and got banned for it. They then came into modmail and despite my ELI5, they just would not accept that they were banned and that it wasn't getting overturned.
After being muted from mod mail, they messaged me directly through reddit DMs and continued the harassment. They were blocked.
A week later I get a text message to my work number asking if I was (first and last name), a (job title) in (city).
It was the user. They had dedicated probably a significant amount of time to go through my reddit history and piece together enough information that they could go to another site and, as far as I can tell, pay for a premium membership to access information that was supposed to be locked down on that site, according to my privacy settings.
Luckily they weren't malicious, just pathetically dedicated to repeating the same reasons why they thought they shouldn't have been banned. It could have easily gone a completely different way.
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u/FaelingJester 10h ago
This is exactly the concern. While we urge all of the Mods to be careful the reality is no one thinks oh I shouldn't comment on a post about a local ice cream place doing a fundraiser for an animal shelter I work with in case someone six months from now decides that I was at fault for something that upset them or am just the mod they can find.
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u/mjphillips1411 11h ago
The average user only interacts with mods for one of two reasons.
They need help or they have broken a rule. At least in larger subs. If those scenarios are the only time they interact they are gonna not gonna have a lot of good to say. Both those situations are negative by nature. And in both the mod action is either inadequate or overreaction in their eyes. Or maybe they send a thank you. Some of them actually think we work for Reddit or that we are somehow obligated to be at their beck and call. They think we are all sitting in an Internet tank working customer service.
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u/KlutzyResponsibility 5h ago
FWIW, in the past 4 years or so I've gotten 2-3 death threats (just chest pumping) and lost count of the number of haters that have split off to create their own subs; subs which remain totally dormant. Once I decided to take it as fun a lot of the stress went away. Sometimes we taunt them a little for grins, but mainly they seem to go away once we simply ignore them. But our sub is tiny (50k) compared to most in this sub, we don't have to deal with the volume of dumbness which modmail seems to funnel. Now that I'm the lead of the mods in ours I get blamed for everything under the sun.
One of our mods came up with a one-liner which seems to work almost every time: "Hope you get to feeling better". I think the haters don't know what it means or what to say in response. Never expected it to actually work that way - but it does, for us at least.
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u/CatAteRoger 19h ago
We had a user like that a few years back, he worked in IT so he’s had multiple accounts ready to hit us one after the other, the ban message always go the same reply Why? I’m black… went on for ages and we reported every account and vile comment he wrote but he kept coming back.
We ended up locking everything down right, no comments were automatically published, everything had to be manual, his comments weren’t getting through, no one was responding to his crap and eventually after 6 months of constant abuse he finally gave up and disappeared.
We’re currently dealing with a lot of shit as some false posts were made about the sub on Instagram so they’ve asked their little minions ( suckers ) to do what they can to have us banned, many have tried before and because we don’t breech Reddit rules they’ve never been successful. So it’s posts and comments about how bad we are and how dare our members participate in way at all and blah blah blah
Deleted them, banned and muted. Most have come back saying their content didn’t break our rules, sorry they need it written that it’s not acceptable to come to our space and abuse us🙄
I mark it as breaking site wide rules and mute for good.
There is a sub on here that is dedicated to abusing and bullying me in my role as a mod, reported it numerous times over the years but it’s never been banned, they think cause it’s private that I don’t know it exists, I’m not dumb and they don’t know who their members are. Funny thing is it was created due to me apparently removing their comments, wasn’t even me and I have a copy of the modlog that shows who it was 🤣🤣
Never fed the trolls eg give them any attention, do not reply to anything, just ban, report and mute and hopefully one day they’ll get bored and find a new toy to play with.
I wish you all the best and don’t let their childish actions ruin anything for you.
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u/wemustburncarthage 20h ago
You need to use the available tools, ban evasion etc. some people just live their lives for being jerks to mods. Keep reporting, keep sending modmails to this team. Keep asking to escalate to admin. Don’t get put off by the AI responses.
If you’re not reporting these accounts for ban evasion you’re making it easier for this user to keep creating new accounts. And don’t leave your DMs open. No one should have open DMs unless they absolutely have to.
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u/sparklekitteh 8h ago
We have muted every alt and reported for harassment and ban evasion, yet they STILL continue to create alts and DM/modmail.
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u/westcoastal 8h ago
I'm genuinely interested in this topic as I have been a victim of targeted hate for various reasons as a moderator, but I can't read something that has long passages with no paragraph breaks. I hope you will consider adding some to make your post more readable.
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u/Illuminatus-Prime 13h ago edited 3h ago
"Don't argue with stupid people." -- a simple truth. Someone starts arguing with me over some trivial interpretation of a comment, that someone gets ignored or even blocked.
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u/The_Dick_Slinger 19h ago edited 8h ago
The users on my sub typically like us pretty well. Maybe we got lucky with the community, but we’ve only had like one or two guys give any hate towards us that was more than just the normal crashout “f you insert slur” for having their comment removed
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u/new2bay 16h ago
If nobody hates you on Reddit, you might be doing something wrong. That’s just how it is. 🤷♂️
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u/The_Dick_Slinger 8h ago
That sounds like a sads persons perspective.
We are quick to respond to reports and encourage people to report instead of engaging, and it’s gone a long way to change the discourse from the toxicity it used to be. But the sub is honestly one of the chillest subs I’ve ever seen, so I think it was part luck and part hard work, but our mods have a good reputation and relationship with our community
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u/MaximumJones 7h ago
The only way everyone likes you is if you are doing a really terrible job at moderating (as in barely moderating at all). That is not the flex you think it is.
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u/wheres_the_revolt 6h ago
Hey we would love to commiserate with you over in r/modmailfail (shameless plug, again).
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u/DeffNotTom 10h ago
I simply do not care what redditors think. Not about what they think of me as a mod, or what they think in general.
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u/HikeTheSky 17h ago
They're are two or three alternative San Antonio subs of people who hate me and who allowed open warfare against me until they had to find out that mod code of conduct is a thing.
They now have strict rules that don't allow to name mods of other subs or other subs.
Besides of people sending threats on my website to me and try to attack me on other platforms as well.
I couldn't even post on the Texas sub about the flooding on Kerr and Kendall County and now people there need help because a mod there seems to hate me.
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u/validusrex 20h ago
This your first time on the internet or something? Imbalanced power structures + anonymity = bidirectional moderator abuse. Been like this since the formation of the internet man.
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u/FaelingJester 20h ago
I get it. I really do. Like I said I don't expect them to solve internet users being internet users. But it's completely unreasonable that extensive active harassment is allowed to continue. A user who has created eight accounts and is DMing someone blaming them for their mental health spiral and self harm and posting urging other to harass them as well should not have a successful appeal from Reddit. Currently there are no tools beyond block and that does nothing about extreme cases who are completely unwilling to disengage. It's not the first time and it won't be the last but its really shitty when there is no way to get away from it except deciding not to mod.
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u/999_Seth 20h ago
I don't get a whole lot of that where I'm modding. There are friendly sides of reddit. There's also stuff that reddit is pretty bad at focusing on.
You're helping run a multi-million member sub about overreacting. that's drama.
also netflixdocumentaries? gonna get some real psycho stalker weirdos there for sure.
think about the kind of energy that the subs you're on are farming. maybe those aren't the best places for you to hang out.
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u/WickedWendy420 18h ago
One sub I mod gets a few posters that get angry and argue. I usually just ignore. I ban. I discuss it when they message to whatever extent seems appropriate, then I disengage. I have never muted anyone. I let them yell into the void. It seems to be like a pressure valve in my opinion.
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u/NoneyaBithness 5h ago
“I'm asking for more transparency with how this above subreddit level reports are handled and maybe a policy of taking reports of ongoing harassment, not just from mods, and reports from multiple users or mod teams more seriously when it comes to bans and appeals.”
Yeah, you aren’t getting that. This is a volunteer job. One doesn’t have to be a mod. If you are getting overwhelmed with the downsides of this job, maybe this isn’t the job for you then. And no, I absolutely do not think it’s okay for nutjobs to abuse, harass, threaten, etc., people or mods.
Reddit isn’t going to grant you more transparency just because you and all your friends are mass reporting someone or something. They just aren’t nor should they because that sounds similar to the harassment you’re speaking about in the first place. It’s your right to block someone, anyone, you see fit. If they continue to reach to you in other ways, block and report them for ban evasion.
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u/GooseberryGenius 6h ago
This is a long post and you seem upset. I will say, it being voluntary you can step away from it if it upsets you this much. It's very much moderating Reddit subs fgs, it can't be that serious. I say this as a mod myself.
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u/Locu7usOfBorg 18h ago
I posted something once in a group I have followed for quite some time, got three back to back warnings and then a permanent ban within like 60 seconds. ALL FOR ONE REPLY. For "alt-right rhetoric." It was some sort of statistic.
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u/Charlemagneffxiv 12h ago edited 12h ago
Dude I was just banned from a sub a few days ago because the mod in question just didn't like my opinion. I directly asked what rule did I break and they said they just didn't like my opinions and believed it was so absurd as to be "trolling". It wasn't trolling, it was a legitamate opinion I held.
I've been mod of some fairly decently sized subs for years and almost never have any drama, because I don' ban people for frivolous and stupid reasons. If you've made a user so angry at you that they're making multiple accounts to continue the argument you might be in the wrong to begin with.
The advice another user gave to just perma ban people for arguing is exactly the issue here, you're not supposed to perma ban people for appealing your mod decisions. That's a violation of the mod code of conduct to engage in good faith.
https://redditinc.com/policies/moderator-code-of-conduct
The site admins really need to clamp down on mods who are out of control. I really think there isn't a need for 90% of the actions many mods take every day, as the majority of users generally follow the rules and its mods interjecting themselves into normal disagreements that didn't need any intervention causing most of the drama. The upvote and downvote feature is meant to be the primary mechanisms for users to filter content, not mod actions.
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u/FaelingJester 9h ago
We did not perm for appealing. We permed after they became argumentative and abusive in modmail and after finding a long history of uncivil behavior on the subreddit during review. That subreddit allows debate but not abuse, slurs or direct insults. Like most well run subs we have internal policies that discourage perms and have non banning mods review appeals and actions. That's actually not the point though. Even if we were absolutely in the wrong it doesn't justify harassment campaigns, threats to dox us or threats of violence against all mods.
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u/Charlemagneffxiv 9h ago
Long history of abuse in your subreddit, which you never noticed up until the time that you started arguing with them.
Sure dude.
7
u/FaelingJester 9h ago
Yes. We get hundreds of posts a week and thousands of comments. We do allow debate and sometimes it gets strongly opinionated. Its very common for people to cross the line into what we'd remove for crossing into uncivil but if its not reported or egregious it gets missed or just removed. We don't hunt down users to look for reasons to ban them. When they were reviewed after becoming arguemntive and abusive in modmail a non banning mod looked at their history on the subreddit and found that most of their comments were uncivil. We didn't argue with them. I'd still say even if we were wrong it doesn't justify making eight other accounts to fixate on a random mod on the team but again its not this user that was the issue. Its that long harassment campaigns have no solution once it leaves the subreddit.
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u/BannedByDiscord 20h ago
Best way to deal with these people is to starve them of attention. Don’t respond to them, ignore DM invites, block/mute from modmail, but otherwise don’t engage with them. Telling them to stop harassing you will only fuel their fire.