Reddit launches moderator rewards program amid sitewide discontent

NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world to Reddit@lemmy.ml – 434 points – Reddit launches moderator rewards program amid sitewide discontent  | TechCrunch
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The Mod Helper Program is a tiered system that awards helpful moderators with trophies and flairs. Reddit users accrue karma by receiving upvotes and awards, and lose karma if they receive downvotes. The program rewards moderators who receive upvotes on comments in r/ModSupport.

Comment karma earned in r/ModSupport will be rewarded with trophies that will “signal to other mods that you are a source of valuable information,” the moderator support team announced on Thursday. Each rank awards unique trophies and flairs, ranging from “Helper” to “Expert Helper.” Reddit launched a similar program in r/help earlier this year, which rewards users who accrue karma by responding to other users’ requests.

Reddit also launched the Modmail Answer Bot, which automatically responds with relevant links to the site’s Help Center. If the recommended articles don’t answer a specific request, it will create a ticket that will be handled by a human admin. The bot is designed to streamline moderator requests so the admin team can focus on more complex issues.

Additionally, Reddit is merging the moderator-specific Help Center with its sitewide one to ensure that support resources are “easy to find and accessible from the same location.”

In the most upvoted comment replying to the announcement, Reddit user MapleSurpy expressed frustration over the lack of useful moderation features available on Reddit’s official app. Moderators have requested ban evasion tools and “actual help from admins” when dealing with “problem users,” MapleSurpy said.

“We’ve asked for better tools on the official app to run subs now that Reddit took away every single third-party one,” they said. “What did we get? Another automated system … and flair rewards. Thank you SO much, I’m sure this will solve a whopping zero problems.”

Another user pointed out that the flairs aren’t based on comments that are actually helpful, and that “snarky people who are funny” will reach “expert in no time.”

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Moderator rewards program? How much money are they going to be paying them?

Nothing. The rewards are special flairs and digital trophies. This is what reddit thinks of their mods.

I am surprised they didn't do this their new awards system (or make them awards instead of trophies)

I was top mod of a 25K sub that closely followed an IRL lolcow trying to become a public intellectual. It was thankless, the monthly user tempests in a teapot were annoying, and dealing with the occasional new junior mod turning out to be a chud was taxing. I did it for maybe six months and then peaced out.

I honestly don’t understand the psychological makeup and social model of the big top mods who do this shit, day in day out, year after year. I assume they’ve got to be making money somehow, or they maybe are bubble-boys.

Probably just fools. Working for a corporation that makes money from your work without sharing any of it with them. Nobody should be moderating on Reddit without getting paid.

There's value in creating and maintaining a community for something you love. I imagine it's a bit like gardening: Pulling weeds and hauling mulch isn't fun, but when you take a step back you've created something nice.

Or something. I'm shit at gardening and never wanted to be a mod, probably for the same reason. And it would be far, far better to have your garden not be harvested by a megacorporation who can kick you off at any minute, but that's why I use the fediverse.

Would you garden on another person's property?

Not a community garden.

That's not what Reddit is, it's a corporation.

We spent a decade thinking it was a community garden.

Reddit said fuck you. Mine.

For sure. I don't mind moderating on Lemmy because nobody is making any money here. I'm doing something because I want to. However, I'm not going to do something even if I want to if someone else is making money from my efforts and not giving my me fair share. Whatever that may be.

It's really remarkable. I've noticed what seems to be a similar dynamic on some official corporate tech support forums like Microsoft, HP, etc. I've seen people who spend a lot of time providing volunteer tech support (based on their reputation scores). I just don't get the idea of volunteering for a for-profit corporation.

Some people just like helping others and trying to make things better. Don't condemn the form it comes in.

That's fine and I applaud that aspect of their actions; however, they could instead at least do this on independent, 3rd-party communities, or help people with open-source technologies. Providing large amounts of free labor to HP in a place convenient to HP like this is undercutting HP tech support employees' jobs, for example.

I'll make sure to run all my charitable decisions by you lest I not make the most efficient choices.

what's the exchange rate for rɘddit silvɘr?

Fucking lol. You get badges for doing the job of mentoring people that other social media companies pay people for. Anybody that falls for that gamification shit deserves it.

Eh, the volunteer mod system works well for smaller communities. It ensures that the moderators have a personal interest in the topic. It's not really fair to say "other social media companies pay people for" because they're not forums like Reddit. Its also pretty disingenuous to argue that things wouldve been better if every community was modded by site admins. The best subs IMO were the ones that were small enough to not attract admin attention.

Oviously for the "front page" subs, there shouldve been a more active involvement with the site admins and some type of payment but I never felt exploited when I deleted hate speech from a ~10k subscriber subreddit for a TV show that ended 15 years ago.

My biggest complaint came with the "first come, first served" system that made it almost impossible to reclaim abandoned subs.

I get you, but this is straight up making middle management free too. The unpaid mods are providing support to the unpaid mods and they're getting badges for their effort. It's a laugh. This is a community manager job.

The Mod Helper Program is a tiered system that awards helpful moderators with trophies and flairs. Reddit users accrue karma by receiving upvotes and awards, and lose karma if they receive downvotes. The program rewards moderators who receive upvotes on comments in r/ModSupport.

lmao my sides, they're giving stickers and shit like at elementary school

Exactly my thought. "Thanks for your unpaid work. Here's a sticker."

2 more...

Looks like reddit is now using the same approach as I'm using for my toddler: Sit on the potty? Get a sticker. Do a chore? Get a sticker. Spending countless nights keeping spam bots at bay? Believe it or not, sticker.

Can I get a sticker for reading this? ... Oh and another sticker for writing this comment?

Power mods: moderating is a thankless job, hard work, and reddit does not recognize how important we are!

Everyone else: then stop

Power mods: >:(

Maybe when they were moderating, they felt like they were responsible for a community they created and were invested in it, because it could not just be taken away, like it was. Now it's just a shitty unpaid job :/

Some free stars for Lemmy mods/admins: ✴❇💫🤩✨⭐🌟🌠

(Bonus stars: 🇦🇺🇧🇫🇨🇩🇨🇱🇨🇲🇨🇳🇨🇺🇨🇻🇨🇼🇩🇯🇨🇽🇩🇿🇪🇺🇫🇲🇬🇫🇬🇭🇭🇲🇮🇱🇰🇲🇰🇳🇱🇷🇱🇾🇲🇲🇲🇵🇲🇷🇳🇿🇵🇦🇵🇬🇵🇰🇵🇷🇸🇧🇸🇬🇸🇳🇸🇴🇸🇾🇹🇰🇹🇱🇹🇳🇹🇷🇹🇻🇻🇪🇻🇳🇼🇸🇿🇼🇽🇰)

This is hilarious! The mods are being compensated for their time with shiny gold stars!

This would be fine for small independent forums that don't really make a profit, but for spezzit? More fool them.

It can't be that bad, they are still using reddit. If it was a big issue they would be here

There's definitely some barriers to entry switching from reddit to lemmy. Even though they are only mildly different, it can be a confusing place after years of using reddit and getting used to the ecosystem there. At least it was for me

They will get a lot more pussy wearing those stickers like a veteran medal.

Wait till they hold "Moderator of the month" contests

I'm not coming back unless I have a chance to win a Dundie.

The platform gets millions. The moderator's get virtual trophies

Reddit is like a microcosm of American society

Yup. not even a sticker, or a shitty t-shirt.

And those mods work every fucking day lol. just sad, because Spez thought he could muskify reddit.

Well he can

not without ruining it. there's been a tremendous exodus of mods and users to lemmy for example :D

Yeah exactly. Didn't the exact same thing happen to X Twitter

Welcome to reddit where the awards are made up and the points don't matter.

Oh and where mods went for free in exchange for the made up awards and points.

The rewards are literally just more imaginary internet points? Lol

I pop into reddit occasionally with my ad blocker turned off. Any companies still popping up there are added to my shit list.

anyone left modding for stickers in reddit is an absolute moron.

lemmy ftw

For real. Even though there is shitposting here too, there is much better conversation going and not the typical "no u" bullshit Reddit is infested with.

I feel like most quality posters left Reddit and it shows in many of the larger subs. Unfortunately not all topics are discussed here yet so I still sometimes have to go to Reddit (don't have an account anymore). But when I do, holy shit the comment section is a dumpster fire.

I could not care less. I want my mod tools in Apollo back.

But... but... cool flair!?

It's interesting that reddit is giving out trophies and flair, which we all know are worthless things. The reason it's interesting is that they're not auto-generating a bunch of singular-but-exceptionally-similar trophies/flairs, labeling them as NFTs, and handing those out. Which sort of implies that spez still thinks NFTs have value ...

I thought we were sure about spez being an idiot?

Top be honest, I'd be even more pissed receiving a nft flair ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That's amazing. This has big "as a thanks for working your nuts off, we'll reward you with a pizza party" energy going on.

That would still fill your belly for a couple of hours. This is more like sending a "you're awesome" picture/gif on the work channel.

I work in enterprise IT, and whenever I see new announcements from the C-suite offices that include the words "streamline" and "merging", I can tell things are going to get worse, way worse.

I shouldn't be surprised anymore that execs truly believe they have the perfect solutions, all of which actually make things worse, way worse. No difference to them, they'll just fall up anyway.

Among top ranks where will be "Banner", "Expert Banner" and "Petty banner".

And there will trophies such as "Powetrip", "I am the law" and "Locked because y'all can't behave".

This is like getting a gold star for being a good hall monitor. Reddit mods/admins are the saddest, most pathetic losers ever.

I tried moderating once when Lycos chat was a thing but the problem with everything on the internet is you have to deal with power mad nut jobs that’ll do anything to knock you down if they see enjoying it.

So I really don’t get how good people can last in unpaid positions when you have people with no morale compass grind you down because boring people feel the need to take down anyone that dares ‘have fun’!

So it doesn’t surprise me when I randomly login to Lycos chat once a year, or 10 and see how lifeless it is and sadly no-one seems to have understood what attracted people there, or tried to improve on it! 😞

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Tensions between Reddit and its moderators are still high, as the site’s admins continue to remove entire mod teams for keeping their subreddits private in protest of the API pricing, which third-party app developers criticized as exorbitant and unsustainable.

Comment karma earned in r/ModSupport will be rewarded with trophies that will “signal to other mods that you are a source of valuable information,” the moderator support team announced on Thursday.

Additionally, Reddit is merging the moderator-specific Help Center with its sitewide one to ensure that support resources are “easy to find and accessible from the same location.”

Reddit has been slow to roll out moderation tools that were once offered by third-party apps, and the updates that the site has launched are clumsy and inaccessible.

Another user pointed out that the flairs aren’t based on comments that are actually helpful, and that “snarky people who are funny” will reach “expert in no time.”

In a reply to the thread, an admin said that Reddit’s product teams are working on “some of the issues” that moderators have brought up, and will be launching improvements to mobile features.

The original article contains 910 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 80%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Remember when there was cool and successful stuff on that site like r/PAN? I miss therapy gecko and that guy that stacked his Jenga blocks in funny ways.

Although I agree that giving useless internet points and sticker is am embarrassing rewards for that type of job, the incentive is great, reward people (both mods and regular users) who contribute by adding areal value to society. I know most lemmies would disagree but these type of things (people for Godforsaken reason do care about the internet points) makes some of the content in a quality that that you don't see here

I was having a shitt day, but this made me laugh! God spez is an idiot.

Praying moderators is actually a very bad idea. If people get paid for moderating, then they may get dependent on it financially. As a result, they will likely be inclined to act pro-Reddit whenever there is a conflict.

Sounds like a good idea from a reddit - the company -POV.

Sounds like a token gesture at best. The value of moderators is way over hyped. The real moderation happens in the upvote and downvotes that posts and comments receive.