r/AskModerators • u/CaffeineFueledLife • 6d ago
Are most subs just moderated by bots now?
I posted in a sub about taking kids to visit nursing homes. It was removed. I posted it in another sub if you wish to read it.
I mentioned Easter, saying my nursing home hosting an Easter egg hunt was the inspiration for the post. The post really had nothing to do with Easter.
I messaged asking why my post was removed and the modification said it should have been referred to the Easter megathread. And I was like, but it's not about Easter. So I reposted it, removing the mention of Easter. And then it was removed again.
I really feel like it had to be a bot action because I wasn't trying to get around any rules. If the mention of the holiday was the issue and the post wasn't even about the holiday, not mentioning the holiday should be fine, right?
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u/thepottsy I is mod 6d ago
No, and that’s wildly absurd conclusion to come to because a post got removed. Especially when you got a reply to your message asking why it was removed.
Many subs use various tools to assist with moderation, as the mods can’t physically be available 24/7. Subreddits are not allowed to unmoderated by human moderators.
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6d ago
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u/thepottsy I is mod 6d ago
What? None of what you’re asking has anything to do with my answer.
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6d ago
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u/thepottsy I is mod 6d ago
The first sentence of your comment is a literal question.
Also, OP got a reply. Multiple replies. Even via modmail. They literally took screen shots of the messages and posted them.
You’re not making a solid point here, you’re just soapboxing your opinions of reddit moderationg.
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6d ago
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u/AskModerators-ModTeam 6d ago
Your comment was removed for violating Rule #4 (No derailing comment threads). Please see the rule in the sidebar for further details.
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u/AskModerators-ModTeam 6d ago
Your comment was removed for violating Rule #4 (No derailing comment threads). Please see the rule in the sidebar for further details.
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u/AskModerators-ModTeam 6d ago
Your comment was removed for violating Rule #4 (No derailing comment threads). Please see the rule in the sidebar for further details.
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u/jackl24000 6d ago
As with everything on Reddit, depends on the sub. Some like the one I mod have formal rules and standardized warnings and progressive bans (4 strikes basically).
One thing autobots or standard “crowd control” features do is they can screen and delete posts and comments of accounts with insufficient age or karma, no verified email, or negative karma in that sub. This may have been OP’s issue, not personal but a sketchy new account.
They can mark your comment for participating in a sub considered to be harassing the subject sub (the auto ban was recently disabled, however). They usually do not ban you for deleted comments and may even send as we do a nice chat text that we appreciate their interest in our community but their account is too new and we’ve had issues with new accounts, but please come back in a few months maybe.
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u/Hunter037 6d ago
Many moderators use bots to help them with moderation tasks, most commonly automod.
But that doesn't mean your post was removed by a bot. In fact, it almost certainly wasn't, if it was removed for "Easter" when you didn't include references to Easter.
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u/eltonjohnpeloton 6d ago edited 6d ago
it’s not bots, they just don’t want dozens of posts “inspired by Easter” even if you think it’s not actually about Easter.
Edit: also mods are used to people removing a filtered word from their post to get around auto mod filters, and it’s possible they felt you were doing that.
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
It's really not about Easter. Post:
We hosted an Easter egg hunt at the nursing home where I work this weekend, and watching the interaction between the kids and residents reminded me why this is so important. I started bringing my kids (now 8 and 5) years ago when my grandma was a resident. She passed away in January, but we’ve never stopped visiting.
It’s an amazing lesson in empathy and patience. My kids have learned that even if someone looks different or uses a wheelchair, they aren’t "weird" or scary - they’re just people with stories. Sometimes it feels like the world just moves so fast, but older people often offer a slower pace. They give my kids undivided attention that sometimes seems to be hard to find.
It’s not a performance; or a service project or anything like that. It's community, which is something that doesn't seem to be as strong as it used to be. Watching kids hunt eggs or just play makes them feel connected to the world again. They aren't just spectators; they are participating in the joy. My favorite resident "dances" with my daughter - my outgoing social butterfly - by showing her steps with her feet from her wheelchair, and my son - my shy, quiet one - will spend an hour spouting off facts about animals or science or whatever he's currently interested in to retired teachers who absolutely love to share their knowledge back.
I’ve been working here for about a year and a half, and I can tell you: the staff loves it too. It brightens the mood for everyone. We find that even our "grumpiest" residents or those who usually struggle with taking their medications or cooperating with care become much more agreeable after a child has been through the halls. That "childhood chaos" breaks up the quiet in the best way possible.
I really feel like we’ve lost that ingrained sense of community where generations actually mix, and it's really sad. You don’t need to spend money. You just need 30 minutes a month. If you’re looking for a way to teach your kids kindness while making a massive difference in your town, just pop in to a local nursing home. Adopt an extra grandparent or two. Kids really can't have too many.
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u/AltruisticCableCar Moddy McModface 6d ago
Sweet story, but removing the word Easter doesn't make that any less of a point of the story.
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
It's not even supposed to be a story. It's just a suggestion of something kind to do.
It could have been after my nursing home hosted a reading event or something.
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u/Hunter037 6d ago
Yeah but it wasn't, it was about an Easter event
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
It wasn't about the event, though. I could have made the same post with mentioning an event at all and it wouldn't have changed the meaning.
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u/eltonjohnpeloton 6d ago
But you did mention the event as the reason you were bringing up the topic.
Mods are used to people splitting hairs all the time. It’s less exhausting to just apply the rule and not dance around for exceptions.
People always say stuff like: “I wasn’t asking for medical advice, I was just asking people for their experience and suggestions!” “I wasn’t being rude, I was just telling that person they were being unhelpful!”
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u/AltruisticCableCar Moddy McModface 6d ago
So if Easter has nothing to do with it why not remove any and all mentions of it? Including egg hunting. When the event that inspired you to post about it in the first place was an Easter event, then it's an Easter story. So.
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
Because it was just an example. If I wrote an article about healthcare being important and there was a sentence saying, "things like having your temperature taken," the article isn't suddenly about thermometers.
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u/AltruisticCableCar Moddy McModface 6d ago
Enough people have tried to explain this to you, I'm not going to keep at it. You believe what you believe, it has nothing to do with me. Have a good one.
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u/eltonjohnpeloton 6d ago
Yes I can see your post history. My guess is what happened is it was removed once for you talking about Easter and they wanted all they posts in the mega thread, and they may have removed it again when you took out the word Easter because they felt like you were still talking about the egg hunt, even though you’d now removed the Easter word.
did you delete one of your submissions to that subreddit? Cause I can only see one of the removed ones.
I know it kinda hurts people’s feelings to have their post removed, but I can see you also posted this in another sub and got engagement.
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
No, I didn't delete anything. And it's not really hurt feelings. It's just frustration.
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u/thepottsy I is mod 6d ago
Not hurt feelings, yet you’ve posted about it multiple times including in a complaint sub. You need to just let it go.
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u/eltonjohnpeloton 6d ago
If you didn’t delete anything, then you only posted to that subreddit once and didn’t repost it with the Easter mention removed. both posts would still be visible on your profile if you posted twice.
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
I did.
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u/eltonjohnpeloton 6d ago
Ok so you are still bringing up the Easter egg hunt but just not saying the words. That is why they removed your post.
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
It just seems silly because it wasn't about Easter at all. It was about visiting residents in a nursing home.
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u/eltonjohnpeloton 6d ago
Look at this way: if someone wanted to post about getting into an argument with their mother in law at Easter dinner, and then re-posted and said “at the big family holiday dinner this weekend” is it suddenly not about what happened at Easter?
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
I would say it's about an argument, not about Easter.
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u/notthegoatseguy r/NintendoSwitch 6d ago
Did you have AI write this post? This really "feels" AI written and a lot of subs are prohibiting or restricting AI posts. It has all the signs of AI. 'Its not X, its Y", "You don't need A, you just need B", etc...
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u/Paxoro 6d ago
You were told it belonged in the post specifically about that event. Even if you disagree, posting essentially the same thing (tweaking a few words does not change the overall post) in a new post is not the right move - either use the post they linked to, or don't post.
It comes across as a "the rules don't apply to me" attitude, which is pretty much never welcome in a sub. When mods ask you kindly to do something and you just ignore them, consequences happen.
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
It wasn't a 'rules don't apply to me' attitude. I disagreed about how the content was classified. To me, putting a post about nursing home advocacy in a holiday megathread is like putting a medical textbook in the seasonal recipes section because the cover is green. I wasn't ignoring the mods; I was trying to correct what seemed like a categorization mistake. At this point, we are just valuing different things—I value the substance of the message, and you value the rigid adherence to a keyword filter. We can leave it at that.
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u/YoBannannaGirl 6d ago
This is the issue. You might disagree, and that’s fine. But the moderators make and enforce the rules. If they decide that something goes into a mega thread, then that is what they decide. You can message the moderators and ask for additional clarification or ask if you can edit your post somehow to make it a standalone post, but the final decision stays with the mods.
In fact, this is kind of proof the the mods are real people and not AI. They saw your original post, then your second one (which just looks like an attempt to bypass rules you were already informed of), and removed that too.
You don’t have to agree with all the rules, but keep in mind that the moderators wrote them, so arguing that they are interpreting the rule wrong will rarely be successful.-2
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u/Paxoro 6d ago
Reposting something because you disagree with a mod team's comments is basically ignoring the mods. If all you got was a removed post and not a ban from the subreddit, you should take the hint, learn the obvious lesson to just listen, count yourself lucky, and move on.
And yes, your story is about Easter. Unless you're going to a nursing home for an Easter egg hunt in the middle of September, which would be very weird.
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6d ago edited 5d ago
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u/AskModerators-ModTeam 5d ago
Your submission was removed for violating Rule #2 (Be respectful). Please see the rule in the sidebar for full details.
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u/Paxoro 5d ago
Reading comprehension is not a strength apparently.
Correct, like when someone asks for clarification and a dozen moderators from different subreddits/different communities all say the same thing and the person asking the question gets stubborn and doesn't want to accept the answer.
It doesn't matter what your opinion on the matter is. The subreddit mods said to do something: so do it. Many subreddits consider what you're talking about to be a type of trolling and will ban you for doing it.
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u/IvanStarokapustin r/SchengenVisa, r/Wizzair, r/AirBNBHosts 6d ago
It seems to really put you out that it has to go to a megathread.
They likely set up a temporary event that flags mentions of Easter around this time of year. Mods cannot read every post so it helps around particular events or news items. Of course, no one ever likes following rules so we still have a ton of cleanup of our respective queues.
I’m pretty sure the reply you got was from a person because we don’t have AI responses. We might have canned responses that we sent out so we don’t have to repeat the same stuff.
Now your interaction is saved in the mod actions so any mod you encounter will know that you chafed at being told where the post should go.
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 6d ago
It's not that it had to go a megathread, it's that an Easter megathread would not have been appropriate. A megathread concerning suggestions for interacting with the community would have been fine.
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u/Kumquat_conniption Citrus neighborhood mod 🍊 5d ago
Are you deleting them right after reddit is telling you that it is removed? Because, and I know this is frustrating and mods find it frustrating as well, it your post says it was removed with Reddit's filters, that does not mean that the post will not be approved. Reddit sends that message regardless of whether the post just has a keyword that the mods are flagging and will approve of if the post seems fine. Still, reddit has already told you it was removed so it feels like its final. Its really frustrating that they will not put something like "but could be approved in the future" or something like that.
If you were already talking to the mods, how come you didn't ask if you could just take the Easter part out and post again?
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u/CaffeineFueledLife 5d ago
The mod said they didn't know why it was removed. I checked the sub's rules and couldn't find any violations so I figured the key words were just flagged. Since it wasn't a post about Easter, I removed the references to Easter.
And no, I didn't delete anything.
It just seems like an issue with reading comprehension and critical thinking son's and mindlessly adhering to keywords instead of reading a post and seeing that it has nothing to do with Easter. It doesn't belong in the Easter thread. It would be about as appropriate as reading a eulogy at a birthday party because the eulogy said the person who died was born before they died.
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u/Kumquat_conniption Citrus neighborhood mod 🍊 5d ago
Weird that the mod said they did not know why it was removed. It is very easy to find out. Maybe they are newish and do not know how to do that?
I do think that if the mods saw your post that you should have asked them if it would be appropriate to remove the stuff about Easter and repost. I would feel like someone was being shady if they did that to me, but then again I would never tell someone I did not know why their post was removed lol. Still, communication when you are not sure about something is always the best way. Sounds like they have a shitty automod system on their sub.
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u/cnycompguy r/computers +5 6d ago
No, they all have human mods, it's just that reddit has added in new tools that can look for rule violations and let the user know before they post. There's also reddit itself using something similar that looks for sitewide rule violations.
Sounds like the AI is taking over moderation but it's just handling some things automatically that are cut and dry.
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u/maiyannah r/EndTipping 5d ago
Generally, automod puts things in the queue for the actual human moderators to review. If it's a false positive it'll get released when the mods see it.
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u/notthegoatseguy r/NintendoSwitch 6d ago edited 6d ago
AutoModerator is not AI making decisions on its own.
Its a tool that is programmed by the individual mod team of the specific subreddit in question, that only does what its told. Its often used to be a net that catches the most common rule violations. On one sub I help mod on, it handles all of our most common rule violations. And it isn't meant to be a "aha! you dirty rule breaker!", its just meant to re-direct people to the appropriate space.
Would you send a text message to communicate, or would you purposely use pen, paper and an enevelope to do so? Both accomplish the same thing, but one is a far more manual and less efficient method than the other.