Reddit launches moderator rewards program amid sitewide discontent - eviltoast

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.”

  • Izzy@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

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

    • ChrisLicht@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • Izzy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        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.

        • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          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.

          • Clent@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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.

          • Izzy@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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.

      • xapr@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        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.

          • xapr@lemmy.sdf.org
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            1 year ago

            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.

            • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

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

  • roguetrick@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • mommykink@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • roguetrick@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • m-p{3}@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    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

  • Dettweiler@lemmyonline.com
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It is very close to literally that, except the boss isn’t actually doing the giving-- it’s automated-- and the sticker isn’t a sticker-- it’s a row in a database table.

      At least with the boss-sticker scenario, the boss has to actually do something.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      Going on strike? … you mean keeping gullible adults and teenagers who were convinced to work for free from just walking out the door to go somewhere else.

  • aport@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

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

    Everyone else: then stop

    Power mods: >:(

    • Gsus4@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      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 :/

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

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

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

  • TheEmpireStrikesDak@thelemmy.club
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • jet@hackertalks.com
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    1 year ago

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

  • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    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.