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.”
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.