Reddit moderators will finally be rewarded, but not necessarily as you imagine

After having alienated itself, which is perhaps its main asset, Reddit tries to put the pieces back together by creating a reward system for moderators.

But as much to say it right away, the platform starts from afar, after having more or less won its showdown with its moderation teams. By being ruthless and not the least bit grateful to the teams that make the site livable, its leaders have alienated the remaining moderators. The reception of their latest announcement is, at the very least, circumspect.

A step towards moderators

It’s been almost since the site’s existence that its moderators, who have a special status, being volunteers but theoretically more independent than for other comparable platforms, have asked the platform for better tools for moderation. Despite regular promises to this effect, the requests have never been granted. So, for a long time, moderators relied on third-party apps that provided access to such tools.

But all this is no longer possible since Reddit has chosen to charge for access to its API, and this, at a dissuasive price so that these applications can hope to recover their costs. Applications allowing better moderation are not the only ones to have had to go out of business. Some that made it possible to improve and personalize the user experience were also concerned, as were those allowing better accessibility, in particular for the visually impaired.

To protest the move, moderators of more than 8,000 of the world’s largest subreddits chose to set their communities to private, some for 48 hours, others indefinitely. Other means of protest, even more creative, have also emerged. If the platform granted some concessions, such as making an exception for accessibility applications, it did not hold back its blows against volunteer moderators who had the audacity to do what they had been authorized to do. Entire moderation teams have thus been replaced overnight, and others have been forced to stop their actions, on pain of experiencing the same fate. Not surprisingly, those who stayed aren’t exactly on great terms with Reddit.

The Mod Helper Program

Among the concessions granted by the management of Reddit, it had once again promised to give its moderators new tools directly on the application. For once, she kept her word, even if the tools in question are criticized as being buggy and far from sufficient. The site has also set up a chatbot to answer questions from moderators.

But above all, he created the Mod Helper Program in order to reward the most invested among them. As much to say it right away, this is not what will help them to pay their rent. It is not a question here of remunerating the moderators (which the latter would not necessarily accept, moreover), but of offering them “trophies” on Reddit. These will be given to those who post the comments receiving the most upvotes on r/modsupport. Moderators receiving the most of these trophies may be awarded the title of Helper, or even Expert Helper for the most diligent.

To bury the hatchet, we have seen better. Especially since, as some moderators pointed out in response to the announcement, r/modsupport was originally created for site administrators to answer questions from moderators. Such a system seems above all created to relieve them of this responsibility.

Source : TechCrunch