I just never heard anything about it but heard so much from other, assumedly less powerful mods. I can’t remember the one’s name that was well known either…
Here’s a list of powermods from some time ago:
I’ve checked the profiles of the top ones:
- u/greatyellowshark is still fairly active and hoarding new subreddits, as their mods are suspended. For example r/macro and r/psychedelicart. Almost likely didn’t join the protest.
- u/guacamolefanatic seems inactive for the last month.
- u/alphabravogolftango is criticising the admins on never answering, and banning a porn sub because the admins are assumptive trash. Even then, still active and requesting the removal of the suspended top mod of another subreddit. I’m guessing that the mod doesn’t agree with Reddit but felt like the protests were useless; but that’s just a guess.
- u/Flair_Helper seems to have dropped it. Last activity a month ago.
- u/just-a-traveller joined the protests. And his last interactions with other users have been rather… “coarse”, as if the mod was trying to piss them off.
- u/phooey640 apparently didn’t join, and didn’t care, and is still acting as usual.
- u/riverat627 apparently didn’t join either. Still fairly active.
- u/awkwardtheturtle - banned. If Reddit did this in another circumstance I would’ve actually praised their decision.
Take the info above with a grain of salt given that I’m basing this off their profile activity. Errors are bound to happen.
damn, there are more top mods than i thought! I remember stumbling on one “powermod” but it turns out they aren’t even on this list.
Well, it depends a lot on how you define a “powermod”. That graph is based on the number of subreddits moderated by each user, but you might as well take sub size into account, or overall activity.
Just for curiosity I also checked a few power mods that I have genuine disdain towards:
- u/GodOfAtheism - …wow, that illiterate actually realised that there was a protest going on? And he joined it??? Colour me surprised, I bet that he fried one of his neurons (i.e. 33% of its brain mass) doing it.
- u/Bardfinn - still pretending to side with the users by voicing lukewarm criticism against Reddit, while actively feeding the site, defending its actions (e.g. calling third party apps “a fuskering scheme”), and still gaslighting and trying to intimidate anyone who calls her shit out.
- u/GallowBoob - he has been fairly inactive since a long time ago. He did comment on the current state of Reddit, but he’s probably uninformed on deeper matters.
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Yup - he almost quit around 2020, as he was being harassed as one of the “powermods”. Back then Reddit admins still pretended that they cared about the mods, but they did jack shit to 1) prevent users from harassing those powermods, and 2) curb down the powermods through policy. (And then the Aimee Challenor case popped up, showing that Reddit does have the tool to prevent harassment - but it’ll only use them to protect its own ranks.)
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I’m fairly certain that most alleged “harassers” just called his bullshit out, that’s probably your case. (IMO it’s fine.)
However I do think that at least some people sent him death threats, “drink bleach” and the likes.
I was trying to figure out why I couldn’t really recognize these names but kinda did then remembered I banned every mod from some list of major posters lol.
What a fantastic answer.
Did they ban turtle because of the protests or another reason?
They likely banned her due to the protests, and then claimed something else. That “something else” is likely something that she did for years and years, and that Reddit turned a blind eye to, until she became a liability instead of a source of profit.
At least I know the turtle got banned and started to say trash about everyone… Just clasic turtle. From the rest, I don’t know
Answer: I am biased from reading through Turtles Ban thread, so I may not have the full picture. But for the most part BEFORE the major api protests they didn’t moderate. They more or less set themselves as Managers and managed the moderation teams. They built org charts (with themselves near the tops) to ensure a chain of command where if someone wasn’t being an active enough moderator, or disagreed with other moderation staff, they would remove and replace them. I imagine AFTER the api protests, some moderators were removed due to standing in Reddits way. Some, like turtle, could not stand to lose an ounce of Influence and began to seek ways to not lose their power - either by applying for moderator in places Reddit removed staff, and/or complying with Reddits general demands to break the protest.
Do you know – Did the power mods ever find a way to pull money out of anything, or was it really just all for internet gatekeep power? I still just struggle to wrap my head around the motives of spending 90% of your time moderating for free, even if you’re a NEET.
Probably not, mabe? I don’t know how reddits moderator system works. But it does open them up to favoritism, giving friends of moderators on X special treatment inxchange to another large scale modertator
Maybe another stupid question, but how does someone mod 50+ communities? I imagine a low-traffic sub would be easy, but a high-traffic one is bound to attract lots of a–holes who need comments deleted/banning/reporting, etc.
Is this a 24 hr/day gig? Do these mods have day jobs?
I guess my main questions are how do they do it, and why do they do it.
Im under the impression they don’t. They install them selves as “Managers” for the mod teams.
Ahh. That explains a lot. Thanks.
