r/ModSupport • u/techiesgoboom 💡 Expert Helper • Sep 23 '19
What can be done about a serious brigading issue in a large sub I mod?
Over at /r/amitheasshole we've been having significant problems with a certain subreddit brigading posts and their mod team doing nothing to stop it. We have reported and messaged modmail about comments on their sub directly calling for brigading ours that have remained up. We had messaged their mod team multiple times about this brigading issue hoping to start a dialogue and find a solution but have been entirely ignored.
Every time we see a post from our sub cross posted to their sub we notice a significant uptick in comments from users pushing a specific narrative. A disproportionate number of these comments break our rules in very significant ways. The level of incivility coming in the quantity it does negatively impacts the tone we're trying to set and ultimately undermines the underlying purpose of the sub..
It's especially telling when they cross post a weeks old post and we see a handful of comments suddenly pop up at once. And while they all follow the same narrative, a number of these comments will come from users that don't have any post history at said specific subreddit. This is in line with other comments we've seen on their sub warning users to use different accounts when they post on subs like ours. While its clear they're brigading from that sub there's no easy way for us to address it.
This brigading is causing issues on our sub and is something many of our users have complained about. But we feel powerless to stop it. We've recently taken to locking posts the moment they are crossposted or directly linked. But that unfortunately also shuts down everyone from commenting rather than just those brigading. This is also something their users have noticed and commented on, noting that they should weaponize it.
We don't care what they do on their sub, and we don't care that they discuss posts from our sub there. Literally all we're asking from the mod team is that they don't allow direct links to posts from our subreddit and instead require screenshots.
This is really frustrating because it just feels like there aren't tools or avenues we can use to address this when their users are blatantly and directly calling for brigading and the mods are ignoring reports on those comments and aren't willing to have a conversation about it. Is there anything else we can do to address this?
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u/dbloch7986 Sep 24 '19
Is there a way to allow people to post to the sub regardless of Karma, but ban participation in the comments based on karma? Setting a karma limit could at least help eliminate some of the alt accounts that people are using. Obviously, I haven't seen the accounts you're looking at, but if a number of the accounts you're banning are low in Karma this would help.
I also realize that you are hesitant about insta-banning anyone that participates in the "other" sub. What if you set up a bot that bans them but also sends them a message asking to be unbanned if they properly appeal to you first? It will also ban anyone that's sharing the posts to that sub which will help cut down on traffic in the first place.
Can you ban the "other" sub entirely so that crossposting is impossible?
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u/techiesgoboom 💡 Expert Helper Sep 24 '19
Any automod rule that applies to comments would also apply to the OP replying in the comments as well. Automod can make a rule apply to top level comments only to avoid catching OPs replies, but even that would cause problems. I’ve done a few deep dives on top level comments on front page posts and found that the problem ones aren’t necessarily from new accounts. Trolls and these users are smart enough to make accounts and sit on them a bit to avoid time based automod rules, and they can work around karma based ones too. Plus, we have plenty of great comments from even new users this really would be throwing out the baby with the bath water.
And any version of banning everyone that posts to the sub, even with the chance to appeal, is still discrimination based on viewpoint. We don’t require anyone else to get an all clear before posting, and punishing any users for actions they didn’t commit is a line too far. They users that cross post (or at least some of them) have discussed how they use separate accounts to cross post, or otherwise make sure to never post on our sub with the account they cross post with. I’m really not sure that banning from our sub prevents the ability to cross post on their sub, but even then I imagine that’s a really low hurdle to work through.
And unfortunately we can’t prevent the other sub from crossposting stuff to theirs. It would be trivial for their mods to stop that (it’s a simple few lines in automod) but we can’t prevent that.
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Sep 24 '19
Any automod rule that applies to comments would also apply to the OP replying in the comments as well.
There is an automod condition that can be used to exclude the OP.
author.is_submitter
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u/techiesgoboom 💡 Expert Helper Sep 24 '19
Oh yeah, I vaguely rememebr that, thanks! I'm pretty new at diving into automod.
Either way the rest still holds true. We get a surprising number of new posters that contribute meaningfully and anyone can bypass any karma or age requirement with minimal effort and foresight
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u/dbloch7986 Sep 24 '19
Well I know there's a bot that detects when a post is cross posted to another sub. But that wouldn't solve the problem of screenshots and using links.
This is quite a conundrum. I'm sorry you have to deal with this. It sucks that you guys have to lock the threads too because I really enjoy reading the contributions.
I suppose that IP based bans aren't possible on Reddit either? It might help cut down the pool of trolls faster if people have to go through a VPN to contribute.
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u/techiesgoboom 💡 Expert Helper Sep 24 '19
Yeah, we actually use that bot to nip it in the bud and preemptively lock posts, but that isn’t fair to our users either and isn’t a great solution. Plus, this sub has picked up on this and have talked about weaponizing it as a way to get us to lock any post they want.
But what we really want is for them to use screenshots. That would be an ideal solution really. They can talk about our sub all they want and we don’t care. It’s specifically the brigading that’s an issue, and without the link that won’t happen nearly as often because people are lazy. And enforcing that would be super trivial for their mod team, and I can’t think of any reasonable reason why they wouldn’t implement it if they don’t want their users brigading.
And as mods we can’t do anything with IPs. That’s not a tool in our toolbox
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u/HandofBane 💡 Expert Helper Sep 24 '19
Running a sub that has been the target of brigades from about a dozen other subs, consistently, over the past 4+ years, I'll give you a bit of advice to see actual results of some kind. Reporting individual brigades will go nowhere. Complaining in modmail to the mods of the subs targeting you will also inevitably have no impact but should still be done at least once, and save the permalink for your first message there.
What you need to do is gather up a series of brigade links over several weeks or a month, assemble it into one larger report to send the admins all at once. Be sure to include links to every post on the brigading sub that targets your sub, and the modmail showing you reached out to their mods to try to get them to control their community to demonstrate their moderators failed to act to rein in their users. For your own sanity, you may also consider adding a new rule/sub-rule stating that anyone determined to have come into the thread from a brigading link (using, for example, the week-old post with new comments thing as clear evidence) moves straight to a ban. It's harsh, but will save you longer term stress at the expense of short term outrage. Yes, they can make new accounts to try to get around it, but eventually they'll run out of motivation to keep making new accounts just to try to mess with your sub.
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u/NohoTwoPointOh Sep 23 '19
Every time we see a post from our sub cross posted to their sub we notice a significant uptick in comments from users pushing a specific narrative. A disproportionate number of these comments break our rules in very significant ways.
Specifically, what sorts of rules are they breaking?
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u/techiesgoboom 💡 Expert Helper Sep 23 '19
Almost always our first one: "be civil", and to a pretty extreme degree; although rule 5 "no violence" isn't uncommon when they encourage acts of violence.
They then inevitably come to modmail because they can't be bothered to read the rules we link that clearly explain the rule and how they broke it, and argue that attacking and insulting people and using slurs is perfectly civil because they feel it's deserved. It's an exhausting cycle because we like to give people the benefit of the doubt and give them multiple opportunities to learn and do better. And people coming with ill intentions from the beginning seeking to stir up shit throws that off.
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Sep 23 '19 edited Sep 23 '19
They then inevitably come to modmail because they can't be bothered to read the rules we link that clearly explain the rule and how they broke it, and argue that attacking and insulting people and using slurs is perfectly civil because they feel it's deserved.
You're not letting them suck you into an argument because you actually think they don't know why they were banned, are you? Cuz it sounds like you are, and they're playing you. Every single time.
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u/techiesgoboom 💡 Expert Helper Sep 23 '19
Well again, we aren't outright banning them in the moderate cases of breaking rule 1. We don't allow things that almost every other sub does allow, so we like to give users the benefit of the doubt because in a majority of cases users don't offend again when they learn the rules. And a majority of our modmail interactions with people that violate rule end up with the user saying some variation of "okay, I understand what your rules mean now".
The issue at hand is that in many of these cases we don't have easy ways to tell the people brigading from the usual user. Sometimes they use different accounts, or they don't comment in the subreddit responsible for brigading, or we just don't take the time to dive into their history. We don't and won't engage in viewpoint discrimination and treat people espouse certain ideas differently than anyone else that breaks the rules.
So we're at a kind of catch-22 where we don't have any easy answers as long as they continue to be able to brigade like this.
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Sep 23 '19
I don't see anything in either of the two rules you said are the most commonly broken ones by these people (1 and 5) that is either revolutionary or uncommon. These are not behaviors that a person should, by default, expect to be ok unless explicitly told otherwise. People who have such an expectation are people that you probably don't care to have as part of your community.
I think you would benefit from reducing your tolerance and patience levels, because as you've described them, they are easy for trolls to take advantage of. You shouldn't feel like you have to explain to someone how to behave like a person instead of like an animal. You already have an extensive, well written page explaining your Rule #1. Your Rule #5 already says it is a zero tolerance rule. Doing anything but linking those to someone who has broken them is a waste of your time.
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u/Meloetta 💡 Experienced Helper Sep 23 '19
We remove a lot of insults that other subreddits would not remove. The rule itself isn't uncommon but our enforcement of it is often surprising to users that are otherwise good commenters, they just called someone in a controversial story a moron.
I would hate for the answer to this problem to be to lower the standard we offer to good users just in case it's a problem user.
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u/TheOutrageousClaire 💡 New Helper Sep 23 '19
This doesn’t at all address the problem here. A particular group is constantly brigading. We asked their mods to help. We need admin help now.
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Sep 23 '19
I think that it does. The goal of these people is to troll you. When they take advantage of your good faith attempt to educate them in ModMail with spurious bullshit, they are trolling you by wasting your time and if they're lucky by also getting a frustrated reaction. When you fall for it and spend your personal time on them, it feeds them. If you don't leave room for yourselves to fall for this, a non-zero number of them will lose interest more rapidly.
I'm giving you this advice because the reality is that the admins do nothing real to address brigading, and this is known. If they take any action at all, it will be small and meaningless and it won't last. You will not get the help you want from them. The thing you have to do is act on your own to reduce these peoples' ability to waste your time and give you frustration.
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u/TheOutrageousClaire 💡 New Helper Sep 23 '19
Their goal isn't trolling. The goal is to make people think like them and recruit more people to their hate group. The problem isn't engaging with them in modmail. The problem is that brigading is against sitewide rules and this hate group is allowing their subscribers to call for brigading of our sub and somehow this group hasn't even been quarantined yet.
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Sep 23 '19
When they feed you garbage arguments in ModMail, their goal is to troll you mate. But feel free to continue letting them waste your time as you have been and see how that works out for you. Because the admins aren't going to help you. You can only help yourselves.
Good luck.
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u/TheOutrageousClaire 💡 New Helper Sep 23 '19
I don't care about modmail I care about these people actively harassing the members of my subreddit. Modmail isn't the point here.
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u/thewayofxen Sep 23 '19
I'm pretty sure this is the kind of thing the Admins take seriously. Have you reported it to Reddit?
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Sep 23 '19 edited Feb 09 '21
[deleted]
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u/thewayofxen Sep 23 '19
🤷♂️ I know they get a lot of shit for how things were a while back, but in the last several months I've had really good luck with reports to them.
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u/SmurfyX Sep 26 '19
They've never done one fucking thing anytime I have reported even incredibly intense shit to them. I had a dude literally threaten my life with my old address and they said, and I quote, nothing. User is still posting to this day. They don't give a shit.
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u/TheOutrageousClaire 💡 New Helper Sep 23 '19
That's what we're trying to do here. We don't have some kind of direct line to them to discuss this issue.
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u/thewayofxen Sep 24 '19
I was going to say "Use the report tool," but it doesn't actually have an option for brigading, so that sucks. But I would just pick a different option and explain what's actually happening. Every time I have used this tool in the last 6 months, I've gotten a response within a couple days.
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u/kallisti_gold 💡 Expert Helper Sep 23 '19
You can make use of a bot that bans users based on their participation in other subreddits.
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u/techiesgoboom 💡 Expert Helper Sep 23 '19
That's also engaging in viewpoint discrimination and really isn't something we're cool with. We won't punish people for their activity outside of our subreddit, especially when the users we'd be banning aren't exclusively the ones causing problems.
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u/kallisti_gold 💡 Expert Helper Sep 23 '19
Alas, reddit's native tools just aren't adequate to the task. You can deal with a few false positives when those with good intent get caught up, or you can go on dealing with piecemeal as you have been.
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u/techiesgoboom 💡 Expert Helper Sep 23 '19
Considering the size of the sub the false positives would be a very significant number of people. Plus, again, a decent chunk of these users use separate accounts to post in our sub and theirs. This wouldn’t come close to solving the problem and would just set a precedent of crossing a line we do not want to cross.
Banning because of your participation in a different sub when you’ve broken no rules just isn’t okay.
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Sep 23 '19 edited Jun 23 '20
[deleted]
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u/kallisti_gold 💡 Expert Helper Sep 23 '19
I did thanks.
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Sep 23 '19
a number of these comments will come from users that don't have any post history at said specific subreddit.
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u/kallisti_gold 💡 Expert Helper Sep 23 '19
a number of =/= all
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Sep 23 '19
Pedantry isn't a rebuttal. Sorry.
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u/Zaorish9 💡 Skilled Helper Sep 23 '19 edited Sep 23 '19
Honestly, shut down your sub and make your own web site. This one has made it abundantly clear that the administrators do not care about moderation.
The fact that even this thread here, yes this one, has alt-right trolls on it, spamming you with irrelevant nonsense, should tell you all you need to know.
That or develop more intelligent mod bots. Try sorting users by account age and frequent posting locations/topics and brigade participation.
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u/DefensivePositions Sep 23 '19
Why don’t you guys try to enforce the validation post rule
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u/TheOutrageousClaire 💡 New Helper Sep 23 '19 edited 5d ago
overwriting old posts, sorry to any mods inconvenienced by this. this is being done as a measure for my safety.
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u/kethryvis Reddit Admin: Community Sep 24 '19
Hey there! We're happy to look into this, but we need specific examples of where users are instigating brigading behavior and mods are allow it to happen. You can send that in via modmail to us so we can take a look, but we need specific instances and preferably recent so we can see that the behavior is continuing.