Bard spotting thread 03 July 2024

fighterace00 in r/modnews:

That's blatantly false. The user agreement stated mods were expected to follow the modguide. It was an unfortunate name for the document and reason they had to revamp the whole thing. Lack of admin enforcement is a separate and ongoing issue.

Reply by Bardfinn in r/modnews:

The User Agreement did, in fact, state that the administration had an _expectation_ that moderators were to follow the Moderator Guidelines.

The language of "expectation" and calling them Moderator Guidelines instead of making them a set of MUST conditions is because of the implications of the AOL Community Leaders program, _Mavrix Photography LLC v LiveJournal Inc._, and other applicable case law which make clear and necessary that volunteer moderators are third parties, at arm's length, and not employed by Reddit.

Reddit can't issue specific written instructions to volunteer moderators, collectively or severally, as to how they must carry out moderation in their communities. If they did, those volunteer moderators would be converted to employees, and Reddit could be sued.

Reddit can have a content policy / acceptable use policy that covers all user content and platform behaviour, however — and formulate a moderator code of conduct that elucidates historical examples of how people have abused moderator privileges to violate the AUP, the User Agreement, applicable law, and the rights of other people to use the platform / have a business relationship with Reddit.

Everything the moderator code of conduct covers is a simplification and distillation of violative behaviours that moderator-privileged bad actors have previously carried out, and for which have had their mod privileges revoked, their user accounts suspended, their communities closed.

The moderator code of conduct isn't a "new" thing. It doesn't introduce any new principles or policies. It's a collection of accessible language that warns people off of doing things that have always* been disallowed.

* since about 2015 when the current boilerplate format of User Agreement was adopted