A need to improve the quality of the r/Cardano Mod Team

[NOODZ]

Greetings Beautiful Cardano!

I am making a post to encourage the community, as well as those involved in official Cardano organizations, to make an effort to rethink, revise, and improve the Moderation Team of the official Cardano subreddit, r/Cardano.

For some time, people have expressed frustration at the moderation policies of this forum. As the largest online representation of the Cardano community on reddit, it is home to over 600K subscribers, and is often the first-stop destination for redditors when they want to check out the Cardano ecosystem.

I made a post today around 10:30am EST, which are peak Reddit hours for traffic, and are well-known as the best time periods to post content on the site and have it be seen. However, after nearly six hours, this post (concerning a new Cardano Foundation partnership with HOSKY and the United Nations Refugee Agency) remains unapproved.

As I have personally encountered these types of frustrations in the past, I thought it was important to examine the mod team, and look into how active they are on the platform.

As can be seen in this breakdown of the first page* of the current Moderation team, the majority of the team are no longer active in the r/Cardano subreddit, and some no longer active on Reddit at all. In other words, the people who run Cardano’s subreddit aren’t even redditors. The only exception to this is u/SL13PNIR, who is in charge of posting the Daily Discussion threads, and has been active in comments with subscribers to the subreddit. Very cool to see!

EDIT: Thank you to u/dominatingslash for pointing out the additional page of moderators for this subreddit. I generally use old.reddit, and missed the pagination at the top right making this post with new.reddit

[Album] Imgur: The magic of the Internet

The remaining moderators on the second-page of admins have a very similar theme as the first. Many have not been active in the subreddit this year, with the exceptions of u/dominatingslash, and u/danny_cryptofay, who have done really amazing work on a consistent basis. Meanwhile, there are others tasked with the curation of this forum who have never made a single post or comment in the community.

As this subreddit community is so large, I believe that the Moderation team should be improved to include members of our community who are more active, both on reddit and in the Cardano ecosystem as a whole. The burden of content moderation should not have to fall on u/SL13PNIR, who seems to be the only active member of the team left.

There was a previous Cardano Forum post about the ownership of the subreddit, but it seems nothing has come from it to date.

The coming years will see a returning interest in cryptocurrencies as market conditions change, and bull runs will bring a bunch of new eyes to blockchain and the Cardano ecosystem in particular. In order for us to be fully prepared for an influx of new users, as well as to improve the curation, promotion, and conversations in our ecosystems, the restructuring of the r/Cardano moderation team is an imperative.

I am curious to know your thoughts on this regard, and if anyone has some ideas as to how we might start to make these improvements. Thank you very kindly on your time, and hope you keep cooking on Cardano!

— NOODZ

[NOODZ]

i minted the full-text of this forum post into a native asset with a supply of 69 million* (edited for clarity)

https://pool.pm/asset1084j4m83pnxg2c6lmgaphy2yn5h67ehl6pl8a6

[HeptaSean]

@NOODZ

Meanwhile, there are others tasked with the curation of this forum who have never made a single post or comment in the community.

I’d question your methodology of taking last post or comment as the (only) indication of “activity”.

Approving and removing posts and comments is the main activity of moderators and that does not appear in your “analysis”.

Making frequent posts yourself could even be an indication of conflict of interest, of better not being a moderator, especially in a space like Reddit, where it would allow to approve your own silly project shilling posts.

[rdlrt]

Minting forum post as NFT 69 million times

Sorry for my OCD for details, but you haven’t minted 69 million times, you’ve just minted an asset with 69 million supply once (and added 1 more mint later), besides it isn’t a “NFT” either. Not sure what the point of that action is - but will stay away from engaging there

[NOODZ]

@HeptaSean

I’d question your methodology of taking last post or comment as the (only) indication of “activity”.

Approving and removing posts and comments is the main activity of moderators and that does not appear in your “analysis”.

Making frequent posts yourself could even be an indication of conflict of interest, of better not being a moderator, especially in a space like Reddit, where it would allow to approve your own silly project shilling posts.

Heyo HeptaSean, appreciate your response!

This is not, nor does it claim to be, a comprehensive analysis of the full activities of the moderation team for r/Cardano. The intention of my post is to encourage a more active and engaged representation on this moderation team. For example, post approvals shouldn’t take six hours on such a large subreddit, whose approvals for my own only were processed when I asked Danny on twitter directly in a comment if he could approve it. I do not have access to their moderation logs, of course, but you can see all of the removed posts and comments on r/Cardano here:

https://www.reveddit.com/v/cardano/?localSort=num_comments

You can see overall that the entire subreddit is very low activity at this time, for both comments and posts.

I am a moderator of some subreddit communities, and have been on this platform since 2011. The very best communities across the entire website are those with moderator teams who are actively a part of the communities that they represent. On each of these, as well, there is a portion of the team whose tasks are specifically to moderate content (approve posts, remove spam, etc).

As r/Cardano is in the top 1% of all subreddits, I believe the quality of moderation should be up-to-par with other communities of similar sizes. For example, from the crypto space, see r/cryptocurrency, r/ethtrader, or r/bitcoin. All of those are very, very active mod teams, who are easily reached, and immediately identifiable because they are part of the community. Other examples include places like r/SquaredCircle and r/avatartrading.

Beyond those curation roles, the active moderators of these communities are consistently organizing subreddit-focused content and events for people to engage with on a regular basis. I believe many of the r/Cardano moderators also work positions in other Cardano entities (Foundation, IOG, etc), and their moderation tasks are likely less prioritized, which is something I can understand. However, this ends up with the appearance of a “post-and-ghost” type of forum, where some moderation tasks are dealt with, such as the daily thread, and then that’s it. Which is unfortunate, because there is so much happening in Cardano right now.

In sum, I do not think activity or non-activity is a comprehensive “analysis” of the quality of a moderating team. I am simply encouraging us to rethink this team in order to make it also have a very active, and accessible, set of individuals that are able to handle moderation across all time zones. I maintain that this will be an essential aspect of Cardano as markets shift in the future, and bring more people into the ecosystem.

[NOODZ]

Yeah its minted once as a fungible token with a supply of 69 million (and one more for the edit update). could have been worded better, for sure, so I edited it for clarity. But I didn’t say it was and NFT; I said it was a native asset. Publishing it in full on-chain is something I do regularly and very much enjoy, as it is an immutable form of publication and record keeping that will last so long as the blockchain itself continues to exist. But more practically for this asset, it is also another means of circulating this conversation by making it available on other platforms. I am very active on twitter, and within the NFT community, where sending someone this post as a native asset would mean more to them than this particular platform, which very few people from that area of Cardano use. Thanks for the reply, appreciate you!

[HeptaSean]

@NOODZ

The intention of my post is to encourage a more active and engaged representation on this moderation team.

Well, it rather came across as a very harsh dismissal of the existing moderators. Yep, there are a lot of not active anymore in the list, but the active ones are more than you found.

@NOODZ

As r/Cardano is in the top 1% of all subreddits,

That’s a quite meaningless number, by the way. It’s easily produced by hosts of totally irrelevant subreddits being the other 99%. Much like everybody only half using something is in the top 1% active users if all the people only trying it once are never cleaned – be it Twitter, Duolingo, whatever.

@NOODZ

Beyond those curation roles, the active moderators of these communities are consistently organizing subreddit-focused content and events for people to engage with on a regular basis.

So, you do want more than a more timely approval of your posts?

Every wish to have more activity in a crypto forum – be it Telegram, this forum, or Reddit – immediately poses the question how to ensure quality, how to prevent scams and rugs, how to not be drowned in shillings of projects. Every project, of course, thinks that the content regarding their own thing is totally relevant and very, very top-notch.

@NOODZ

I am simply encouraging us to rethink this team in order to make it also have a very active, and accessible, set of individuals that are able to handle moderation across all time zones.

Do you have any concrete nominations (who are also willing to do it)? I’m sure @lodl_de (who AFAIK is the one responsible for Reddit at CF) will be open to have more moderators.

(Observe that moderation is not a paid position – except for the possibility to maybe become a Cardano Moderator Ambassador which gives a small reward, but nothing like a real salary. So, your first – rather rude – post was demanding a timely approval from unpaid volunteers for unconvincing PR optimisation reasons.)

@NOODZ

Publishing it in full on-chain is something I do regularly and very much enjoy, as it is an immutable form of publication and record keeping that will last so long as the blockchain itself continues to exist.

Interesting approach. I’d consider very few of my content relevant enough to force every single Cardano node on the planet to host it forever. But as long as few people do it, the chain will probably survive.

[adatainment]

Hello @NOODZ,

I appreaciate taking the time coming into the forum and put your thoughts into a structured way, this makes it way easier to follow for everyone. (versus posts on Twitter)

With the amount of traffic Reddit generates it is not possible to moderate the posts by hand, it only works with a very large rulescript of keywords and the like. If a post gets flagged it needs to be manually moderated. Stake pool posts and NFT/Token posts anyway price talks automatically fall under this. (based on current rules)

For moderators, we look of course into the activity, the actual activity log looks like this:

But I think your main concern is not the activity of the moderators but the NFT posts and what the current rules are to deal with them. The ongoing core discussion (why the rule was introduced that advertising is not allowed and how to even come to rules or change them and what makes sense) is here, and I can only encourage everyone to contribute: r/Cardano Subreddit - Discussion about Rule 4 - No spamming, advertising or low value content

Based on feedback that we collected there are also considerations here in the forum similar to the Stake Pool Operator Categories to create a section for NFT if we get good content for it and can agree on topics/rules. Would you be interested in joining these discussions, maybe even volunteering to moderate/ look after this section?

[NOODZ]

@adatainment

If a post gets flagged it needs to be manually moderated. Stake pool posts and NFT/Token posts anyway price talks automatically fall under this. (based on current rules)

For moderators, we look of course into the activity, the actual activity log looks like this:

But I think your main concern is not the activity of the moderators but the NFT posts and what the current rules are to deal with them. The ongoing core discussion (why the rule was introduced that advertising is not allowed and how to even come to rules or change them and what makes sense) is here, and I can only encourage everyone to contribute: r/Cardano Subreddit - Discussion about Rule 4 - No spamming, advertising or low value content

Based on feedback that we collected there are also considerations here in the forum similar to the Stake Pool Operator Categories to create a section for NFT if we get good content for it and can agree on topics/rules. Would you be interested in joining these discussions, maybe even volunteering to moderate/ look after this section?

@adatainment

But I think your main concern is not the activity of the moderators but the NFT posts and what the current rules are to deal with them. The ongoing core discussion (why the rule was introduced that advertising is not allowed and how to even come to rules or change them and what makes sense) is here, and I can only encourage everyone to contribute: r/Cardano Subreddit - Discussion about Rule 4 - No spamming, advertising or low value content

hey Adatainment!

Thanks so much for your response! I appreciate you sharing the moderator logs, as another commenter here has pointed out, user activity is not the only metric of work being done. I am also a moderator of some other subreddits, and recognize the importance of each of these tasks.

As I had mentioned in my replies in this thread, I am also suggesting a possible need to encourage the mod team to have more active engagement within the community of users on the subreddit. I gave examples of other similarly themed subreddits, whose teams are both accessible at key traffic hours, and may provide different content to help grow the community of users (posts, events, polls, etc). This would reduce the turnaround time for post approval (mine was 6 hours yesterday - only after I pinged Danny directly in a twitter comment), and could encourage the mod team to take on a role beyond the curation of spam/responding to inbox questions. In other words, increase the presence and accessibility of the mods, especially in anticipation of future bull-markets that will likely drive even more traffic to the site.

Thanks for linking the other thread here about Rule 4, which I think is another important, and related, part of how we can improve r/Cardano to be one of the best destinations for Cardano on the internet. This is definitely an important topic to me, but not the primary concern I was looking to make with my post. I will make sure to hop in there and join the conversation. Thanks again for your reply, and hope your weekend will be off to a good start!

[NOODZ]

Thanks for your response! appreciate your perspectives here.

@HeptaSean

Well, it rather came across as a very harsh dismissal of the existing moderators. Yep, there are a lot of not active anymore in the list, but the active ones are more than you found.

This was in no way intended to be dismissive of existing moderators, as the title of my post was very specifically worded as “a need to improve the quality.” As such, the moderation team could very much remain the same, but perhaps take a more concerted effort to be active within the subreddit itself. Likewise, my post was also very specifically worded as “an invitation to rethink” and “revise,” rather than a dismissal of anyone or their work.

@HeptaSean

That’s a quite meaningless number, by the way.

Meaningless according to whom? I would invite consideration that top-rated subreddits are highlighted in sections of the website like the “best-of” sections, and keeping r/Cardano on this list, and perhaps improving it, is a very good thing for the ecosystem and the community.

@HeptaSean

So, you do want more than a more timely approval of your posts?

Ideally yes, as this is one of the largest destinations for Carano-related things on the internet.

@HeptaSean

how to ensure quality, how to prevent scams and rugs, how to not be drowned in shillings of projects. Every project, of course, thinks that the content regarding their own thing is totally relevant and very, very top-notch.

I would look to the work r/cryptocurrency has done in this regard, with making there being a post-number limit for certain topics/coins, which has the intention of not flooding the main page with a million posts about a singular project/idea.

@HeptaSean

Do you have any concrete nominations (who are also willing to do it)?

None specifically at the moment, but would hope that it would be someone with a demonstrated track record of being an active redditor as both a moderator and user.

@HeptaSean

So, your first – rather rude – post

I thought my post was quite polite, especially relative to other comments/criticisms that are often leveraged against reddit moderators, and the r/Cardano forum in particular. Again, it was very specifically worded as an “invitation to rethink” for this reason. My apologies if it came off as rude or dismissive of anyone or their work.

@HeptaSean

unconvincing PR optimisation reasons.

Not sure what you mean here. PR for who, Cardano?

@HeptaSean

Interesting approach.

Immutable blockchain publication is certainly fun, and I believe is something as old as blockchain itself with the genesis block of Bitcoin including a newspaper headline. Very much into this topic, but perhaps should discuss it in another thread, so as to not detract from the goal of this post, which is to imagine how we might improve the mod team of r/Cardano, especially given that there is common sentiment about negative experiences and frustrations using the subreddit.

In any event, thanks again for your response and appreciate your insight!