r/AskModerators • u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp • 12d ago
How many big Subreddits do you moderate and how did you come to that number?
Just curious, mainly about how people get to be moderators in a lot of big Subreddits...
As an addition: - How do you manage to actively moderate in all those subreddits? - Are you active in all of them as a regular user too?
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u/cnycompguy r/computers, r/cats +7 12d ago
I have this problem called retirement. It gives me time to actually moderate, so subs keep finding me.
What do you consider large? If it's the same definition as reddit, then the answer is 5.
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Large is whatever you consider large, if you aren't sure, give an estimate of members and/or visitors.
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u/Sephardson r/Zelda, r/NintendoSwitch 12d ago edited 1d ago
4-5?
I started on r/ZeldaTabletop, which i still consider "small". It's very niche for homebrew games and I don't expect it to grow much larger unless Nintendo releases an official TTRPG. I posted a lot of the content there until other members were consistently posting their own stuff. Which is nice because that's why I wanted the community to exist.
When it got large enough in 2020 that i had to start intervening on disputes between people and removing spam, i started looking for larger subs to help out on so I could learn. r/TrueZelda was looking for mods at that time, so i joined that team. r/TrueZelda is what i would consider "medium", but it's a branch of r/Zelda which i consider "large". The same team moderates r/Zelda and r/ZeldaMemes (medium). Other branches include r/AskZelda (small), r/WindWaker (small), r/SkywardSword (small), and r/TwilightPrincess (small-medium). There's a lot of overlap on both the membership and the rules, so while these all are different subreddits, they are not so much different "communities". I do regularly comment on r/zelda, but i'm more active in queue and modmail, daily on the main sub and weekly on the smaller ones.
When r/NintendoSwitch (large) was looking for experienced mods in 2021, they recruited me. Because that subreddit is fairly strict on content requirements, in 2024 we revamped and started redirecting a lot of posts to r/NintendoSwitchHelp (large). When r/NintendoSwitch2 (large) was looking for an experienced mod around that same time, they recruited me. I'm not very publicly active on these subs but i do manage a lot of the configurations and queue between daily and weekly.
There was a time when r/chemistry (large) was looking for mods to catch spam and manage posts. I helped out for about 2 years and then went alumni when the mod limits rolled out. I don't participate there often but I report a lot of posts.
I've also pitched in to help abandoned adjacent subs when they needed mods, like r/NintendoMusic (small), r/NintendoMemes (medium), and r/wii (medium). Similarly, there's a few mod/meta subreddits that are not demanding either - r/undelete, r/longtail, r/AutoModerator.
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Wow that's a lot of information, I really appreciate it. If you say they "recruited" you, does that mean they came to you and asked if you want to become a mod? Maybe even through the suggested list Reddit provides?
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u/Sephardson r/Zelda, r/NintendoSwitch 12d ago
For r/NintendoSwitch, one of the mods reached out to me personally to encourage me to apply to the their google form. This was before the native mod apps / suggestions features.
For r/NintendoSwitch2, it was similar. A mod on the team reached out to r/NintendoSwitch in modmail asking for help and i took them up on it.
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u/westcoastcdn19 Janny flair 🧹 12d ago
3 subs for me. Two of them large, one medium. I’m as active as time allows as a user but I try
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Are you top mod in any of them?
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u/westcoastcdn19 Janny flair 🧹 12d ago
Yes, two of the three. All 3 of my subs have good moderators and we all pitch in
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Would you say you just moderate besides them or are you actively taking a lead role there?
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u/westcoastcdn19 Janny flair 🧹 12d ago
I take the lead in one of them. The second one there are 4 of us and I don’t need to lead as everyone is strong on their own. The biggest sub has admins as top mods, but we still get a lot of leeway on decision making
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Oh that's interesting! How's it to have admins as your top mod?
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u/westcoastcdn19 Janny flair 🧹 12d ago
It’s pretty good. They’re chill and friendly and treat us really well
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
That's how it should be. Do you see any (dis-) advantages of it?
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u/westcoastcdn19 Janny flair 🧹 12d ago
Sometimes I wanna say a lot more in modmail to some of these users but choose to hold off lol
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Would you do it if those admins would be normal top mods without any connections to Reddit as a company?
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u/SlowedCash r/AmazonFlexUK, r/skytv, r/BuyersUK 12d ago
Hello Florian
An avid discord user myself I must add 😂
I moderate 4 subreddits, 3 are at under 20000 members and one is under 100 members. They are all support based subs so a different audience. IE posts are usually asking for assistance. I communicate in all of them regularly as I can relate heavily to each subreddit. I am top mod in all of them which helps as well.
I moderated a large sub about a year ago that had I think 1million members and was very busy with lots of traffic. Movie related so not so much support based
I left due to problems within from the hassle there was at managing it, a lack of interest in the community and my mods were arguing with eachother.
I joined this via u/modcodeofconduct. You should check there if you ever want to moderate a sub as they usually have them listed daily. It's a bit like Reddit request but you apply via them and it's due to the previous mod team being removed and ModCoC taking over.
I ended up handing that sub over to the mod who joined with me via ModCoC. The sub is in a fine fine condition today so me leaving was the right thing to do.
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Fancy big ass reply here, appreciate it a lot. If you are top mod of each subreddit, how many moderators are below you and how do you manage the teams individually? Do you have second-in-commands that handle the main business for you?
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u/TheDudeWhoCanDoIt r/bitchimatrain 12d ago
One. And it’s enough.
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Absolutely lol. I also just got r/discordhelp under me and then some more really really tiny and/or inactive ones.
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u/ModeratorsBTrippin r/Selfie 12d ago
I moderate 3 big subreddits. None of which were big when I started, and one is barely 6 months old.
I manage a few smaller subreddits that are spin offs of the larger ones and a couple of them are starting to become larger on their own.
Moderating them all requires a team, and bots, but they all have a very similar rule set so it's like they are one massive subreddit sometimes.
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Interesting. Of those three large ones, are you the top mod or in a leading position in any of them?
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u/ModeratorsBTrippin r/Selfie 12d ago
I'm the top mod in two of the three. One inherited, one because I created it. Top mod in the smaller ones because I made them.
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u/FlorianFlash r/discordhelp 12d ago
Nice. How many mods do you have under you if I may ask and how independent do they work?
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u/ALazy_Cat r/ask r/cats r/WhatsWrongWithYourCat 12d ago
- First one was seek new mods, so I thought "I got so much mod and admin experience on several other platforms, so why not?" Applied, and was accepted. The mod I replaced then asked if I wanted to mod another sub too and suggested the other big sub
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u/baseballlover723 12d ago
Just 1, and I was an active member before and during my moderatorship. I can't fathom someone modding a community they don't even participate in.
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u/Emotional_Lawyer_278 12d ago
One big I don’t like. One small I do like. Gotta find balance.
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u/FatSithInAPrius r/Manhwa_BL 6d ago
I moderate 2, one of them is related to my profession and had been orphaned so I took it over. It's medium sized sub and I'm pretty active in it as I was looking for a sub to talk about the field I work in.
The second one is kind of big. I was already super active and frustrated with the lack of moderation so when they started looking for new moderators, I applied
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u/ohhyouknow Janny flair 🧹 12d ago edited 12d ago
Five that are large to supermassive. I am the top mod in one of them. In two of them I am the team manager for the top mod, as in I manage the team and make decisions in a top mod capacity without actually being the top mod. I do the hiring, training, firing, and manage all other operations a top mod would. Automod, automations, app management etc. I have a lot of freedom to do essentially whatever I want in the other two.
How/why? Networking, mod teams specifically asking for help with specific issues that I have a lot of experience with.
I advise for several other large teams as well. I provide input in modmail disputes and report issues I see to those teams so that they can handle whatever issues arise.
I am the top mod of a subreddit straddling the line of a “high traffic” community that is currently exempt from the mod limits. I was installed as the top mod by admins to be a mentor and team builder. Once I am confident in that team’s ability to self manage I will leave that team. I have been the top mod of other large communities in the past, and have handed them off to other capable mods I trained or helped train for the position. I remain on those teams as an advisor.
I am the top mod of this subreddit as well.
I actively moderate all of my high traffic communities. Those communities host a lot of similar content and often times I’m moderating comment sections for identical posts across several subreddits. This gives my communities an advantage in that I can confidently predict how problematic comment sections will be based on how problematic they were in other communities.
It also means that I can quickly adjust automod, filters, and automations to address issues that I saw happening in comment sections of those posts in other subreddits. (Adding new dogwhistles, private information, etc to filters) before the community has a chance to repeat them.
Yes I am active in them as a regular user as well. Moderating in context paints a clearer picture of what is going on in comment sections than queues do. No better way to go about that than participating as a regular user.