Mods react as Reddit kicks some of them out again: “This will break the site”

Under new rules rolling out over the coming months, a small number of users will be required to leave some of their moderator posts so that they aren’t moderating more than five subreddits with 100,000 monthly visitors.

Reddit said the change only affects “0.1 percent of our active mods” and will help enable “diverse perspectives and experiences.” But mods whom Ars Technica spoke with have different views.

New limits on how many subreddits users can moderate

A recent post on the r/modnews subreddit announced plans for new restrictions on how many subreddits users can moderate. Those who currently don’t meet those restrictions will be asked to leave their post(s) or seek an exemption(s). Reddit hasn’t finalized the requirements for exemptions but says it’s working on them with moderators.

A Reddit admin known as Go_JasonWaterfalls on the platform (Reddit doesn’t disclose employees’ usernames for privacy reasons) explained Reddit’s rationale:

What makes Reddit reddit is its unique communities, and keeping our communities unique requires unique mod teams. A system where a single person can moderate an unlimited number of communities (including the very largest), isn't that, nor is it sustainable. We need a strong, distributed foundation that allows for diverse perspectives and experiences.

Further, subreddits will stop displaying subscriber counts and instead show their “unique number of unique visitors over the last seven days, based on a rolling 28-day average,” Reddit’s rep said. Notably, old.reddit.com will not get these new stats but will still lose subscriber counts.

Reddit shared a schedule for the changes that start on December 1, when users currently moderating five or more subreddits averaging 100,000 visitors or more every 28 days won’t be able to accept new mod invites for subreddits also hitting that threshold.

By March 31, Reddit expects mods to comply with the new rules. Per the announcement:

Mods who remain over the limit will be transitioned out of moderator roles, starting with communities where they are least active, until they are under the limit.

Reddit said affected mods can seek an exemption; step down and seek Reddit’s “Alumni status,” which doesn’t include any mod abilities; or become an advisor for the subreddit, which is “a new, read-only moderator set of permissions for communities where you’d like to continue to advise or otherwise support the active mod team,” Go_JasonWaterfalls said.