Site Wide Shadow Banned Users

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/rr5f7u/site_wide_shadow_banned_users/

created by cyanocobalamin on 29/12/2021 at 10:47 UTC*

29 upvotes, 5 top-level comments (showing 5)

I remember a long time ago the reddit admins decided to stop doing it saying it sucked to be made into a ghost.

I felt sorry for shadow banned users.

That sympathy started to erode when I tried telling them they were shadow banned and they would argue with me about it and/or not understand what I was talking about, leading to frustrating, thankless conversations.

Now, the sympathy is gone. Almost every time I see a post from a shadow banned user in my filters it is usually straight up spam or trolling.

I just do nothing and move on, letting them keep their illusions. :-)

Comments

Comment by 001Guy001 at 29/12/2021 at 11:06 UTC*

27 upvotes, 3 direct replies

I used to get similar responses but I rewrote my reply (to the non-spammers) several times and I also lock it and I've noticed several of them get their account fixed without me having to explain things further.

Hi, I've noticed that your account is shadowbanned

This means that your posts/comments get auto-removed by Reddit and need to be manually approved by a mod. Notes:


	This wasn't done by us but by Reddit itself

	Users don't get notified about your replies to them even if a mod approves them

	[You can appeal your shadowban here](https://www.reddit.com/appeals) (if you're not shadowbanned it should say that "Your account is currently neither suspended nor restricted")

	The shadowbanning system is known to have false-positives, but the general reasons for getting shadowbanned are listed in [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ShadowBan/comments/8a2gpk/an_unofficial_guide_on_how_to_avoid_being/)

Comment by kostis12345 at 29/12/2021 at 14:19 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

"Almost every time I see a post from a shadow banned user in my filters it is usually straight up spam or trolling." This is not 100% my experience. Some of them are like this, but others write totally fine comments or posts in our sub, which I restore because they are of good quality, I assume that the shadowban of these nice behaving accounts has to do with "past sins". Obviously there are also the shadowbanned trolls and spammers, that I am happy for their situation, because it relieves me from the chore of removing their content :-)

Comment by [deleted] at 29/12/2021 at 18:25 UTC

5 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Sorry that's been your experience.

I see a lot of shadowbanned users on my various subs. (Actually, *saw* a lot around the summer, with it tapering off significantly.) If the user is interacting with my sub(s) in good faith, then I reach out and let them know they're shadowbanned and what they can do about it. I used to get the occasional hostile reaction, but that was before I changed my script to point out that I have no say in the shadowbanning and am powerless to rectify it for them. Once I was more verbose with my script, including resources and the path to resolution, I have yet to have a hostile reaction. Mostly, it's just silence. And I have to assume a fair number of those that don't get back to me probably deserved their shadowban for activities elsewhere. But, I do get a number of confused, appreciative, and thankful responses. These are the ones that almost always get their shadowbans reversed, and many times they'll report back to me their success, usually, with thanks. It is overall a good experience and it's helpful for the reddit noobs to feel less overwhelmed by the reddit experience to have that human interaction.

I understand YMMV, and different communities attract different types. But, I hope you reconsider your position. At the end of the day, even with our most empathetic attempts to moderate, sometimes we'll end up on r/modsbeingdicks or the other mod-hate subs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Comment by Unicornglitteryblood at 29/12/2021 at 15:49 UTC

4 upvotes, 3 direct replies

I think it’s pretty rude to not try to help them. So far, all the shadow banned users I have encountered didn’t argue when I gently told them that : “Hi, your account seems to be shadow banned by the Reddit admins. Please contact them here to have it fixed : https://www.reddit.com/contact/[1] “

1: https://www.reddit.com/contact/

Comment by felinebeeline at 30/12/2021 at 18:16 UTC

2 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Telling them they are shadowbanned defeats the purpose of shadowbans. IME, possible false positives have been rare. Occasionally, a normal comment appears from a shadowbanned account, but that doesn't mean it's a false positive. Most of the time, when a comment or post comes through to me from a shadowbanned account, it's immediately clear that it's a ban evader or spammer.

Any mod I've seen do outreach to shadowbanned users comes to the same conclusion you did.

Someone once asked me to remove their shadowban, wanting to know why it happened, "I haven't done anything wrong!!!", etc. In such a case, instead of going over possibilities, I suggest doing what I did: ask them to send a screenshot of their post history. This user sent it to me and it was all some sort of buylawnmoaerz.xyz type site. When I tell them they can't advertise/spam, I give them the link to create a reddit ad. The conversation always ends at that point. It keeps the exchange short while getting them answers.