Even More Modmail Improvements

https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/mar9ha/even_more_modmail_improvements/

created by 0perspective on 22/03/2021 at 16:10 UTC

1307 upvotes, 179 top-level comments (showing 25)

Oh, hello there[1] mods.

1: https://media.giphy.com/media/djRJNZqj508sE/giphy.gif

Last year, we were excited to launch a slew of new modmail features and improvements like:

• rate limits[2]
• mute length option[3]
• ban appeals folder[4]
• advanced search UX[5]
• share private message link[6]

As great as that was, we knew we had unfinished business to make sure we were building a feature with all the bells and whistles that mods need. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be making the following improvements:

2: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/hf4tx0/testing_new_rate_limits_for_modmail_and_private/

3: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/i4c7yr/shhh_introducing_new_modmail_mute_length_options/

4: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/hrtbfl/some_updates_for_ban_appeal_workflows/

5: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/ihtjr2/announcing_more_modmail_improvements/

6: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/ihtjr2/announcing_more_modmail_improvements/

• **Bulk Actions** -- We’ve heard you ask for this and here it finally is: Highlight/Unhighlight, Mark As Read / Unread, Archive / Unarchive in multiple messages at once. This launches today!

Bulk actions in modmail

• **User Join Requests Folder** (& enabling Join Requests on Private subs) -- Users that request to join a subreddit will go to their own “Join Requests” folder in modmail. Mods can easily “approve” or ignore the request from the inbox without jumping into the messages. We’re also expanding the ‘request to join’ button to Private subreddits. You can disable it if you’re not accepting new members in community settings. This launches today!

Thank you to our Mod Council for sharing how difficult it is to manage your private community membership. We’re able to build better with your feedback.

User join request folder and messages

• **Response Indicators** -- We know how annoying it can be to send a modmail only to later see that a fellow mod has also responded. It’s annoying for mods and confusing for users. Good news! Soon we’ll let you know if a fellow mod has started typing a response or if a new message has been sent but not loaded in the message you're looking at.

Response indicators mock

• Many under the hood improvements that shouldn't affect you but will result in a more stable and performant service.

• *The future of legacy modmail**

Four and half years ago[7] (yep you read that right) we launched “beta” modmail and it featured a number of substantial improvements over legacy modmail:

7: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/4wwzzs/new_modmail_a_demo_and_a_call_for_beta_testers/

• **Aggregate modmail across multiple subreddits** so you can conveniently switch between subreddit inboxes.
• **Support for shared inbox archiving, highlighting,** **mod team only notes**[8] **and** **auditing mod team actions**[9] so that your team can be efficient and in sync.
• **Reply as a subreddit** to keep the focus on the message and not the messenger.
• **Integrated user panel** featuring the most recent posts, comments and modmail messages from the user you’re messaging so you have more context at hand.
• **Folders** for filtering in-progress messages, archived messages, mod only messages, notifications and highlighted messages to improve organization.
• **New modmail APIs**[10] to automate your messages.

Along the way, we made a lot of progress and launched the following enhancements:

8: https://i.redd.it/zwof2frzpz1y.png

9: https://i.redd.it/k1kza5olnz1y.png

10: https://www.reddit.com/dev/api/#section_modmail

• **Enabled** **search**[11] **across modmail** so you can find that message about the thing that was sent by someone with “Pogs” in their username, the third Tuesday in June.
• **New** **rate limits**[12] to curb spam and abuse.
• **A new folder for** **ban appeals**[13] so you can be in the right headspace for these decisions.
• **Added** **new mute length options**[14] **and total mute counts** to let you decide how long someone needs to chill before they smash the reply button.
• **Added more advanced search UI capabilities** to make it easier to harness these powers.
• **Built private message links** to reference specific private messages with users
• And all our upcoming features mentioned above.

“New” modmail has a superior feature setlist and we can no longer justify maintaining two separate modmail services and features. As we prepare for building out support for native mobile modmail[15] in the second half of the year, we’re consolidating our support for one modmail service. Given that, we’re planning to officially depreciate support for legacy modmail. Here’s our current plan:

11: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/9qr6et/search_on_new_modmail_is_here/

12: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/hf4tx0/testing_new_rate_limits_for_modmail_and_private/

13: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/hrtbfl/some_updates_for_ban_appeal_workflows/

14: https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/i4c7yr/shhh_introducing_new_modmail_mute_length_options/

15: https://media.giphy.com/media/4Mfzt937wSvV6/giphy.gif

• In the second half of June, we’ll automatically transition all remaining subreddits to new modmail and we’ll turn legacy modmail into read-only access for 30 days. After this, you will no longer be able to respond to users in legacy modmail message so you should really consider self upgrading earlier by opting in from Subreddit Settings: “new modmail enrollment”
• Around late July, we’ll remove links to legacy modmail and redirect them to mod.reddit.com

We’ll be sure to give folks multiple heads up well in advance so they can prepare for the transition, and we’ll also be sending out a series of modmail messages to affected mod teams to remind them as we get closer to the date. If you believe you have any special considerations (like bots and other integrations), please use the stickied comment below to share your special considerations.

We’ll be hanging out in the comments[16] answering your questions[17] and secretly gilding comments[18] for the next few hours.

16: https://media.giphy.com/media/j2vsFar0VthOU/giphy.gif

17: https://media.giphy.com/media/3oAt1XFngVtVdhmYmY/giphy.gif

18: https://media.giphy.com/media/7YrnYstmGxYFa/giphy.gif

Comments

Comment by creesch at 22/03/2021 at 16:37 UTC*

238 upvotes, 7 direct replies

Just a quick PSA from the /r/toolbox team here related to new modmail. Last week the admins brought an issue to our attention regarding toolbox and new modmail. It turns out[1] that with firefox in some instances toolbox is responsible for creating an error (well, actually it is firefox doing things a bit oddly but it is in response to what toolbox does).

1: https://github.com/toolbox-team/reddit-moderator-toolbox/issues/470

We have fixed that issue in development and will release this fix somewhere this week.

I figured I'd place that information here before people start blaming the admins while it is toolbox in this case causing some issues.

For those affected disabling these two settings will also reduce the errors you encounter:

• lastreplytypecheck
• checkForNewMessages

Just to be clear, this specific behavior only happens on firefox as far as we can tell.

edit:

Btw as apparently somehow people are stumbling on this today (a month later), this already has been fixed in toolbox and the update released.

Comment by [deleted] at 22/03/2021 at 16:36 UTC

78 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Clicking on someone’s profile on mobile thru Modmail is a bit frustrating since it doesn’t open it in-app, and you cannot click on NSFW posts without it redirecting you to the App Store or even do any mod actions or see removed comments. I’d highly appreciate it if this was fixed and it instead redirected directly to a new page in the app. Thank you.

Comment by asantos3 at 22/03/2021 at 16:18 UTC*

143 upvotes, 3 direct replies

First of all, really appreciate all the old and new changes but... is there a plan to integrate the interface better? It's a page out of place with the rest of reddit.

For example, when I visit the modqueue the whole interface is well integrated and I can easily approve stuff and move on but with the modmail it feels like... a weird sort of separate thing, why?

Comment by Crashdoom at 22/03/2021 at 16:38 UTC

66 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Are there any plans to add a "claim" mechanism for a given mod mail? It might be that you're looking into an issue or question but need to get more info before you can make a decent reply, or a particular moderator may need to address a given issue.

(Using mod-only comments is a way to do this, but something a bit more prominent that could be seen from the mail list might be helpful. Just a thought!)

Comment by didgerdiojejsjfkw at 22/03/2021 at 16:13 UTC

32 upvotes, 3 direct replies

Any ETA on the response indicators?

Comment by creesch at 22/03/2021 at 16:42 UTC

23 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Response Indicators

That would be awesome! Looking at the mock can I suggest it being styled a bit more obviously though? The way it is placed in the mockup doesn't really make it stand out and will likely easily be overlooked.

Comment by Osnolyos at 22/03/2021 at 18:51 UTC

23 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Thank you, are there any plans to give us modmail notifications (also on mobile)?

I'm moderating a small sub and I get maybe one modmail or one report a month. I've already set up the AutoMod to send me a modmail for every report, so I only have to check modmail once in a while, but it would save me a lot of time if I could just get a notification in the mobile app.

Comment by mokiboki at 22/03/2021 at 17:17 UTC

19 upvotes, 1 direct replies

This is great! I've always been scared that someone else responded at the same time (copy my message, reload to be sure, paste, send). And the new request to join is great for private subs will be nice.

On restricted subs, we can turn off requests to post, but the button is still there - when clicked it just says that requests are disabled. If that is turned off, could the button just be replaced with either nothing or something that says "you cannot post here"?

Comment by TheNewPoetLawyerette at 22/03/2021 at 16:52 UTC

15 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Excited for all these new features!

Question about the response indicators: do they stay permanently in the modmail thread the way similarly stylized items do like ban/mute indicators? Or does the "x started typing" go away after they post their response?

Also as numail is more integrated into the site is there any chance that modmail actions can start getting included in the mod logs? It really becomes an unmeasured "invisible labor" to take care of modmail in subs that care about how many actions someone is performing per month and arguably it's the most consuming of brain resources.

Comment by phedre at 22/03/2021 at 17:02 UTC

15 upvotes, 1 direct replies

In the second half of June, we’ll automatically transition all remaining subreddits to new modmail

Long overdue.

Comment by Vault-TecTradingCo at 22/03/2021 at 17:47 UTC

14 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Hello admins, Can I please request a feature?

The feature is to allow us to send a message to another subreddit as a subreddit.

Why have this feature?

The goal is the make the discussions between the moderators of different subreddit easier.. Let's say there are two subreddits that are related to the same topic and they want to do an official collaboration.

Right now a single mod has to send a PM to mods and other mods won't be able to get involved. It would be easy if we can send messages as subreddit so all moderators from both sides can get involved.

Thank you

Comment by Vault-TecTradingCo at 22/03/2021 at 16:41 UTC*

15 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Thank you reddit. This is a good update. And finally about time.

Using the new modmail on official app is very awkward.

Comment by [deleted] at 22/03/2021 at 17:30 UTC

27 upvotes, 1 direct replies

[deleted]

Comment by dequeued at 22/03/2021 at 17:11 UTC

14 upvotes, 2 direct replies

These improvements are great, especially the response indicator.

Is there any hope that we might get old modmails imported into new modmail? It is very difficult to handle issues that require trying to find an old modmail (generally ban appeals).

If the answer is no, will we still be able to read old modmail threads even after they are deprecated?

Comment by Dhanish04 at 22/03/2021 at 17:21 UTC

14 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Do we get notifications for modmail ?

Comment by Time_Terminal at 22/03/2021 at 17:54 UTC

12 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I have to say, I personally prefer new modmail over old modmail. Thank you for the recent additions. They do go a long way.

Also adding a request for dark mode in new modmail. And not the high-contrast "night mode" that persists throughout Reddit (not sure if the designers even use dark mode), but the grey-dark mode that RES offers.

Please and thanks.

Comment by x647 at 22/03/2021 at 19:58 UTC

13 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Probably more for reddit ideas/suggestions but I would like it if there was a ban appeals "process" similar to (but more detailed than ) the reddit appeals process.

(I wanted to make this in Google Forms but it just sounds like a lot of work, no notifications and probably breaks one or two rules)

___

Instead of the users "blindly" messaging us mods with:

"WHY WuZ I BaNnEd?!? <ExpletivesX50> YoU GuYZ ArE SO UnFAIR!! <MoreExpletives>"

Give us a (semi-)customized form for them to fill out for the appeal that gets linked in the ban message:

You have been permanently banned from participating in r/COMMUNITYNAME. You can still view and subscribe to r/COMMUNITYNAME, but you won't be able to post or comment.

Note from the moderators:

| This is the ban message

If you have a question regarding your ban, you can contact the moderator team for r/COMMUNITYNAME by replying to this message or to appeal this ban, please fill out the form here[1]

1: https://www.linktotheredditformhere.com

Click to appeal:

To appeal your ban of [xDAYS] please complete the following:

"Have you read our community rules / posting guidlines as well as Reddits content policy & reddiquette?". yes [ ] | no[ ]

"What rule were you accused of breaking that warranted a ban?" [Rules Drop Down list]

"In your own words, why do you believe your ban should be lifted"

[Text box @ 250 Char]

Misc:

• Mods get a notification in Modmail of a users appeal , with toolbox options similar to mod queue to Approve or Decline the appeal.
• Limit appeals to once every [X] Days depending on Subs settings or a Reddit default.
• If an appeal is declined by the mods, the user is automatically muted for that limit period as well.
• If a user is previously muted, they cannot file an appeal for that time period.

Optional options

• Community able to set "Bans are not appeal-able" in community settings
• Community able to set "Bans are not appeal-able if Less than [xDays] in community settings.
• Appeals can only be granted by Mods with [x Permissions]

fell free to tear this apart or ad more suggestions.

Comment by welshkiwi95 at 22/03/2021 at 16:25 UTC

32 upvotes, 0 direct replies

“New” modmail has a superior feature setlist and we can no longer justify maintaining two separate modmail services and features. As we prepare for building out support for native mobile modmail in the second half of the year

FINALLY.

Comment by Merari01 at 22/03/2021 at 17:06 UTC

46 upvotes, 4 direct replies

If you scrap old modmail then you *need* to fix the 4.5 year old bug that makes new modmail impossible to use for moderators who mod a lot of subs.

Mind I use the word *impossible* on purpose. I do not mean difficult.

Comment by [deleted] at 22/03/2021 at 16:31 UTC

8 upvotes, 1 direct replies

can you be more open about exactly what modmail bugs you're addressing and what the improvements are? i know most of the people avoiding new modmail are still doing so because it's still incredibly buggy

Comment by hoosakiwi at 22/03/2021 at 17:00 UTC

10 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Response Indicators -- We know how annoying it can be to send a modmail only to later see that a fellow mod has also responded. It’s annoying for mods and confusing for users. Good news! Soon we’ll let you know if a fellow mod has started typing a response or if a new message has been sent but not loaded in the message you're looking at.

Love this so much. Thank you!

Comment by InAHandbasket at 22/03/2021 at 19:46 UTC

7 upvotes, 2 direct replies

The update seems to have broken modmail search

Comment by puhleez420 at 22/03/2021 at 16:16 UTC

11 upvotes, 0 direct replies

The response indicator is what I am totally looking forward to! Thanks for your hard work!

Comment by ani625 at 22/03/2021 at 16:32 UTC

5 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Looking forward to response indicators and bulk actions! Thanks.

Comment by koronicus at 22/03/2021 at 19:03 UTC

7 upvotes, 1 direct replies

After this, you will no longer be able to respond to users in legacy modmail message

To clarify, will *users* be able to respond to legacy modmail threads from their inboxes? If so, will it come through in new or old modmail? If it's in new, will it have a link to the old archived thread so that it can be followed up on?

I've had users reply to old modmail threads that were over five years old before. It's not super frequent, but it happens enough that I'd like to know there's something in place to account for it.

Thanks!