Friendly reminder to sub owners seeking mods

https://www.reddit.com/r/needamod/comments/g5hcrs/friendly_reminder_to_sub_owners_seeking_mods/

created by siouxsie_siouxv2 on 21/04/2020 at 15:31 UTC

366 upvotes, 22 top-level comments (showing 22)

Hi,

Just wanted to remind sub owners what this sub is for, and the expectations our users have when they apply to mod your sub.

What mod candidates are here for

clearing reports

answering modmails

community management

well understood expectations

light, fun work done on their own schedule

What mod candidates are not here for

growing your brand new sub for you

posting content

social experiments (let's see how many mods we can add for no reason)

micromanagement (having mods sign up for schedules, expecting the output of a paid employee, arbitrary job titles)

sitting idle on a mod list because there is nothing to do

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needamod users are good mods when added to subs with a normal setup and workflow. Asking for something way outside the norm should be reserved for subs with the traffic to justify it, and should be clearly stated in your post.

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"I just made a sub, I need mods"

I can tell you from experience that adding mods to a sub will not make it magically happen. Most people view this stage of the process to be a personal project, why would a person join your sub when they could just copy your idea in a sub they create and not have to answer to someone?

Adding mods before you have a few hundred subscribers or a steady stream of content just gives the impression you expect them to work miracles and do way more than these mod gigs ever really ask for.

No matter how awesome your idea is for a new sub, there are some things you need to do before involving people outside of your social circle:

post content you hope the sub will become about, minimum 50 posts, ask your friends to help. Highly recommend considering the flaws of a similar sub and offering an alternative. Maybe mademesmile doesnt allow self posts or perhaps r/happy removes content that some people like and wish was available somewhere else.

You need a hook, something unique that people seem to want. Adding mods will not make your idea good.

If a post in your sub is oc or something unknown to reddit, try xposting that content to bigger subs. This is the most effective way to get attention for your sub without annoying other communities.

Very sparingly suggest to people in other subs who post content suitable that they should try your sub. I'm talking 3 times per week total for the entire site.

Try not to rely on other mods as much as you can. This is your bonsai tree, 50 people snipping at it might kill it before it blooms. Once the sub is established (20k or so) and mods actually occasionally have reports, really this is the optimal time to add strangers from needamod.

Comments

Comment by [deleted] at 21/04/2020 at 15:57 UTC

20 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Finally something like this got pinned, thanks.

I found a few pretty good explanations how to grow a sub:

IWTL comment[1] and modhelp comment[2].

1: https://www.reddit.com/r/IWantToLearn/comments/155z1m/iwtl_how_to_promote_and_grow_a_subreddit/c7jmoeb

2: https://www.reddit.com/r/modhelp/comments/33h0wm/how_to_grow_my_subreddit/cqlcnq7

Personally what I have experienced, subs take time to grow - it's not something that happens within a few days.

Comment by [deleted] at 21/04/2020 at 15:49 UTC

42 upvotes, 2 direct replies

[removed]

Comment by bleach_tastes_bad at 22/04/2020 at 02:01 UTC

8 upvotes, 0 direct replies

finally an actual mod post about this lol

Comment by metastasis_d at 21/04/2020 at 21:57 UTC

6 upvotes, 2 direct replies

I'm reporting you to /r/RageAgainstSubreddits

Comment by hduc at 22/04/2020 at 16:18 UTC

6 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Good shout! And thanks for putting the how to grow a new sub stuff into an easy to follow format. It will come in handy.

Comment by landen327 at 03/05/2020 at 00:47 UTC

6 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Thank you Susie for putting this in a spot where it’ll be clear

Comment by daninger4995 at 21/04/2020 at 19:02 UTC

8 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Thank you! This really needed to be said. This is how subs end up with 12 mods and 100 subscribers with zero activity. Adding mods isn’t going to magically make the sub active.

Comment by [deleted] at 30/05/2020 at 15:04 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I just stumbled on to this sub today, first thing that hit me was wow, what pretentious leadership.

The subs I own are very well established, 70+ and 90+ thousand, and its an expectation than mods participate in the sub discussion.

Mods personalities and presence should be seen and felt in the community, and as a team its part of all of our jobs to help facilitate and participate in conversation.

When I'm looking for mods (I'm not at the moment) I want guys who love the sub content and WANT to and enjoy conversing about it, seems like you are trying to sell secretary's here.

Part of a good mods job is to not only enforce the rules, but to also contribute to the sub, you all have some weird leadership in this sub. 🤷‍♂️

Comment by youtube_Paddypro at 21/04/2020 at 19:37 UTC

3 upvotes, 0 direct replies

I'm really sorry but i posted a 'mods needed' for my new sub and asking people to promote it and i didn't see this before i posted this

Comment by [deleted] at 18/05/2020 at 23:09 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

And hateing Burger King isn’t a hook

Comment by Tafin-of-Gaul at 26/04/2020 at 21:54 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Oh yea posting and crossposting a fuckload first is the way to go, I’ve make 8.6k and am adding some mods to handle a little of the workload (mostly enforcing the emoji rule and approving everything that’s not breaking the rules) until I make a post here at 25k if we make it there

Comment by [deleted] at 28/05/2020 at 21:06 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Ah shucks... I guess I am going to be busy on my own with flairs for a little while yet. I had better get the elbow grease lol

Comment by [deleted] at 13/06/2020 at 19:08 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

[deleted]

Comment by turtalitarianism at 18/06/2020 at 20:16 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Are mods paid?

Comment by Chickfizz-eats-memes at 20/08/2020 at 04:12 UTC

2 upvotes, 1 direct replies

How many subs do you mod?

Comment by icecityx1221 at 02/05/2020 at 13:24 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

So curious about this, but can discord servers affiliated with a sub request mods?

Comment by [deleted] at 08/05/2020 at 11:10 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Oof I need to grow my community

Comment by [deleted] at 02/06/2020 at 01:21 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Thanks, this is really helpful since I'm new to starting a sub.

Comment by bestonecrazy at 06/06/2020 at 22:37 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Just read this

Comment by mylifeman23 at 04/07/2020 at 21:28 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

I meed a mod u/pharmacrew

Comment by SomeoneRandom5325 at 16/10/2020 at 12:31 UTC

1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Where/how do I advertise my sub?

Comment by orangevg at 21/04/2020 at 16:00 UTC

-2 upvotes, 3 direct replies

Recently I posted an application for r/triviaoftheday and other subs associated with it on this sub. r/triviaoftheday has around 3k subscribers and it is a sub where trivia questions are posted daily and people are able to submit answers. I do not need people to remove spam, clear reports, etc. - I needed people to submit questions, grade the trivia answers, etc., as I clearly specified in my post. Does this fall under:

Asking for something way outside the norm should be reserved for subs with the traffic to justify it, and should be clearly stated in your post.

The sub receives at the most ~60-70 answers on the most active days with the easiest questions (as you can imagine, easier questions get more answers). Grading answers is a time consuming process as we have to manually reply to each correct answer and update the wiki for each person to give them points. I am wondering if that is enough traffic to justify "asking for something way outside the norm" and whether I am even allowed to use this sub at all to ask for that.

I created a small controversy when I originally posted it due to using the term "staff" instead of "moderator" to refer to the people because, from experience, I feel if I call it "moderator" then people will come looking to remove posts, etc. This is another reason I am asking.