[META] Discussion and Input on /r/Australia

samdaman222 · 1日前

Why do you browse /r/australia? Well originally it was looking for an awesome australian community and getting the news at the same time... but i rarely browse it anymore Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit? Yes, and no, I haven't been exposed to any of the drama but based on these comments i might not be an accurate portrayal of being "happy" rather than just "being" How do you think the subreddit could be improved? Do it like /r/askreddit for comments upvotes and downvotes are hidden for one hour (or other predetermined time).

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit?

Political Self Posts should be allowed, I once asked a question that was highly relevant, post was deleted, as per the rules (which is fine) but the ruling itself is not if i can just post a link and then get the question there.

Ununnilium272 · 1日前

Why do you browse /r/australia[3] ?

It is a sort of substitute for social media since I don't like facebook, also it is a good source of news regarding Australia and to bitch about the government.

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit? Yes / No / comments

It's okay, better than it used to be.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

More activity from lurkers.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

The content is fine, I think the upvote/downvote system works so there should not really be any moderating regarding content, only remove posts that are double ups or obvious spam. I also think political self posts should be permitted, if people don't like them, they will be down voted.

TheCapriciousLeper · 16時間前

Firstly - a sincere round of applause to the mods for this thread, and for those who have responded to the posters in a constructive way. I've gained a bit of respect for a few of you as a result.

It is great that you are actively seeking to improve the sub and seeking input - that is, of course, unless it is just akin to a "government working group" type exercise.

Most of what I wanted to add has been posted by others, though there are a few things that I'd like to add.

Why do you browse /r/australia?

It is the best Australian news aggregation place on the 'net, particularly for political news and topics such as the data retention laws.

It also has some of the best debate and commentary on said things, provided that you set your downvote threshold to to show comments with a score of up to -100.

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit? Yes / No / comments

Not really.

I have been banned a few times, ostensibly for trolling, though received different reasons from different mods.

I posted some thoughts about the manner in which the Government would respond to the Martin Place siege in the megathread and received a ban. When I asked why, one mod said it was for trolling, the other said it was for posting political comments in a non political thread despite the lack of a [NP].

I also received a ban for asking the mods, in a PM regarding the removal of one of my posts "if they were a pack of wankers". The ban was accompanied with a smug "enjoy your holiday" type message.

I have had a run in with a couple of them as a result of my arguments in several threads and feel that the treatment I have received following on from said arguments by the mods in question has been a bit biased.

This morning, I attempted to post a link to an SMH article that illustrated just how bad Fairfax had become with their editorial standards since letting shitloads of staff go. A bot told me that I needed approval to post, so I asked the mods to allow it and also asked why I wasn't allowed to post and was told that the article was not relevant to the sub and I should make a self post (which I am banned from doing) and received no answer as to why I wasn't permitted to post.

Modding is a difficult and often thankless task. I was a mod on an Australian based gaming forum with around 10k active members for about six or seven years, and in that time wielded the banhammer three times. I found that a simple, pleasantly worded PM to the person who had stepped over the line was often enough to settle things down.

I had one account for my modding and another for my posting, so perhaps that helped in terms of conflicts of interest, but still, I didn't allow my engagement with members to colour my treatment of them.

Granted, there are 10x the amount of members in this forum and less mods than we had on that forum, so such an approach may be difficult to implement. Perhaps it might be worthwhile looking at putting on some junior mods who look after such things as PR between subscribers and mods, sending nice PMs when people act up and then passing the case onto a senior mod if that doesn't work.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

Others have covered this pretty well, but one thing that really irks me is what is essentially censorship.

This occurs in a number of ways. The rules state:

Threats, personal insults/abuse, ad hominem attacks, offensive comments or submissions, and harassment of other users of this subreddit will be removed; infringers may be banned.

Threats, tick. Personal insults, partial tick. Abuse, tick. Ad hominem attacks, cross. Offensive comments, cross - far too subjective.

I've copped plenty of abuse and been insulted many times, but I really don't give a shit. If someone steps over the line, there is a report link - we can use it. If someone wants to call me a fuckwit, then that is their perogative. It doesn't hurt me, it just hurts their argument.

If someone wants to resort to using logical fallacies, let them. They are digging their own hole, though they may have a valid comment somewhere in the diatribe, so let it stand, the community will decide whether or not the comment is worthy.

"Offensive comments" needs defining. Steve Hughes says all that needs to be said about people getting offended. What is wrong with being offended?

So often the left leaning majority here seem to be offended by valid comments made and opinions offered by those on the right and bury the comments with downvotes. There is a real lack of the application of the principles of reddit in this sub, and it stifles some good debate. One can't even play devil's advocate without being buried in an avalanche of shit sometimes.

Let people speak their mind, let them vent, let them call someone a cunt. If it goes too far, there are mechanisms to deal with it. The way that this place is modded and voted upon sometimes is akin to the way that a Government could use the data retention laws to silence dissenting views.

I was reading a thread the other day in which someone (must own up - it was my brother) made a comment about Chinese investment in housing in Sydney. Someone went ad hominem on the poster, the poster replied calling him out on the ad hominem attack and the other chap kept digging a hole for himself with more attacks that were replied to alerting him to that fact.

I went to reply to the chain and after I had composed my message, I got a note from the internets along the lines of "that comment has been deleted". I refreshed and saw that about five or six comments in the thread were gone. It was a pity as even though the poster who had been abusing the original commenter went off the deep end a little bit, he/she had posted statistics from the ABS and made a few decent points that were worth discussing.

The original poster didn't seem interested in discussing the stats after the ad hominem attack, but I was keen to chat about it and was disappointed that I couldn't.

Unless someone really steps over the line, we should allow debates to get heated and introduce our own standing order 94. Just let the community decide what goes to far and what is heated debate.

If comments that are ad hominem or contain a bit of abuse are deleted, the community isn't able to get a good handle on who is worth debating or chatting with. Let our words speak to our character and let the community decide if we are worth engaging with.

Finally, on this part - let those of the right speak, let differing opinions be celebrated and embraced because they challenge our own. If we don't let ourselves be challenged, what is the point in being in such a place as this? Why stand in an echo chamber?

I love to hear and read views that challenge and differ from my own. I don't need my thoughts and opinions to be confirmed by strangers on the internet, but I do like said strangers to challenge me in a constructive manner.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

The only thing that I'd change would be to permit political self posts, but that has been covered elsewhere.

TL;DR - yeah nah.

lollerkeet · 1日前

I'd just like to praise the community. This sub has become less toxic, less polarised and more open to discussion than it has been in years.

inedibleshoe · 1日前

I browse this subreddit because I’m interested in getting non political Aussie news faster than what the television/newspapers broadcast them.
If there is moderation, it’s discrete or invisible, I very rarely see it. In other words, “When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all”.
I really really want the no-politics button able to be subscribed to via RSS. Presently I’m filtering 29 items just to keep most of that stuff out. If you’d like this in a RSS feed, use this link.
If you want political self posts, no problem, but please enforce a Title tag like [Politics] so I can filter them out. The little ones at the end can’t be filtered by reddit’s search engine.

adomental · 1日前

I think the main problem with the moderation is that it is solely focused on what kind of content should be permitted and not on what kind of community /r/Australia should be.

I think having a set of community standards would be a better idea than just lazily tweaking the submission rules.

I think you could address a lot of the problems people have with this place if the senior users and moderators made an effort to call people out in their circlejerks. If you continue to allow things to go the way they are this place is going to remain a community for a small section of the Australian public, left wing, technology savy, sports hating and piracy loving people. New users are always going to post things that appeal to that audience. Posts that appeal to that audience will always be successful.

If you really want to change /r/Australia to something that appeals to all Australians, you need to change what the community finds acceptable and what they don't.

j2dafa · 1日前

I like to see what other Australians think on a variety of issues but it is a bit disappointing to see some people being down voted just because they don’t agree with everyone else.
Yes, there has been a few moderation dramas. Overall they seem to be doing a good job. I especially appreciate the moves they are doing to get more non-political content. The only specific issue I can think off the top of my head is when someone posted complaining about the state of the sub-redditt. A mod replied back with a link to their comment history and basically said you shouldn’t be critising the sub if you haven’t posted here before. That was very odd incident, the poster could have been a lurker who would of gotten turned off from posting here (or possibly a troll but why should that matter if the comment is relevant).
A lot of the issues seem to come from the negativity of a select group of posters. Any personal abuse or putting someone down because of their past comments really shouldn’t be tolerated. Encouraging people to actually engage in conversation before immediately down voting them would be nice. Having the pop up when hovering on the down vote is a good step in that direction so kudos for that.
Content is okay, it’s up to the community to submit things in and discuss it. I would say avoid censorship as much as you can. Not permitting things can get a bit tricky but at the same time we don’t want this sub to be filled of shitty political memes or something equally as stupid.

throwawayy88888 · 16時間前

here is a textbook example of dredds bias

https://np.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/371dg3/senator_david_leyonhjelm_wants_government_to/criuaa0

the first reply to a one word ad hominem attack, "moron", that was not adding anything to the conversation was dredd

by dredd replying, in support, to the literally moron comment, dredd is implicitly endorsing shit one word posts and ad hominem attacks that add nothing to the conversation

can you imagine moderators at ABC/SMH/Guardian approving "moron" as a comment?

can you imagine a comment moderators at ABC/SMH/Guardian replying in support of a literally "moron" comment, thus implicitly endorsing negative community behavior ?

why was 'moron' allowed to slide when others get banned for 'retard' ? bias maybe?

from reddiquette https://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette

Please Don't Take moderation positions in a community where your profession, employment, or biases could pose a direct conflict of interest to the neutral and user driven nature of reddit

throwawayy88888 · 10時間前

wiki list of australian media, moderated by dredd

In an effort to provide alternative views we've compiled a list of other news and opinion websites which focus upon Australia.

https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/wiki/media

the politics section is virtually all left wing
general news section is also nearly all left wing

nothing wrong with listing those sites, last time i voted it was labor, but wheres the other-side of the story?

ConemanTheBongbarian · 1日前

Why do you browse /r/australia?

I wanted a more Australian-centric forum than what I had been using, also Ive only recently decided to give this Reddit thing a go after people talking about it for years.

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit?

I dont even notice it. The only time I hear about it is from people whinging about it on other subs, Im new around here and their gripes seem to be before my time, so Im not sure if they're legitimate or not.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

I think it'd be nice for the people who whinge about this place to actually engage in posting here without an abrasive tone, "muh circlejerk" or outgroup labeling such as "loony left/fascist right" just because they have a different opinion. I generally downvote anyone who includes "circlejerk" or outgroup labels in their post because I dont believe it adds anything constructive to the conversation.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

Im fairly new to the sub, and reddit as a whole, so Im just going with the flow. Im open to changes, but I'd like to see things changed on a trial basis with community consultation after a set period of time so we can discuss if its worth keeping the changes permanently.

TheCapriciousLeper · 9時間前

A big thank you to /u/JediCapitalist for his or her input in this thread.

We haven't agreed on many issues during my time here, but the banter has always been entertaining, and you've done the community a great service in this thread.

Cheers.

packetinspector · 22時間前

I think we have a good mod team and I've always found them very reasonable to deal with. So thanks to all of you for the janitorial (and some policing) work you do here.

One small request I have is for some tuning on the way the auto-moderator applies flair to new submissions. I'm seeing a lot of stories mis-labeled 'politics' when they shouldn't be. Sometimes the flair gets fixed by a mod but sometimes it doesn't. An example I can give is this submission about changes in TV viewing habits of Australians. Nothing to do with politics but it was flaired that way and stayed that way for quite a number of hours before it was changed. The reason that this concerns me is that the "less politics" button exists for people who want to filter out submissions with political content and, with the misflairing, they might be getting some non-political stories filtered out as well (i.e. false positives).

tatty000 · 1日前

Why? A news source, and a twitter filter, mostly.

What is there to be satisfied/not satisfied with mods about? I haven't had a run in so I don't care.

How could it be improved? Un-ban image macros/memes. FFS, banning them was the stupidest decision yet from the moderators, because now we're left with no content to be replaced by BS news and politics. It becomes a bit tiresome seeing 3 of the same stories on the front page of r Aus.

You need to figure out how to encourage non-political discussions (such as tapping into our other interests of sports, gaming, film and television?), landscape images and funnies, and sharing some good Australian stories. We're basically a parallel of r Canada...

40CnV12e7iHMwg4e · 1日前

What I think is also important is to notice the mods who haven't made an appearance in this thread.

spatchcock · 20時間前

Why was my flair removed?

Also in the same vein, why is "cjaustralia" or /r/circlejerkaustralia so forbidden to mention in this sub?

CocaCoal · 1日前

My expectations for /r/australia are very low. It's like attending a very loud bar, except on the Internet.

A lot of people gather and shoot the shit. Some of the same people show up lots over the weeks, and you overhear them shouting about their bee in their bonnet. And you get to know roughly where they lie on different issues.

e.g. mention house prices, and the same shit shows up time after time after time.

Everyone goes home, sleeps, and comes back a few hours/days/weeks later and starts again. Serious, meaningful discussion that will actually amount to anything is rare and expecting too much.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

IMO it's like this because of lack of moderation.

eateggs · 1日前

I browse here for a few reasons but mainly for the occasional great picture that slips through the cracks. I know it's popular to say this sub is a circlejerk at times but there's a good reason: it is. Is this the fault of the mods? Not entirely. The attitude amongst the majority of posters seems very self entitled, as in if you disagree or even try to bring up an alternate view, even one you don't agree with, you'll get downvoted and labelled a troll. One thing that sticks out for me was Joe Hockey's cigar pic. It was instantly labelled as some kind of Bond villain puffing away after sending a few dozen minions through a trap door. I don't agree with the government but I was able to look past the politics and see that picture as a guy relaxing after working his arse off and not seeing his family for however long. Sure, the thing he was working on fucked a lot of people etc but through all that he's still a person that got snapped in the same way celebrities do. I tried pointing out that everyone deserves some privacy but of course because it was Hockey I was downvoted. Really? I question a lot of things including Kochie having a go at the organ donation thing but on that day Kochie was an absolute hero, like I think I was the only person to think there may be something else behind it. Everyone else blindly followed. Yet if it were Tony Abbott saying the same thing it'd be questioned mercilessly and derided as nothing more than a stunt. TV and politics aren't too different, you know. I often get attitude because I post on CJA, too. Why? Does it bother someone so much that another person takes their stupid non constructive posts elsewhere? Would they rather those shitposts end up in here? It's really weird. I don't really have much opinion about the mods in here except they seem to be on stuff rather quickly. /u/dredd is touted as a tyrant by some but to me he seems like a teacher in their 30th year who has seen it all and is just sick of bullshit, waiting for the home time bell which never comes. Just reacting from the gut, if that makes sense.

JediCapitalist · 1日前

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

I'm keen for input from people on a few ideas I have.

Prominent display of the Less Politics filter.

I think a lot of people may never even realise they can filter out all political (gold) flairs by pressing the 'less politics' button in the sidebar. I'd like to display it more prominently (maybe at the top of the subreddit between the sticky and the hot/new/rising tabs) so users looking to avoid politics in the sub can do so much more easily.

Subreddit feature awareness

On a similar note to the less politics filter, a lot of subreddit features are underused. I'm thinking we should try and present them more obviously wherever it is appropriate to do so. People can:

Put an [NP] tag into the headline of any post to have a no-politics rule enforced for their thread.

and

Have 'Discussion Threads' which cover live, national events like Question Time or episodes of QandA and get bolded flair for it.

Neither of these things are done very often. I'm not certain if people just plain aren't interested in using them, or aren't aware of them. I'd like to look for strategies to make it easier to use them if you want.

Quality Political Self-Posts

We have a long-standing ban on political self posts. With community and broader mod support one thing I'd like to do is partially lift this by developing a quality control on self posts (post length, require a discussion question, something along those lines) so we can start to invite political self-post discussions into the subreddit, but only the ones that aren't misplaced tweets etc.

Importantly, the standards we check to approve/remove political self posts would have to be objectively measurable, to remove the possibility of biased judgement, but also flexible enough we can still crack down on trolling or any other unforeseen problems that technically meet the standard but are detrimental to the subreddit. I haven't got an ironclad set of standards to propose, but as I alluded earlier, it would likely include a minimum wordcount, such as 200 words or something, and it must offer a discussion question. All these threads would, of course, be filtered out by the no-politics filter.

Not_Anonymouse- · 1日前

I was banned from /r/Australia for saying to another User;

don't come and act condescending on here you little twerp.

dredd deemed this an ad hominem attack and would not be reasoned with. This sub has the highest rate of profanities om reddit, and I copped the ban for what would be insulting maybe to a kindergartner. I challenged dredd to make it be known that twerp is now a bannable ad hominem attack and of course he didn't do that because it's ridiculous.

I used to be quite active on here and my comments were regularly voted to the top or gilded, but I also wasn't afraid to have an unpopular opinion if it was my own.

I used to enjoy engaging with people who held different political beliefs, those redditors are all but gone, replaced with rabid lefties who hijack comments to push ridiculous agendas. Constantly these ridiculous tangents to unrelated scenarios (even hypotheticals) are made to push a point and barely anyone seems to recognise this tactic for what it is.

I don't want to discuss unrelated hypotheticals, I want to discuss the topic at hand.

Discussions about male domestic violence are a shitshow. When muslims are persecuted this sub defends their beliefs like crazy and when muslims segregate women, as per their beliefs, suggesting they get sent back to the middle east gets gold. When the Libs occassionally do something good, no-one will have a bar of it. The discussions are so unreasonable, and so left-wing biased that I don't care about my ban; I don't want to be part of a circlejerk that can't see it is a circlejerk.

I'm left-wing myself, but the common views here go beyond reasonable opinions into simply deluded fantasy half the time. I find more reasonable discussion over at CJA as at least they see this sub for what it has become.

Am I satisfied with moderation? No. dredd has to go. Quite simple. A few of the others do well, mostly that take a less hands-on approach. But dredd's ideology is spreading here and when he bans me for saying twerp, there's no way I can be satisfied with that.

Also, Users just don't have any say here. First time you're asking for feedback in a year. Someone recently posted their own metathread asking if Politics should be allowed in self-posts, and guess which moderator shitcanned that? Let people actually participate in the sub or you won't have anyone in the sub..

How to improve.

get rid of dredd.
allow political self-posts
ban Users for brigading any condescending views. Be far more proactive in this as contradictory views will be downvoted within a few minutes and hidden so the discussion never improves.
mod elections - every 6 months.
mod logs - I'm sure if people knew that calling someone a twerp was bannable (for example) then there would be far more open dissent towards the moderation.

Satisfied with content. Not really. It's a product of the sub itself nowadays. It's the same talking points rehashed over and over. Fucking dropbears, kookaburras, the NBN and Tony Abbott. Could be a Billy Joel song..

Allow memes again. Or at the very least some funny gifs.

Allow decent self-posts. I don't give a shit about eggs, I do care about politics, sports, major events - let people discuss things of interest to more than just left-wing vegan hippies.

Look for some non-political content.

And for christ-sakes - if you want to mod a country subreddit then you should be able to organise the occassional AMA.

qgyh2 · 14時間前

Please share your comments and suggestions. We want to hear from as many users as possible.

yourtruemastr · 21時間前

I started typing a long response, but really, the reality is that the SR is fucked so long as /u/dredd is running it. He may have started out as a solid bloke, I don't know, but he is so jaded now that he just fucks up the entire subreddit. This is the worst moderated subreddit on reddit.

Tothebillyoh · 1日前

With respect for what you have achieved and what your aims are, I feel that this sort of "research" is extraordinary problematic, highly likely to lead to incorrect assumptions.

I salute your aims but suggest that if you really want to know what is what, that you PM a properly constructed survey to a randomly chosen number of subscribers.

There must be any number of market researchers who subscribe and could knock up a survey for you.

That said I think that by and large you collectively do fairly well and note, with great amusement that the criticism you seem to attract ignores the fact that some on the left have faced the Mod Hammer but simply do not whine about it.

Another question I have is do many of the real trolls (as opposed to the boorish, bombastic, opinionated, sweary posters of more extreme opinions, myself included) support the left side of the argument? I have been here for a very long time and my feeling is that the real disruptors are predominantly from the extreme right. But of course, I may be biased. Hence the need for proper research.

Not_Anonymouse- · 19時間前

Any comment on /u/TheNossinator being removed from the modteam?

H88ed · 1日前

Whats the point of this post when nothing will change while the 2 top mods are still there.

Badafaqup · 1日前

My only issue here is echoed by others, dredd.

Using bots to shadowban over the smallest thing is just him on some kind of mod power trip. I can't even post on reddit without a vpn because of dredd and his love of the shadowban.

I understand if i just engaged in personal attacks but all I did was call out some cja trolls as shills and got a ban from dredd.

Why can't he be removed? Is he really a valued contributor to this sub?

Jedicapitalist is good, at least he joins the discussion, but dredds just a power tripper with his automated modding.

On behalf of this sub, GTFO dredd.

aborted_bubble · 1日前

This sub always feels toxic and angry when I come here. The level of discussion in the comments is usually poor and somewhat aggressive. And it's not that I'm a right-wing person who can't stand the left-leaning nature of the sub. I voted Greens last election and probably agree with most users here on many issues. It's that to me it feels like a generalised left-wing kind of politics is basically religion among a significant portion of the user base here.

There is no room for open, legitimate dialogue. You make an honest, educated post that might come off or be construed as too right-wing, you get downvoted to shit and attacked. The opportunist who replies with the uneducated, insulting left-wing reply gets upvoted. Until that changes, I don't see a point engaging in this sub in any kind of serious way. As someone fairly educated in the field of economics, I won't be commenting on anything economics-related here, and I wonder how many thousands of other educated people across various fields have been soured to the sub by the level of discussion that persists.

Kind of related, the other major problem for me is that most content is politics. Not even particularly interesting politics; just the standard articles on abc or smh.

As for how you fix it? I'm not a mod, but I have noticed that the best community on reddit I'm a part of has been shaped by the mods. They set the standard and tone of the sub, both overtly through explicit rules and guidelines and more covertly through their own participation in the sub. Good, active mods seem to be key.

Anyway, I hope this comment adds something helpful. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

_fuck_this_bullshit · 1日前

To directly address an obvious subtext of some disaffected posters here: keep in mind no amount of moderation changes will alter the demographics of this sub to reflect views you might find more agreeable.

This seems rather obvious but from some of the predictable gripes here it apparently bears repeating.

40CnV12e7iHMwg4e · 1日前

I would like to see mod logs published on a daily basis in the daily stickies. Mod logs published since the beginning of the year would be great too. That way the users can see who does the most modding, banning and approving of comments.

Reddit admins are all for transparency, it is clearly something the users want from the mods here too.

/u/dredd is the Sepp Blatter of /r/Australia. He has been a mod of this sub for what, seven years? At what stage will he leave? Under his watch he has run bots to remove posts off his personal server and it appears he is running a bot through his account again. If he needs a bot to mod then that speaks volumes about his obsession and control issues, doesn't it?

Noss needs to go. He has been sprung doxxing users before and yet still mods here.

The three worst offenders for banning are dredd, ev and noss because they feel that anything against their views or the hiveminds views are trolling.

Banning users does nothing. It is ironic that this sub which adores VPNs to avoid metadata collection and Netflix regional switching is the way to avoid the bans that users are handed out here.

I'm sure this comment may be removed so I will screencap it and post it to /r/circlejerkaustralia. Let's see who removes or approved this comment.

Browser900 · 1日前

The biggest problem with this subreddit is seeing that the awful smug snarky leftist tone that dominates here is shared by certain very visible mods.

I think it makes people feel that there is no point struggling against the circlejerk because obviously it goes all the way to the top.

I know you will say that it is not every mod and that some mods wish the place wasn't such a circlejerk, and you can click the less politics button or whatever.

But having politically activist and snarky dickwads on the modlist just makes you feel like this isn't the sort of place a person of free thought belongs.

lebobob · 1日前

Why do you browse /r/australia[3] ?

It's a pretty good news aggregrator and also satisfies my need for the occasional picture of a koala drinking beer.

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit? Yes / No / comments

For the most part r/australia is divided between decent discussion, trolls, and circlejerking. They all seem to balance one another out. That sorting by new thing was weird, but probably would've gone down better if there'd been more warning and maybe a trial. On the whole though, it's not the worst.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

Removing downvotes. I've seen it in other subreddits, and I think we'd end up with a similar distribution of content (right-wing shitposts at the bottom, then right-wing arguments, followed by left-wing arguments and finally left-wing shitposts at the top), but it might chase less people away.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

Doesn't seem to be anything particularly fucked up, so it seems ok to me.

Ausmoddiscussion · 18時間前

Throwaway here. I second the people arguing that dredd should be removed. I was banned for asking whether a bot was being used to monitor mentions of CJA. When an admin clarified that the ban was not warranted the reason was changed but the ban remained. /u/dredd then had an admin shawdowban that account. It's ridiculous to enforce rules and at the same time refuse to articulate those rules.

That was my second account, the first was banned by /u/Evadregand for 'inciting anti-mod fervour'. I think that's a prime example of the paranoid and frankly bizarre attitude some mods here have.

I think this sub would be vastly improved if moderators were transparent and open. I've seen posts regularly banned in the daily threads where users have simply been asking for clarification on subreddit rules. The typical response is 'pm us for details' which is completely unnecessary.

CoopersPaleAle · 18時間前

Are you satisfied with the mods

Those mods that join in discussion are good - Everderedergandd and the JediCommunist, and MelbourneTom as well. Sometimes complex_deductions makes an appearance when he's not doing his tax, and that's good too. But there are others who I cannot misspell because I never see them participating and therefore have no opportunity to take the piss out of. Pussys!

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

Allow memes. When they were banned this sub nose-dived into the leftist student union that we have today. It's boring and stale to be honest. Introduce some comedy and piss take into the mix... after all it's one thing that Australians do well.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

Not satisfied. It's basically a left wing news aggregator, and at times with multiple posts of the same story on the front page. Why isn't this moderated and duplicate posts removed? I would give an example of content that should be introduced, but it would be removed immediately since you don't allow memes.

Shunto · 19時間前

Why do you browse /r/australia?

I use it for news and discussion on current events

I grew up in one of the strongest liberal areas in the country. I balance the views I was brought up and oftentimes lean towards against the stronger views in this sub, subsequently forming my own opinion. In saying that, I really dislike the circle jerk and think it hurts the sub a bit much.

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit?

I haven't had any personal problems, but I do worry given the large amount of issues being brought up in this thread - particularly naming specific mods and how they act.

I thought the 'sort by new' thing last week was infuriating, and was frustrated that there was no warning or trial period.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

Decrease the circle jerk. I'm not sure the mods can influence this, but rather they need to lay off people making unpopular opinions - particularly people with established accounts. The ban on new accounts is sensible.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

Once I tried to post an article from The Australian. I forget what it was about, but it was very interesting and genuinely bipartisan. There was a ban on the post source for whatever reason (it could have been due to paywall reasons which is fair).

I know Murdoch is the devil, but he also represents 'the other side,' which too often appears to be utterly silenced here. I think that's to the detriment of the sub. We don't need to agree with it, and sure, make fun of it, but to silence it is hypocritical.

ausmodthrowaway69 · 1日前

I want to see some people here commenting who AREN'T /u/jedicapitalist and /u/thundercuntAU.

These are not the mods which most people have issues with, nor the mods which are active in arbitrarily banning users for trolling. I want to see the big fish who are actually in charge come out and address some of the criticisms here.

edit: still no meaningful contribution or addressing of criticism from the 3 mods to which I am referring. One has simply shown up to defend himself personally (even though none of the comments were personally identified attacks), the others remain absent.

InnerCityTrendy · 1日前

1: fifty fifty, some mod’s do a great job tagging posts and removing duplicates however some seem to have personal vendeta’s against members removing comments they believe are out of character.

2: A more relaxed approach to moderation, there are some mod's that take this subreddit and subreddits made to mock this subreddits circlejerking tendency’s to seriously.

3: Rules around posts are generally fine. Users who are banned for a set period and then unbanned but still need to have their posts approved by the mods is time wasting and redundant.

In relation to comments there is a bot running which automatically reports any comment mentioning circlejerkaustraila. I find it amusing that one of the mods is so upset over the existance of the sub they have set up a bot to report any comment mentioning it.

4: Stop taking this subreddit so seriously. It's a small subreddit, articles and comments made on here do not change election results, comment’s with positive scores the law.

spicyfrog · 1日前

Well, here goes, RIP my karma score.

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit? Yes / No / comments

I've been commenting here for a while, and I dislike the moderation intensely. The place is being run in a highly partisan way. Dredd makes no disguise of his political leanings and moderates the subreddit accordingly. Accounts which post conservative comments typically run in to the negative karma which is no surprise since there is probably a strong correlation between people who are tech savvy, educated and participation in online communities (like this subreddit), and people who hold quite left wing views of the world. But those accounts are kept on an short leash. Dredd will hand out bans based on assumptions of account ownership with 0 evidence and accuse new accounts of trolling.

If someone digs enough through my account history they could probably piece together who I am and more importantly who I work for. So months ago before the tides turned on the discussion of remote Indigenous communities I made an account and put forwarded some experiences I had, and made a few 'conservative' comments about how I felt about them. Account banned, accused of right wing trolling, actually I was accused of being another user who I'd not heard of.

This is a national subreddit, it's the sub for an entire country, not an small interest group and it should be moderated in a way that's reflective of a diversity of opinions.

Maybe you should make the ban list public, we can see who was banned for what and why. Transparency of moderation is important I think and we don't have it here that's for sure.

packetinspector · 22時間前

I've just read through most of the comments here and I see a lot of whingeing and a personal vendetta being waged against one particular mod. What I am not seeing however are people giving examples of all this bad moderation they think they have been suffering.

There was one notable exception where a commenter did provide an example of a time they felt they had been dealt with 'unjustly'. Credit to them for doing so. However after reading through the PM discussion they had with the mod I found myself agreeing completely with the mod. This user thought it was entirely ok to just come on here and spray personal insults around. I am very happy to see such users being banned.

So where are the other examples of biased mod behaviour? Why aren't they being provided? You would think that all the highly aggrieved mod bashers in this thread would have stored up a number of examples on which to make their case of bias. Now's their chance. Show us how you've been unfairly persecuted. But be aware; your examples might just end up making you look like someone with an abusive, entitled and narcissistic personality who's used to getting their own way whenever they turn on the bully-boy attitude...

spoonalious · 1日前

I am trying to approve all the new account comments as fast as I can, but I may miss some of them. Apologies if I do.

InnocentBistander · 1日前

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit? Yes / No / comments

Moderation is generally good but doing thing like changing the sorted by: too 'new' when every other sub defaults to 'top' is just imposing one's personal preference on everyone.

If it ain't broken don't fix it.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

Posable just show zero instead of negative whatever downvotes, it may counteract the pecking order effect where people seem to downvote comments that have a large negative score.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

The less censorship the better.

austhrowaway9999 · 1日前

Throwaway for obvious reasons. What constitutes trolling etc is extremely subjective, and as such, anyone the mods don't like and doesn't toe the line gets banned and its technically above board. Trolling to one person will be nothing to another. Willing to bet if dredd's mod logs were published people wouldn't be so happy for that user to be a moderator.

ausmodthrowaway69 · 20時間前

Everyone should note here that /u/thenossinator simply deleted all their comments in this thread after flat out telling users they were wrong and failing to address the issues. I encourage people here to read the comment chains in their entirety even though much of them have been deleted. You can still see the context as people are quoting much of /u/thenossintor 's replies anyway

Again, if you can't handle your moderation duties, and that involves listening to criticism (none of which was abusive... you just interpreted it that way- no one was calling for your resignation and very few had even mentioned your name in comments when you started your tirade) and addressing it (without arguing, bitching about everyone being against you, or lying about stuff you've done in the past) then maybe you aren't fit to moderate.

ajdlinux · 1日前

I browse /r/australia because it provides useful links, the occasional funny picture, and some interesting discussion. I can't say I'm active on here enough to really know anything about how the moderation works though, so I don't have much of a comment to make on that.

Personally I'm fine with the amount of politics that gets discussed here - though, to be fair, I have a Political Science degree and I live in Canberra with Parliament House visible from my bedroom window, so I suspect I'm just a little bit more into it than the average Redditor...

modestokun · 17時間前

I browse for news and politics. I think the moderation goes smoothly. I have no issues with dredd.

Zian64 · 21時間前

Why do you browse /r/australia?

Because my friends and family banned me from talking politics at home and for news.

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit? Yes / No / comments

I guess so. Allowing more varied content would be great.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

Honestly? The community is one step short of a circlejerk. We used to have a balanced-ish userbase but it has brigaded and driven most centre/right leaning posters away. /r/australia is just as bad now as the media they protest. Any topic on politics, drugs or religion is poison; you can't fight the rhetoric without getting downvoted to oblivion; oh, and don't ever criticise the greens. God forbid.

I said all this last week in a thread and I got the reply of "well start your own sub". The community seems to want this circlejerk. I'm close to giving up.

I think we should lose the downvote button. Any step away from the constant negatively would be great. All downvoting does anyway is double-down as opposed to highlighting the most popular.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

Mentioned above. AMAs, funnies and pictures would be great.

RAAFStupot · 1日前

Why do you browse /r/australia?

Well, it's obviously the main place to discuss Australian stuff on Reddit.

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit? Yes / No / comments.

I am not unsatisfied, so I guess that means I am satisfied. I don't really take much notice of moderation.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

Redditors should follow reddiquette, and furthermore act the same way as if they were acting with strangers in public. (So basically that means you don't start arguments / make insults / etc etc. Basically, be polite and if you have nothing polite to say, say nothing. And don't try and 'get back' at people who've said something nasty.) Clear troll posts should just be deleted along with replies ala AskHistorians.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

Yes, but it would be nice if there was more variety.....

randisonwelfare · 1日前

Context. This account is only a couple of years old but I've been on reddit about 5/6 years. Digg before that. Somethingawful. Kuro5hin. Slashdot. Etc. I'm an old fart.

This subreddit has the worst moderation I've ever seen for an online community this size. Foxes should not be hired as gamekeepers. If you think 'provoking a reaction' (expressing an unpopular opinion) is unacceptable in a political discussion on an internet forum just resign as a moderator. Now. Everyone knows who I'm talking about. Users vote comment up and down, it's not the moderators job to add to that process unless it clearly breaks the explicitly stated rules of the community. One or two mods on here are the equivalent of Bronwyn Bishop - they're in a role that is meant to be non-partisan but they just can't help themselves.

Specific suggestions for moderation on this subreddit.

Stop the automod shadow-bans if they're still around. Getting 60 plus downvotes for expressing an opinion is not unusual on this subreddit. That's fine, that's the community - but it should not trigger a shadowban - which in any case is useless.
Give warnings. If people are close to breaking a rule tell them. Don't let the first mod notification be a ban. People will generally pull their heads in with a warning that a mod is watching. And they'll learn where the limits are for next time.
Transparency and review. If a mod bans someone they should be required to say why even if briefly. There should also be a clear process of review with a second senior mod to confirm if the user wants to appeal. Extra process = extra problems but banning someone should be taken seriously.

I know moderation is a shitty job and you have to deal with timewasters and shitstirrers etc. But that is the task. If you can't do it in a non-partisan manner then resign and let someone else do it.

Why do I come here? It aggregates a lot of Australian related news and I can see what others think and I can contribute my own views. I recently watched CitizenFour and this quote triggered some nostaglia.

I remember what the Internet was like before it was being watched, and there's never been anything in the history of man that's like it. I mean, you could have children from one part of the world having an equal discussion where you know they were sort of granted the same respect for their ideas and conversation, with experts in a field from another part of the world, on any topic, anywhere, anytime, all the time. And it was free and unrestrained.

That's what I'd like /r/australia to be. At its best it can be like that. A forum for really free discussion (or at least as free as we can make it). I remember what the internet was like before shitty moderation.

JGrobs · 22時間前

Whats the point of this thread?

This sub has managed to drive everyone anyone who was a frequent poster who ran against the hivemind. The echo chamber has been in full effect for a while now. It's passed the point of fixing.

Why do you browse /r/australia?

Used to be for local news and events, now it's to facepalm. But now I think this place is like a car crash to look at, I know what I'm reading in the comments is awful, but I can't stop reading and know of no alternatives.

Are you satisfied with the moderation of this reddit? Yes / No / comments

Yes and no. Yes in that the links (reposts, reports etc) and flair are managed well. No in that reddiqutte has never been encouraged.

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

Get a new userbase! (Stay calm hivemind it's a joke)

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

Get rid of opinion articles which are politically inclined. Send them to /r/AustralianPolitics. For politics, just allow news items only.

youshouldreadthem · 1日前

worst mods on the whole of reddit

been on reddit for many, many years. banned 3 times before. each time on /r/australia.. nowhere else

ban-happy as fuck, for no obvious reasons. there's a big vacuum in the sub's rules, so the reasons for banning have been "because I want to"

Too much voting on opinions in here too

Make rules more clear. mod based on those rules. you can't ban people for breaking rules that don't exist

Whytiederp · 1日前

Why do you browse /r/australia ?

Dank memes

How do you think the subreddit could be improved?

More dank memes

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

No. Not enough dank memes

ausmodthrowaway69 · 1日前

Throwaway because I don’t want the inevitable retaliation and the permanent crosshair on my regular account. tl;dr at bottom but I encourage anyone seriously looking for a change to read everything.

My main issue? The mods here are so apathetic to the state of the subreddit and the moderation activities of the other mods, and part of the problem is the community for being so fucking hostile every time a suggestion is made to improve it (e.g. sorting by new trial)

Am I satisfied?

No.

Everyone knows this place is a laughing stock for most Australians outside of /r/aus and /r/worldnews. Look at when it's mentioned on /r/auslaw, /r/ausfinance, any of the city subs. Everyone knows if you want decent political discussion this is not the place to have it. These are issues which barely have any attempt at being fixed because the mods simply don't care, and when they DO try the community reacts like it's the end of the fucking world.

As for moderation- Most of the moderators are fine, but a few of the main actives are not. They lack impartiality, some have a history of serious misconduct/breaking reddit rules, and all have personal issues with users posting in related subs, such as CJA and City subs. As an example, by this I mean a CJA user who has never been banned from /r/aus getting a 5-10 day ban without warning simply because a mod decided they were ‘trolling’. Moderation decisions are being made with consideration of a person's post history in OTHER subs and that's wrong.

'What would you like to see to improve the subreddit?'

Less letting personal issues/opinions influencing moderation decisions, such as removal of posts and bans for ‘trolling’. Let the votes filter the content, not the mods. Mods should only remove posts which are offensive, personal attacks, shill accusations, illegal, break reddit’s rules- NOT posts which they decide couldn’t be a real political opinion.
The way you fix the echochamber is encouraging participation from all sides of politics. Hide downvotes. It has been suggested before but the mods are too apathetic to do it because they don’t want to deal with complaints from the hostile community. I think if you can't handle complaints, don't be a mod. You should strive to improve the community and that means trialling new things, which leads me to my next point
I want the mod team to be more passionate about the community. Most here don’t care beyond their basic moderation tasks.
Likewise, I want the community to be more passionate about the community- people here lost their shit when the mods decided to change the sorting to ‘new’. This was a good thing designed to improve the community, not fascism. Grow the fuck up. The sub won’t improve unless people are willing to try change. Mods- same applies to you- try new shit more frequently.
Stop allowing users to get away with dismissing views as ‘shilling’ without a ban/warning. Any post making this accusation should be removed unless there is actual evidence.
Consider removing posts which are just blatant hate posts of a certain person or political party- criticism is fine, but unfounded hate rhetoric just encourages people to post the same shit and it snowballs into an upvote party when you post anything anti-authoritarian.

Are you satisfied with the content permitted in this reddit? Is there content we should / should not permit? (Do give examples).

I’m not satisfied that content is removed based on hidden moderation decisions. Easiest example is the hidden bot which was running and flagged any comment mentioning circlejerk, circlejerkaustralia, CJA. These posts were then deleted without explanation. Do you want your mod team filtering the content you get to see? When asked for clarification, the modmail went unanswered. Posts had to be made publicly in the subreddit, which were obviously removed to be dealt with ‘in private’. This again resulted in no answer. Finally, contact had to be made with /u/qgyh2 to point out this was happening before it stopped.

Other than that I'm happy with the content. Again I would prefer less political echo-chamber but I understand that's a difficult issue to address.

tl;dr the community is stupidly hostile towards anything new, the mods are stupidly apathetic and lack any passion to fix it. I don't want moderators filtering content of subs based on what they determine is trolling.

australia

調停者

The 1/6/15 Daily is HERE.

Prominent display of the Less Politics filter.

Subreddit feature awareness

Quality Political Self-Posts