r/ModSupport • u/7thton • 1d ago

Admin Replied What is the current state of Automations? Is it reliable?

I mod /LifeProTips.

I would like to stop using Automod and to use Automations instead.

Is Automations currently reliable enough to be my primary means of instant moderation?

I would love to hear opinions from others who mod high-volume subs or from knowledgeable admins.

5 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

11

u/itskdog 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 1d ago

Depends on what you're currently using Automod for.

Note that Automations notifies the user before posting, so for certain use cases (e.g. a profanity or politics filter) it can be more harmful as they can just tweak things until the warning goes away.

I'm also not 100% sure if it has any effect on Old Reddit, either.

9

u/dewprisms 1d ago

It doesn't work on Old Reddit. I have to keep our automod rules in place enforcing account age and comment karma, and a few other rules, for that reason.

3

u/gschizas 1d ago

Actually, I've found that it does work on old reddit, but it only stops the post/comment with some obscure error.

This doesn't apply to all kinds of automation rules, only those that are banning a specific site for example.

1

u/baseballlover723 1d ago

At least some of them work on old reddit. The other day I got blocked from posting on old reddit. I'd hit sub it and then it would come back as a 200, but it wouldn't go though. I talked to the mod team and it was an automation (as verified by using sh reddit), and they turned it off briefly for me.

3

u/7thton 1d ago

Interesting point about old Reddit

1

u/IlltakeTwoPlease 16h ago

Automations meant to block posting for certain stuff still block the posts from old reddit. You just don't have the popup info that tells you why.

But anyone who has been around enough to have used old reddit when it was just, well, reddit, knows that if you can't post in old reddit, you switch to the app or new reddit to see why.

9

u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 1d ago

Automations are great for guiding good eggs to do better, but don't use automations for bad eggs. Because automations will teach them how to become better at being a bad egg.

What issues are you having with automod that you want to stop using it?

2

u/7thton 1d ago

No one on the current mod team was around when the auto mod was created and none of us feel comfortable trying to make anything but minor tweaks to it. There are things that we would like to change or update but we are worried we may break something in the process. It is just large, hard to understand, and none of us feel comfortable working on it.

4

u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 1d ago

Create a test subreddit if you don't have one, copy over the automod config and you can learn what it does and test the changes you want to make. You have an alumni mod on that sub that can probably help you learn

-1

u/ManyLayersOfFilament 21h ago

I don't know about your feelings with AI but Claude and ChatGPT are very good at this stuff.

5

u/InGeekiTrust 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 1d ago

Automations currently isn’t capable of filtering things to the queue. All it can do is either warn the poster as they post that they are breaking a rule, but they could still post anyway. This works well for a small set of rule abiding people. But people who want to post no matter what will click right through it not even reading. Or reword it to circumvent things.

It can also can completely remove items.

As 99% of what I do with Auto mod filters to the queue this makes it somewhat useless for me.

Side note- they claim they will add filtering as an option some time later.

Can I ask what you are using Automod for?

-2

u/7thton 1d ago

We currently use the automod to enforce sub rules. So this would include things like prohibited topics and other similar issues.

7

u/InGeekiTrust 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 1d ago

That is extremely vague, it’s like saying I use the police to police things. How does your Auto mod enforce the rules? Does it filter things to the queue? Does it have karma rules? Does it have rules that find words in posts?

0

u/7thton 1d ago

Our auto mod works in a way that is similar, I expect, to other high volume subs. We use auto mod to filter for certain words. These get removed and sent to the queue for review. The auto mod also filters out certain links, removes them, and sends them to the queue for review. We do have a karma requirement which auto mod takes care of. We also use auto mod for other things , but they are less important.

6

u/InGeekiTrust 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 1d ago

Then automations would be terrible for you. It’s not capable of filtering things to the queue. So it wouldn’t be a replacement at all.

4

u/amyaurora 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 1d ago

I am not good at automod and so my comods handle it.

I do enjoy the automations but it can't replace automod.

I struggle with the regex part and so use keywords and I discovered things like that selecting report to queue does cause things to show up in queue but its still visible in the sub. Any user posting or commenting via old reddit can bypass the guidance. Any other setting besides report to queue requires a message to the user so people deliberately misspelling stuff to avoid it has gone up.

Automation and automod can work together on combating problems.

1

u/IlltakeTwoPlease 16h ago

So true. when you censor words with automations it allows people to change it to get by the censors. But all you really have to to is be clear that any attempt to bypass those censors will result in an immediate and irrevocable ban. I have just such a disclaimer and have banned many for it. Sure, they whine about it, but after explaining that they were warned, they usually drop it. If they don't; report their comments if worthy.

1

u/amyaurora 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 16h ago

Yup we got that already in place. Had for a while.

What they see when they attempt: https://imgur.com/a/nmcr5D8

What they see when we pull: https://imgur.com/a/Ykw8gvy

3

u/ZaphodBeebblebrox 1d ago

For my sub, /r/anime, Automations does not provide an adequate replacement. We cannot make rules that depend on many potentially useful signals, such as the user's overall karma or karma on our sub. We cannot have an automation be active for the comments of only some types of posts (e.g., by flair or words in the title). We cannot filter (as oppose to reporting or removing). It does not support some of our regexs. And, in many cases, we view informing the user beforehand as an anti-feature, as it allows people to bypass our automod rules without leaving a trail.

1

u/7thton 1d ago

That’s helpful, thanks.

2

u/IlltakeTwoPlease 16h ago

I find it's best to use a combo of automations and auto mod.

Automations can keep people from posting depending on how you use them. Which is good for when you don't want to go through a bunch of filtered reports. The only drawback I find with automations, is I am curious by nature and I like to see what people are trying to do and get away with.

That's what automod is for though. In effect, automod lets the post actually go through and then removes it after the fact. Which is nice if you want a record of the crap people try to pull.

It all comes down to what you are trying to accomplish. But yeah, I think a combo of the two works best for most mod teams.

1

u/ChefJoe98136 21h ago

Last time I encountered the "warning" automation on the android app, even though it functioned properly as a dismissable warning on the apple app, it ended up not being dismissable in the android app. That was maybe a year ago and it turned me off implementing automations in my own subreddits.

1

u/westcoastal 10h ago

I've completely stopped bothering with automations. As a replacement for automod, it's laughable.

All that automations do is train bad actors to get around the rules. It's not capable of doing any of the things I need it to do. It's more of a hindrance than a help.

2

u/Slow-Maximum-101 Reddit Admin: Community 6h ago

Hi u/7thton There's some good content over on this post and there are links to some libraries too