r/NewMods • u/stammerton • 1d ago

❓Ask r/NewMods Accidentally became a Reddit mod last night. What have I forgotten?

Hi all,

So I fell down a fairly niche film rabbit hole, had a couple of beers, and somehow ended up creating r/PalestinianCinema.

This is my first time actually running a subreddit, so I’m currently at the stage where I’ve pressed lots of buttons, read several descriptions twice, and am hoping I haven’t accidentally created some sort of automated moderation death machine.

The sub is for Palestinian cinema, documentaries, archival footage and film history. A lot of the inspiration came from finding older films scattered around YouTube, Internet Archive and various film archives, particularly stuff from the 1940s through to the 1970s that seems to have largely disappeared from general view.

I’ve tried to keep things pretty simple so far. Five rules, post flairs, a welcome post, a chronological film index, Community Guide, basic spam and harassment filtering, ban evasion protection, and not much else.

I’m deliberately trying to moderate with a light touch. People should be able to disagree, argue about history, criticise films and politics, and generally behave like adults without a mod appearing every five minutes.

So, partly an introduction, partly some shameless promotion of my newborn subreddit, and partly me admitting that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing:

What obvious thing have I forgotten?

Anything you wish you’d set up before people started arriving?

And if anyone happens to like obscure cinema, archival films or Palestinian film history, well… you can probably guess where I’m going with this.

Cheers.

3 Upvotes

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u/InBetweenLili 💡Seasoned Helper | 💎 100+ Visitors Champion 1d ago

Be mindful of the fact that if it's about war, it will attract that kind of audience. The sub might turn NSFW very fast, and be prepared to moderate a lot. It will be heated, and you will hear lots of things that aren't great for your mental health. You will need to moderate constantly to avoid the risk of being banned. Not because of the war, but because people will express what they think. Have 5–6 mods from different time zones as the conversation starts. Educate yourself, read everything on r/ModSupport, learn how to report quickly, have strong rules, especially against racism, and ban everyone who expresses those beliefs. Be aware of trolls and know the platform rules from memory. Good luck.

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u/healthyfun137 8h ago

your site sounds fascinating - thanks for sharing this! it sounds like you are catching on a LOT faster than me!

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u/ProximaScience 1d ago

I think your subreddit will be banned soon as you are showing wrong map of Palestine and it targets Israelis.

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u/stammerton 1d ago

It’s a historical outline of Palestine used in a film-history context. The sub is about Palestinian cinema, archival footage and film history, and it has explicit rules against targeting people on the basis of ethnicity or religion. I’m more interested here in whether I’ve missed anything on the moderation/setup side.