Announcing Mod Notes

=> https://www.reddit.com/r/modnews/comments/t8vafc/announcing_mod_notes/

created by lift_ticket83 on 07/03/2022 at 18:05 UTC*

909 upvotes, 150 top-level comments (showing 25)

Friends, Moderators, Redditors - lend me your screentime.

A major goal of the Moderator Experience team this year is to close the feature parity gap between the native mod tools we provide on the site and the ones third-party developers build for Moderators. Today we’re taking a big first step on this quest and are beyond excited[1] to announce the launch of Mod Notes 1.0.

=> 1: https://i.redd.it/giox6h3awuk81.gif

We are incredibly appreciative of all the hard work various third-party developers have undertaken over the years, and this new feature was largely influenced by our interactions with Toolbox, SnooNotes, and the many conversations we had with moderators across Reddit. Without further ado - let’s pull the curtain back and dive into the details:

=> Desktop Experience

The profile hovercard will be your home base for accessing Mod Notes and any moderator with Manage User permissions will be able to utilize it. This will be rolling out to subreddits gradually throughout the day, and at launch we want moderators to be able to accomplish several core functions from this hovercard:

• Add a note: Clicking this button will allow you the ability to add a note for that specific user. After adding a note, you will be able to choose from one of 5 labels to add to the newly created note. Those labels are Helpful, Good Contributor, Spam Watch, Spam Warning, and Abuse Warning. All of these labels have their own unique icon and color scheme. You will then have the ability to filter between these different labels.
• Ban: ~~We’re giving you a bigger ban hammer.~~ We’ve now made it easier to ban users from a subreddit by making the button[2] more prominent.
• Send a modmail: This button will open up modmail, making it easier to send a message to a user. We’re in the preliminary stages of scoping out the work it would take to make this button send a modmail to a specific user directly (i.e., we would prepopulate the necessary user information required to do this).
• User mod log: This is a log of all the notes and mod actions applied to a user within a specific subreddit. These will automatically appear in Mod Notes because they’re considered a Mod Log entry.
• API integration: We understand how important it is for you to be able to access and utilize this information in ways that make sense for you (cough old reddit cough). In order to do so, we’ve developed an API solution so you can use the information in the mod notes in more ways. Mods will have an endpoint to create, read, and delete a mod note all under a new OAuth scope. The documentation will live alongside the rest of the public API here[3].
• Import notes: Whether you’re using Toolbox or SnooNotes, mod teams will be able to import their old notes into our native system via this API integration. We want to give a special thanks to u/Meepster23 who took the time to sit down with us to work on an import solution for SnooNotes. This will involve some technical work on your side of things (i.e., writing a script) as we want to ensure you have flexibility here rather than providing a one-off solution. The script should iterate through your old notes (such as through a CSV/JSON file) and send a POST request with all the details that should be imported. The imported note will not carry over the old timestamp so if you’re importing a lot of notes for a single user it is possible that some of your existing notes will be deleted to make room (due to the 1000 note limit per user). In addition, the imported note will set the author of the note from the API token (in other words, whoever is running the script) and that author must have the correct moderator permission (“Manage users”). It is recommended that you run the script in batches due to our rate limiter which allows 30 requests/minute.

• The future of Mod Notes*

=> 2: https://i.redd.it/mwatcz080vk81.gif | 3: https://www.reddit.com/dev/api

Before we tire ourselves out high fiving each other, it’s worth stressing that our work on Mod Notes is far from finished. While phase one is complete, we have a list of features we are looking into developing as we continue to iterate on Mod Notes throughout the remainder of this year. Those features include but are not limited to things like:

• Delete a note: The ability for moderators to remove a mod note is at the top of our to-do list. You should expect this capability soon.
• Cross-platform parity: We want you to be able to utilize Mod Notes on your desktop and mobile devices (see below for our mobile prototype).
• Pinned notes: A feature request we heard on during our round of calls and feedback.
• Integration within modmail and various post types: As we continue to evolve the ways Redditors communicate with each other on the site we want you to be able to apply Mod Notes within places like Modmail, Reddit Talk, Chat, etc.

​

=> Mobile Mod Notes Example (coming soon!)

This feature has been months in the making, and we couldn’t have achieved this launch without the assistance of many individuals[4]. First and foremost, thank you to all the third-party developers that have taken the time to build tools for Reddit’s moderators over the years. As mentioned, this native version of Mod Notes was largely inspired by all the work you have done. Additionally, we want to thank the members of r/RedditModCouncil who took the time to jump on multiple calls with us, respond to product posts, and provide us with mission-critical feedback. Lastly, we’d like to thank the various mod teams that participated in beta testing this feature out in the wild over the past couple of weeks. All of your feedback was tremendously helpful and will help guide future iterations of this feature.

=> 4: https://i.redd.it/o9uqx6lq4vk81.gif

• Questions?*

As always, we’d love to hear your initial thoughts, see your best Bill Murray gifs, and address any questions that you might have. Please let us know in the comments below where we’ll be hanging out[5].

=> 5: https://i.redd.it/uwypob3tdvk81.gif

Comments

=> Comment by lift_ticket83 at 07/03/2022 at 22:23 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Quick point of clarity - the API integration we built is still in "beta" and has yet to be finalized. We will be making iterations to it based on some of the feedback we received today, in addition to the continued feedback we expect to receive from our third-party developers. If you do begin to take advantage of this API integration (amazing), please know that there may still be some breaking changes in the coming month or so. We will alert you via our announcement tools as those changes are made. Please feel free to respond to this comment directly with any API feedback or recommendations that you may have as it applies to Mod Notes specifically.

=> Comment by fifa_god_786 at 07/03/2022 at 18:36 UTC

133 upvotes, 7 direct replies

I'm on mobile, and since this post has a gif, the video player has loaded and I can't even see the actual mod alert.

=> Comment by ChuckEye at 07/03/2022 at 18:12 UTC

148 upvotes, 4 direct replies

Any updates on having Removal Reasons available to us from the mobile app? Third-party developer integration is a noble goal, but if Reddit's own built-in mod tools aren't available on the mobile app, that's a much bigger problem.

=> Comment by adhesiveCheese at 07/03/2022 at 21:09 UTC

41 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I would love to know the thought process behind deciding to launch without the ability to delete a note. Like... are we pretending no one tasked with building this has ever heard of a typo?

=> Comment by Mlakuss at 07/03/2022 at 18:38 UTC

79 upvotes, 4 direct replies

You know that gifs still break your posts on mobile? I can't read it.

=> Comment by Halaku at 07/03/2022 at 18:10 UTC

221 upvotes, 3 direct replies

Thank you for still caring about old.reddit.com!

=> Comment by Churgroi at 07/03/2022 at 18:10 UTC

51 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Any chance we could get a custom or wildcard label? This would allow mod-teams to select a sixth category, which would be helpful when moderating different genres of subreddits (support/animals).

=> Comment by pixelmeow at 07/03/2022 at 19:53 UTC

24 upvotes, 1 direct replies

r/toolbox notes will keep a permalink to whatever post or comment was the basis of the note. This was incredibly important for us, is it still an option?

=> Comment by creesch at 07/03/2022 at 18:38 UTC*

19 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Any chances for API requests that do not require toolbox to do a request for every single user? For example:

• GET /api/mod/notes/users giving us an array of all users that have mod notes in that subreddit which we can then use to determine if we should even try fetching usernotes for a user?

Or for example something where we can provide a list of users to get them in batches?

=> Comment by techiesgoboom at 07/03/2022 at 18:42 UTC

30 upvotes, 2 direct replies

It is recommended that you run the script in batches due to our rate limiter which allows 30 requests/minute.

Over at /r/AmItheAsshole we have some half a million or more notes with snoo notes. If my math is right this would take just shy of 2 weeks to import all of these. Can we reach out directly to make sure we don't break anything when we're ready to attempt this?

=> Comment by Bakkster at 07/03/2022 at 19:22 UTC

14 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Speaking of mobile experience, I can't even view this post on mobile without composing a comment and expanding the drop-down, because I get stuck with a single frame of a video in the newly forced dark mode video player.

=> Comment by tobotic at 07/03/2022 at 18:47 UTC

22 upvotes, 2 direct replies

Will this integrate with Automoderator, so (for example) if somebody used a slur which was mild enough to not be ban/remove-worthy, this could be automatically put into user notes?

=> Comment by ImOkNotANoob at 07/03/2022 at 18:53 UTC

10 upvotes, 2 direct replies

How do I access this on mobile? I can only view the video and comments.

=> Comment by Master_JBT at 07/03/2022 at 19:30 UTC

9 upvotes, 1 direct replies

how does one become part of said mod council?

=> Comment by BrianReddus at 07/03/2022 at 20:58 UTC*

9 upvotes, 4 direct replies

Hey, I do already seem to be having a bug with the new user hovercard. It seems that the hovercard is opening while just browsing through my subreddit but won't close unless I click somewhere else on the page, and this makes it hard to go through my modqueue.

To clarify, it seems that the hovercard will pop up if I mouse over a username for even a split second, instead of waiting for me to hover on it.

=> Comment by Bardfinn at 07/03/2022 at 18:36 UTC

30 upvotes, 5 direct replies

OK so now I have a really, really difficult question:

If someone who resides in the EU makes a request under the GDPR Right to Erasure to have all the data connected to their account erased -

is that going to involve the Reddit-hosted Usernotes (which are: authored by volunteer third parties and which are the intellectual property of the authors, and which are stored on the Reddit service) being erased?

If the Usernotes get erased, will that fact be memo'd / interstitialed with some notification, such as [Userdata redacted pursuant to GDPR], in mod logs, or in the Usernotes view? Is there a JSON string / API query returned signifying that condition?

This is a really tough issue, and one which moderators -- especially moderators who are American and who have rights to the works they author, even when those works are communications with others about a specific user account -- deserve answers to, before migrating their already-existing usernotes about GDPR-subject user accounts (which are also their intellectual property and are already stored on Reddit's service) to the new Usernotes feature.

I understand that there may not be a prompt answer or a clear answer, but I thank you for addressing the question.

=> Comment by shiruken at 07/03/2022 at 18:14 UTC*

18 upvotes, 3 direct replies

Fantastic[1]! What's the timeline for launching on the mobile apps?

=> 1: https://media.giphy.com/media/4ZkAeUWFF9ZGRXE7Ud/giphy.gif

Also, are there plans to allow for the creation of custom labels? The default ones listed on the API are clearly based on those from toolbox but might not be appropriate for every subreddit:

BOT_BAN, PERMA_BAN, BAN, ABUSE_WARNING, SPAM_WARNING, SPAM_WATCH, SOLID_CONTRIBUTOR, HELPFUL_USER

(Also I thought we weren't supposed to BOT_BAN users)

=> Comment by itsovertoosoon at 07/03/2022 at 18:22 UTC

15 upvotes, 0 direct replies

hell yeah! we def needed a better notes system!

=> Comment by Toe500 at 07/03/2022 at 18:19 UTC

22 upvotes, 1 direct replies

this really brightened my day. great work ppl

=> Comment by OmgImAlexis at 07/03/2022 at 19:20 UTC

6 upvotes, 0 direct replies

Can we finally have the user menu fixed? On iOS with the official app I have to wait for the menu to fully load otherwise I end up approving the user instead of setting their flair.

When banning users we set their flair and then ban.

=> Comment by Master_JBT at 07/03/2022 at 19:29 UTC

6 upvotes, 1 direct replies

This is really neat, it’s like a snoonotes native feature

=> Comment by Batmans_Dirty_Undies at 07/03/2022 at 22:16 UTC

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Does this mean hovering over their username to edit flair is gone? I don't see it.

=> Comment by Master_JBT at 09/03/2022 at 16:20 UTC

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

hey u/lift_ticket83 love the changes and all but could y'all please change the thing where accidentally moving your cursor over someone's profile picture pulls up their tiny profile block thingy. Maybe y'all could make it after 3 seconds of hovering over it it shows it, but as it is it's extremely obstructive while scrolling comments. Thanks

=> Comment by [deleted] at 07/03/2022 at 18:14 UTC*

12 upvotes, 1 direct replies

This account is no longer active.

The comments and submissions have been purged as one final 'thank you' to reddit for being such a hostile platform towards developers, mods, and users.

Reddit as a company has slowly lost touch with what made it a great platform for so long. Some great features of reddit in 2023:

• Killing 3rd party apps

• Continuously rolling out features that negatively impact mods and users alike with no warning or consideration of feedback

• Hosting hateful communities and users

• Poor communication and a long history of not following through with promised improvements

• Complete lack of respect for the hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours put into keeping their site running

=> Comment by techiesgoboom at 07/03/2022 at 18:36 UTC

9 upvotes, 1 direct replies

An almost equally important feature of snoo notes is seeing other mods actions in the queue in real time. It's something /u/Meepster23 said they coded in an afternoon.

Is this also on the short term radar of things to implement?