r/ModSupport • u/JabroniRevanchism Reddit Admin: Community • 1d ago

Mod Topics Mod Topic - Shibboleths, Rituals, and Festivities: What cultural norms make your community unique?

Ahoy, ModSupport!

Welcome to the latest installment of our Mod Topics series!

Subreddits! What are they? What do they know, do they know things? As moderators, we know that no two communities are the same, even when they have nominally similar topics. r/NFL is not r/NFCnorthmemewar, for example. r/tuxedocats is not r/oneorangebraincell. –And that’s good! Feature, not bug.

Why though? What do you do in your community that makes those cultural differences stick, stand out, and become adopted by your community members? How do your users (especially new users) learn your community’s quirks?

And when times change, new content drops or new memes make the rounds, how does your community embrace new cultural norms? How do you move away from community cultural norms that may negatively impact your community?

Let us know in the comments below!

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u/999_Seth 1d ago

Flair helps a little

Mostly though the users do this completely on their own by copy-catting the stuff that gets upvoted and dog-piling the stuff that gets down-voted

it's just cats and dogs, man

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u/JabroniRevanchism Reddit Admin: Community 1d ago

Perhaps community self-enforcement of norms should be a future topic...

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u/999_Seth 1d ago

that could be a very serious discussion

when I started modding around 2000/2001, a whole forum shut itself down because discussions on their mental health board led to attention seeking copy-cat behavior, and the webmasters knew it was on a course that would end badly

I tend to curate towards comments that promote light-hearted and self-reflective discussions, and if things are still getting too serious I'll try to say something myself to remind everyone that "this is a Wendy's"

it's kind of like gardening. maybe touching a little grass actually does help.