> We’re seeing a number of good questions regarding where our policies around public information, personal information, and harassment intersect. While we’re unable to comment on specific employment details, we do want to address a few of these questions, especially around what is or isn’t allowed to be posted. A few answers:
May we allow articles about an admin's personal and professional history?
Yes, articles are allowed to be posted on Reddit as long as they do not spread private information or invite harassment against others.
May we allow proper names of admins?
It depends on the context - posting of any personal information, including names, coupled with harassment of any sort may result in action by us. Some admins are public figures by virtue of their job, so those names are okay. Other employees may have chosen to explicitly link their usernames to their real life, that’s also okay. Some employees may have taken pains to not associate themselves with their specific usernames for safety reasons, in which case linking their names to their account is not ok.
Can we allow wikipedia pages if they mention the names of admins?
As long as it’s not being posted in conjunction with other rule breaking content, nor as a springboard for harassment.
If we approve this kind of content can we be banned?
We know mods make mistakes and it’s only a problem if we see it becoming a pattern. If we see that we will talk to you before further steps are taken. That said, we sometimes make mistakes too, as we did in this instance. When we do so, we will correct the situation as quickly as possible.
Nevertheless, there have been instances where mods have been removed from their positions or suspended over repeatedly ignoring site wide rules or encouraging others to break them.
Given that this person is a public figure, why is this standard in place? They ran for public office and have been covered in the media.
Our intent was never to remove any and all mentions of this admin’s name. Just an overzealous automation when attempting to prevent doxxing and harassment.
Ok, so why did you suspend the mod last night just for posting the name of an admin? (this is not a quoted question, but a sentiment we’re still seeing here so wish to address)
As we mentioned, this was an error on our part and quickly rectified with the mod team in question. We also communicated clearly with them while we were in the process of resolving this.
> We’re seeing a number of good questions regarding where our policies around public information, personal information, and harassment intersect. While we’re unable to comment on specific employment details, we do want to address a few of these questions, especially around what is or isn’t allowed to be posted. A few answers:
Yes, articles are allowed to be posted on Reddit as long as they do not spread private information or invite harassment against others. It depends on the context - posting of any personal information, including names, coupled with harassment of any sort may result in action by us. Some admins are public figures by virtue of their job, so those names are okay. Other employees may have chosen to explicitly link their usernames to their real life, that’s also okay. Some employees may have taken pains to not associate themselves with their specific usernames for safety reasons, in which case linking their names to their account is not ok. As long as it’s not being posted in conjunction with other rule breaking content, nor as a springboard for harassment. We know mods make mistakes and it’s only a problem if we see it becoming a pattern. If we see that we will talk to you before further steps are taken. That said, we sometimes make mistakes too, as we did in this instance. When we do so, we will correct the situation as quickly as possible.Nevertheless, there have been instances where mods have been removed from their positions or suspended over repeatedly ignoring site wide rules or encouraging others to break them.
Our intent was never to remove any and all mentions of this admin’s name. Just an overzealous automation when attempting to prevent doxxing and harassment. As we mentioned, this was an error on our part and quickly rectified with the mod team in question. We also communicated clearly with them while we were in the process of resolving this.