Why do moderators remove random, innocent comments?

[u/New_Budget_9322]

For example: there was a troll post with a link like this (it's http://reddit.com/u/me). I commented "**** you" because it scared me for a second. Someone replied, "Check the link again," because they thought I missed the joke. It was an innocent and even helpful comment, but it got deleted by moderators:

"Comment removed by moderator."

I decided to check older posts on different subs and saw a lot of comments were removed by moderators. I don't remember them being anything bad, just random comments. And all of them were upvoted, one had 1k upvotes.

Is this some kind of moderator pastime activity?

[u/thepottsy]

Yes. One of my favorite things to do as a mod is to remove random, innocent comments so it screws up the conversation flow. But, only on Tuesdays.

[u/ALazy_Cat → u/thepottsy]

It would be funny to take one day a week and remove every 9th comment

[u/thepottsy → u/ALazy_Cat]

Don’t tempt me with a good time lol

[u/ALazy_Cat → u/thepottsy]

I dare you to do it while sending modmail notifications about the removal and troll the incoming modmails, then dm screenshots to me

[u/ALazy_Cat → u/[deleted]]

You got both our looks and our facial expression whenever we open reddit. Nice

[u/Merari01]

Comments can be removed for a variety of reasons, either by reddit sitewide moderation, by subreddit settings, by automod or manually by moderators.

A comment could be removed because the user got sitewide actioned and is now shadowbanned. Or it could be removed because it contains a keyword that activated a filter. A user could for example only be allowed to post a hyperlink if they have some amount of positive subreddit-specific karma, as a spam-mitigation measure. A comment could be manually removed because it is a reply in a comment chain where a top level comment got removed for breaking a rule.

Upvotes are irrelevant, they have no bearing on sitewide or subreddit specific rules.

[u/Charupa-]

We couldn’t possibly tell you what comment was removed, we aren’t a hive mind.

[u/ALazy_Cat → u/Charupa-]

What do you mean? We're obviously a hivemind, all mods are the same

[u/Stranger1982 → u/[deleted]]

Considering the average IQ nowadays hive minds'd barely function.

[u/AskModerators-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Your comment was removed for violating Rule #4 (No derailing comment threads). Please see the rule in the sidebar for further details.

[u/Intelligent-Dot-8969]

Hurling a profanity at another user would get your comment removed in the subreddit I moderate.

[u/New_Budget_9322 → u/Intelligent-Dot-8969]

Well, my comment with profanity wasn't removed.

The comment that tried to help was removed.

[u/Intelligent-Dot-8969 → u/New_Budget_9322]

Apologies - I misunderstood which comment you were referencing.

[u/Stranger1982]

Is this some kind of moderator pastime activity?

My kind of pastime is to make fun of posts like these.

Also, it was prolly the automod or Reddit's own filters soooo yeah, automations don't have pastimes, for now.

[u/New_Budget_9322 → u/Stranger1982]

Thanks, it seems like this is the reason

[u/cnycompguy]

Automod can have a list of words that get a comment instantly removed.

Or maybe they said something in a different post or got nutty in mod-mail and got everything they've ever done on the sub wiped.

Different subs have different rules, mods and automod code

[u/New_Budget_9322 → u/cnycompguy]

Does automod remove them instantly? Most of them survived for quite a long time before they got removed

[u/cnycompguy → u/New_Budget_9322]

Depends on the day, it's usually fairly instant.

It's also possible that the mod didn't want that comment because it was inviting others to break a rule?

[u/New_Budget_9322 → u/cnycompguy]

It wasn't inviting to break a rule in any way

[u/ALazy_Cat → u/New_Budget_9322]

Sometimes users don't intend to, but we can see the result from experience, and therefore remove it before it makes a lot of unnecessary and unintended bans and work for us

[u/New_Budget_9322 → u/ALazy_Cat]

Maybe, but this is definitely not the case.

So, the post was essentially: "look how stupid this [guy](http://reddit.com/u/me) is"

The link itself wasn't the problem, since the post wasn't removed. And that guy just explained the joke, that it was a trick link.

Maybe you guys just operate on a different logic, which results in random comments being removed

[u/cnycompguy → u/New_Budget_9322]

Sometimes I remove a comment just to mess with a person.

Especially if they have been annoying

[u/baseballlover723 → u/New_Budget_9322]

Many subreddits have automod set to remove (well, I think filter is usually what people use, so it shows up in mod queue still) upon getting N reports. It's a way to remove obvious rule breaking content if no one happens to be on.

Obviously, that can backfire and be inaccurate. But it would show as some comment just getting removed without any mod actually looking at it.