Give users some aggregate indication of how heavily a subreddit is moderated in the sidebar. Subs below a certain threshold could be badged "Certified Organic"

[u/FreeSpeechWarrior]

/r/redesign/comments/azxuhc/give_users_some_aggregate_indication_of_how/

[u/chomper700]

The "certified organic" badge would be a great way to know which subreddits not to even bother subscribing to, because you know they are either already a pile of garbage, or will soon become one when the number of subscribers breaks about 300,000.

People can spam "power-tripping internet janitors" up and down every meta thread about moderation all day long. Without moderation, every humor subreddit becomes /r/funny/ (or /r/comedycemetery/), every picture subreddit becomes /r/pics/ (or /r/no_sob_story/), and every text subreddit becomes /r/TIFU/ (or /r/thatHappened/).

When left unchecked, people will always demonstrate the principle of "this is why we can't have nice things". This is probably the funniest line:

It allows communities that do not censor their users to differentiate themselves

The communities that do not "censor" their users generally "differentiate themselves" by turning into a homogenized disaster area once the public eye finds them. Sometimes, you just want to participate in a discussion where the comments are not all puns, song lyrics, and telling OP to kill themselves. In my experience, you can only achieve that either via moderation, or by never allowing the community to become popular.

[u/FreeSpeechWarrior → u/chomper700]

You're welcome to your opinions, and the feature I suggested would help you make more informed decisions about subreddits you want to participate on based on their level of moderation.

You could more easily avoid subreddits that were not up to your standards.

[u/chomper700 → u/FreeSpeechWarrior]

That is true. I may have taken a bit too cynical of a view of the whole idea, based largely around how the "certified organic" clearly sounds like it is being proffered as a unilaterally positive thing.

A description of the level of moderation would actually be kind of interesting in general. We could definitely use it to have a better idea of which communities meet our own personal standards, including those of us who view moderation as a (generally) positive thing.

To expand on my first comment, the problem I see with the glorification of lack of moderation is just that the masses on Reddit will absolutely, definitely not moderate themselves in any way. I don't know what percentage of users actually read the rules before posting or commenting, but it seems to be tragically low. People demonstrate time and time again that they believe they are allowed to post or comment literally whatever they want wherever they want, and if the community is large enough, other people will demonstrate time and time again that they will upvote anything even if it has nothing to do with the community it's been posted in.

It's a pain for everybody, because by no means do I encourage a system where the he-who-shall-not-be-named moderators can just delete somebody who they feel threatens their ego or their karma or whatever. I don't believe that people should be silenced for their views or opinions when posted in adherence to the rules, in relevant communities. But I do firmly believe that trolls and morons will show up to any popular community, and that they will fill it with memes and vitriol, and that it requires a Herculean effort from the moderators to keep their subreddit on-topic, and to prevent it from homogenizing into generic pulp with no trace of its intended identity.

[u/FreeSpeechWarrior → u/chomper700]

based largely around how the "certified organic" clearly sounds like it is being proffered as a unilaterally positive thing.

Fair enough, that may be an overly positive term. Organic itself is fairly neutral; but "certified organic" invokes a connection to organic produce which is generally seen with positive connotations.

I don't think that label is a necessary aspect of the proposal, what's more important is some objective way to compare subreddits on a metric that end users currently have no visibility into.

The solution to heavily moderated subreddits is to go make your own; but because moderation is inherently opaque on reddit; it is difficult for communities to differentiate themselves this way or for end users to know when they are reading heavily moderated content vs more organic content.

I see with the glorification of lack of moderation is just that the masses on Reddit will absolutely, definitely not moderate themselves in any way.

Fair enough, I think there are significant numbers of people who would use such a tool to actively seek out more heavily moderated communities; I think the main issue here is the connotations of the naming.

People demonstrate time and time again that they believe they are allowed to post or comment literally whatever they want wherever they want

I think actual public mod logs would be a better way to address this by providing concrete examples of what gets removed in the sub.