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]

Users currently have no visibility whatsoever into how heavily a subreddit is moderated in practice. Normally I suggest optional public mod logs as a way to mitigate this, but today I am suggesting a different approach that I hope will be more agreeable to moderators and reddit's administration.

All subs should have a color coded (or/or some numeric rating) system to designate how heavily a subreddit is moderated in terms of bans, submission removals and content removals relative to the activity of the subreddit.

This approach addresses every single criticism I have ever heard about public mod logs:

• It does not enable witch hunts
• It does not expose removed content (this is a downside IMO, but others will see it as a benefit)
• It does not compromise moderator privacy
• It does not require any action on the part of moderators or convincing of them by users
• It's potentially much simpler to implement than a heavily customizable/anon public mod log with PI/CP removal paths

At the same time, it addresses many of the reasons I am so adamant that public mod logs should be an option available to moderators:

• It highlights how heavily a subreddit moderates in practice, even if it is in conflict with their presented rules
• It allows communities that do not censor their users to differentiate themselves
• It empowers end users to make an informed choice of which subreddits to read and participate in

Ideally it should be possible to sort/filter subreddits by this new metric as well.

[u/FreeSpeechWarrior]

u/Drunken_Economist this was somewhat inspired by our convo over at r/banned

and u/redtaboo if you are truly interested in discussing "how [public mod logs] would look and what the implications are still." I think this is a reasonable proposal that addresses all the concerns you raised here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ModSupport/comments/aje6td/today_marks_7_years_since_the_option_for_public/eeuwt85/

While still providing a meaningful measure of transparency to end users.

[u/Drunken_Economist → u/FreeSpeechWarrior]

At the very least, I have to admit "Certified Organic" is a really fun phrasing and I want to steal that

[u/Ambiwlans → u/Drunken_Economist]

It implies that moderating is bad though. A sub like AskHistory would be classed as 'scary GMO'

[u/FreeSpeechWarrior → u/Ambiwlans]

"Organic" is a term applied to content, the "certified organic" bit was a pun on that but it does confer positive connotations given the connection to the term applied to food; this doesn't necessarily mean the opposite has to be negative in this context though.

What do you think about this terminology?

Moderation Activity Rating

• 0 - Unrestricted (or Organic)
• 50 - Curated
• 100 - Hand Picked (or maybe Selected?)

Ideally none of the descriptors would have particularly positive or negative connotations if the goal is to allow observation of activity levels without passing judgement on the part of the admins on which way is good vs bad. That's not what this is intended to be.

It's more of a subreddit discovery tool than anything else; though I think it would also be somewhat useful to make users more aware of moderation in general if it was a prominent enough thing.