A conversation I had with a /r/anime moderator last night:
My initial message:
This low-effort gif post has not been removed yet. I take an active role in reporting threads that break the rules & have in the past avoided reporting stuff because of precedents set by threads & posts that slipped through the mod's moderation. In order to be sure of the accuracy of my reporting I'd like to ask if there is a reason why the post hasn't been removed for being what is usually a low-effort gif post? Is this an exception of the mods or am I not looking at this post right to see that it is following the rules?
/r/anime moderator’s response:
Gifs are an exception to our low effort rule at the moment in the same way cosplay is.
My response:
Is this a thing that the mods recently all agreed upon? & if it is, is it applicable to any future GIF posts regardless quality?
/r/anime moderator’s response:
My understanding is that it has always been the case.
There was a discussion about changing it so that gifs were considered low effort (3 months ago~) but it was voted against.
Basically:
the idea of art, animation, and other visuals are a core concept of the subreddit and the medium it represents. Images, short videos, and GIFs represent these core ideals and aren't really a problem in the first place.
My response:
There have been tons of low effort gif posts that have been removed for being low effort content in the recent weeks. The gif post that started this discussion has been removed by a mod. This means either you misunderstand the rules regarding gif post or somebody else is uninformed that gif posts regardless of quality & effort is allowed. Because as far as I understand low-effort gif posts are not allowed, I have reported them & they have been removed. This is a major issue that needs to be sorted out because it means that either some of the moderators are not removing content that is not allowed or worse they are removing content that is.
/r/anime moderator’s response:
Should be back up now. As it stands, they're not against the rules.
My response:
Then why have the low effort gif posts that I have reported to the mods for months been removed by the mods for being lower effort content been removed? That is a lot of legitimate posts gone because of a screw up.
No /r/anime moderator response, the conversation ended there.
2 major notes:
The Low-effort gif post mentioned above is not linked, to avoid brigading.
Some of the bolded text was not bolded in the actual back & forth between me & /r/anime moderator & is bolded here to put emphasis on specific sections.
Now this has two major implications, either the moderator is uninformed & is failing to remove content that is breaking the rules OR worse another moderator or moderators have been wrongfully removing reported legitimate content for three months. This bring up the question of who moderates the moderators, because some of them are either failing to enforce the rules they themselves set up or enforcing non-existing ones with the result of wrongful removal of content.