Sub-scope

NOTE: Comment triggered removals reflect after a while upon hard refresh.

Inspiration

Being a new mod, I have asked around experienced mods about their pain points.

u/SampleOfNone told me about the painpoints of r/askmoderators where answers to posts should come from anyone who is mod of any subreddit. This was being done manually. It was also pointed out how there are a whole list of subreddits that could benefit for it and some are actively looking for solutions -

• r/AskModerators
• r/AutoModerator
• r/ModHelp
• r/Moderation
• r/ModGuide
• r/ModClub
• r/ModMailFail
• r/ModMemes
• r/Mod_Memes
• r/needamod
• r/advancedautomoderator
• r/postguidance

And perhaps

• r/modsupport
• r/newmods
• r/modevents
• r/modnews
• r/ModReserves

Inspired by the requirement,

I arrived at a versatile idea that would be suitable across communities ...

What it does

Sub-scope leverages the native reddit functionalities of post & user flairs, and post & comment triggers to let communities have the following functionalities:

Reserve all posts, certain flaired posts, to be made by a particular set of qualified users.

Reserve comments on all posts, certain flaired posts, to be made by a particular set of users.

Users can be simply be allowlisted by either manually adding a flair that corresponds to the rule, or by using automated verification criterion like - is user a mod of any other subreddit, karma req, moderates a large subreddit (subcriber count check of other subreddits) etc.

Use cases :

• Communities that provide answers where the people answering need to be experienced and verified. Like verified 'Q&As'
• For all communities that want a specific flair set of posts to be reserved for a certain special set of experienced or qualified users. Like restricted topics such as 'HELP'

Core Functionalities

• Reserve Posts: Reserve all posts, or only certain flaired posts, to be made by a particular set of qualified users. Supports multiple flairs in a single rule.
• Reserve Comments: Reserve comments on all posts, or only certain flaired posts, to be made by a particular set of users.
• Flexible Allowlisting: Users can be allowlisted to participate in two ways:
  • Manual: A moderator manually assigns them a specific user flair that bypasses the rule.
  • Automated Verification: The engine automatically verifies them against criteria like minimum karma requirements, or whether the user is a moderator of any other larger subreddit, and their subscriber count.

Intricacies

• Intelligent Multi-Flair Management: SubScope handles user flairs dynamically. If a user already has a custom flair (e.g. "Meme Lord"), the engine doesn't destroy it. It smartly appends new badges (e.g. "Meme Lord | Verified Poster") preserving their identity!
• Delimiter-Agnostic Parsing: Community flairs are messy. The engine uses a custom regex parser to seamlessly understand combined flairs regardless of whether the moderators used pipes (|), bullets (•), commas (,), or slashes (/) as separators!
• Zero to Hero (Unflaired Users): If a user has absolutely no flair, the engine flawlessly handles the null state and provisions their very first badge natively, initializing them into the community.
• Fast-Pass Cache Checking: Before executing expensive API evaluations on karma or history, the engine splits the user's current flair string and checks if they already hold the success badge. If they do, they are instantly fast-passed through the system, saving massive amounts of API rate limits!
• Smart Comment Targeting: If a rule targets comments, the engine intelligently crawls up the Reddit tree to fetch the parent post's flair. This allows moderators to say: "Only Verified users can comment on News posts," leaving all other comment threads entirely open!
• Infinite Loop Protection: The engine caches its own appAccountId in Redis and actively ignores any content generated by itself. This guarantees the bot will never accidentally moderate its own automated replies and spiral into an infinite loop!
• Read-Replica Tolerance: Native Reddit APIs can take a few milliseconds to propagate new comments across global databases. SubScope uses a custom retryOp algorithm with exponential backoff to handle 404s, ensuring no comment slips through the cracks due to server desyncs.

How It Works

For Moderators

1. Install the app to your subreddit.
2. Create a wall post from subreddit menu. Click on Mod shield. Open the SubScope via the wall post interface to configure your community rules.
3. For each rule, choose the Target:
   • Apply to Posts, Comments, or Both.
   • Restrict the rule to apply only when users interact with specific Post Flairs.
4. Set the Verification Criteria:
   • Define minimum global link/comment karma or subreddit-specific karma.
   • Require the user to be a moderator of any subreddit.
   • Use the Exempt Mods toggle to ensure your own community's moderators bypass the restrictions.
5. Define the Actions:
   • Automatically assign a "Success Flair" badge when users pass the criteria.
   • Choose how to handle failures (Remove the content, send a public Reply, or send a private Modmail).
6. Save and toggle the Engine Status to Enabled. The app runs silently in the background enforcing your restrictions.

For Users

There are two ways users interact with the bot:

1. Organic Verification: Users naturally use the subreddit. When they submit content, the engine automatically checks if they meet the criteria or hold the required allowlist flair. If they pass, their content stays up and they may earn a new badge. If they fail, they are notified and the content is removed.
2. Proactive Verification: Users can open the App's dashboard and click the "Verify Me" button. The engine will instantly scan their historical participation and award them all the allowlist flairs they qualify for, pre-approving them for restricted content.

How we built it

Discussing with mods, taking in the feedback, we built it using

Devvit React + Hono template

Challenges we ran into

The ideation. I was initally blanked out as I am new to modding. But after interacting with mods, I arrived at so many ideas and realized mod-tools is a Pandora box - a lot can be done for communities :) Due to time crunch at my end, I could only complete this idea as this was a real pain point of mods of many of the above listed communities.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Automated and solved a real pain point of mods for which they had to manually work.

What we learned

Mod tools is a Pandora box - there's so much that can be done to make it smoother, creative for moderators !

What's next for Sub-scope

Adding more exciting features and launching

Built With

• devvit
• hono
• react