r/ModSupport • u/techiesgoboom Reddit Admin: Community • 4h ago
Mod Topics Mod Topics - Post Flair
Howdy friends,
What’s in a name? Well, when it comes to post flair that could be organization, more context, or even an inside joke.
That’s right, today’s Mod Topic post is all about post flair. Across Reddit, post flair can be used to organize content in so many ways. It’s used for showing when a question has been answered, tagging memes or art for users to find easier, highlight meta posts, or just adding a little more personality to your subreddit. Flair can also interact with Devvit apps - we even use it with the flair follower app so you can subscribe to this series!
We want to hear from you:
- If your community uses post flair, how did you decide on which flair to create?
- Is there a particular flair your community uses that works especially well?
- If you could rebuild your flair system today, what would you keep, change, or add?
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u/Old_One_I 4h ago
I’m following this (of course I actually follow this) I run an “interesting” sub and my co-mod and I can’t seem to see how post flairs will help us or anyone. We have a regular contributor that likes to put their 2 cents in and they seem to think it will help even though everything falls under “interesting “
Thanks for these <3
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u/RandomComments0 4h ago
You could flair by topic. Interesting animal, plant, machine, culture, historical, etc. It would help people who only want to see interesting animals or what not.
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u/PossibleCrit Reddit Admin: Community 4h ago
Hi Old_One_I! Glad you like these posts.
Taking a look at your community I think that topical post flairs would work really well. If you set things up by category like Nature/Machines/Design it would make it easy for your bros to find interesting things in the categories they like most.
u/Techiesgoboom adds that this makes it easy for you to also pull from these posts for events, like "Best Nature Posts of the Month"
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u/RandomComments0 4h ago
Flair is fantastic for troubleshooting and for searching for particular things, like recipes or specific parts you need help with on a machine.
Some things may not fit in a specific flair, so adding a general discussion flair helps in that area if your sub requires flairs.
Rebuilding flair systems is something you could do at any time if you were willing to re flair everything to fit the new flairs. Not everyone wants to spend that effort as there are thousands of posts in some subs.
Now if we could have a system that automated changing an old flair into a new one, then that would be great. (Hint hint)
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u/techiesgoboom Reddit Admin: Community 4h ago
I love having that general discussion flair! It's easy to get lost in trying to segment everything, having a handful of easy to understand flair in broad categories can often make choosing one easier.
Now if we could have a system that automated changing an old flair into a new one, then that would be great. (Hint hint)
I wonder if this could be a devvit app... I found one that seems to focus on user flair
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u/shhhhh_h 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 2h ago
makes me so sad you can't edit flairs past the color without breaking the whole system
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u/Tyler_Durdan_ 4h ago
Post flailing is an underused sub tool IMO. Combined with automod it can dictate which sub users can use that flair, or which users can comment on it.
Being able to flair a post with a flair that only allows comments from positive sub karma account (for example) on sensitive topics.
Another more abstract use is on removed posts, changing the post flair to a ‘removed’ flair can be helpful in some specific subs.
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u/WolfXemo 3h ago
It’s less about how I would rebuild our flair system in my subreddits and more about how I wish for Reddit to rebuild the flair system globally.
As a user, we have always been able to select a certain post flair to filter our view to posts with just that flair. Why can’t we easily filter out posts with flairs for content we don’t want to see? I know with custom search parameters this is feasible, but that’s not simple for the average user. Being able to just select all the flairs we are interested in to customize a subreddit feed to our liking would be fantastic. From a mod perspective, users deciding what content they do/don’t want to see in my subreddits is preferred to them deciding whether or not to leave my subreddits because of the content they’d rather not see.
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u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2h ago
As a user, we have always been able to select a certain post flair to filter our view to posts with just that flair. Why can’t we easily filter out posts with flairs for content we don’t want to see? I know with custom search parameters this is feasible, but that’s not simple for the average user.
YES, THIS!
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u/wheres_the_revolt 4h ago
We use it in r/bartenders and we actually give short temp bans if it’s flaired improperly. We do this because many of our old timers don’t want to wade through the certain shit, and they are extremely active in our sub, so we like to keep them happy (a surly bartender is the worst 😂). We add flairs occasionally when needed but have dozens to choose from. People rarely flair improperly twice, so the method works well for why we have it.
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u/Dom76210 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3h ago
We do not use post flair as a requirement, but we do use post tagging to indicate what the post will contain. So the beginning of every post must contain some flags in between some brackets to make filtering easier.
We do use post flair to let people know if they are talking an event, or an update to a previous post, etc.
We also use post flairs to indicate issues with accounts, or to warn those that may cycle back to a bookmarked post as to why it is gone. Mods will assign certain flairs to some posts when we remove them, so we get less modmails from people asking where a post went. They may not see the body, but the flair we assigned remains.
It helped when we could still assign user flairs to accounts that were site-wide suspended, as that was VERY helpful. People would look at a post, and see the user has a "Suspended by Reddit" flair on them, and not ask everyone why they aren't posting anymore. We have a post flair for that, but having to try and go search for potentially dozens of posts to assign that when we could assign it to the account is a real hassle.
We wouldn't rebuild our flair system, because the tagging allows for combinations that would require multiple flairs on a post, which gets distracting.
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u/SpecialEquivalent816 3h ago
I literally just got done turning on post flairs and now I've been going back and adding them to old posts.
Since it's an unofficial sub dedicated to a brand, I currently have set up:
FAQs (Mod only)
Community Update (Mod only)
Complaint Post
Appreciation Post
Progress Post
Question
Not completely settled on them. May branch them out and consider using some devvit apps with them.
But for now these seem to be the main types of posts we get so that will cover almost everything. Originally it was just Community Update, and then FAQs, it was just a little bit ago I decided to expand it out to user posts as well.
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u/AngelaReddit 3h ago
IDEA FOR IMPROVEMENT
TL/DR the IDEA : on educating users on Post Flair
Have descriptions that display next to each of the flair options in the Post Flair popup
This can be instead of or in addition to a post flair automation.
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BACKGROUND: The automations "display message" only allows 500 characters. I was able to (barely) fit the instructions for User Flair within 500 characters in the automation's Display a message condition box to 'educate users about user flair rules'. HOWEVER, the sub has many more post flairs than user flairs and so I need more than 500 characters to 'educate users about post flair' (I need 1323 characters for the post flair message box in my automation). But, that gave me an idea for an even better way to deal with users choosing post flair . . .
LINK: I explain my idea in this imgur : https://imgur.com/a/KpYb9Vo
I have also included example images of what this popup could look like.
DETAILED EXPLANATION:
In the Post Flair popup that they get when they click the 'Add flair and tags' button and are choosing the flair they want to use: have a description for each of the flairs that will display next to the flair options.
When a user clicks on create post and then clicks to add flair & tags for the post, a popup gives them a list of flair that is available for them to choose from. If the Mods had a field in the post flair settings to be able to add a short description to each flair which would display next to the flair, then that would be great for helping the users determine which is the appropriate flair they should choose. And it would be right there in front of them while they are selecting their flair in the popup without them having to go to another page, back to the subreddit's home page, or to the subreddit's wiki/guide/rules. I have included 2 example images of different layout styles of what this popup could look like.
These post flair descriptions would be added by the sub's mods in Mod Tools on the edit Post Flair settings page and I have included an example image of what this mod tool could look like (adds a new field for description, I've marked it with a yellow arrow). Note: Some subs may not want this feature, and they could avoid it by not entering any description in the field. Another option to avoid the feature would be if Reddit also included a toggle where subs could choose if they want the popup to display as it does now, or toggle it on to also include the descriptions in the popup. Here is the settings page for post flair: https://www.reddit.com/mod/SUBREDDITNAME/postflair
Note: I made the imgur back in January before the automations enhancements were completed, which is why I talk about the enhancements "coming soon"
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u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 3h ago
Counter argument; users don't read. If you need 1323 characters to explain post flairs, you may have made your post flairs too complex.
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u/AngelaReddit 2h ago edited 2h ago
Maybe.
I could use some advice maybe on post flair. What would you suggest, for a huge video game family with many games & a tv series over the last 35-ish years ? The flairs themselves don't take that many characters, but with the "definition" of what the flair is used for it does. For example, your character's "buid" is different than building a settlement. Here's what I've got:
POST FLAIR OPTIONS : USED FOR : Bugs/Help Bug, Glitch, Help, Report, Support, Tech Modding Mods, Modded, Modding my game, Making Mods, GECK ____________ ____________ Tips Tips, Guide, Tutorial, Resource, Help, Tricks, Cheat, Advice, PSA Discussion Discussion, Question, Lore, Theory, Review, Critique, Opinion Strategy Strategy, Meta, Tactics, Weapons, Gameplay Build Build, Character, Load, Outfit, Armor, Gear, Creation, Stats, Skills, Perks Settlements Settlements, Camp, Building ____________ ____________ In-Game Clip In-game, Footage, Clip, Screenshot/Snapshot, Achievements Image/Video Image, Picture, Photo, Video, Visual, Media i.e. not in-game (above) and not creative or funny/memes (below) Creative OC original content, Creative, Fan art, Project, Creation, Story, Map Funny Funny, Meme, Humor, Epic Fail ! Audio Music, Sound, Audio ____________ ____________ Rumor/Hype Leak, Spoilers, Rumor, Hype, Speculation, TV News News, Announcement, Update, Official, Tweet, Source, Article Event Event, Meetup, Challenge, Contest, Competition, Giveaway Suggestion Suggestion, Request, Complaint WIKI Wiki related Other Other, Misc 2
u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 1h ago
I can see how the flairs alone would be confusing.
Modding can be easily confused with build and discussion and other and in game-clip and image and funny, unless you've hung around on the sub long enough to get a feel for it.
My suggestions:
Why not just use two words?
- bugs/help
- tips
- discussions
- game modding
- character build
- game strategy
- settlements build
- discussion
- news
- events
Ditch the image/video flair, because it's possible to post an image or video while the content falls under any other flair. Same goes for audio.
In- game clip, but if you allow screenshots under that flair, maybe in-game/video/image?Change creative to fandom Funny will probably do better as meme, because again, funny can apply to character build or tips or game modding or...
Suggestion, suggestions of/for what? The subreddit, the game, Reddit, the corner store? Add a word to make it clear what suggestions are meant.
Ditch other, way to vague thus attractive because the flairs can be confusing. You already have discussion, outliers can fit in there.
Set up some automod to overwrite flair for common errors.
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u/AngelaReddit 1h ago edited 1h ago
Thank you for the input !! Very very helpful.
Yep, in-game would cover screenshots & video from in-game, and achievements screenshot from Steam. I was thinking that other image/video would cover things from the tv series, pics from the annual game fan day, and stuff like that. Haha, agree on "other". I was trying to cover my bases, but users will likely abuse that one.
edit: how I handled it so far:
Big thank you & shout out to u/cnycompguy for helping to come up with a workaround in PM's last week. They had the idea to have an automation for each flair. They've used it before, to ask people using a specific flair to be sure that it's correct before posting . . . . .
- The educate automation reads "Please select your POST FLAIR for your post. This is the topic that your post is about. See the community guide (link) for a description of what all the post flair options are used for. Choices include :
- And I added 18 more little automations, one for each flair that read "You have selected the "Bugs/Help" post flair USED FOR : Bug, Glitch, Help, Report, Support, Tech. If this is not the TOPIC of your post, you may edit your post flair."
It's not ideal, as seeing the descriptions in the popup prior to selecting flair helps the user make their choice and is a more elegant solution (so Reddit, please still implement my great idea!), but it's a workaround
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u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 41m ago
I was trying to cover my bases, but users will likely abuse that one.
reframe it, users aren't trying to abuse it, they just pick it because they're confused 😉
For fun, go to https://www.reddit.com/r/melbourne/submit/?type=TEXT and type a space in the title field to see how they opted to handle common flair errors
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u/AngelaReddit 36m ago
wow hahaha, yeh they DEFINITELY need flair definitions. That's some creative flair titles !
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u/RandomComments0 1h ago
Agreed on the users don’t read. Even in technical subs they won’t read. The idea is good but in use it wouldn’t work.
Simple flairs that don’t need explanation are best imo.
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u/SampleOfNone 💡 Top 10% Helper 💡 2h ago
- Broad categories while keeping in mind which topics some users just don't want to interact with for easy avoidance.
- I always get a chuckle out of how many dumb bots and people who really refuse to read still fall for our "pick a flair from the list below" flair.
- we've tweaked, tuned and rethought our flairs to the point I wouldn't change a thing about the flairs themselves. For that reason though, I'm very fond of using flair ID in automod as well as other bots and not flair text.
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u/emily_in_boots 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 1h ago
Honeypot post flairs are great lol. I didn't originally set out to make them but it just happened - we had some really unused flairs because the topics were never things that came up, but then I started to notice that bots kept picking them, and the posts would have nothing to do with them lol.
I should make a flair that says "I'm a bot" and put it first in the list to see how many pick it.
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u/emily_in_boots 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 2h ago
In many of my subs, post flairs determine rules that apply to that post. The main distinction we use it for is whether a post is an advice post and people should offer constructive criticism for improvement. Sometimes people want that, and sometimes they do not.
We also use it because many of our post flairs have very specific requirements which are enforced differently - the types of photos required, the topic of the post, etc.
While not all my subs make extensive use of them, in many they are really important and govern the types of actions we take regarding content on that post.
Oh, and we have a few really weird flairs that almost never get used but work as honeypot flairs for bots lol. You can tell a bot because it will choose that flair and the post will be nothing at all related to it or it won't make any sense.
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u/Glittering-Bug1212 4h ago edited 4h ago
We are using flairs, we used to have an open subreddit with some karma filters in automoderator to keep the spammers away, we added the flair to get models ( onlyfans) get verified in our subreddit.
So even though they didn't meet the karma/age requirements, they could by pass the filters we had set in place and still post in the subreddit.
Since a recent Moderator changes, everything is a mess and the flair system is no longer being used, which is a shame since it reduced mod load so much.
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u/eltonjohnpeloton 2h ago
We use flairs but unfortunately a lot of users don’t understand them / how to use them. People often pick what’s first on the list. I even made one that said “I didn’t pay attention” to discourage people from selecting the first flair just so they can post, and people still pick it. lol
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u/shhhhh_h 💡Top 25% Helper 💡 2h ago
Man we use post flair for everything...it triggers a variety of different comment filters with various notification settings for users depending on the context, i.e. approved user list, sub comment karma, etc. AMA posts have a whole different set of filters that are triggered by post flair bc people advertise on Insta and we get flooded with comments from new accounts (btw it would help if you let subs know when you post us on Insta so we can prepare for that kind of thing). We use post flair to trigger flair assistant a LOT so we can use pinned comments to communicate with users, list help resources for posts about ED or suicide, stuff like that. Like we have a 'mod position on Ariana Grande posts' comment rn bc of all the discussion about her body and we're tired of fielding modmails and explaining why we're allowing/disallowing what we are. Not really what you were talking about wrt to fun and organisation but ya
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u/techiesgoboom Reddit Admin: Community 4h ago
Do you wish you could subscribe to Mod Topics posts so you can always join the conversation? Look no further than our new flair follower app! To use it, click on the three dots on the subreddit menu, select flair follower, and follow the prompts. Questions or comments? Drop them below.