My 70K crypto subreddit was taken over

I run several crypto subreddits and unknowingly lost one, so I wanted to post a warning for others who don't check their Mod Mail regularly.

Apparently, people can request to take over different subreddits that are unmoderated and mine likely are.

Today I noticed one of my biggest subreddits is gone and I couldn't check the channel stats, then I noticed that there are 4 new moderators I haven't appointed.

Then it hit me that there is this process that I wasn't really aware of but I always knew it existed and I went to check my Mod Mail for my other subreddits and I saw similar takeover attempts that for whatever reason Reddit rejected:



Unbeknownst to the new owners, the majority of my followers were bots but I did get daily posts consistently.

Somehow those idiots managed to kill the engagement and the inflow of new posts, I guess they set some Karma requirements for new users because the last post was made 1 month ago and the next after that was 2 months ago, or they just don't approve any of the new posts.

The moral of the story, check your mod mail, I think they didn't even send me an email notification that I'm about to lose my subreddit. If you have +10 channels it's pain in the ass to check them all the time and I had my subreddits for years so I didn't even think it was so easy to lose them but here we are.

My 0.2 cents and a community heads-up.

Take care.

Meanwhile I can't takeover a single abandoned sub even if they have <1k subs

Sorry to hear you lost that big ole meaty subreddit.

Really good reminder though.

Pretty stupid of Reddit to allow hostile takeovers and not even have the decency to email you...

A community is eligible for r/redditrequest if none of its moderators have been active within the community in the past 30 days. Activity is defined as actual moderation actions.

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Sucks. Happened to me once.

Is r/cryptomoonshots still going?

Was in that in 2021 then moved to the discord full time which i’m still in.

UnusualSubstance said:

Sorry to hear you lost that big ole meaty subreddit.

Really good reminder though.

Pretty stupid of Reddit to allow hostile takeovers and not even have the decency to email you...

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I think r/SEO was also taken over this way.

I read about that somewhere, but can't remember where, they have over 300K members, whoever pulled that off is going to bank hard.

Sol said:

Is r/cryptomoonshots still going?

Was in that in 2021 then moved to the discord full time which i’m still in.

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Apparently it is still a thing, I just checked.

ain't that a bitch. does reddit send you modmail messages if you're vuln to subreddit takeover via this method? "respond or it's over"-type stuff? if so, is there a standard format for those messages? my thoughts: were i to run multiple subs i cared about, i would probably make a bot to check modmail specifically for those messages so i don't get caught slacking. sorry that happened to you. much love.

ps: yes, cryptomoonshots is still as retarded and shilly as it ever was.

SpaceYams said:

ain't that a bitch. does reddit send you modmail messages if you're vuln to subreddit takeover via this method? "respond or it's over"-type stuff? if so, is there a standard format for those messages? my thoughts: were i to run multiple subs i cared about, i would probably make a bot to check modmail specifically for those messages so i don't get caught slacking. sorry that happened to you. much love.

ps: yes, cryptomoonshots is still as retarded and shilly as it ever was.

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The screen I shared above (SPOILER) was the conversation between Reddit team and the dude who wanted to take over.

I could respond there too if I wanted but it was months ago and I didn't even see it...

I recently took over a sub I really wanted, via r/request .. I've been trying for months and they finally gave it to me, and then the next day the account they gave it to got banned, so now I can't mod it

That's sad. But I learned from this thread OP.

Nathali said:

Meanwhile I can't takeover a single abandoned sub even if they have <1k subs

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visionaryx said:

I recently took over a sub I really wanted, via r/request .. I've been trying for months and they finally gave it to me, and then the next day the account they gave it to got banned, so now I can't mod it

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The accounts that took my sub over are all super active and have high Karma.

You should probably buy an aged Reddit account if you want to be sure they grant you ownership as that seems to be the common denominator (activity) when they decide if you can get it or not.

That sucks, sorry to hear. I'm now wondering on how many mod accounts I need to login to start making activity in multiple subreddits, if that's going to keep them safe. As in time I have created subs with multiple accounts I can't even remember.

aurim said:

That sucks, sorry to hear. I'm now wondering on how many mod accounts I need to login to start making activity in multiple subreddits, if that's going to keep them safe. As in time I have created subs with multiple accounts I can't even remember.

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Unfortunately I can't help you with that either as I don't really know the terms myself.

INCC said:

The accounts that took my sub over are all super active and have high Karma.

You should probably buy an aged Reddit account if you want to be sure they grant you ownership as that seems to be the common denominator (activity) when they decide if you can get it or not.

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What kind of activity though? If it's moderating activity then it's impossible because it's like needing experience to get a job while not having an prior job experience.

I don't get it. For such important assets why had you not set forwarding all emails to one master email.

Gmail for instance has forwarding to another gmail, that way you only need to be checking one email a day for all your subreddits.

Nathali said:

What kind of activity though? If it's moderating activity then it's impossible because it's like needing experience to get a job while not having an prior job experience.

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Activity = Karma + awards/badges + comments/posts

deppo said:

I don't get it. For such important assets why had you not set forwarding all emails to one master email.

Gmail for instance has forwarding to another gmail, that way you only need to be checking one email a day for all your subreddits.

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Mod mail is different from email, you don't get an email if you get mod mail and I said this already:

INCC said:

The moral of the story, check your mod mail, I think they didn't even send me an email notification that I'm about to lose my subreddit.

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Perhaps there is an option to activate an email notification when you get mod mail in Reddit, I don't know about this and I just checked my Gmail, the last time Reddit sent me an email was 2022 so there was no informing me of this.

So there either isn't such an option or I have manually opted out.

This is actually something to be on the lookout for. I've seen people selling subreddits where they managed to take over one that they were either a moderator for or one where there were no additional moderators aside from the main one.

If you are inactive for at least 1-2 months, others can request to take over your subreddit. To prevent this, make sure to perform some moderation actions from time to time.

You can add other moderators below you to help with moderation, but avoid giving them full permissions. If you do, they can reorder the mod list and place themselves above you once you become inactive.

can you automod and be ok?

ravid32 said:

can you you automod and be ok?

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No, you must do mod actions.