and everything goes smoothly and nobody really notices
Exactly this. In the sub I frequented the most, we had a huge problem with T-shirt scammers and Karma Farming repost bots, but the mods usually nuked those pretty fast. However, since we’re all busy adults with limited spare time, the mods can not be online and vigilant 24/7 and occasionally a bot or scammer slipped through the cracks.
I wasn’t a mod (didn’t want to, TBH) but always openly called these out in addition to reporting them, just to make sure noone clicked on the scam links until an actual mod was able to remove the post. In these situations it happened quite often that people started to argue with me, demanded to know why I thought that “totally harmless guy showing off a cool shirt” was a scammer and the like, simply because THEY had never ever seen a scam attempt in the sub before - as those posts were usually removed pretty quickly …
Exactly this. In the sub I frequented the most, we had a huge problem with T-shirt scammers and Karma Farming repost bots, but the mods usually nuked those pretty fast. However, since we’re all busy adults with limited spare time, the mods can not be online and vigilant 24/7 and occasionally a bot or scammer slipped through the cracks.
I wasn’t a mod (didn’t want to, TBH) but always openly called these out in addition to reporting them, just to make sure noone clicked on the scam links until an actual mod was able to remove the post. In these situations it happened quite often that people started to argue with me, demanded to know why I thought that “totally harmless guy showing off a cool shirt” was a scammer and the like, simply because THEY had never ever seen a scam attempt in the sub before - as those posts were usually removed pretty quickly …