Ask HN: How do you moderate a subreddit?

My moderating day generally goes as follows:

- Look at the mod queue, replying to any mod mail we've received and any posts that have been automatically removed by our AutoModerator script.

- Have a peak at the new posts, on any one day my sub-reddits only get a couple of hundred, so it takes a couple of minutes for a cursory glance.

- List all reported messages and see whether they're acceptable.

Then, because most of the sub-reddits I'm currently contributing to are about projects I'm working on, I generally answer any questions people have or problems they're facing.

However, this is just for me. It really truly depends on the type of sub-reddit you're looking to moderate as to what work you're required to do.

I founded and am the sole moderator of r/apachespark. That one's easy because it's a well-behaving crowd and the purpose of the subreddit is obvious. The only real things I do is remove spam/unrelated material and tag big releases as announcements.

More generally, I think the moderators' main job is to set the mission/rules of the subreddit, and enforce them. Subreddits with weak enforcement rarely thrive as they devolve into the least common denominator.

Remove spam and warn people that are behaving exceptionally poorly. I only moderate very small subreddits, but that's all I do, aside from playing with the design for fun.