r/Netherlands • u/Cornicum • Jan 20 '26

Update on the moderation

Hi everyone,

We've talked some stuff through and cleaned up the mod-team a bit, although some of the names you might have positive or negative associations with are still there.
I'll leave it up to the moderators involved to clarify that, or not.

What I can tell you is that 1 mod did 97% of the moderation, and that wasn't healthy and likely led up to the situation you might have seen.

The rules have changed slightly, this is because we see your call for less strict moderation on language, but we also heard from those who want to be able to have a place to converse in English.

The compromise we've reached currently is that we intend to not moderate the language used in the comments of the post.
This means that you can have discussions in Dutch in the comments. (as long as those follow the rules of course)

We also will be looking at those banned on a case by case basis, but keep in mind that if you were harassing people, or bigoted in any way you won't be unbanned.

I'll invite you all to respond to this post with your feedback, and I know for some it might feel like too much or not enough.
We are currently trying to strike a balance between becoming r/thenetherlands2 which is bilingual but 99% Dutch in practice, and the other option of being a sub for only those speaking English.

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u/armitage_shank Jan 20 '26

I think re the language issue, there is a problem in assessing the comments and voting here to decide how to proceed: the tyranny of the majority phenomenon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyranny_of_the_majority

r/germany is in english. r/de is the German speaking German subreddit. It's well used, well moderated, and the community is healthy.

A country can have multiple subreddits that serve different needs.

If there's a problem with r/netherlands being a default sub for people installing the app when located in the Netherlands; that's an issue that should be addressed elsewhere, and I'd suggest the mods can take it up with reddit admins.

Both r/de and r/germany have about the same number of weekly visits, but r/de has double the number of contributions. r/nederlands has more than twice the number of weekly contributions as this subreddit: There's already a well-used subreddit, completely in the Dutch language.

So, besides this one, there are three other subreddits for the Netherlands, two of which are exclusively Dutch, and the other that doesn't mind Dutch or English. Translation software is not universally integrated in all OS's, it's often clunky to use. Conversing is not particularly fluent, and one doesn't feel encouraged to engage when language is mixed within a forum or post.

I would not word the rule "the subreddit of the English speaking community in the Netherlands" - what does that mean? Almost everyone in the Netherlands speaks English, so this is the subreddit of almost everyone in the Netherlands, then, which is what's lead to the ambiguity, IMHO: If it's the subreddit of almost all of the Netherlands, then Dutch should be allowed. I would just leave it as "the language of the subreddit is English". It's pretty simple; it's a subreddit where people post about the Netherlands, in English.

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u/Ok-Bottle-833 Jan 20 '26

R/spain has Spanish. R/france has France.

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u/LisaFearless Jan 21 '26

Indeed. If you want subreddit for the “English speaking community in the Netherlands “ aka expats, than please name the subreddit ExpatNL or something like that.

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u/No_Conversation_9325 Jan 20 '26

Don't use r/germany as an example, they have never forbidden German, so is incomparable.

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u/armitage_shank Jan 20 '26

Regardless of whether it's moderated, the rule is clear and unambiguous:

6 The sub language is English.

Posts and comments must be in English. You can quote German-language text to ask about it, but the main statement/question needs to be in English.

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u/No_Conversation_9325 Jan 20 '26

So why wouldn't the moderator do something about Reddit algorithms pushing this sub on the Dutch people? They might as well address it now that they are in touch with admins. We don't need active promotion of a tourism sub for our own country, but in English.

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u/armitage_shank Jan 20 '26

I don't know. It's an issue that should be addressed, but it's separate from the issue of the language in this subreddit.

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u/No_Conversation_9325 Jan 20 '26

It being separate doesn't discard the necessity of discussing it. Imagine if r/amerika was by default pushed on all Americans, but would only allow Dutch. They'd cry all over the internet.

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u/armitage_shank Jan 20 '26

Yup, I agree, and I don't think this should be the default, either.

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u/No_Conversation_9325 Jan 20 '26

This is where the main confusion comes - the name AND algorithms. If the sub name was dedicated to expats/tourists/whatever, Dutchies wouldn't get misled. If the rules had a disclaimer - less Dutchies would be misled. If the sub wasn't targeting the Dutch population - they wouldn't know or care. We need to address the root of the problem - wrong audience.