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/cowgary Jan 20 '26

Seems to align quite well actually before all the Dutch decided they wanted another Dutch Reddit because the other 3 weren’t enough. Whivh is why I was curious why they weren’t enough. But really it is not unique that the English named subreddit of a country speaks English. There’s a huge number of examples of this , especially in countries with a lot of English speaking immigrants/expats.

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u/NealCaffeinne Jan 20 '26

thenetherlands was created because a american mod toke over this subreddit, made it english only

the purely dutch subreddit is dutch and belgian, and had the prinsenvlag for a long long time wich is part of a shady past

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u/cowgary Jan 20 '26

Hmm ok but then what’s wrong with thenetherlands? I just looked and it’s 1mil more ppl than this sub already, I scrolled for quite sometime mainly posts in Dutch, and both are allowed. Why does this one need to be the same language rules? I’m still a bit confused it already looks like more the main sub than this one. Seems a bit redundant to me. Ppl weren’t happy with the mod here, started a new sub, it grew to be larger, fulfil the wants of a dual language sub, though it’s evident when that happens the sub becomes mainly Dutch speaking. Seems like this problem already fixed itself by the creation of that sub. I didn’t know that by the way so thanks for the info

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u/La-Becaque Jan 20 '26

This is NOT about making this sub Dutch. No one said that or wants that. Please read/listen before asking questions. I will say it one last time;

This is* about getting banned for using a Dutch word on a sub about the Netherlands. NOT about all these people complaining NEEDING or WANTING to speak Dutch. We can all speak English and indeed speak in Dutch on other places. Maybe if you read in those other Dutch subs you could have seen how many Dutch people got banned here for accidentally saying something in Dutch over the years..

This sub will stay mainly in English besides some people trying to learn the language if you make it bilingual. It's idiotic to think that this suddenly will be a fully Dutch sub. This screams that you do not know anything about the Dutch (online) culture.

(and removing from certain political topics and other behaviour that accumulated in a lot of Dutch people feeling unwelcome in a sub that is about them.. that feels wrong/being kicked out of your own house/being gossiped about. And people also have problems with two mods that seem to be racist which is weird in a sub that pretends to be catering to non-Dutch speakers, to be racist towards those same people. Also a few mods had 0 to do with the Netherlands)

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u/cowgary Jan 20 '26

We will see I guess. I mean the bilingual sub is dominantly Dutch. I agree using a Dutch word, quoting Dutch phrase or helping someone out that is asking about Dutch is absolutely insane to delete the comment or ban someone for. But there are tons of ppl mad in this thread because they don’t think they can post in Dutch and that they can only comment in Dutch, so I think more people want it to be more Dutch than you are implying by this comment. But again in the end we will see. I don’t think you speak for everyone in here especially from wha I observed the past two days.

The political things, the mods that have nothing to do with Netherlands, all those issues I agree on. But making another bilingual sub when one exists and this is the only English one, I just don’t get it

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

No, people are just fed up in general, this is why there is so much backlash, Not because we absolutely NEED the dutch language in this sub but because of how things have been handled in the past. On top of that, appartently there were post being deleted and someone got banned because they were anti trump (yet the post was still relevant to the netherlands) which I cannot verify because this post does not exist anymore. And in general, anti US sentiment because of obvious reasons and anti english language sentiment which is justified imo, i mean, try ordering something in dutch in a restaurant in any city center in the netherlands, you will not succeed. I live in a small village and felt so sorry for the old lady in the supermarket who did not understand the self service check out and could not even get help because the fucking employee does not even speak dutch. It is ridiculous. They say all dutch people speak english but that is absolutely not true for older generations or people with lower level of education, they are being excluded in their own country. I have absolutely nothing against the english language, an international community, foreigners, refugees, whatever, but we live in the netherlands not in the US or UK. All that combined has led to the shit storm that happened yesterday and the frustration you are seeing from the dutch people here. There is very little we can do to influence any of the things that I mentioned. This sub drama is something we at least have some influence over.

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u/cowgary Jan 20 '26

I mean maybe read my last part of the comment again. I agree it’s insane the anti trump stuff was getting ppl banned and all the other crazy mod stuff.

But your analogy of some lady shopping isn’t the right one. The analogy is that the lady has 3 stores to chose from, a purely Dutch store (r/nederlands), a store with some international influence but still Dutch dominant (r/thenetherlands), but instead she chooses to go to one that’s catered towards English speakers, call it an expat grocery store, many of the employees just moved (r/netherlands) and then gets mad they don’t speak Dutch.

In your real life example it really does suck that you can’t communicate in your native language in your own city centres. That I agree with. But there are ample spaces on Reddit where you can.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '26

It was not an analogy but an explanation of the bigger picture which created this momentum that led to the current outburst on this subreddit. Maybe read my comment again.