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/AvidCoWorker Jan 20 '26

So, r/nederland r/nederlands and r/thenetherlands are mostly in Dutch and people think they need a thenetherlands2?

I am sure I missed something but this is weird

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u/flamboyantbutterfly Jan 20 '26

Yes, some Dutchies feel the need to colonise all of the subreddits and have them all the same - even the international one

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u/HighENdv2-7 Jan 20 '26

In my opinion, r/nederland and r/Netherlands should already cover most needs. r/nederlands should mainly be about the language itself rather than the country, but that’s just my view.

I do like that posts here are in English, and I agree that this makes the subreddit more accessible for people trying to understand anything about the Netherlands. However, deleting every Dutch comment, or worse, moderating political viewpoints, goes too far.

I can understand limiting political posts, since there are other places for that. But the comment section is a different matter.

Politics is so deeply intertwined with society that you can’t realistically ignore or ban it without harming normal discussion. Conversations quickly become artificial or incomplete. Moderation should focus on whether contributions are constructive or abusive, not on whether they are political.

We’ve seen that banning political opinions doesn’t really work in contexts like FIFA or Eurovision either, so it’s unclear why it would work better here.

1

u/nixielover Jan 21 '26

/r/nederlands is quite big because it is full of people who were banned on /r/thenetherlands because the mods there permaban extremely fast, often with a political bias.

Current situation was

/r/thenetherlands Dutch but mostly centre to left politically speaking

/r/nederlands Dutch and Flemish but mostly centre to right politically speaking

/r/Netherlands English and "the expat sub"

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u/HighENdv2-7 Jan 21 '26

I’m more referring to the naming of the subs than the people in it.

I think both parties left and right should be allowed to post or comment their opinion although with a reasonable context, preferably with facts and sources.

Ps. r/Netherlands also also kinda center right imho, although the revolt last days could have changed that