Inside /r/SGExams: Meet the young volunteers behind 1 of S'pore's largest online forums for students
SINGAPORE – It has more than 285,000 members and over a thousand posts and comments a day discussing everything about student life in Singapore – from O-level study tips and university admissions to suggestions on how best to ask your classroom crush out.
Behind /r/SGExams, Singapore's largest Reddit forum focused on student life in Singapore, is a team of six young volunteers aged 20 to 26 who spend their free time managing and moderating the forum.
Among them is Ms Emmeline Kao, who, like many other Singaporean students, first began using the forum in 2021 while she was in secondary school to discuss school work with peers.
'I first started using /r/SGExams during my O levels to discuss the answers to the papers on the (forum) megathreads,' said Ms Kao, 19.
She continued to frequent the forum thereafter, as she found its content both helpful and entertaining.
'Not only were the study tips and revision advice helpful, I also enjoyed reading the 'slice-of-life content' that other students would post about their lives,' she said.
She particularly enjoyed the lively posts about school choice, where students would passionately vouch for certain schools and argue over which one was best to enrol in.
'It's like a back-and-forth between students. It's always entertaining to read.'
Becoming a moderator
In 2022, Ms Kao applied to join the /r/SGExams moderation team as a volunteer, as she 'wanted to give back to the community that I had been frequenting'.
'I had always been curious about how the subreddit worked behind-the-scenes, and I also wanted to have a more meaningful say in how it was curated,' she said.
After filling up a Google application form, she had to undergo an informal interview with Mr Raphael Peck, another current moderator who was the moderation team lead in 2022.
Ms Kao recalled being asked questions about what she would do if she encountered controversial posts and what ideas she had for improving the subreddit.
Moderating a subreddit is more than just filtering content –it also involves deciding on the direction of the forum.
ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
Mr Peck, 23, said: 'There are no real correct answers in the interview. It's mainly to assess candidates' knowledge about the subreddit, and see if their line of thinking is similar (to the rest of the moderation team).
'It's a vibe check to make sure we can get along, basically.'
Mr Peck said that traits for moderators that they were looking for in interviews included maturity, social awareness and a willingness to help the community.
Behind the scenes
Moderators typically spend up to an hour on weekdays and up to two hours on weekends going through comments and posts on the forum to remove content that violates the rules of the subreddit.
These include spam posts or comments that contain slurs.
Most of the moderation team's work is done on the fly on their phones and in pockets of spare time throughout the day, such as while waiting for the bus or the MRT.
Ms Kao added: 'It's a big but flexible commitment that we do in our free time. It's really not about clocking a target number of hours, but more about being more active when needed, especially during periods with many megathreads or in the weekends when content is at its peak.
'We will also communicate this to the rest of the team that more manpower is needed during those times so that we are able to distribute responsibilities evenly without clashing with our school or external commitments.'
Website-based tools help them in their work: Auto-moderation features on Reddit first remove posts and comments that violate Reddit's site-wide policies.
The forum also self regulates – posts marked out by /r/SGExam's users are temporarily removed and flagged to moderators of the subreddit. These posts and comments appear in a 'mod queue', which the moderators pick up to determine if the flagged content should be removed or allowed.
Most of the moderation team's work is done on the fly on their phones and in pockets of spare time throughout the day.
ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
Ms Kao said: 'All the moderators will be notified when a post or comment is flagged, so whoever has a free moment can instantly check it.'
Mr Peck said that repeat offenders or users whose posts and comments are frequently reported may also be 'soft banned' without the user's knowledge – meaning that their posted content will not appear on the forum unless a moderator approves it.
'We had a user claiming to be a PhD holder with some warped views on university admissions, who often gave advice based on misinformation,' he recalled.
'We had another who would aggressively question the academic and career decisions of others whenever they disagreed with it.'
Naturally, there are some who challenge their decisions.
'When that happens, I just reiterate the explanation for why the content was removed or the user was banned,' said Ms Kao.
When asked about particularly challenging times as a moderator, Mr Peck pointed to the 2021 incident where a student at River Valley High School killed a schoolmate with an axe.
He said: 'It was a particularly busy time for our team. We didn't want to shut down discussions, but we also didn't want baseless rumours and accusations (on the forum).'
'We spent quite a lot of time ensuring the discussion was healthy, and that there weren't comments from users claiming to be at (the scene of the crime) or twisting the timeline of events.'
Shaping the forum
Moderating a subreddit is more than just filtering content –it also involves deciding on the direction of the forum.
Ms Kao cited the 2022 decision of the current moderation team to move more popular 'slice-of-life' content to weekends as the type of decision future moderators will have to make.
She said: 'Slice-of-life content, especially romance and love confession stories, tend to be so popular that they drown out posts actually looking for advice.
'We decided to reserve this kind of (slice-of-life) content for the weekend so students who are seeking academic advice can find the help they need.'
Ms Kao and Mr Peck said that as they get older, and also because of their responsibilities as moderators, they frequent the forum less themselves for content they can use.
ST PHOTO: GIN TAY
While this change has been received warmly by most community members, Ms Kao said that there has been a small but vocal minority of users who have been campaigning for non-academic posts to be allowed on public holidays as well.
Passing the baton
Ms Kao and Mr Peck said that as they get older, and also because of their responsibilities as moderators, they frequent the forum less themselves for content they can use.
Mr Peck, a first-year air transport management student at the Singapore Institute of Technology, said: 'The target demographic of the subreddit are those in secondary school, polytechnic and junior college, so posts about A-level advice or university admissions are just less relevant to me now.'
Mr Peck shared that moderators on the subreddit generally volunteer for two years. 'As someone who's been here for almost double that time, I want to move on with my life,' he said.
Ms Kao, who is waiting to enter university, also said that she foresees herself using the forum less when she enters university.
She said: 'It's important to bring in younger moderators who will be more in touch with the average user of the forum. We'll be looking for new moderators around the polytechnic- and junior college-age range.'
The /r/SGExam moderation team said that they are looking for three to five moderators aged 16 to 25, and have begun formal recruitment for new moderators via a post on the subreddit.
Selected potential moderators will join the team on a trial basis to assess their suitability for the role. New moderators will also receive mentorship from their more experienced counterparts.
When asked what were the most important traits they will be looking for in the new moderators, Mr Peck said: 'The moderators we want should be representative of the student community we are trying to cultivate here in our local online spaces – people who want to uplift the community and ensure it remains safe for our younger users.
'This requires time and effort, especially when you have to look through a lot of content.'
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