Here comes a wall of text because I’m bored at work and typing makes me sound productive.

Quality OC will therefore make its way to the top organically while shitty OC will never be seen by anyone

Sure, in some theoretical, libertarian-lead Reddit fantasy that might be true. But I moderate a close to 1m+ subreddit on another account and can promise you this isn’t the case.

For one, Reddit has a rising algorithm that pushes certain posts if it hits internal metrics/criteria. Image posts are heavily pushed compared to text posts. Video posts are more successful (anecdotally) if they use reddit’s built-in video player. And so on and so on. The same way that if you opened an Instagram account tomorrow and posted nothing but fantastic quality photos, you’d get nowhere unless you played the algorithm and the “game”, because that’s how Instagram works.

Number two, you’ve been conditioned by years of this to subconsciously prefer lowbrow/clickbait content. If it requires you to think or read, you’re probably not going to interact with it. You’re more likely to upvote a quick tweet or image, especially if it conforms to your existing biases. That’s just normal, we all do it. And that’s fine, honestly, until it drowns out any real discussion and the subreddit becomes a click generator. You probably like /r/nba because of the funny copypasta, memes, discussion with other fans, the sheer VOLUME of discussion, right? But you’d stop visiting if EVERY post was an ESPN intern’s Lebron graphic with just "🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐🐐"as the title.

And finally, most importantly, users choose NOTHING on this website - bots do. Karma farmers do. Networks of accounts set up to push agendas, marketing campaigns, and interaction farming behaviour choose what you see. Reddit has a massive bot problem that you’re not aware of until you see what gets pushed through a moderation queue.

So moderators have to balance things by ensuring high quality content gets a platform. It can mean low-quality content being banned or special days for certain content. Sometimes rules have to be in place to prevent a race to the bottom. That said, some moderators take their roles WAY too seriously. It’s best to realise you have no power as a moderator to change Reddit policies and to just take steps to make your community as healthy as possible.

VAR and refereeing in general could be easily improved by an automated software that simply asks the referees about the situation they are reviewing.

Literally just a screen that asks: What are you reviewing? Check all that apply.

Foul? Offside? Unsportsmanlike Conduct?

Then based on what they’re reviewing, each team member reviews one aspect.

Handball? -> Did the ball hit the arm below the shoulder (or whatever the rule they’re using is)? -> Was the arm extended from the body ? -> Was the arm in a natural position? -> Was the arm in movement? -> Blah blah blah you get the point.

At the end of the process it spits out a quick list of potential options and the refs make a decision that has been assisted by the software. And then, because we know what refs are like, it’ll ask them if they’ve checked for obvious errors. “Are you sure you reviewed the right player? Are you sure you want this onside goal to be overturned? Are there any players having their hair pulled by Cristian Romero?” etc.

Oh and train people in this process, so that the VAR team can be composed of individuals who are not mates with Anthony Taylor.

Yes, it is limited partially by the IFAB rules around resetting play, and possibly by internal league VAR rules (although I can’t think of any off the top of my head).

It’s stupid, but it is what it is. This is unrelated to your question, but VAR needs a basic overhaul to become “results” oriented. Get the right result at (nearly) any cost. Someone smarter than me can determine what nearly means in that context.

So you have to grant a goal two minutes later, big deal. What’s more of a travesty - granting a goal after 60 seconds of inconsequential play because you realised the mistake, or completely ignoring a valid goal because of the 60 seconds? In my opinion, the integrity of the sport is upheld even if a retroactive decision is taken provided it is done as timely as possible.

If you have to inform the players at halftime that a huge mistake was made and the goal was granted, so be it. It wouldn’t undermine anything. If a goal is scored in the interim, count both. I don’t know, I’m not the expert. But I’ve never understood the rationale behind “once the mistake is made, we have to live with it”. It’s arbitrary and we don’t HAVE to accept that as a fact of life. Set some simple rules around this and get everyone to realise it will happen, and voila, an instant reduction in controversy.