Training Mode & Second Opinions¶

Platforms: Old Reddit and New Reddit · Default: Enabled (no effect until a subreddit opts in)

Training mode lets a subreddit route a moderator’s actions into a review queue instead of performing them, so a more experienced moderator can check the work first. The same machinery powers second opinions: any moderator can deliberately send a single action on one item for review rather than performing it immediately.

A captured action is called a proposal. Proposals are stored in the subreddit wiki and reviewed from the Modbar.

What it is — and is not¶

Training mode routes supported Toolbox-NXG actions into review. It is a workflow guard, not a permission sandbox. It does not block:

Native Reddit moderation UI (the post/comment mod menus, the mod queue’s own buttons).
The Reddit mobile apps.
Original Toolbox 6.x.
Direct calls to the Reddit API.

A trainee who uses any of those paths still acts directly. Because of this, training mode is only meaningful when the whole mod team is on Toolbox-NXG. When a subreddit still writes Toolbox 6.x compatibility pages, the Training mode settings tab shows a warning to that effect.

Enabling trainees¶

Open the Toolbox-NXG Config overlay and go to the Training mode tab. It lists every moderator on the subreddit; tick a moderator to put them in training. While in training, that moderator’s in-scope actions (approve, remove, removal reasons, ban/unban, mute/unmute, lock/unlock, distinguish, mark NSFW, sticky, user flair) are captured as proposals instead of taking effect.

Below the trainee list, the Actions to guard control narrows which kinds of action are captured. By default every supported action is captured; unchecking an action group lets trainees take those actions directly, without review. This is stored as the guardedActions config field (absent ⇒ all actions guarded; a list narrows to just those types).

The same tab sets proposal retention — how many days a resolved proposal is kept before it is pruned (see Pruning).

Trainee membership is compared case-insensitively and is stored per subreddit, so a moderator can be a trainee in one subreddit and a full moderator in another.

What a trainee can and cannot do¶

Trainee action	Result
Approve / remove / removal reason	Captured as a proposal
Ban / unban / mute / unmute	Captured as a proposal
Lock / unlock	Captured as a proposal
Distinguish / mark NSFW / sticky	Captured as a proposal
User flair	Captured as a proposal
Bulk actions (e.g. mass-moderation, bulk remove)	Blocked — bulk actions cannot be proposed
Reply-as-subreddit macros	Blocked in training mode

Bulk actions and reply-as-subreddit macros are blocked rather than captured because they don’t map cleanly onto the single-target review flow.

Reviewing proposals¶

Open the Modbar’s Proposals drawer. It has two tabs:

Review queue — proposals other moderators have submitted that are waiting on you.
My proposals — proposals you submitted, so you can track their outcome.

Anywhere a proposal exists for an item, an inline 🎓 badge appears showing how many proposals are open for it. Clicking the badge opens the drawer to that item.

For each pending proposal a reviewer can:

Accept — performs the real action (replaying the captured intent) and marks the proposal accepted. If the real action only partly succeeds, the proposal is flagged needs attention instead of accepted, with detail on which step failed.
Edit & accept — only for a removal-reason proposal that captured the trainee’s reason selection. Re-opens the full removal-reasons overlay pre-filled with what the trainee composed, so you can adjust the reasons or message before sending. Performing the removal from the overlay marks the proposal accepted.
Reject — declines the proposal; you can attach feedback explaining why.
Dismiss — for a proposal you submitted, acknowledges the outcome so it can be pruned.

A trainee can review their own subreddit’s queue but cannot Accept (or Edit & accept) there — those buttons are disabled for a moderator who is themselves a trainee in that subreddit.

Requesting a second opinion¶

Second opinions don’t require training mode. On a post or comment’s moderation action row, Toolbox-NXG adds an inline Second opinion toggle. Arm it and your next moderation action on that item (approve, remove, lock, a removal-reason send, ban, …) is captured as a proposal instead of being performed. The toggle is one-shot — it clears itself once an action is captured — and only appears for moderators of the subreddit while the item has no open proposal yet (once one exists, the inline 🎓 badge takes its place). Use it when you want another moderator to sign off on a borderline call. The proposal appears in the team’s review queue exactly like a trainee’s, tagged as a second opinion rather than training.

Pruning¶

A resolved proposal (accepted, rejected, or obsolete) is kept until either:

its proposer dismisses it, or
the subreddit’s proposal retention window (default 14 days) elapses.

Pending proposals are never pruned. A proposal whose target goes away on its own — the author deleted it, or it was actioned outside the proposal flow — is auto-resolved as obsolete without a verdict.