What are the typical moderation reasons for removing comments?

Comments are removed by human moderators or automated systems for a range of reasons, most of which are documented in community rules. Understanding these categories helps you both stay compliant and, when you encounter removal, contextualize what happened. Rule violations specific to the community are the most common reason. These include off-topic comments in strictly focused subreddits, self-promotional comments in communities that prohibit them, comments that violate tone or civility standards set by the community's rules, and content that contradicts the community's specific guidelines — for instance, a medical advice community that requires disclaimers, or a political debate community that bans certain forms of argumentation. Personal attacks and harassment are removed both under community rules and under Reddit's site-wide content policy. Any comment that attacks another user's intelligence, appearance, identity, or worth as a person rather than engaging with their argument is subject to removal. Slurs, threats, and doxxing are among the most consistently enforced removal categories across all communities and the platform as a whole. Spam — repeated posting of the same content, unsolicited advertisements, or comments clearly designed to drive traffic to an external site — is removed both by AutoModerator and by human moderators. Off-topic comments that derail a thread in communities that enforce focused discussion are frequently removed, particularly in moderated Q&A communities. Comments that contain misinformation are removed in some communities (such as health information subreddits) that have explicit accuracy requirements, though most communities do not remove inaccurate comments directly — they rely on downvotes and corrections instead. Comments that reveal personal information about another user who did not consent to having that information shared are removed for doxxing, even if the information was technically obtainable elsewhere. Comments that derail or distract from the community's purpose can also be removed even when they do not violate a specific named rule, under a general "be on-topic" or "stay on subject" standard. A long digression in a focused technical community, for instance, may be removed not because it is hostile or inaccurate but because it redirects energy away from the community's stated purpose, which moderators have a legitimate interest in protecting.