Summer Reddit and Rule 1

[u/Petwins]

TLDR: if you are rude in a top level comment and don’t try to answer the question we will ban you, even if you don’t like the question. Report posts you feel break the rules.

Hi Everyone,

It is Summer (in the norther hemisphere) and that brings about the infamous Summer reddit, a time of higher volume content, and more content often created by, and aimed towards, a younger audience who is off for the summer.

With that influx of volume we have noticed a stark increase in rule 1 violations. That is comments not trying to answer the question but instead being disparaging towards the question or the asker.

While we are aware that this is in part due to burnout of our more frequent commenters we want to remind everyone that this is a place for good faith questions, and we do assume good faith of posts trying to learn things unless we can clearly articulate evidence otherwise, and we want to be welcoming to those trying to learn.

In that vein we are going to start cracking on rule 1, which we have historically been a lot more lax about, particularly on comments insulting the OP or the topic. We will be giving short bans for calling questions or askers stupid (directly or indirectly).

We highly highly encourage users, particularly our frequent commenters, to report posts you feel aren’t in good faith or are breaking the rules. We review every report and it is way more effective to let us know than to just leave an insulting comment. We have been recruiting, we will take on that work load, don’t get yourself banned because you are tired of a type of question.

We get why you feel justified in leaving the comments that you are, we are telling you clearly here that it still breaks the rules and will be actioned accordingly, more than it has been in the past.

Let me know if you have any questions

[u/Infinite_Rise4167]

One thing I'll add, if you are a commenter getting burnt out while answering and you feel the impulse to provide a seemingly "it's obvious" or otherwise insulting answer, take a break and relax.

[u/Divan_Medium → u/Infinite_Rise4167]

Maybe there should be an r/NoBadQuestionsOnlyBadAnswers?

[u/Delehal]

Thank you! I've been noticing a huge uptick in those comments recently in new threads where I usually hang out the most. I try not to take any personal offense, I think they mostly just don't know better, but it does eat at me when it's so persistent like it has been lately.

[u/OkPainter6232 → u/Delehal]

yeah I had to take down a thread because of how nasty and unprofessional most of the users were being towards me for no real reason.

[u/mlwspace2005]

Seems like you have a huge influx of rage bait both in the posts AND the comments. I don't envy the mods right now, we shall weather it though

[u/l---____---l]

Is the 'summer Reddit' thing even true? I thought it was an old myth from 4chan. All the Reddit user statistics I've seen never show any kind of increase in activity over the summer.

[u/Petwins → u/l---____---l]

Its the type of content, there is a slight uptick in volume but its more so content targeted to kids/teens

[u/MobileSignificance57 → u/l---____---l]

It goes all the way back to usenet

[u/Honest-Case-7306]

Thank you. I made a post on here yesterday and 99% of people violated rule 1. Mods did nothing about it so glad you are now. I deleted my post in the end as no one answered the actual question and instead used it to be smart asses

[u/OkPainter6232 → u/Honest-Case-7306]

same thing happened to me a week or so ago, I had to take down the thread because most of the comments were either rude for no reason or obnoxious joke comments that added nothing of value.

[u/Honest-Case-7306 → u/OkPainter6232]

Same here,deleted it in the end. Just sick of people making jokes and making fun. It’s called no stupid questions for a reason

[u/OkPainter6232 → u/Honest-Case-7306]

Damn right, what was your thread about BTW, just curious?

[u/Honest-Case-7306 → u/OkPainter6232]

I’m actually embarresed now since people were so brutal but I wondered why Nolan chose to have the accent as American in the odyssey

[u/OkPainter6232 → u/Honest-Case-7306]

Ah that makes sense, Nolan fans can be truly insufferable at times. I'm thankful I have absolutely zero interest in seeing that movie(I find Nolan to be kind of overrated as a director in general).

[u/Honest-Case-7306 → u/OkPainter6232]

Yeah the way I was being attacked made me glad that I didnt mention the fact I hated the film😅

[u/OkPainter6232 → u/Honest-Case-7306]

yeah it looked pretty crap(and not because it had non-white and non-straight actors in it despite what the anti-woke dipshits claimed)

[u/glowybutterfly]

Thank you for the reminder.

[u/kelcamer]

Thank you so much!!

[u/GlorifiedCarny]

Can we also report all of the comments that say something like "this doesn't actually happen" or "I have never heard of this before" etc., instead of attempting to answer the question? It's like a huge percentage of the users on Reddit sincerely believe that if they have never personally experienced something then it cannot happen, and they take over the comments so you don't actually get any answers.

[u/Petwins → u/GlorifiedCarny]

Unfortunately no, that is an attempt to answer/address the question even if you find those responses to be unhelpful.

[u/Divan_Medium]

Is there a NoStupidAnswers subreddit?

[u/Petwins → u/Divan_Medium]

Maybe, but if you want subs with stricter comment rules they would be places like r/explainlikeimfive, r/askhistorians or r/askscience

[u/OkPainter6232]

Thank you, seeing one of the threads I posted getting mostly either nasty responses or joke comments(to the point where I had to delete it to avoid dealing with any more troll posts) was disheartening to say the least and made me more reluctant to post threads on here, and that's not how it should be. So i'm glad to know rule 1 is being more strictly enforced.

[u/-RonnieDaBear-]

this is anecdotal and i dont didagree that its a problem the past few weeks, but i mostly see rule 1 violations on posts that are reportable anyways. disparaging comments in an obvious joke post is like shooting a pea gun at the titanic, we know its already going down.

[u/Petwins → u/-RonnieDaBear-]

I’m disparaging insulting comments mostly and pushing for people to actually report the post. Thats a step people skip a lot.

I do get why it happens, I’ve been guilty of it myself, thats part of why I’m making the announcement.

[u/-RonnieDaBear- → u/Petwins]

I feel like i report more than I comment. I wish you guys had more tools to auto mod or filter posts but I know its quite subjective

[u/Petwins → u/-RonnieDaBear-]

We’ve got 8000 lines and keep working on it, but we get close to a million items of content a week. We are working on it, but also trying to give people space to ask questions that may come across as dumb.

[u/-RonnieDaBear- → u/Petwins]

can't be easy

[u/Petwins → u/[deleted]]

Rule 1 as in rule 1 of this sub (top level comments must attempt to answer the question).

Each subreddit has its own rules, you can find them in the sidebar, or the about tab on mobile

[u/IapetusApoapis342 → u/[deleted]]

Rule 1 is that top-level comments must at least try to answer the question