Update on /r/Austin Rules and Mod Policies

BAs you've probably noticed, the mod team has been revising how we approach moderation and used the last week to collect data on a much more hands off approach.

For details on the data, see my comment below.

What we noticed

  • More content variety is enjoyed:

    • Effort is appreciated, more generic questions are ok.
    • People want more event posts!
    • Question to y'all(/r/Austin): How should mods manage folks trying to what is essentially advertising their event for money?
    • Mixed results on "Ask Austin questions" -- a lot of them could be solved with a search.
    • rental/buying/moving here type questions just don't do well

  • Political content is highly upvoted and poorly discussed:

    • Several presidents day threads posted, upvoted and discussed.... then deleted.
    • The result with having multiple threads is that discussion/organizing fails to happen.
    • Example: See the multiple President's day Protests, try to find the thread folks are using to discuss it and organize.
    • Outright wrong information is upvoted as well as generic political stuff
    • Upvotes do a good job of determining what is popular, not what is relevant or specific to Austin

Actions we are taking:

  • We will allow more political posts
    • Users posting political content should have some history of contributions to /r/Austin - we're not going to allow fly-by users who just show up here to push a political agenda.

  • Go back to enforcing civility and relevancy on all posts

    • Productive discussion -- especially on political posts -- requires guard rails. If you want to just insult each other, do it somewhere else.
    • We are still going to remove posts that have little relevance/specificness to Austin (for example, just because it involves Greg Abbott doesn't make it immediately relevant to Austin. If you want general state politics, try /r/Texas or /r/TexasPolitics instead), but we will be more permissive here than we have been in the past.

  • Post titles for articles should follow the article title/subject, and post titles that aren't for articles still need to accurately describe the topic in question. Readers should always be able to tell what the thread is about just by reading the title.

    • Injecting an opinion into the title, such as "it's about time..." will get it removed. Titles should be descriptive and yet not politically or emotionally charged.
    • We'll have a certain amount of leeway here so don't worry about it too much unless it's a hot-button issue.

  • Megathreads will be used less often than we have in the past

    • Without a megathread or otherwise organized posting, the result has shown that discussion is scattered across multiple threads.
    • We will not remove photo posts/articles or reasonable questions but we reserve the right to lock/restrict comments to community members. We will try to err on NOT doing this though.

  • Go back to using a weekly real estate thread as a collection for "moving here" questions. Keep general building/etc questions here.

  • Continuing to remove any "selling/need to hire someone" posts.

    • We're not going to be the garage sale for Austin nor do we want to act as a marketplace -- r/AustinClassifieds is perfect for that.
    • Also not allowing "Can I ride with anyone..."

  • Allowing more events/professional posts.

    • Examples: Casting calls/free teeth cleaning, etc. -- these usually have some public appeal.
    • There will be some amount of self-promoting but posts from users who have not contributed in /r/Austin will likely be removed/pushed to weekly event thread.

  • Allow more Austin restaurant posts:

  • Continue to remove mod-determined "low effort" post -- you need to put some effort into your posts!

    • Where should I eat - "I like food and cannot be more specific." = removed.
    • "I need to see <x> - please recommend one for me." = removed
    • "I need a thing/trade/service. Please recommend THE BEST, cheap, and fastest one." = removed
    • Basically - if you invest no effort in asking your question, it gets removed and a better subreddit may be recommended if it exists.

  • Allowing more reposts on the same topic...when it makes sense.

    • We've been overzealous with the "Removed - that topic was posted 4 month ago" removals.
    • To that end, subjects that were posted a while ago and where having another discussion is not likely to turn toxic will be OK.
    • Political/event posts are a special type and we'll probably allow them for reminding/organizing but it'll need to stay civil or get locked.
    • If a question gets posted and there's already a recent thread, we'll add which thread to use and remove the new thread.
    • Example: Someone posts "Protest starting at 11AM near front lawn Capitol" and then a little bit after someone asks "When/where is the protest?" - we will remove that question and link to the first post.

  • Allow more "not necessarily Austin related/specific" stuff.

    • "So which is it?" -- the topic was about red wasps, which aren't specific to Texas at all, but we're inclined to allow this sort of thing -- but it will require a more descriptive title.
    • Need something that's more about Texas and less about Austin specifically? Maybe we'll allow it maybe not ... it'll depend on the specifics.
      • This doesn't mean "well, it happened in Texas and Austin is in Texas." or "Well, company <X> is in the Austin area." is OK -- we're going to need it to be more specific than that.
    • "How to get insurance with a learners permit" = OK - it's not Austin specific, but it's close enough that we'll probably permit it.
    • "Example of selling Tesla as a form of protest" = Removed

  • We will continue removing content from new accounts whose sole contribution to /r/Austin is trolling, and will continue to ban the worst offenders, but will try to be a little slower with the "ban" option.

  • We're going to remove the "To the person who..." type posts in most cases:

  • Hearsay policy and threads:

    • These are tough ones for us because these sort of threads are popular and can get whipped up into a frenzy fast.
    • When you provide hearsay, it's not provable and being dead wrong usually has no consequences to you, but it can have strong consequences for others.
      • The mod team has also had a long-standing policy to respect privacy. We are receptive to discussion on this, but are not currently considering any changes to our policies here.
      • For more background on this, see site-wide reddit rule 3 here -- we have to follow this policy, and there is not a lot of wiggle room left.

This is all still a work in process, and so adjustments will be made. Let us know what you think!

tldr;

  • The past week has seen a sharp decline from a health/quality metrics point of view.
  • Political discussions are going to require civil discourse between redditors or they will be banned. You can insult politicians, public figures, etc but not each other.
  • We are going to allow more events, questions about restaurants, and "ask Austin" sort of questions.
  • We are still removing content that is not specific or related to Austin. But we're going to lower the bar - we've been too strict here.
  • We are still re-evaluating things so we'll continue to change how we handle situations like protests. Please provide feedback!