Rule and Automoderator Updates to Address Astroturfing, Spam, and Subreddit Decorum
Posted by EpicTransLoserGirl@reddit | anime_titties | View on Reddit | 171 comments
This post contains important information on the workings of this subreddit. r/anime_titties is a world-politics and world-news focused subreddit, with the notable exception of news and politics from the U.S. Always check the rules before posting, we know there are quite many rules but these are in place to ensure high quality content and a civil discourse. we ask you to please report rule-breaking posts and comments. Kind regards, the r/anime_titties mod-team
Since our civility enforcement period last year in which we banned a significant number of users for failing to adhere to Reddiquette and the civility rules, we have observed a gradual resumption of civility rule-breaking activity, as well as an increase in astroturfing comment activity. Rather than just deploy another civility enforcement period to perform an annual sweep, we took to analyzing the patterns in which recurring rule-breakers appeared, what sort of profiles rule-breakers had, and how astroturfers operated.
We also heard the frustration regarding the forced megathreading of articles related to active conflicts, as users stated it was basically , as users are significantly less likely to visit the megathread than new posts. However, we also note that people were also frustrated with the amount of dubious or misinformative submissions that came with the fog of war prior to the megathread enforcements.
We observed several things:
- Civility-violating users are largely users who only are visiting the subreddit when posts with high upvote count appear in their default feed, and have not read the rules, period. They are also likely to have just read a title and skipped the article, and proceed to post a short kneejerk reactive comment.
- Astroturfers primarily work across several subreddits and do not have any interest in the engaging with the community beyond outputting their comments. In addition, astroturfing accounts making link submissions tend to be less than 1 year old.
- Spammers only respond to posts in top-level comments with very short comments.
Therefore, we have made the following Automod changes and raised the bar for participation:
- The basic entry for comment participation been upped from 100 comment karma to 200 karma.
- Accounts must now be 1 year old to post. We will continue to monitor agendaposting traits in 1+ year old accounts.
- Link submissions related to active conflicts with title keywords associated with countries in active conflicts will now be allowed. Automatic link flair will now to be assigned to these submissions that indicate users must be flaired to comment in them.
- Commenters will need to self-assign a flair in order to engage in "Flaired Commenters Only" posts.
- Top-level comments must now have a minimum of 150 characters. While succinctness is a valued trait in writing, this update also blocks out a large number of shallow, kneejerk comments, and we believe having top-level comments require more writing effort to reach the 150-character minimum makes users be more thorough, and helps provide more nuanced discussion. The comment character minimum restriction does not apply to comments replying to the top-level comment.
We apologize for the delay in announcing these changes after they were deployed, due to IRL constraints, and will continue to observe the subreddit for how best to improve r/anime_titties.
We are open to feedback on these new measures and other ways to improve the subreddit.
Exastiken@reddit
Update: Due to a significant influx of fresh and flaired accounts on top flaired posts, commenters on flaired posts must now reach an account age of 3 months.
PaintedClownPenis@reddit
Hey, have you guys noticed that your news subreddit's default "Best" settings are now showing eight day old articles near the top of the list?
That is not the best.
MaffeoPolo@reddit
Using the app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive restricts submissions to US only media with a handful of Mexican and Irish publications from what I could see. It's a US focused media bias chart which is not very useful on a sub that doesn't want US news.
A lot of very important coverage on the Israel-Iran war is from the middle east and India which isn't represented on it. It's going to give a very US only view on the war, and that's already available on r/worldnews
Hyndis@reddit
May want to increase it even more. Or have filtering based on commonly used accusations.
For example, there's constant accusations that people are bots. Constantly, all over the subreddit, calling people "hasbara" as if this is a useful reply. Or just the clown face emoji.
IMO, the subreddit might be greatly improved by coming down more harshly on accusations of people being bots. On some threads probably a quarter of replies are these kinds of replies that add nothing to the discussion. Or just automodding them out. Does your post contain a clown emoji? Instantly auto modded.
There's no good faith use for these things.
Prosthemadera@reddit
You want even stronger filtering? I don't think CQS can help because I don't think it works well. It filters users that haven't done anything to deserve a low rating.
Prosthemadera@reddit
I have a low CQS and I don't know why. My account is very old and I never had any issues before. Is it because I was permabanned recently from another sub (without being a reason, mind you, the mods refused to tell me why) and shortly after I got my whole account suspended for several days (again, without reason, which is why the admins reverted the suspension)?
Alex09464367@reddit
You're just making an ad for Goodhart's Law, now:
"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure” this principle is Goodhart's Law. When you're using a measure to reward performance it lead to people manipulating the measure to get the reward. This makes the system less effective, while paradoxically improving the measurement of performance.
tupe12@reddit
I realize it’s been a while since this change was added, but I’m putting this here because I was just affected by it. I don’t think the CQS is that reliable as a metric, I’ve gone from being very high to very low and back to very high in just a few days, all without changing what I was doing.
Shady_bookworm51@reddit
even having the moderate filter effectively means someone can not post on the sub as any of the posts with any sort of engagement have the filter and if you basically cant comment on most of the sub, how do you get your score up enough for your comments to not be auto removed?
ptfefan2@reddit
Where do you even check your CQS? The info page doesn't give you any useful info for that
tupe12@reddit
Just post in r/cqs and auto mod will PM you, idk how often it updates, but for me it took a few days to change from very low to very high
LucidFir@reddit
The content quality score system thinks I'm a troll :(
One-Washer@reddit
Cqs is a terrible filter, but everything else I agree with
One-Washer@reddit
Cqs is a terrible filter, but everything else I agree with
Nurple-shirt@reddit
I’m getting filtered despite having a moderate score…
FreedomPuppy@reddit
Might want to do a second purge, just saying. Bunch of astro-turfers and trolls here.
benjaminjaminjaben@reddit
:'(
bhad_e@reddit
The Temptation of Clicking That Link – What Lies Beyond? Hey fellow Redditors! 🌌 Ever find yourself staring at a link that just beckons you to click it? I mean, there’s that little voice in your head whispering, “What if this is the one?” You know the feeling—half curiosity, half caution. I came across this intriguing link (https://beacons.ai/elisa_disa_?fbclid=PAQ0xDSwLXHk1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABp9L922d39vPJLar5YYms39yzuU4zKFG1884C1o1MMdh_wgC82iucFjkvaglb_aem_ZyPfSOEHw_ayoGfrOgTx3g) and it got me thinking about all those moments when we dive into the unknown. It’s like opening a door to a hidden world. So what makes us take that leap? Is it boredom, excitement, or just the thrill of the chase? Let’s discuss! Have you ever clicked on something and found it life-changing—or maybe just a total bust? Share your stories below! 🔍✨
Zebra_Delicious@reddit
Good changes, especially raising the karma and account age requirements. The minimum comment length should help cut down on the low-effort garbage, too.
Zebra_Delicious@reddit
Good changes overall, especially the minimum comment length – should cut down on the drive-by crap considerably. The karma/account age requirements are a bit harsh though, might alienate some good-faith contributors.
MaffeoPolo@reddit
AFAICT using the app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive restricts submissions to US only media with a handful of Mexican and Irish publications. It's a US focused media bias chart which is not very useful on a sub that doesn't want US news.
A lot of very important coverage on the Israel-Iran war is from the middle east and India which isn't represented on it. It's going to give a very US only view on the war, and that's already available on r/worldnews
MaffeoPolo@reddit
Using the app.adfontesmedia.com/chart/interactive restricts submissions to US only media with a handful of Mexican and Irish publications. It's a US focused media bias chart which is not very useful on a sub that doesn't accept US news.
A lot of very important coverage on the Israel-Iran war is from the middle east and India which isn't represented on it. It's going to give a very US only view on the war, and that's already available on r/worldnews
heatedwepasto@reddit
Please, please consider extending this to comments as well. There are so many astroturfing accounts commenting that are just a few months old.
LaraHof@reddit
Professional troll farms constantly create accounts with liw karma farming activities. They will only be used when the are old enough to pass these barriers.
enilea@reddit
Why is India restricted in rule 2.3? I was looking for news on the recent attack here and there was nothing. It's not a country that's so often in the news, especially compared with other allowed countries like palestine/israel
defenestrate_urself@reddit
As of this post, India just launched a missile attack on Pakistan. A direct conflict between 2 nuclear powers.
It's absurd that rule 2.3 means we can't discuss what could potentially be a catastrophic event with worldwide repercussions on a geopolitical news subreddit.
BoppityBop2@reddit
Can we please limit Israel Palestine posts. Like by a large amount. It is drowning out all other conversation.
I feel there needs to be a way to handle flooding of the page with one type of news story way too much, or place a moratorium for many users if they post way too often similar stories.
ExaminatorPrime@reddit
Also to anyone just landing on this sub, there is quite the amount of shadow censorship now where if you rebute a leftist or left leaning view, your comment will be shadow banned. It will still show up in your profile if you are logged in but it will show up as [removed] if you log out. Be aware that there is a definite effort to enforce leftoid and left leaning views on this sub, likely by a handful of mods whose opinions are barely worth using as toilet paper. Know also that they are failing.
(This comment was shadowdeleted and it is important to repost said comments to make theese nobodies understand that they don't get to control the narrative.)
Capital-Tower-5180@reddit
I just came back here after around a year and I am shocked dude. The sub has literally become yet another tankie filth pit, with these 5 users in particular just constantly attacking the west and Ukraine, while of course defending Russia and Iran go figure. I hate reddit so much it’s unreal. Thank god these people aren’t real (jk they are but I’m coping rn)
ExaminatorPrime@reddit
I know what you mean, people, especially western moderate people defending Russia and Iran always seemed so bizarre to me. Mostly because both Russia and Iran would put them in jail for a lot of their popular views in a heartbeat. I like to remember that most of reddit is a leftist/marxist/tankie echo chamber and that people in the real world are not as stupid as the people here on Reddit.
icantbelieveit1637@reddit
It’s also a non zero amount of Russians pretending to be from other places there’s accounts that are barely a month old North America flared and will literally only ever talk about Ukraine and how it’s on the precipice of losing fucking hundreds of comments a day.
Tartan_Samurai@reddit
This sub needs to think about rule 2.3 and how its enforced. We're living in the most rapidly changing geopolitical situation in about a century, and you can't really talk about it on this sub. Which is supposed to be about global affairs. There should be stories on the USA Trade. There should be a story on China saying its ready for any type of war and increasing its defence spending. There are huge things happening in the world right now, and a number of them get auto deleted as soon as posted. It should be looked at.
Demonking3343@reddit
I don’t really like the whole 150 character minimum. I mean I wouldn’t appose it if Reddit actually counted it on our comments but it does not. So what are we supposed to do go to a different app write out comment make sure it’s 150 characters then post it?
And I want to bring up an issue with Mega threads. I know going in a completely different direction but I want to bring this up. Post shouldn’t be throw to 7 month old monthly mega threads. I saw on a post called “Beirut rattled by Izraeli sonic booms before Hesbollah leader’s speech” was taken down by the mod team account because it was apparently covered in a “monthly” mega thread. Now the linked mega thread is over 200 days old and that one was a Israel/hamas mega thread. I’m not making accusations hey it was probably an auto mod mistake. But it just looks like you’re taking down certain posts and sending them to a monthly mega thread to shut down certain discussion. And I do not mean for that to sound rude or accusatory or even argumentative . I just wanted to bring it up to you attention in the event it was just the auto mod being difficult.
astro_plane@reddit
Had one of my comments removed for being under 150 characters. Maybe they should change the name from anime_titties to r/op-ednews if they expect a serious discussion. Unsubbed, this is ridiculous.
Hyndis@reddit
150 characters isn't hard. If you're meaningfully responding to a major global news story (which is what this subreddit is for) you're going to type more than 150 characters.
If you can't manage 150 characters in a reply then its probably just a hot take, reaction, meme, or other comment that isn't particularly thoughtful. Those sorts of replies don't add anything and so really shouldn't be allowed.
Upstairs-Parsley3151@reddit
I feel like questions could be fairly short since they don't actually know the information and are simply a request. That would make asking something simple, like for a source, rather tedious.
mikethespike056@reddit
Agreed. You provide thoughtful insight into the situation with a clear demonstration of how easy it is to reach 150 characters in a comment.
I will upvote your comment after leaving this comment of my own, in order to express my opinion in a civilized manner.
__Pendulum__@reddit
Agreed. Unless the desire if for low tier
"lmao" "So much this!" "Suck it bots" "+1"
Nevarien@reddit
Agreed. And I'm agreeing knowing that I won't be able to simply responding "Agreed" without more context in the future.
Exastiken@reddit
We think 150 characters is fairly reasonable. From our observations, it's roughly the minimum length of a single sentence that demonstrates having read the article.
Megathread-wise, we won't be requiring megathreads for the active conflicts in the future. We had an Automod rule that removed submissions with certain keywords and directed them to the megathread. There was an appeal process stated by Automod for which posts could be re-instated if requested and reviewed via modmila. However a symptom of the Automod megahtreading was megathread evasion, where people figured out they could circumvent Automod by changing up characters in the keywords, to agendapost. It became a game of whack-a-mole, and we didn't feel like it was good to pit ourselves against the community like that. So megathreads are gone, and "Flaired Commenter Only" posts are their hopefully more amicable substitute.
irteris@reddit
How do I self assign a flair? I don't have the option to do so in this subreddit.
Exastiken@reddit
https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair
Demonking3343@reddit
I don’t know, I think what’s going to happen, and what I’m already seeing is that people are just going to start copy and pasting chunks of the article to pad there character count.
voidtreemc@reddit
Just paste a paragraph of lorem ipsum after every comment you make.
Exastiken@reddit
Padding comments in that manner is prohibited.
voidtreemc@reddit
It's a matter of mere moments before the bots posting here will adapt to the 150 character minimum, at which point you'll have to increase it.
Exastiken@reddit
We largely have not had to deal with bot accounts. Reddit seems to deal with them pretty quickly.
NJDevil69@reddit
I personally think the 150 character minimum is a good idea. For astro-turfers who are manually typing comments, this will be too much of a time sink.
My concern is with the astroturfers that have been using ChatGPT to create short essays, complete with cited sources. Mind you, some of the these cited sources are from propaganda websites. Has the moderation come up with a solution to this? If not, I'm happy to provide examples and ideas to you and the mod team.
Hyndis@reddit
ChatGPT tends to be easy to spot, especially when used repeatedly or for big, long posts.
It has a distinct "voice" to it, a certain tone that is much unlike your more typical Reddit post. You might not spot the first use of it, but if the account keeps on using it, it becomes painfully obvious that its AI written.
Corben11@reddit
If you give it zero writing style comments sure. It's easily fixed by giving it writing style.
dopamaxxed@reddit
this 100%
i used to say the same about chatgpt and programming but my friend who's incredibly smart & a much better programmer than i says that prompt engineering can produce incredible results
Arrow156@reddit
People too lazy to make their own shitposts won't put in any more effort than they can get away with and will continue to be easy to spot. The problem will be the ones who actively engage in misinformation and attempt to manipulate the narrative. That is a never ending cat and mouse chace.
Corben11@reddit
It's full force right now with this election. It's so annoying. It's like reddits ruined until this dumb election is over.
I'm happy about the limit here. It at least stops the lazy ones. All the threads are new accounts or less than a year with like 300 karma.
Spouting nonsense. It's annoying, and they say the dumbest shit that makes you wanna type bullcrap back, and it's hard to resist sometimes, lol. Like holy hell, you aren't they stupid, right? But I know it's a bot or paid crap but ugh.
NJDevil69@reddit
I'm learning that not everyone has our eye to spot a chatbot response.
cookiengineer@reddit
So what's the point of this requirement then?
Exastiken@reddit
We get a lot of accounts that interact with the subreddit without having read the subreddit rules. These requirements clear out most of the rule violators, spammers, and astroturfers who do not plan to participate meaningfully in the subreddit.
Apart-Apple-Red@reddit
🤣
Reddit is literally the best training ground for making good bots.
SEA_griffondeur@reddit
This is not a high school writing assignment subreddit, forcing comments full of fluff is just going to make the subreddit unattractive
JosephScmith@reddit
Use yours, this is poorly thought out.
5thvoice@reddit
I'm going to take this moment to shill the (FOSS) Reddit Enhancement Suite add-on. One of its many features is a character counter just above the comment box.
That's a 158 character comment right there—I didn't even have to leave the page to check. And for the lazy:
Firefox page
Chrome page
On Android, it works very well in Firefox. Probably in Chromium browsers, too, though I haven't tested any.
LaraHof@reddit
my comment was just deleted because of some kind of low CQS whatever rating. i liked this sub before for a long time. .but if you delete all my comments bevause I neef a vpn for umbiased news in my country thats bad.
archontwo@reddit
Sounds fair enough. 150 chars is not too big an ask it is basically a long tweet.
If you cannot form your thoughts into a coherent tweet size, then it can't have been much of a thought in the first place.
The flair was a little irritating because i ended up having to do it via the desktop as via mobile it does not expose that option.
But it is done now so, no matter.
FRcomes@reddit
Or just often shit is simply not worth wasting time on a detailed answer, but judging by what this sub has become over the past months, now all the content here will be like this, so it seems that banning short answers was good move from mods (if they wanted make another r/worldnews)
archontwo@reddit
In the last 12 months, all of reddit has changed. So many bots and GPT generated comments it is a shadow of what it used to be.
No longer a haven for the excluded and educated, for the cultured and uncouth, or the passionate and professional, it has become micro echo chambers all recycling the same drivel.
Gone are the days of mass protests and justified outrage. Reddit has even go so far as to make sure blackouts can happen anymore.
No my friend. I don't think there is any hope for Reddit and I am resolved to leaving it for good very soon.
Good luck.
Shady_bookworm51@reddit
So you basically killed the sub to any new users as the moderate filter means most of the sub is off limits to them so there is no real way to increase their score to be able to use any of the filtered posts.
StunningRing5465@reddit
I post on mobile via the website on safari. Sounds dumb but the reddit app is shit for me and the browser generally is best.
But I cannot figure out how to flair myself the way I view the website, and I keep posting on the Israel Palestine threads and then I remember I don’t have a flair. For reasons i also am not able to do this on pc.
I am not complaining, this is a fringe enough thing that I don’t need to be accommodated, but I am just wondering if anyone has any tips on how to flair yourself if viewing on a mobile browser
GNUGradyn@reddit
Lol when your comment quality rule forces people to pad their comments with meaningless filler. This comment is very good and it is 151 characters long
Difficult_Bit_1339@reddit
I've been posting here for months but now this "CQS" filter is preventing me from posting in flavored threads?
What are the criteria for this filter? There's no information on this other than "you can't comment in flair only threads".
CQS doesn't work when the bots can mass downvote commenters and drop their CQS to the point where they're automatically banned from posts by the auto moderator.
Using CQS means the people you're trying to filter out can game the system by using accounts that never have to post. They can simply flag your account and ensure your comments in this subreddit always get downvoted, keeping your CQS low enough that you can't comment on the Israeli threads.
doxylaminator@reddit
Is this place for world news or just Israel and Ukraine? It's obnoxious that virtually the entire front of the subreddit is just about those two countries. Yes, there's news happening there and it's important, but there's _far_ more going on in the world than just those two places. Can we get them added to the list with the US, India, and China? Or have them curtailed to a single megathread per day or something?
tupe12@reddit
I noticed a few times during a few comment arguments that I get a reply notification, but the actual reply itself doesn’t show up when I try to find it. Is this one of the auto mod things you’re trying? Also is the whole “150 minimum character count for top comments” still a thing?
SqueekyOwl@reddit
That's what happens when a post has been deleted.
Dreadedvegas@reddit
I believe there are keywords that hide comments but don’t notify the user that their comment was moderated.
tupe12@reddit
Figures, makes me wonder how many times I had my comments hidden without my knowing
Dreadedvegas@reddit
From what I can determine they are common words with negative connotations that do get thrown around this sub as an insult sometimes. One is a word that refers to British communists who defended the Soviet / Warsaw Pact invasion of Hungary
heatedwepasto@reddit
Saying "tankie" is fine
tupe12@reddit
Weird because I’ve been able to use that word quite a few times and still got responses
Dreadedvegas@reddit
It mightve been reported versus the other times it wasn’t.
So if the comment gets reported the automod hits it
Winjin@reddit
This happens throughout the whole Reddit and is not limited to Titties - I'd say the mod team is actually very light on this sort of thing here.
One thing I've noticed is that the whole Runet is basically banned. Doesn't matter if that is political or not, the ru-domain is auto-deleted sitewide, even if you try to link a cat picture or something related to winter houses or anything else.
Exastiken@reddit
Those are largely Reddit-wide banned domains.
Winjin@reddit
Exactly. People tend to think that it's some sort of shady dealings from the Mod team, when it's really just part of Reddit-wide banning of Russian sites because the trolls and tankies probably used all kinds of innocuous Russian websites to argue online. It's not done by the Mod team and as I said, the mod team here is actually rather forgiving.
Exastiken@reddit
That would probably be someone without enough comment karma or being unflaired in a "Flaired Commenters Only" post attempting to reply to you, and having the comment removed by Automod.
tupe12@reddit
From what I recall they were def users who were both flaired and already commenting elsewhere in the thread, and were still able to talk with others afterwords.
Exastiken@reddit
It's also possible they got caught by the profanity filter.
RandomGuyPii@reddit
Is there a reason why several rules appear to be crossed out on the sidebar, or is it just a case of markdown fuckery with old reddit? I mean it doesn't really make sense for rule 2 to be crossed out so I'm assuming the latter?
HoFattoScaloAGrado@reddit
How come I can comment in this sub but not in response to articles submitted by u/United24Media? I have posed my question and these subsequent words are written with the intent of giving weighy to my previous words
Hyndis@reddit
They may have blocked you. You can't respond to a post if a poster higher up in the thread has blocked you.
You don't get a message that you're blocked either, just a vague error.
HoFattoScaloAGrado@reddit
Thanks for the suggestion! They can't have blocked me cos I can still them, I think?
Also, weirdly, for a more or less state news outlet that posts their own articles here regularly, I just noticed they are a moderator of the sub... what a mess!
Britstuckinamerica@reddit
Is there any reason you've allowed the literal Ukrainian government to post seemingly every story they publish here (believe me, I would be against RT posting here too) for months, while the rule against agendaposting exists?
TutsiRoach@reddit
Hi,
Im new to red it, havnt worked out how to get a flair in my ancient phone which is the only access i have.
I have had two posts auto deleted though lack of flair. Trying to work oit how to do it.... but in the meantime have a question about this too.
Not really sure what constitutes a gender posting Phil? I have to admit I have an agenda. I only really came onto Reddit in response to the Gaza situation, So it is likely the majority of my post will be in association with this. Would you prefer if I did not engage in this subreddit when i come up to a year on the platform? (Seems i dont meet the criterion to post anyways)
(I doubt i'd have to worry much about the 150 characters thing sorry this is so long)
TutsiRoach@reddit
(PS hoping that i will never get to my years anniversary on here as a permanent ceasefire would be far more preferable solution)
Exastiken@reddit
We did temporarily ban them prior, and had reached out through modmail to require them to follow daily submission limits and follow agendaposting rules. We will review their account again.
__Pendulum__@reddit
At this stage, it's multiple times daily propaganda. With a beyond obvious agenda. I'd hope the goal would be neutrality in reporting, not rage/gloat bait.
Winjin@reddit
Hahaha yeah that's not very neutral
kirosayshowdy@reddit
wow I did not know it was the UA gov
AncientAsstronaut@reddit
What is their reddit name?
Britstuckinamerica@reddit
Updated the comment to add the account, UNITED24Media
WestScythe@reddit
Thank non existent God. So many subreddits die because of the karma limit being so lenient.
__Pendulum__@reddit
Can make the barrier for entry for new users high at first. If someone's first experience day 1 of Reddit is getting banned for a reasonable comment, they're less likely to hang about Reddit as a whole.
But definitely a necessary evil
heatedwepasto@reddit
Yeah, can be hard to get karma if you're not able to post anywhere to get karma
I don't think you get banned though, I think the comment/post is just rejected or removed
Lutra_Lovegood@reddit
Since this is usually set as an automod rule, the comment gets automatically removed (though mods can still see and approve the comment).
Winjin@reddit
Just so that everyone understands it clearly, this comment is exactly 151 characters long. It is not that much of an issue as you you pretend it to be.
Neutral_Meat@reddit
Your comment adds several extra words to meet the limit and sounds worse for it.
SilveredUndead@reddit
It’s 3 lines on a tiny phone screen. If you have anything useful to say, you will easily exceed the required character requirement, with or without padding. If you can’t think of enough to say, it might be better to say nothing at all.
Knowing when to listen instead of talking is a skill a lot of people lack, particularly on reddit. I read this subreddit for the more nuanced thoughts on the subjects covered, and the place is better off without having everybody feel the need to add their 2 cents.
OriginalUsername1892@reddit
Brevity is the source of wit. You lack brevity
SilveredUndead@reddit
It didn’t take me 49 days to come up with my response though. Your wit had long wilted before you finally found it.
Forsaken_Hat_7010@reddit
It doesn't have to be "useful", sometimes it can be a simple question. It's a stupid rule, and the mods haven't thought enough about it.
QuackSomeEmma@reddit
Sounds like a typical ESL sentence ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Exastiken@reddit
Yep.
SubstantialLuck777@reddit
How do I get a flair? I can't seem to find any instructions for this.
Also I am adding additional words here to meet the minimum character requirements.
possibl33@reddit
Can someone post this
https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/moody-s-downgrades-israel-again-as-economic-costs-of-full-fledged-war-mount-124092800633_1.html
Rainos62@reddit
can we just ban all israel palestine content it's flooding the community and it's taking away devolving this sub from world news to Israel and palestine BS that should be reserved for subs like r/israelpalestine which is dedicated to that discussion. I feel it's degrading the quality of this sub and feels degenerative to what this sub is supposed to be or make new rules that make it much stricter on that specific content
Zipz@reddit
"Accounts must now be 1 year old to post. We will continue to monitor agendaposting traits in 1+ year old accounts."
When will this be starting. Im tired of all the new propaganda accounts.
AVeryBadMon@reddit
Mods we need to have a meta megathread pinned to the top of this sub.
You guys need to listen to community's input when it comes to which direction this sub should go. You can't just not answer modmail and private the meta A_Tmeta sub, leaving the community with no avenue of communication.
There are a lot of things that you guys are doing that are just annoying, but I'm sure most of the users agree with me. For example:
Rule 3.2 and 2.4 and 4 as a whole get violated sooooooooooooooooo often that it begs the question, wtf the mods are doing?
The 1 year requirement for posting is ridiculous. It may make sense to somebody who's terminally online, but this site will always have a large proportion of new users. It doesn't make sense to gatekeep all these people out of participating. Besides there's no guarantee that older accounts post higher quality content. In fact the most blatant violators of rule 3.2 are from older accounts.
Rule 2.3 needs to get updated. I can understand limiting the US due to the demographics of the site, but India and China? We can't just permanently ban new from the world's two biggest countries. This rule made sense a few years ago when there was influx from pro/anti China agendaposters and then again later when there was an influx of Indian nationalist when the Chodi sub got banned. However, that time has passed and so have those users. It's time to update this rule.
There's a lot more suggestions to be made by a lot of people. At least try to have a dialogue with the users here. I remember a few years ago, the mods on this sub had a nice balance of moderating to keep the quality high while also being hands off to foster free discussions. That time has passed. You guys have introduced so many bad rules over the years that old philosophy is no longer true. You guys are going in the wrong direction when it comes to moderating and the quality of this sub is suffering because of it.
JosebaZilarte@reddit
The 150 character limit has deleted two of my (relevant) comments without warning and since I have not received any answer from the mods, I have decided to leave this community. I hope that, at least, the decrease in the number of members make the mods rethink that rule.
P.S.This very comment was removed even when it followed the rule (with +200 characters), because I added padding at the end to be sure. This shows how inconsistent the rule 2.3.4 is (or at least, how it should be divided into two rules) and how bad it makes the experience on mobile phones (where you do not have a good way to count the number of characters in the first place). I truly believe that, if this rule has to be imposed, the UI should be able to indicate when there are too few characters (making the comment button innactive or something). Otherwise it goes against the basic design of Reddit and should be eliminated.
JosebaZilarte@reddit
The 150 character limit has deleted two of my (relevant) comments without warning and since I have not received any answer from the mods, I have decided to leave this community. I hope that, at least, the decrease in the number of members make the mods rethink that rule.
And now, a lot of garbage to make sure I reach that arbitrary limit (because, without an inbuilt counter, the uncertainty forces me to resort to this). Sjegrvdudnes. Where when we'd the the e she rehd rhehe 3ejbe rekene 3uenw tie e eie e euehrvrh4rgrg4v4 ehevrg4 ehe rhrj4j4 euebeheene bduebebeiei e eye the wiw die e 3ejjeh3 rur 3y33vr she e 3ueb3rheb ruwkwvr euw ruenehryr e eueheveheuebrue eueveyeusbe eueveydueue eye eueueirb3iw9qh37gur ueu3ueheidhr wueiebe rieveyeuehr eieiejebr wuevrgeuhehrruru eeueheu.
anime_titties-ModTeam@reddit
Your comment has been removed because it violates Rule 3: Comments must be at least 150 characters long. Do not pad comments.
ExaminatorPrime@reddit
Also to anyone just landing on this sub, there is quite the amount of shadow censorship now where if you rebute a leftist or left leaning view, your comment will be shadow banned. It will still show up in your profile if you are logged in but it will show up as [removed] if you log out. Be aware that there is a definite effort to enforce leftoid and left leaning views on this sub, likely by a handful of mods whose opinions are barely worth using as toilet paper. Know also that they are failing.
Fit_Flower_8982@reddit
I'd rather unsubscribe than waste time counting characters.
The above text is all I wanted to say, this is just chaff to fill the quota, but ironically relevant to the topic. I just wasted your time too, don't blame me but the mods for their useless and pointless measure.
NonRangedHunter@reddit
At what point is what is said considered padding?
That's really all I wanted to know, so I guess now I'll just fill in these words to be over the limit required for a top level comment.
Rainos62@reddit
I feel like we also get a lot of israel palestine bots that are just pushing an agenda rather trying to promote actual world politics. I think these rules will help mitigate that
wet_suit_one@reddit
Eh. Fair enough. I've been known to make the kneejerk comment. And having some flair won't kill me.
Thanks for trying to keep it civilized and productive. So much of everything is just pure sewage.
It's a losing battle of course, but I applaud you for fighting the fight.
Cheers!
The_IT_Dude_@reddit
This is interesting stuff. I enjoy looking into the Reddit meta and how subs operate. Speaking of which, if you guys ate having issues with people attacking one another here, I have made an AI bot, which has been proven to be extremely effective at reporting comments of users attacking one another. It's probably better than most anything else out there right now. If you'd like for it to also monitor this sub here, let me know.
I've seen how this type of behavior can destroy a place like this in an attempt to make it unusable and want this place to continue on as best it can.
SowingSalt@reddit
Does anyone else have the problem where the "flared users only" part of the post flair is truncated?
Since the implementation of the new rule, I haven't seen a single flair with the rule not be completely cut off.
Does this meet the 150 character rule?
PerunVult@reddit
Is there any enforcement on accuracy of flairs? Is enforcement of that even possible?
I honestly don't understand point of "flaired users only" if flair can be self assigned in a few seconds. I know some other subreddits use it, but what purpose does it serve in practice?
While I think top level comments shorter than 150 characters can meaningfully contribute, I don't personally have an issue with this restriction.
heatedwepasto@reddit
No.
migzo65@reddit
Are we going to ensure the US, India, China content policy? Recently this sub has been inundated with posts from the US and mods have done basically nothing.
Fit_Flower_8982@reddit
Very disappointed by the 150 character limit.
Screw flanders, screw flanders, screw flanders, screw flanders, screw flanders, screw flanders, screw flanders.
TheDelig@reddit
As much as it very mildly bothers me that I cannot post dumb and short quips to certain comments I am with this update. I will also have to remember to type like Data from Star Trek speaks and no longer use contractions.
HalfLeper@reddit
When it says 200 comment karma, they mean across the whole site and not just in this sub, right? Because otherwise, new people would never be able to post is an extra, yet obvious sentence I have to add to meet the minimum post length requirement.
Exastiken@reddit
200 comment karma, sitewide.
The_Queef_of_England@reddit
Been here awhile now. Today, automod ruined the experience. It feels like you have an agenda as a sub, and if it continues, I'm off. You became popular because we came here. If you make us leave, you become a dead sub. Careful who you ostracise.
slightlyrabidpossum@reddit
Does the one year rule apply to comments or just posts?
Also, while I appreciate the intent behind the character limit, it seems like it will create problems. There are many situations (like this question) where 150+ characters are completely unnecessary. My observation about character limits is unoriginal and only serves to meet said character limit.
__Pendulum__@reddit
I would like to know the answer to this as well. Recently returned to Reddit, and would be a shame if I was soft banned from this subreddit for many more months as a result of this change.
slightlyrabidpossum@reddit
A mod had clarified that it's just for posts.
Exastiken@reddit
The 1 year rule applies to just posts.
AtroScolo@reddit
Making it impossible for -1year accounts to post is positive in a way, because it closes the revolving door on trolls, but it's a clunky way to do it when active moderation and more than a couple of moderators active in the community would do the job. The same is true for each rule you've enacted here, they're half-measures that mix obvious downsides into the upsides, all for the sake of automating a process that cannot be automated effectively.
Most of all though, how do you differentiate yourself from other subs now? You aren't "more free" than Worldnews, but you also aren't as well moderated as them either. Your automod is just as likely to remove "hostile" language, and now you have character limits and flair requirements for many posts. Except for Exastiken your mods are slow to respond, which turns your "50% limit" for US/China/India into a de facto ban on anything with those names in the title.
When will you figure it out? You keep spinning your wheels and trying to find some formula that will do your modding for you, and that's just not how it works.
BroDudeBruhMan@reddit
Love the 1 year rule. I’m so tired of going through Reddit and seeing all these 20 day old accounts who spam agenda propaganda posts in a bunch of subs covering controversial world topics. Clearly someone, or some bot, created an account just to spread an agenda under the disguise of some innocent generic person on Reddit.
AtroScolo@reddit
It's a good rule for a broken system, but it's still a broken system. What's the logical endpoint of restricting new accounts from being active? It's a lack of new people, except for ones who are willing/able to buy accounts, governments who are willing to sit on troves of accounts for a year or more, and advertisers who see a ROI on buying tranches of used accounts.
So in the current, broken context yeah it's great that obvious ban dodging trolls like Icy Cry can't spam on every single article, it's genuinely refreshing, but this isn't a long-term solution. Meanwhile a known solution exists: having enough active moderators who spend enough time in a community to tell the difference between an obvious troll and the rest of us. People who can recognize posting styles and call bs when someone is banned one day, and clearly shows up on a new account the next stay spouting the same stuff.
Automated measures are desperation moves, nothing more, nothing less.
Dreadedvegas@reddit
I’m not a fan of the 150 characters. The rest of the stuff I do support. But the 150 characters seems over the top especially when you have made all these other changes.
Pklnt@reddit
150 characters is quite low, I don't understand how it is supposed to prevent shallow/low level comments, 150 characters certainly won't force people to make an insightful comment either.
At some point it's going to work with people not accustomed to that new rule, but it won't prevent them from doing much, they're going to make their sentences a little bit bigger and that's it.
The only thing that this rule does... is making sure that comments are 150 characters long, that's it.
Dreadedvegas@reddit
Its a pretty arbitrary number and Ive had a comment removed that was like 140ish characters but not 150. Its why I think its a dumb rule to have.
The flaring alone probably will do more.
Nevarien@reddit
Your comment has 186 characters, for instance, so I wouldn't be too worried about it.
So basically you will need a ~two sentence comment or a one elaborated phrase to be allowed to comment. I think that's good enough.
Dreadedvegas@reddit
Nah the rule is dumb. Arbitrary and dumb.
Pklnt@reddit
Yes, as I said, 150 characters is incredibly low if you want insightful comments.
If it's made to prevent low level comments, you're going to have 151 characters low level comments.
Im-so-controversial@reddit
Thank you for responding to my request.
I appreciate this response, but I am still not sure how applying a flair is going to stop the spamming. People are just showing up as multinational or North Korea, and I don't think this is going to stop spammers from doing the same. If they can buy old accounts, they will learn to masquerade here as another country. Now flairs are untrustworthy.
Also, sometimes I want to try to share sources other than Western mainstream media but AutoMod is making things harder. I ask that you lift the ban on The Intercept, The Cradle, The Hill, The Hindu, Al Mayadeen etc, because you allow UNITED24Media, MSN News and Yahoo News. You also allow TeleSUR. All I ask is for some consistency, please let me know.
d_for_dumbas@reddit
And thus the mods decree that my comments shall fulfill more than 150 characters, this is a glorious day to fuck over the bots and kneejerks.
But seriously this should hhopefully mitigate much of the bullshit in regars to top comments and reading the article in question, (if only there was a way to actually force a commenter to have read the damn thing beforehand).
ChuuniNurgle@reddit
Eh, wasn't it 150 chars for a top level comment already? I had a couple of removed comments the other day but misunderstood the rule and messaged the mods about it.
Exastiken@reddit
https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair
ChuuniNurgle@reddit
Thanks, I never noticed that at all. It doesn't look like a button unless you hover over it imo.
StandardReceiver@reddit
So I guess no budging on the accounts less than 1 year old posting. That’s wild seeing as how many bot accounts are just old accounts they bought, but if that’s what y’all think will help then so be it. I strongly disagree with this, even more than the comment character minimum, but I guess we’ll see how it plays out.
Hyndis@reddit
The 1 year limit makes botting more difficult. It also makes ban evasion more difficult. Someone who's banned can't make a new account and be back posting within 30 minutes.
No, it doesn't solve all of these problems, but its a super low hurdle that many bots or banned accounts can't clear. It at least is something of a barrier to filter some of them out.
ExaminatorPrime@reddit
Ah so the idea is that if you make a short comment that goes against whatever generic left leaning opinion people vomit on here it can now get easily removed, if its the top comment. Sly attempt at censorship, but like with most attempts to steer the server to be more left leaning, it will fail. Bet thats going to be enforced one sided too, seen far too many servers pull that shit.
doabarrelroll69@reddit
It's really not that deep lol (besides isn't Reddit mostly used by young people, and aren't they more left leaning?), besides, 150 words are not a lot, hell on mobile it's less than two full lines. But if you manage to not hit the limit, I'm sure pulling up a dictionary and writing in the most roundabout and verbose way possible should work
ExaminatorPrime@reddit
All of that is indeed true. Well put.
warnie685@reddit
The rules seem fine to me, I just hope in the case of moderation that the mods will be open to discuss it, rather than just ignore you like on worldnews where even a relatively innocuous comment can get you banned for life if you are on the wrong side.
Question: If my comment is too short and gets removed, do I have to copy and paste it into a new comment and extend it, or can I edit the original post to being it over the 150 limit?
Exastiken@reddit
Automod is finicky with a second review, it can be hit or miss, so I would recommend making a new comment.
warnie685@reddit
Grand, thanks for replying.
tired_mathematician@reddit
Well, I should apologize for being very confrontational on the past couple of months and upping my tankie retorhic to 11. Kinda drove me to the wall to see blatant agenda posting and astroturfing turning this place into worldnews 2 and made me go into offensive.
But nice changes overall, it's good to see.
aquilaPUR@reddit
I have seen some criticism towards the 150 character requirement, but honestly, it might be just the right thing. Because one thing you will notice on basically every "controversial" post are people dropping in to comment short whataboutisms or strawmans, to no other end than to basically once again "1up" the perceived "opposition."
This is so common I just started ignoring it.
Examples will go like: Submission/ "X is doing bad thing" and comments will be "wow but people on this sub/other sub said X is good, looks like I was right again, everyone not agreeing is nitpicky and biased, bye bye"
This adds nothing to the conversation and just further spins the wheel in the other direction on the next post who has a different perspective. But basically, the character requirement is certainly more effective than Karma/Account age requirements, plenty of Bots have those too, it might deter some of the most low effort stuff, but thats about it.
But to zoom out a bit more, you will also notice how literally every single post on this Sub that does NOT directly tie into any real or even perceived "west v X" category actually has high quality discussion, often with users native to the regions related to the topic, and are usually what I enjoy the most on this sub.
Whenever something Russia/Gaza related comes up, you already know you are up for a shitshow, as it quickly escalates into shouting matches and shit flinging with the same accounts repeating the same three talking points over and over again, and we even have some power users who will do nothing but spam stuff like that.
I enjoy a healthy discussion as much as the next guy, and I certainly dont want to turn this place into an ideological echo-chamber, as many other news subreddits already have, but its a fact that many users who got banned from these sites eventually end up here, because they are either very passionate/combative, toxic or straight up peddle propaganda or engage in astroturfing. It is just disheartening and annoying trying to make some arguments here only to get hit with 20 whataboutisms, looking at the Guys profile and realize that he has no real interest in engaging in honest discussion.
These people drown out the conversation, discourage others from posting because they aggressively downvote anything they dont like, and are generally a pain to deal with.
Still, its good to see that Mods at least know about it and are monitoring the Situation. I guess you can only do so much, its just the times we live in. Two highly polarizing conflicts at the same time, stuff will spill over.
voidtreemc@reddit
I'm sure the 150 character limit will work.
Soluta doloremque incidunt distinctio blanditiis tempora. Quo hic velit accusantium. Nam voluptatem doloribus et. Impedit eos nihil amet maiores velit. Autem nisi laboriosam at nobis.
Consequatur ea vel consectetur rerum. Ab eaque enim minus distinctio sunt voluptatem a a. Cupiditate rerum exercitationem pariatur ex perferendis animi. Cum omnis consequatur quibusdam autem. Aperiam aperiam quia velit vel. Ut reprehenderit asperiores vel fuga delectus.
Winjin@reddit
150 characters is not that much, actually. No need for a whole "dolores si amet" thing, this is what 150 characters looks like. This comment here is 152
Exastiken@reddit
\\_(ツ)\_/¯
(Not a top-level comment.)
voidtreemc@reddit
I'm practicing.
anime_titties-ModTeam@reddit
Your comment has been removed. Comments must be at least 150 characters long. Do not pad comments.
All_Ogre@reddit
The 150 characters one is a weird rule honestly. If the top comment happens to be 140 characters does it get deleted or smth? Not to mention, it’s kind of easy to see how this will just result in people simply putting in an obligatory copypasta to circumvent this rule.
Exastiken@reddit
Yes, if it's under 150 characters, a top-level comment gets removed. Padding is not allowed, though ironically people trying to pad are putting more effort into padding than extending the comment by a few additional words.
All_Ogre@reddit
Yeah, kind of forgot the top-level part. If you think about it, there’s very little chance a padded comment would even reach the top in the first place.
Winjin@reddit
150 comments is not a lot, though. Your post is 265 character long. This is 151. More than enough for a short reply that's still not just "fake and gay"
kirosayshowdy@reddit
lol original comment got ████ed because character threshold
god bless the post auto-flairing instead of megathreads
also god bless the one-year requirement to post thing
the character thing is understandable but I'm not sure about the execution. grateful the mods care at all tbh cuz that is not so common anymore
Tsofuable@reddit
Sounds like reasonable rules in my opinion. Personally I don't engage in megathreads since my feed is set to latest, so I'm understandably not a supporter for those - but that's just my use case. 150 characters is easy to attain, that's like 30 average length words. Wishing you luck with the moderation.
Britstuckinamerica@reddit
...
Did you want to solve the problems you identified or not lol