Reddit should really stop this culture where every community has its own weird little rulebook and make some basic universal rules for posting. Or at least give communities better guidelines for what rules they’re allowed to create.

I get it, they need to stop spam, bots, scams, illegal posts, harassment, and all that. That’s fine. But come on. It’s getting ridiculous.

For example, I tried to post an unpopular opinion about alcohol consumption declining. My point was that it probably has more to do with dating apps, social media, and young people not being as bored as before, rather than just higher prices and health concerns. A pretty non-offensive opinion.

The post was removed because the subject was apparently banned. So I checked the banned topics, and this was in a community meant for unpopular opinions, by the way. They had dozens of vague banned subjects, including alcohol. Why? How is alcohol too controversial for a place that is supposed to be about unpopular opinions?

Then there are a bunch of other random rules. So anyway, I tried posting it somewhere else, and it got removed because I apparently have a “throwaway-sounding” Reddit name. I’ve been posting comments and posts for the past couple of years. Why not just check that? Why judge the whole account by the name?

Then I tried a place actually related to alcohol, and it was removed there too. I posted it somewhere else, it went pending, and then it was removed because I didn’t have enough upvotes in that specific community.

And for those who say, “YOU MUST READ THE RULES BEFORE YOU POST, IDIOT, IT’S NOT THAT HARD,” that’s exactly the problem.

When people have an idea, a question, or something they want to share, they write it down and usually can only think of two or three places where it might fit. So they go to those places. One has a rule saying your idea is not allowed because it mentions some vague banned topic like politics, alcohol, family, or whatever. Another allows the topic but does not allow your username. Another allows both, but you do not have enough karma or enough posts in that specific community.

Then you finally find the “right” place. You are allowed to post. You get through the filters. People start discussing it. And then, after an hour of active conversation, it gets removed anyway because apparently there was already a similar post about it five months ago.

It takes people time to write a decent post. It’s ridiculous to have to go through some weird rulebook every time you post something, only for it to get removed because of some vague technicality or rule interpretation.

And then you scroll through Reddit, and it’s filled with absolute shit anyway.

Find a better solution for bots, or make more universal rules for communities, and let downvoting do its thing.