https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3fx2au/content_policy_update/
created by spez on 05/08/2015 at 20:17 UTC*
3995 upvotes, 209 top-level comments (showing 25)
Today we are releasing an update to our Content Policy[1]. Our goal was to consolidate the various rules and policies that have accumulated over the years into a single set of guidelines we can point to.
1: https://www.reddit.com/help/contentpolicy
Thank you to all of you who provided feedback throughout this process. Your thoughts and opinions were invaluable. This is not the last time our policies will change, of course. They will continue to evolve along with Reddit itself.
Our policies are not changing dramatically from what we have had in the past. One new concept is Quarantining a community, which entails applying a set of restrictions to a community so its content will only be viewable to those who explicitly opt in. We will Quarantine communities whose content would be considered extremely offensive to the average redditor.
Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else. Our most important policy over the last ten years has been to allow just about anything so long as it does not prevent others from enjoying Reddit for what it is: the best place online to have truly authentic conversations.
I believe these policies strike the right balance.
update: I know some of you are upset because we banned *anything* today, but the fact of the matter is we spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with a handful of communities, which prevents us from working on things for the other 99.98% (literally) of Reddit. I'm off for now, thanks for your feedback. RIP my inbox.
Comment by Cheech5 at 05/08/2015 at 20:20 UTC
3732 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else. Our most important policy over the last ten years has been to allow just about anything so long as it does not prevent others from enjoying Reddit for what it is: the best place online to have truly authentic conversations
Which communities have been banned?
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 21:59 UTC*
590 upvotes, 6 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by BillW87 at 05/08/2015 at 20:21 UTC
1968 upvotes, 2 direct replies
For the sake of transparency I feel like it would be best to make the list of banned communities public. With all of the concerns lately about the admins not being transparent enough, banning subs without telling us who they are seems counterproductive.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 20:21 UTC*
862 upvotes, 2 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by TheMentalist10 at 05/08/2015 at 20:20 UTC*
1760 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Will you be sharing information about the communities which are Quarantined? Will moderators of those communities know if their subreddit has been affected?
Edit: Just as it's not immediately obvious, **/r/Coontown has been banned**
Edit 2: Here's what it looks like when you try to access a Quarantined subreddit
Edit 3: And here's what private subs now look like. Fancy!
Comment by dwchief at 05/08/2015 at 20:22 UTC
1087 upvotes, 3 direct replies
If a user is subscribed to a Quarantined subreddit, will it still appear on *their* front page?
Comment by [deleted] at 06/08/2015 at 12:21 UTC
30 upvotes, 1 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by username3 at 05/08/2015 at 20:22 UTC
381 upvotes, 2 direct replies
"the average redditor"
Yikes
Comment by Mindless_Consumer at 05/08/2015 at 20:42 UTC
133 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Opting into 'offensive' subs. Do we opt into each 'offensive' sub? Or is there a "opt into offensive subs" button? Like a NSFW filter, only for 'offensive' material.
Comment by Naked_Bacon_Tuesday at 05/08/2015 at 20:24 UTC
708 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else. Our most important policy over the last ten years has been to allow just about anything so long as it does not prevent others from enjoying Reddit for what it is: the best place online to have truly authentic conversations.
If you do plan to ban subs, I'm sure reddit would enjoy an itemized list of ban reasons/offenses by each sub. This shouldn't necessarily include a link or something to an example of the offense, but the list provided should be detailed enough for a reasonable person to say, "OK, yeah, that's clear enough to require the ban."
But the bans should definitely be released and reasons for them made clear.
Comment by kochevnikov at 05/08/2015 at 21:08 UTC
591 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Any plans to deal with moderator abuse in some of the larger subs like /r/news or /r/politics ? Certain mods will delete comments and hand out bans for advancing political opinions or posting stories they disagree with. For example /r/news is notorious for censoring stories related to the TPP.
Also what about plans to deal with mods who mod 20, 50, or even more than 100 subs? Clearly they're simply in it for the power and can't even pretend to be able to actually moderate that many, especially that many large or default subs.
These things make reddit worse as a space, much more than some of the rather spurious claims people are making in the rest of this thread.
Comment by CarmineCerise at 05/08/2015 at 20:19 UTC
438 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Today, in addition to applying Quarantines, we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.
Will there be a clear list of banned subreddits?
Comment by DonkiestOfKongs at 05/08/2015 at 20:55 UTC
163 upvotes, 3 direct replies
From an information security standpoint: How will you be storing the data about what quarantined subreddits I've opted into? In the event of a security breach, how easily could this information be associated with my 'verified email'?
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 20:24 UTC
2207 upvotes, 3 direct replies
This page (https://www.reddit.com/about/alien/[1]) says that
1: https://www.reddit.com/about/alien/
Remember: "reddit" is always lowercase.
But your Content Policy spells it with a capital R, has this branding changed?
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 22:08 UTC
550 upvotes, 4 direct replies
[deleted]
Comment by Facerless at 05/08/2015 at 20:22 UTC
260 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Are these going to be used against communities that are centered around the pre-existing hatred or dislike of a group or person?
I realize this is nit picking but this is still fairly vague
What constitutes encouragement or how will you decide what incites someone to action?
Comment by AgrDotA at 05/08/2015 at 21:08 UTC
265 upvotes, 7 direct replies
I'm surprised reddit is okay with actual beastiality but lolicon goes too far.
LMFAO
Comment by drebin8 at 05/08/2015 at 21:19 UTC
175 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Can you add a permanent opt-in? I'm not really offended by anything, so it seems silly to warn me about things that other people may find offensive. Just add a setting or something to ignore the quarantine...
Comment by mn920 at 05/08/2015 at 22:02 UTC*
1672 upvotes, 7 direct replies
Holy crap that content policy is vague.
A community will be Quarantined on Reddit when we deem its content to be extremely offensive or upsetting to the average redditor.
So, a quarantine happens when you believe that at least 50.1% of reddit users would be extremely offended or upset by a community? Seeing as how we're a pretty liberal, secular crowd, I'd like you to please quarantine subreddits relating to religion and conservative politics. I, and arguably 50.1% of reddit, find them upsetting.
Photographs, videos, or digital images of you in a state of nudity or engaged in any act of sexual conduct, taken without your permission.
So, "revenge porn" and /r/TheFappening is OK, since the photos were *taken* with permission and only later used without permission?
Do not post content that incites harm against people or groups of people.
What the hell is "harm"? Only physical injury and illegal acts, or does it also cover any negative impact, such as loss of income or emotional distress? Further, when does somebody incite harm? If I make a post in good-faith that tends to increase the likelihood a person or group will be harmed, have I violated this policy?
Harassment on Reddit is defined as systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person conclude that reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or fear for their safety or the safety of those around them.
Like "harm," this policy abuses the word "safety." What does it mean? Only physical safety, or the safety of my ideas *a la* safe-spaces[1]?
1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-space
As if that isn't enough, you've apparently created an exception to the content policy within its first hour:
... we are banning a handful of communities that exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else.
Ridiculously, this standard for *banning* is easier to meet than the standard for quarantining. And it gets even worse when your later comments implicitly change the "and" to an "or." Reddit's content policy now seems to ban any content or communities that "generally make Reddit worse." You can't get more vague than that.
I also take serious issue with how quarantines are implemented. It's a generally good idea to keep certain, well-defined categories of content isolated. But requiring login and e-mail confirmation isn't so much quarantining as it is imposing arbitrary standards to make it harder for the communities to exist. Why not also start limiting their comments to 200 characters just for kicks? You could achieve a quarantine using much more narrowly tailored means--just require a NSFW-like confirmation per subreddit, exclude them from /r/all, and block search engines from indexing.
In short, I'm extremely disappointed. Not so much because of the policy itself but because of how you've misled the community into thinking that Reddit was truly interested in community feedback and in creating clear standards. **You've created a content policy with a bunch of words, but an overriding exception that boils down to "if we don't like it."**
Comment by Demolishing at 05/08/2015 at 20:21 UTC
265 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Is involuntary pornography
How will this affect stuff like /r/amateur and /r/realgirls and /r/SluttyHalloween ?
Comment by wigglypoocool at 05/08/2015 at 22:23 UTC
73 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Create "quarantine" subs, then turns around and bans subreddit...
Why bother creating quarantines in the first place?
Comment by The_Homestarmy at 05/08/2015 at 20:25 UTC
175 upvotes, 1 direct replies
How will this affect /r/hulkhogan, brother?
Comment by LadyKa at 05/08/2015 at 21:37 UTC
211 upvotes, 5 direct replies
Where is the proposed transparency? I was not a supporter of coontown, but I would like to know what policy rules they violated along with concrete examples shown to justify outright banning rather than quarantining.
To my knowledge it was a subreddit where like-minded individuals could discuss an issue they felt strongly on. It certainly never showed up in my feed. If I wanted to participate I would have had to look this subreddit up, which is how most special interest subreddits work. You have to look for them. Sure, the majority of people are not interested, but you can't remove a discussion group because people who have never looked for it might be offended.
If the group discussed scenarios and issues amongst themselves without forcing their ideas on others or endangering anyone, then this group should be allowed, no matter how distasteful you find it.
If it violated these principles, I want to be able to see that. Tell me why, explicitly. Transparency. Yeah, it's a lot of work, but it's important. Give me examples on each and every banned subreddit, so that I can better follow the rules.
Comment by Taylor7500 at 05/08/2015 at 22:28 UTC
209 upvotes, 3 direct replies
/r/coontown will be reclassified. The content there is offensive to many, but does not violate our current rules for banning.
You specifically said that it won't be banned. I don't care for the subreddit myself, but your constant lack of consistency doesn't encourage trust between the users and admins.
Comment by [deleted] at 05/08/2015 at 20:37 UTC*
761 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Regarding Quarantining: Would you ever quarantine a large subreddit like /r/wtf?
A community will be Quarantined on Reddit when we deem its content to be extremely offensive or upsetting to the average redditor.
One could argue that the very gorey types of pictures (edit: and videos, like of people dying) that appear on /r/wtf would be pretty upsetting. I know I've accidentally clicked on /r/wtf images when I temporarily disabled my own RES filters, and honestly of all things on the site, some of the stuff there is more troubling to me than discriminatory self text posts.