1 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: Announcement: New Rules, Guidelines and Flair System
Can I ask about the flair guidelines?:
I'm a grad student in philosophy & I guess I have been commenting more recently, but I really don't care about having any sort of badge on this subreddit. I'm not sure how much "frequently" means in your flair rule -- all it says is that I *should* request one, but I'm unsure if this just means "as a matter of good citizenship" or "you will get in trouble if you don't." Do I have to request one?
Comment by ADefiniteDescription at 05/11/2018 at 18:18 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You should become a panelist. The problem is you're viewing it the wrong way. You say:
but I really don't care about having any sort of badge on this subreddit.
The panelist tags are not for you to show off your knowledge. They are, as stated in the post above, for readers' use to figure out how much weight they should give your testimony (amongst other types of evidence of course).
They are also for moderation purposes. One way this matters: every single unflaired user top-level comment is auto-reported for moderation. So every single one of your comments, of which there are many!, get reported every day for us to manually approve. That's a lot of work for us to do. By applying for flair we are able to cut down on that work, provided you do indeed qualify. (Those who don't are generally dissuaded from answering so often.)
So to reiterate, yes, we expect you to request flair.
Comment by mediaisdelicious at 05/11/2018 at 18:28 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Just to underline ADD and add in one specific way:
By applying for flair we are able to cut down on that work, provided you do indeed qualify. (Those who don't are generally dissuaded from answering so often.)
Besides the fact that top-level comments of flaired users are less likely to be in the moderation queue at all, when they are reported I know that I read them differently. When they are about a subject I don't know well (a necessity for all mods), I am more likely to moderate an unflaired user's comment, especially if the comment contains something like a follow-up question. Not all of these are helpful and in cases where I don't really know (because I am not an expert) I happily defer to the expertise of others who I reasonably believe to be experts.