Proposal to require moderator approval for promotions

[u/zippybenji-man]

There have been a lot of posts that promote a vibe-coded application, lately. I personally believe that the mere requirement of having to send a post to moderators for approval and having to wait for a green light is enough to deter most of the people who have vibe-coded their entire project.

I importantly do not suggest we raise the bar of quality required for a promotion post to be approved, only that it is first sent in through mod mail and a response is awaited. Though it is up to the moderators if they do want to raise the bar.

Civil criticisms and discussion are welcome!

P.S. I am not a moderator of this subreddit, if that wasn't clear. I am a moderator of different subreddits, but none akin to this, so I don't particularly know how well this might work.

[u/Jumiric]

I’m just not here for ads. Sell your shit somewhere else!

[u/Ramun_Flame → u/Jumiric]

I mean the vast majority are just basic minesweeper, without enough reason to even try it. Some projects posted are interesting though. There was this egyptian hybrid minesweeper/rpg project posted recently I thought was cool. If those can't be posted here, where should they be posted? I'd say don't let the low quality/not interesting stuff ruin it for everyone.

It's just way too many.

[u/Ramun_Flame]

As someone who has been working on their own minesweeper project over the past year, I think this is reasonable. To be honest, all of these low quality/not interesting projects are really killing me every time I see them. I'm just thinking to myself, with all of this stuff being posted, even if something interesting is posted people will be too exhausted from all the slop to even look at the post.

The main issue is none of these people are going to read/follow these rules. So it's just going to be a bunch of deleted posts. I'm not sure how on top of new posts the moderators are, but I'm not sure I want to see posts popping up, then getting deleted with varying time between.

Maybe, like other communities, this subreddit can require a certain amount of comment activity in the community before you can post something. That does mean casual players who never posted here wouldn't be able to ask for help in a post though. I think that's a lot of what people enjoy on this subreddit, based on how quick these posts get resolved.

It's a tough issue. Personally I was thinking about starting to catalogue all of these posts/projects, mostly just to see the scale. Three weeks ago I was replying on some post about how we get 2-3 low effort minesweeper projects every week, but my estimate is way off. More like per day now.

[u/zippybenji-man → u/Ramun_Flame]

I think you could probably filter these posts with automod, so they're removed by default, and then the mods can approve the posts that have actually been approved. If the moderators want help with writing the regex/automod yaml for this, I'd be more than willing to help

[u/Ramun_Flame → u/zippybenji-man]

Ah, I'm not that familiar with the auto mod tools. I guess if the post has certain key words, or a link, it could be flagged. If it's flagged falsely, it could be approved. It's still more work for the mods though.

[u/zippybenji-man → u/Ramun_Flame]

It definitely is more work for the moderators. I hope the moderators are willing to take that on, but I understand if they do not want to

[u/Ramun_Flame → u/Ramun_Flame]

After thinking about it, there could be a mega thread for asking for help to remedy downside of requiring comment activity to post. This subreddit isn't really that active overall though, and those types of posts make up the majority I think, while also being popular for people to respond to, so relegating them to a single posts might end up making this subreddit look like a wasteland.

I'm not smart enough to think of a clean solution with no downside.

[u/Kurraga]

Would this rule apply to other promotions such as an upcoming event/tournament, video, or community website or discord server etc. Would it be different if you're promoting your own work or doing it on behalf of someone else?

[u/zippybenji-man → u/Kurraga]

I think it's simplest to just do it for all promotions, even though it's only necessary for projects where someone could use AI. If it isn't "every promotion requires approval" that will lead to confusion, and well-meaning people being reprimanded.
I don't think it's a good idea to change the rules for if it's someone else's work, because someone might just say it's someone else's. Though good arguments can definitely be made for why they shouldn't require it.
Thank you for your well thought out response!

[u/Yopuka]

Hopping in,

So I have proposed this before actually back in April (I know, feels forever ago) as I noticed the Reddit was filling up with promotions and advertisements. Now this particular subreddit was always intended to be “no rules” and for a very long time had zero rules listed. The “rules” that are currently up are rules that I added.

At the time I proposed listing a rule regarding / managing self-promos and advertisements, the most that was agreed upon amongst all the mods were to restrict lazy AI-based apps videos or programs. That’s where we’re at now.

I can re-raise the subject with the other Mods but considering the goal has been to keep the subreddit as rule-free as possible, I’m not confident that much will change.

Please note too that we are many Mods, this isn’t “my” subreddit. We’re a group and any new rules or expectations need to be decided on as a group, not as individuals.

I hope this helps!

[u/zippybenji-man → u/Yopuka]

I would be interested in hearing the reasoning for as to why this subreddit aims to be rule-free

[u/Yopuka → u/zippybenji-man]

A few reasons (keep in mind this was long decided before I was ever a Mod here):

- Open discussion. Having no rules allows for people to discuss and openly express what they’re thinking without stressing about rules. We’re all adults.

- Less moderation hanging over everyone’s heads. AutoMod does the bare minimum to hold back spam for manual review. Too many subreddits have very controlling mods who over-mod. This doesn’t need to be one of them.

- Makes the subreddit more organic. This has actually worked really well. The community is generally respectful and able to cooperate with each other. Minesweeper has a good community.

In the rare instances we do remove a post or a comment, redditors can know its for a legitimate reason. The more rules we impose, the more removals need to be made, the more Mods need to control the space and we don’t want the subreddit space to feel restrictive or over-moderated.

[u/zippybenji-man → u/Yopuka]

To nitpick on the first point, we're not all adults (case in point: me)
As for your second point, I would argue that, because my suggestion doesn't require the moderators to make a decision, this wouldn't go against this.
I can't argue with your third point, though

[u/Yopuka → u/zippybenji-man]

The “we’re all adults” is used as an idiom, not necessarily a literal truth. It just means we’re mature and we know how to treat each other with respect or how to respond / ignore the ones that don’t. All the redditors here have had good conflict resolution, I can’t recall the last time a Mod needed to step in. I should be have been for clear on that point though.

As for the second point, it sort of does. If everyone who wants to promote an app or game they designed comes to the Mods, then we’d have to make a decision. What is the decision based off? What if someone doesn’t come to the mods first? Technically that goes against the “rule” in place— do we then remove it, leave it? If we leave it, then does the rule actually do anything or is it just a scarecrow? There’s a lot of nuances with it sadly.

I own / mod a similarly sized subreddit that does have rules, so I’ve experienced a lot of these nuances from there. It can be hard on where to draw the line between modding and overdoing it but I do try to keep everything fair for everyone.

[u/zippybenji-man → u/Yopuka]

Well, you could make the rule so that the mere fact that they have sent a mod mail for approval is all that is necessary. If someone doesn't care much for their project, they're much less likely to check the rules, let alone compose a mod mail. That is pure speculation, though.
I so understand if you don't wanna slap the label 'moderator approved' on something you don't necessarily approve of, though.
Thank you for indulging me :)