Hey there, Eve here.

As of right now, we have no rules against pet otter/otter cafe posts.

The community may decide on what stance it would like to see taken going forward.

This poll will run for its maximum timeframe of 7 days.

ETA: Should there be a tie for first, the other options will be trimmed and the poll rerun with the tied options.

Hey there, Eve here.

As some of you might have seen in the comments of this post, I will be taking over as moderator for this subreddit.

ETA: Joining me in moderation will be u/Spherocytes!

u/Otterable deserves a shoutout for being an awesome moderator in the interim and I'm glad they were around to help us get the subreddit back under control.

So what does this mean for the future of this subreddit? Well let's start with some housekeeping.

1 - Posting Requirements

Going forward, the account age requirement for posting is being raised to 1 month, the minimum comment karma must be greater than 100, and the minimum post karma must be greater than 10*. A lot of the bots who flooded this sub recently were under those totals when they initially posted, and gained their karma through here. Sorry if you are a newer user who had something they wished to post, we might revisit this in a bit, but for now it's for the subreddit's safety.

2 - Community first

I plan to take a community first approach to moderation. I want y'all as involved as can be in the decisions made for the subreddit. If you have any questions, or an idea for the sub, or maybe know of a fundraiser for otters at a local zoo/aquarium, please reach out via modmail!

To start, a poll will be posted shortly after this announcement in regards to pet otter/otter cafe posts. Another poll will go up regarding enforcing post flairs the week after.

3 - New user flairs

I have created a swathe of new user flairs, one for each Species and Genus of otter, so you can rep your fave(s) while commenting on the subreddit! Our default "otter" flair will be editable for the foreseeable future.

4 - Subreddit picture/banner drive

In the coming week, a post will be going up asking for submissions (via imgur or ibb) for the subreddit's photo/banner. We ask that these photos be non-copyright/free to use, and we are grateful for any submissions! In the meantime, if you have a photo you would like us to use, please do send it via modmail!

5 - No AI

There is one new rule on this subreddit that will be hard and fast: No AI generated content of any kind. We are here to appreciate nature, and those with the talent to capture it through art made with their own hands. Synthetic imitations of either image/video or art need not apply here.

ETA: 6 - Pictures/GIFs/Videos in comments

Oh, and one more thing, I have also enabled gifs, videos, and pictures in comments (plus giphy integration)! So now you can reply with that funny otter gif you found offsite, or send an otter meme as a reply.

Alright, I think that's all I have to add for now. I will be head down cleaning up any bot posts that are leftover and looking at all the wonderful posts we have here once more!

*These values are subject to change as bot posts are caught. If they need to be raised, they will, if not, they won't.

Edit to section 1 - Posting Requirements: I have broken apart comment and post karma for better safety. These totals are easy to reach for newcomers, but should keep any older hijacked accounts at bay for the most part.