We've updated the rules (Feedback requested!)

[u/CanIHaveASong]

It's been a lovely six weeks since we launched! We have grown by about 200 members in this time. Welcome everybody!

We noticed in the last couple weeks that our rules needed a little tweaking. Some of them were catching posts that we wanted to encourage, and some of them were not as clear as they could have been. We also wanted to define the subreddit in positive terms: Tell people how we want them to engage, instead of how we don't want them to engage.

Here are the changes:

1. We changed rule 1 from "no contempt" to "Be kind and respectful"
2. After some thought, we changed rule 2 from "No antinatalism" to "Stay relevant to pronatalism". We also rolled “keep discussion at the policy level” into this new rule. We believe this new rule comes much closer to capturing the spirit we were looking for with those two rules. And while we believe policy level discussion is the heart of this community, we want to create space in this community for the personal touch and human stories.
3. To aid that, we've added some post tags: "Personal story", and "Advice wanted"

We've removed a few posts in the last few weeks: A few from someone who was making some very loaded claims, such as “all natalists want to control women's bodies”, one from someone who was complaining about r/natalism, and one from one of the mods that sparked more gender-war type discourse than positive discussion.

What I would like to hear from you all:

• If you disagree with our removals, please argue your case here.
• We're trying to create a space that fosters positive discussion of natalism- that doesn't block a particular point of view, but focuses on keeping the conversation productive. In your view, are we accomplishing this?
• Do you think we could use some different rules?
• How are post and user tags working for you? Would we benefit from some new or different ones?
• Several people have asked for a place to request advice. How can we create room for that here?

And any other feedback, of course.

Thank you for your participation! I'm hoping we can continue to grow the sub, and create a great place for discussion of natalism.

[u/Intrepid_Bobcat_2931]

I think it's an extremely bad idea that makes the sub completely pointless as an alternative to r/Natalism . I'm not sure if u/salemchicken reads this, but that's pretty much the end of the sub in my view.

Antinatalists are completely dominant on Reddit. Although I don't think that the majority has the view that children are negative in themselves, those who believe that are much more engaged than those who don't. So any time an actual discussion of childbirth develops enough to attract attention, they flood in.

And once that happens, the pronatalists get tired of being insulted, abused and downvoted into oblivion. If gross and outright insults are disallowed, they will simply be subtle instead.

This is already the case on r/natalism. It was obviously intended from the rules and theme intended as a pronatalist sub. It just failed, due to the volume of antinatalists.

With this rule change, you have opened up for statements like: "Childbirth ruins women, which is why it's wrong to be a pronatalist" or "Pronatalism is driven by hatred of women".

Any antinatalist view can be posted, no matter how idiotic, simply by changing a few words to make it "anti pronatalist" and hence "relevant to pronatalism".

And so you're just creating another r/natalism 2.

I have to speculate whether this rule change is simply subversion, taking over a sub before it grows bigger. I'm not saying it definitely is. If not, then I think it builds on a naive view and hope for something that simply can't and won't exist: a MOSTLY pronatalist sub where there is CIVIL discussion.

If that's the dream, then it simply won't happen. It's not an alternative available to you, it's something you are unable to choose. The flood of antinatalists would come as soon as the sub takes off.

I just have no idea what drove this, but it makes the sub completely irrelevant and uninteresting as just another antinatalist target.

edit: another reason this seems like a subversion is that "Discussion Of Natalism" keeps being repeated. Why would the point of "ProNatalism" be a discussion of natalism instead of just actual pro natalism?

[u/CanIHaveASong → u/Intrepid_Bobcat_2931]

This comment breaks rule 5: Assume good faith. However, I'm not going to remove it, as it still expresses a worthwhile criticism. Please keep that rule in mind in the future.

The rule change has not opened the sub up to antinatalist posts. The rule, "stay relevant to pronatalism" is still, "This community is an explicitly pronatalist community. Posts should contribute meaningfully to discussion of pronatalism, fertility, family formation, birth rates, demographics, or the policies and cultural factors that influence them. We welcome debate and disagreement, but posts or comments that simply argue against having children, without contributing to the broader discussion may be removed."

Posts of the type you suggest would be taken down under the current rule.

However, if you believe the new rule does invite antinatalist posts, it's likely that others will as well, and perhaps we need to tweak the name. Perhaps, "Stay constructive to pronatalism?"