- The Rules of /r/Politics:
- General Expectations
- Comment Rules
- Submission Rules
- Other Notes
- Detailed General Expectations
- Detailed Comment Rules
- Detailed Submission Rules:
- Articles must deal explicitly with US politics (see definition).
- Articles must be published within the last 31 days.
- All submissions must be primarily written in the English language.
- No Paywalls Allowed
- Do not create your own title
- Ensure that you are using the original source
- Spam is Bad!
- Submissions must be articles, videos, or sound clips.
- Follow Reddiquette's title instructions.
- Do not flood the new queue.
- No link shorteners/Redirects.
- Do not resubmit "Already Submitted" Content.
- Other notes
- Mods have verified the identity of politicians and other public figures with flair.
- Some domains are filtered because they are spam or other types of inappropriate content.
- Flair on Removed Posts.
- When in doubt talk it out: Ask the mods in mod mail if you have any questions what-so-ever.
- Additional Info
The Rules of /r/Politics:
/r/Politics is the subreddit for current and explicitly political U.S. news.
Here is a complete list of our rules:
General Expectations
Comment Rules
It is never acceptable to abuse another human being in this subreddit. The following are specific standards for what constitutes abuse:
Submission Rules
Other Notes
Mods have verified the identity of politicians and other public figures with flair.
Some domains are filtered because they are spam or other types of inappropriate content.
Detailed General Expectations
The /r/Politics On Topic Statement
All submissions to /r/politics must be published within the last 31 days.
Submissions need to come from the original sources.
All submissions to /r/politics need to be explicitly about current US politics. This means that if a subject has political implications but does not directly discuss politics it is most likely off topic.
To be explicitly political, submissions should focus on one of the following things that have political significance:
Information and opinions concerning the running of US governments, courts, public services and policy-making.
Private political actions and stories such as demonstrations, lobbying, candidacies and funding and political movements, groups and donors.
This does not include:
The non-political actions of otherwise political figures. (ex. Barack Obama Painted a Picture of Himself)
Relatives and associates that do not have political significance. (ex. Diane Feinstein’s Father, Predator, Attempts Murder of Arnold Schwarzenegger)
International politics unless that discussion focuses on the implications for the U.S. (ex. Tension Between Greece and Italy Over Rising Cost of Feta Cheese)
Discussion of the media that does not have explicit political connotations (ex. CNN fires Wolf Blitzer)
/r/Politics is a serious political discussion forum. To facilitate that type of discussion, we do not allow the following types of submissions:
Satire or humor pieces. These belong in /r/PoliticalHumor.
Image submissions. These include image macros, memes, .gifs and political cartoons.
Links that solicit users (Active petitions, signature campaigns, requests for money, surveys or polls).
Links to social media, such as Google+, Facebook or Twitter.
Personal Blogs. All blogs submitted must be affiliated with a reputable news source.
Political advertisements as submissions. Advertisers should buy ad space on reddit.com if they wish to advertise on Reddit.
The Rules of Reddit
Please abide by the Rules of Reddit, the self-promotion rules and spam guidelines.
If you don't abide by these site-wide rules, the /r/politics moderation team is obligated to remove that content and report the violations to the Reddit admins (employees) so they can take action if necessary.
Breaking the Reddit rules, self-promotion rules or spam guidelines may get your account banned across the whole of reddit.com. Only the Reddit admins can ban you across the site, and you will only be banned sitewide for breaking sitewide rules or the Reddit Terms of Service.
If the moderators of /r/politics do not do a satisfactory job upholding these rules, the entire subreddit may be banned. As a user, the most important sitewide rules to note are:
submissions must come from a variety of sources. The admins say a maximum of 10% self-promotion. In effect, if your submissions to Reddit come overwhelmingly from a single source, they will assume you are self-promoting irrespective of source.
any personal information you give about yourself could be someone else's personal information. Posting your own information is therefore unacceptable. The only contact details you should ever post is verifiable public contact information, preferably sourced.
Reddit considers anyone a spammer who uses Reddit to post their own content rather than a member of the community that happens to link some pieces of that content.
Reddiquette
Please read and familiarize yourself with Redditquette
Reddiquette is an informal expression of the values of redditors, as written by redditors themselves. In reality, the Reddit admins (employees) have written most of these.
In /r/Politics, we choose to enforce several of the ideals Reddiquette sets out. We moderate based on quality, not opinion. We require submissions to come from original sources, we remove personal insults, remove content that breaks Reddiquette's guidelines for titles and many others.
You should be doing your best to follow Reddiquette on all of Reddit. Not doing so in /r/politics may get your content removed, or in the most severe cases your account banned from the subreddit. We expect you to follow Reddiquette as best you can.
Messaging the Moderators
If you have questions or concerns please politely message the /r/politics moderators
To ensure that you get a rapid response to any question you may have, please only contact the moderators of /r/politics by messaging the moderators. There is a link to messaging the moderators in the sidebar of every subreddit right above the list of moderators. Alternatively, you can compose a message with /r/politics in the recipient field.
When users message the moderators, every moderator can see every response made in the exchange. We have a permanent record of the exchange that's available to all the moderators. If you message an individual moderator, chances are you'll simply get told to modmail us so the response is visible to the entire team.
It's in your interest, and our interest that you modmail us if you have any questions whatsoever. Don't hesitate to reach out to us. Don't hesitate to modmail us alongside reporting a piece of content if you think we'll benefit from hearing the reason for your report.
As volunteers, we dedicate time to moderating this subreddit. Make use of that resource.
Brigading
Following links to specific comments in /r/Politics and participating or voting on that content is against site-wide rules.
All links to /r/politics comments or submissions should be Non-participation links. This will ensure that people don't inadvertently brigade and get their accounts banned, either by the moderators of subreddits, or by the Reddit admins (employees). To change a link to a Non-Participation link, simply change the domain of the URL to np.reddit.com.
Vote brigading is what happens when a group of people get together to upvote or downvote the same thing--be it a person, a comment or a group of people representing a dissenting ideology. That doesn't mean you can't link to a post or comment elsewhere on Reddit. (source)
Please respect the integrity of the communities linked to in /r/politics. In order to prevent vote brigading on their end, we require non-participation links to be used when linking to another subreddit from /r/Politics.
Please don't vote in or comment on threads linked to from /r/politics. There are some exceptions, like linked AMAs, where the subreddit or submission author welcomes the participation of /r/politics in a thread. Use common sense, and message the moderators if you have any questions about brigading.
Voting
Reddiquette has clear guidelines on how the Reddit voting system is intended to work.
First and foremost, the more people that vote following the voting guidelines, the better the content on the subreddit will be sorted so the cream floats to the top.
Secondly, due to the logarithmic nature of the voting system, the first votes on a story are very important. For that reason, and because most submissions never reach the general /r/politics page, voting in /r/politics/new sets the agenda for the subreddit. The more people vote in /r/politics/new, the better the voting system will sort the content in our subreddit to ensure that good content floats to the top irrespective of the particular political viewpoints that content may hold.
Upvotes were built to reward posts that are timely and relevant. Do not use them as an "I agree" button.
Downvotes were built to be a disincentive for content that is off topic. Please do not use them to punish people you disagree with ideologically.
Merit-based voting ensures that the content that adds to the conversation gets exposure. /r/politics is a discussion subreddit, so it's especially important that contrasting views and arguments are exchanged.
Comment Score Hiding
Comment scores are hidden for 8 hours after posting. Please vote based on quality, not opinion.
Across all of Reddit, the score of submissions are not visible for the first 2 hours unless you access the comment page directly. The Reddit admins (employees) have instituted that policy to limit the effects of group voting.
The voting system works best if each person votes individually on how they value a piece of content. The easiest way to ensure that people vote independently is that they don't see the scores of comments they vote on. Therefore, the mods of /r/politics have chosen to hide the score of comments for 8 hours.
Even though the scores are hidden, this does not interfere with how content is sorted. The highest voted comments still go to the top, the lower-voted content is found further down the page.
As point scores aren't meant to impact how people vote, we hide them for the onset of the discussions. If you want to see the scores, you can come back to a submission later to see exactly how things fared.
There is an option in your Reddit preferences to display a typographical dagger (†) on comments that are "controversial," that is, comments with about the same amount of upvotes and downvotes above a lower threshold. These daggers are not hidden in the 8 hours the scores aren't visible.
Detailed Comment Rules
Please be civil
Please be civil and constructive at all times.
The topic of politics is generally one that is very contentious and one that people are very passionate about. People who visit /r/politics have a variety of opinions and beliefs that span the entire political spectrum. As such, there are many opportunities for you as a user to be exposed to ideas and ideology that may seem foreign or difficult to accept.
Please consider this an opportunity to learn of different perspectives from people in the US and around the world. No one here is expected to embrace everything they read in posts or comments, but at the same time, it is important to remember that this is an internet message board and while the information contained within this subreddit is vast and the ideas plentiful, you are entitled to your own opinions and your own beliefs.
Please recognize that the opportunity to discuss things in this subreddit revolve around everyone treating each other with basic respect, and a basic level of civility.
It is never acceptable to abuse another user in this subreddit. The following sections discuss what level of basic civility the moderators will enforce.
Please respect yourself, respect others, and report any misbehavior to the mods by use of the report button, modmail, or both. We have a responsibility as a community to ensure that we don't chase people away by treating them without basic decency.
Please note that these rules apply everywhere in this subreddit: in text submissions, in usernames, in comments, everywhere. If you notice any violations of the following rules, please let the moderators know by clicking on the report button under the appropriate comment or submission, or by messaging the mods directly or both.
No Hateful Speech
No racist or sexist speech. Also no abusive speech based on sexual orientation, religion, or political affiliation. If we see this behavior, we will issue warnings and/or bans. These are not rules against swearing; they're not rules against expressing political opinions.
There just aren't any reasons to call republicans rethuglicans or democrats demonrats. When the insults kick in, conversation rapidly degrades and often turns into internet fights. We will remove hateful speech consisting of sentences as well. There's no point in calling all liberals brain-dead morons and that sort of remark adds nothing to the conversation.
No Threats, Witch Hunting, or Personal information.
Witch hunting:
Do not witch hunt other users. Users are not allowed to post information with the purposes of causing harm to or harassment of other users. People who violate this rule will be warned or banned based on the severity of the violation.
Often not-so-public figures and organizations suffer the wrath of the Reddit hivemind. This subreddit is not a battleground. Users are not allowed to post contact information with the purposes of witch hunting or rabble rousing. Such comments may be liberally removed, and if you notice a comment or post that needs attention because witch hunting is happening, then please alert the active mods with a message in mod mail.
Posting public contact information is permissible, but this contact information should preferably be sourced so it is 100% clear that you're not posting a private phone number, email address or address. Please make fake examples obvious.
If you have evidence that someone is a shill, spammer, manipulator or otherwise, message the /r/politics moderators so we can take action. Public accusations are not okay. These accusations will result in bans.
If you have evidence someone is a liar/troll or otherwise participating in bad faith, message the /r/politics moderators so we can take action. Public accusations are not okay.
Calling out named users or mods is generally unacceptable. Deal with arguments, not people. As a mod team, we're all responsible for the decisions and mistakes that are made. We will collectively ensure that systemic mistakes are rectified. Hounding individual mods is pointless. Be assured that we take mod misbehavior extremely seriously. Due to the nature of working in a team, we will not publicly announce the consequences of bad behavior as it makes compromise and cooperation harder as a team.
Threats:
Do not threaten any other user. Do not use explicit threats ("I hope you die in a fire"), do not threaten to obtain another user's personal information, and do not do anything that you think would threaten another user.
Making explicit or implicit death threats or threats of violence is never acceptable. It doesn't matter if it's directed at a public figure, or someone "hopes they'll hurt themselves." Users who engage in this behavior will be banned.
Threatening to report users, threatening that you'll get someone banned and other Reddit-threats are not allowed. Either report someone for breaking the rules (please do), or leave them alone. It's in the interests of our community to remove rule-breaking content, and remove users who refuse to play by the rules.
Personal information
Posting personal information about anyone that isn't a public figure will earn an instant ban. Hinting that you have this information of other users may also earn a ban.
In most cases, posting personal information will also get you a site-wide ban from the Reddit admins (employees). Personal information includes but is not limited to: last or full names, email addresses, addresses, identifiable locations, telephone numbers, ip addresses, credit card numbers, places of employment, pictures, facebook profiles, instructions on how to find the personal information of an individual, links to Reddit comments or submissions giving that information and all other personally identifying material.
Trying to intimidate users by hinting at having this information is equally unacceptable.
Do not advocate violence
Do not advocate violence against politicians, those of a specific political opinion or any other group of people, directed towards individuals, organizations or otherwise.
Wishing for others to be injured, wishing "someone" would take affair, wishing death or injury is not acceptable. Insinuating violence or harm against others is not acceptable. Based on severity, offenders will be banned on the first offense.
No Personal Attacks
We understand that sometimes debates get heated, but we ask that you attack the argument and never the user. Personal attacks such as name calling and ad hominem will not be tolerated. Users who break this rule will be warned and/or banned.
Specifically, calling another user a shill in the comments will result in a ban. If you have proof of shilling, please message the moderators so we can act.
Avoid using demeaning and inflammatory remarks that are vitriolic like "Libtard" and "Teabagger". You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
It doesn't matter if your insult is sarcastic, creative or absurd, personal attacks and pejoratives are against these rules. This includes, but is not limited to:
direct name-calling (you idiot. You're a moron)
demeaning terms ("grow up, kid" "you're so naive" )
ridiculing argument and implicitly the user ("only people who live in fantasy worlds believe that")
sarcastic insults ("oh genius, enlighten me!")
"not understanding" ("I didn't even understand what you're trying to say it's so dumb")
"you're cute/adorable"
you're a shill/troll/douche/ an asshole etc.
"creative", demeaning terms (libtard, teabagger, rethuglican, Hitlary Cliton, etc.)
We do not have rules against swearing. Rather, our rules are against the act of intentionally insulting users.
Note: Even a well-written comment will earn you a warning or ban if you include a personal attack.
It doesn't matter who throws the first insult, or who's intentionally uncivil first. As we have rules against both flaming and baiting, we expect users not to rise to the bait, or return flames.
Report content so we can deal with it and the users responsible rather than implicating yourself by participating in an internet fight.
Internet fights derail the conversation and make political discussion impossible. If you go back and forth with another user over and over, things often get heated. Be sure to take breaks and not get taken by the moment and say something you'll regret later.
Don't Flame or Bait
If you disagree with someone, don't try to bait them into behavior that they would regret. Ideologues are on thin ice in this subreddit because we're all here to share and discuss political information. If you can't be respectful with those who disagree with you on a particular issue, you probably shouldn't post on that issue.
If you think you are the victim of flaming or baiting, report the behavior instead of responding. Responding increases the chance of saying something you will regret. Don't engage in personal attacks because someone is flaming you; being the victim of flaming or baiting is not an excuse to break other general behavioral guidelines.
It's important to mention here that we don't censor people due to their opinions. People are completely allowed to post an opinion that is not factually true, or that you believe is incorrect, or that you find unacceptable for whatever reason. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions even if you disagree with them - in these instances, remember to debate civilly and focus your efforts on explaining why you disagree. Attack the argument and not the user.
Ideologues can get users to lash out while simply stating their opinions in a civil manner. That's not against our rules. The lashing out that results is.
As a moderation team, we're more than aware that politics get the blood flowing and emotions pumping. People are passionate about these discussions because they impact all our lives. We're not asking for the impossible when we ask for a basic level of decency in discussions.
No Trolling
Users that come to troll are not welcome. Behaviors such as vulgar language, comment spam, or extremely NSFW language or material to earn sharp emotional responses will earn bans.
Resist the urge to feed the trolls. Mods cannot stop trolling at all times in every thread. You can shut them down at any time by just not responding.
We disallow:
all in-character novelty accounts
all usernames that violate our rules of civility, including degrading characterizations of political parties or those holding specific political opinions
spoiler trolling
all other "creative" forms of trolling you can imagine.
Users with topical usernames (say /u/ihatetaxesandblueberries) are on thin ice if they consistently talk about things referenced in their username (hating taxes and blueberries).
Please report trolling.
No Bots
Comment bots will be banned on sight.
This is a subreddit for people to have conversation. Bots don't add anything to that conversation. If you see a bot, please report its comment, or modmail us so it can be banned.
Do not post personal information.
The traffic generated in a subreddit that has thousands of daily viewers and millions of potential viewers in /r/all means that posting personal information can have serious unintended consequences. Mistakenly posting the home number of a politician rather than a number to their office can generate dozens of phone calls, links to small websites regularly have the effect of bringing the whole site down due to the large influx of traffic, the "Reddit hug."
Therefore, it would be best if you link to where public contact information can be found so that it's easy to verify that it is indeed public contact information. It's essential that politicians are held accountable, and reaching out to them directly is a great tool for getting your voice heard.
We remove all Facebook links and other social media content to avoid individual users on those websites getting large amounts of unwanted attention. Having personal information posted on Reddit has had life-changing consequences previously, like having bomb threats or swat teams called on individual users. Please, do not call out other individuals, and avoid posting any personal information.
We cannot verify that you are the person you claim to be, with some exceptions, so please don't post your own personal information either. Even if you think you're prepared for the additional traffic Reddit can cause, there can be serious unforeseen negative consequences. Personal information will be removed.
Do not manipulate comments and posts via group voting.
The integrity of Reddit depends on each person voting individually. That is especially important in the /r/politics/new queue, where a couple votes can determine if a piece of content ever reaches the larger audience of the subreddit as a whole, or /r/all.
Please:
don't link to Reddit submissions rather than original articles in social media (twitter, facebook etc.)
don't ask for votes in any shape or form
don't share links in small groups with the implicit expectation of voting or participation
don't exchange votes in any shape or form
don't create bots or multiple accounts to vote repeatedly on the same content
don't use multiple accounts to manipulate opinions in the comments
All of these activities will result in your account being banned by the Reddit admins (employees).
Every user has one vote to determine what reaches the front page of Reddit, so we take vote manipulation very seriously. Every submission and comment should play by the same rules. As a moderation team, we will do everything in our power to bring any suspicious activity to the attention of the admins so they can act on it.
We will remove content that is manipulated, so cheating will not pay.
When you link to specific comments or submissions to /r/politics outside of /r/politics, or any other subreddit within /r/politics, please use No Participation links.
A no-participation link uses the subdomain np.reddit.com:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics <-- normal link
http://np.reddit.com/r/politics <--no participation link
Brigading, or coming to /r/Politics from an outside link and gaming the votes on a post or its comments is a quick way to earn a shadowban from the admins (Reddit employees).
The reason for using no-participation links is to avoid group voting and brigading. If you follow what the Reddit admins (employees) deem to be a link that directly or indirectly encourages certain voting behavior or inorganic commenting activity, they may ban your account from the entire site. This is beyond the control of /r/politics, so we want to ensure that we're on the cautious side rather than having users banned for participating in /r/politics.
No-participation (np.reddit.com) is retained on each subsequent page on reddit until you manually change back to www.reddit.com domains. The effect of no-participation is to disallow voting and commenting because that's the sort of activity the admins ban for if they judge the activity as being organized. Since it's difficult to differentiate between what the admins (Reddit employees) consider brigading activity and what they consider simply linking to content that's in a different subreddit relevant to the discussion, as a moderation team, we encourage you to be careful.
It is in your interest as a user to learn about np links and how they work to avoid having your account banned across the entire site by the Reddit admins for doing something you may not realize they can consider brigading. Depending on the context of when a np.reddit.com link was not used to link to /r/politics we may preventatively ban users from /r/politics on their first link to bring to their attention that they're on shaky ground. This also gives us a good opportunity to educate users on np linking rather than see /r/politics users banned by the Reddit admins (employees).
See /r/noparticipation for more information about No participation mode.
AMA Rules
In order to make sure that AMAs are enjoyable events for all involved, AMA threads are more strictly moderated. The following additional policies apply to AMA threads:
- Top level comments should be a question or statement for the AMA host to respond to.
- "Meta" discussion about /r/politics or moderation policies is not allowed.
- Memes, jokes, and low-effort replies to the AMA host are not allowed
- Requests for personal favors from the AMA host (ex. "Can you send me an autograph?") are not allowed.
- Creepy/offensive comments with no possibility of a real answer from the AMA host are not allowed.
- "I bet OP won't answer this" type questions are not allowed.
- Repeating the same question multiple times is not allowed - this will be treated as comment spam.
Additionally, incivility towards the AMA host will not be tolerated. Although we normally permit incivility towards politicians, AMA hosts within their AMA thread will be considered "redditors" rather than politicians, and accordingly will receive benefits from the comment civility rules.
Detailed Submission Rules:
Articles must deal explicitly with US politics (see definition).
Reddit is a community that thrives because everyone can determine for themselves what they want to see on their front page. Therefore, the key is to subscribe to different subreddits that cover specific interests so everyone can mix and match what they're interested in.
/r/Politics requires that all submissions must be explicitly political in regards to US politics.
In order to avoid moderator bias when judging whether or not something is on-topic, we have a very clear and objective definition of what is explicitly political in regards to US politics. This definition is contained in our on-topic statement below:
We read current to be published within the last 31 days, or less if there are significant developments that lead older articles to be inaccurate or misleading. All submissions to /r/politics need to be explicitly about current US politics. To be explicitly political, submissions should focus on one of the following things that have political significance:
Anything related to the running of US governments, courts, public services and policy-making, and opinions on how US governments and public services should be run.
Private political actions and stories not involving the government directly, like demonstrations, lobbying, candidacies and funding and political movements, groups and donors.
The work or job of the above groups and categories that have political significance.
This does not include:
The actions of political groups and figures, relatives and associates that do not have political significance.
International politics unless that discussion focuses on the implications for the U.S.
Submissions that do not explicitly discuss US politics are outside the scope of our subreddit, and are more suited to other subreddits.
Articles must be published within the last 31 days.
Old content is often misleading because the political landscape changes rapidly. Articles that were published in the past cannot take into account new developments unless they are updated. We therefore require all submissions in /r/politics to be published within the last 31 days.
All submissions must be primarily written in the English language.
For us to be able to enforce our submission rules equally and without bias we as moderators must be able to understand what is being submitted. Therefore, we require all submissions to be primarily written in the English language. This will still allow for submissions to contain some foreign text when necessary.
No Paywalls Allowed
Articles that require users to take a survey, or to enter any information in order to view material, or to become a paid subscriber are not allowed.
Do not create your own title
Prior to a rule requiring titles comprised of a quote, there were issues with users commenting in the title box instead of using the title field to describe the content of an article. The purpose of an article title is to explain the content of the article to users who may then want to read the article or not. All users should provide their thoughts on the topic in the comments.
- Submissions must have titles comprised of the exact copied and pasted headline from the article. Do not add, remove or change words.
The most objective way for the moderation team to avoid inserting political bias into how submissions are handled is not to give exceptions and make judgement calls on whether slight changes are "okay" or not. We therefore enforce the title rules consistently even if that means removing articles for minor title changes.
We are aware that websites update their articles and change their titles. the mods will try to keep that in mind when examining articles, but these changes can be hard to follow. If a post is removed where the title was appropriate earlier, please message the moderators. If a post is removed for having a user-created title, you are encouraged to resubmit with an appropriate title.
Ensure that you are using the original source
As a link aggregate, Reddit is a website that can often give loads of attention and exposure to the content that is linked. Those who create content we share on the site deserve the credit for the content they have created. It is therefore essential that we remove any content that is posted from sources that are not the owners and creators of content.
Those who rehost content often try to pass work off as their own. Therefore, it regularly takes some effort to dig around to find the original report. A good place to start are any inline links in the text that cite a "source." Often most of the content in a blog post will cite other blogs that will cite other blogs until you can dig down to the original.
Other online publications will use an interview someone else has made, using the quotes from the interviewee in a way that makes it seem like they've produced the content. Googling quotes from someone interviewed can often lead to a more complete and informative report where the original work was made.
Please refrain from posting:
videos from news networks rehosted on youtube or similar sites
articles comprised of content from other sources without original analysis or reporting
blogs and webpages rehashing content found elsewhere
articles that rely on chunks of text from external sources to make an argument.
Giving credit or linking back to the original doesn't pay the bills. Please follow the chain back to someone's original work and submit that to /r/politics.
Because the whole of Reddit relies on content produced by others, we have to protect the interests of content-creators or the quality of free content that we can share will drop.
Spam is Bad!
Reddit has strict site-wide rules against spamming. Please ensure that you know what constitutes spam and the strict rules regarding self-promotion.
To ensure that your account will not be banned by the admins (Reddit employees) please ensure that you submit from a variety of different sources. A single domain should not constitute a large percentage of your submissions.
The admins seem to be fine with plenty of submissions from image-sharing sites and video-sharing sites (imgur and youtube for example) as long as they come from varied channels. If they come from the same channels, they may take issue.
In general, if a large proportion of your submissions come from a single domain, no matter what that domain is, the admins will want you to diversify and may take action against your account.
The Reddit rules state as a "guideline" that no-one should have more than 10% of their submissions be self-promotion. In essence this means that you're expected to be a Redditor who happens to share some of their own content rather than someone who reddits as part of a business strategy.
We will ban spammers in /r/politics. As a rule of thumb, if you have more than 33% of submissions from a single domain (excluding Imgur), we will ban you from /r/politics and ask for you to diversify your submissions before returning.
If you are banned for spam and you didn't realize that you had crossed the line, then please diversify your submissions and message the mods to appeal your ban. We will take diversified posts to outside subreddits into consideration during your appeals process.
Report spammers you see to /r/spam
Spammers will be reported by the mods as well and they will be dealt with by the admins.
Submissions must be articles, videos, or sound clips.
We do not allow:
- Links that solicit users
Polls and petitions are not allowed here. We disallow active polls and petitions because these submissions often flood the subreddit, making it hard for other material to be seen. This rule is applied to, but not limited to, any link or text post that is attempting to solicit money, signatures, poll responses, volunteer hours, or sign ups from users. We don't mind advocacy, but at the same time this is a subreddit for news and analysis regarding US politics and as such the vast majority of subscribers expect just that. Articles about polls or petitions are allowed as long as they are newsworthy.
- Links to wikis, images, political cartoons, memes, Facebook, tumblr, or twitter.
Detailed infographics are permitted if they are linked to their original source and that source is vetted and known to be a reliable source. So, for example, info-graphics hosted on imgur are not allowed nor are info-graphics made by individual users are not allowed. However, an infographic from the Pew Research, that is linked to the relevant article, would be permitted.
- Satire.
Satirical pieces often spin the news in a certain light, which makes it much more difficult for users to objectively examine and discuss the information at hand. This subreddit is meant to allow for users to read the original stories so that they can come to their own conclusions and engage in political discussions with other users.
We know that many of our users love satirical shows like the Colbert Report and the Daily Show, however content from those shows is also not appropriate for /r/politics. These shows often use news stories from the week to create the content for their shows and put a humorous spin on them. Whilst we appreciate humor, submissions relating to these shows would be better suited to /r/politicalhumor.
Our on-topic statement should be adhered to when submitting content to /r/politics.
Follow Reddiquette's title instructions.
Reddiquette has rules concerning titles that we should all keep in mind across all of Reddit.
Keep your submission titles factual and opinion free.
Don't use the word "BREAKING" or other time sensitive words in your submissions.
Don't Write titles in ALL CAPS.
Don't editorialize or sensationalize your submission title.
We enforce these rules even if the original articles uses these features. Titles shouldn't
Have any words in ALL CAPS
Have time-sensitive words like "exclusive", "breaking" "on-going" etc.
Have commentary like "watch now" "read this" etc.
A lot of people vote entirely based on the titles of submissions. It's therefore important that titles aren't time-sensitive and are neutral enough to start a discussion in the comments section. Again, the most objective way we can ensure that titles aren't editorialized is to require the titles of submissions to be comprised entirely of quotes from the article (including its headline).
Do not flood the new queue.
Flooding the new queue will result in submissions removed and/or a ban if the behavior persists. Please make sure that you allow at least 10 minutes to pass between each submission, and submit no more than 5 articles within a 24 hour period. This is so that other Redditors have the opportunity to submit content and have it visible to /r/politics users. Deleted posts are included in this rule. Moderator removed posts are not.
No link shorteners/Redirects.
Any content posted with a shortened link or via a redirect will be removed due to their potential for abuse. AutoMod will take care of most of the posts that use link shorteners or redirects, but the mods also watch for them.
Do not resubmit "Already Submitted" Content.
In order to ensure that a large variety of articles have the opportunity to be seen in /r/Politics, we have strict rules on what constitutes acceptable reposting.
A piece of content may be re-submitted if all of the following are apply:
All earlier duplicates are at least three days old
All earlier duplicates have a low vote score
There are no more than two earlier duplicates
In other words, a piece of content may have up to three attempts to achieve a threshold vote score, and these attempts must be spaced at least three days apart.
(note that if a submission is removed due to breaking another rule, it does not count as an "earlier duplicate" for the purposes of the reposting policy.)
This rule is currently "on trial" and may be modified subject to user feedback.
Other notes
Mods have verified the identity of politicians and other public figures with flair.
All politicians and public figures who wish to engage the users of /r/politics should message the mods so that we can confirm your identity. Once the account has been verified, we will add a flair to the username confirming that the account is legitimate.
Some domains are filtered because they are spam or other types of inappropriate content.
The Reddit admins have banned several domains, but do not always share their reasons for doing so. However, /r/politics chooses to respect those decisions and as such, we will not approve any submissions from admin banned domains. Some of the most popular domains banned by the admins include:
- edition.cnn.com
/r/politics also has banned several domains for spamming, vote brigading, rehosting content, or other types of inappropriate content. Please message the mods if you have any questions about a submission being removed for domain reasons.
Flair on Removed Posts.
The moderators try and use flair for tagging removals whenever possible. This helps both the user and other mods see right away why a submission was removed. Sometimes this isn't possible because of the limitations of mobile devices. If you don't see a tag in your post but notice your post has been removed please feel free to message the moderators.
Additionally, if your post is not showing up after submitting:
please check near the title to see if the mods have tagged it with the sidebar rule it has violated.
If your post isn't showing up in the new queue and it is not tagged then it has probably accidentally fallen into the spam filter. Message the mods with a link to the comments section of your post and we will investigate.
When in doubt talk it out: Ask the mods in mod mail if you have any questions what-so-ever.
You are always welcome to message the mods to ask questions or discuss concerns. This is a great way to resolve problems or clarify why something has been removed. You can also message us to discuss the state of the subreddit or to make suggestions as to how the subreddit can be improved.
Additional Info
Please remember:
The moderators of /r/Politics reserve the right to moderate posts and comments at their discretion, with regard to their perception of the suitability of said posts and comments for this subreddit.
The moderators are obligated to remove posts that violate the Reddit Terms of Service.
Thank you for your understanding.
revision by JakeableAmerica— view source
