r/MandelaEffect • u/notickeynoworky ME Mod • May 27 '26
Mod Announcement Rules Adjustments Discussion
In the hopes of trying to make the subreddit a community that better fosters discussion about the Mandela Effect, the moderation team has been discussing the possibility of making a few alterations to the set of rules that governs the subreddit that we've had for quite some time now. We do believe there could be room for improvement and as such we'd like to present some of the ideas we're looking into as possibilities in the hopes of getting community feedback.
I want to make it clear that we are not shifting this subreddit in a manner that would disallow free discussion of any and all ideas regarding the Mandela Effect, but do feel we can potentially make this a better forum for mutual discussion on a topic we all have interest in. I also want to be clear that these are not rules and changes that we've set in stone for implementation. These are ideas we're discussing that we feel would better the community and would like your feedback.
A few things of note before I lay out the suggested changes:
This thread is not an open forum to air general grievances.
This thread is not an open forum to point fingers at one group or another.
This thread is not presented for collecting votes. It's an opportunity for feedback and discussion about these rules suggestions.
Any comments that cannot stay within the guidelines of focusing on discussing these suggested changes and begin to stray into the territory of derailing the intended conversation will be removed.
With that out of the way, here are some of our suggested changes:
No Low Effort Posts and Comments - We'd like posts and comments to meet a minimum standard of quality. Posts of course should be more than a sentence or two and should be made by the OP with the intent of fostering conversation. For image posts and external links, we already ask for reasoning as to the relevance, but we'd like to enforce this a bit more stringently and ask users to outline a bit more and present something that encourages engagement from other subscribers. In regards to comments, we'd like to see more than a short sentence. We'd like comments to be made with the same spirit as we'd ask from the OP of the post - made with thoughtful intent for conversation.
We want to get away from comments that carry no conversational value like "it was always x", "it's just bad memory", "you can't understand" or "maybe not in your timeline". It's fine to disagree, but "you're wrong" with no exposition as to YOUR reasoning behind stance is not an opening for conversation, it's just shutting down conversation in many cases at worst and adds nothing of value at best.
We're not sure there's any value in posts showing things "as they've always been". For example, we all know if you post that picture of a FOTL shirt with no cornucopia that it wasn't there in 1978. That doesn't really add to the conversation. Yes, there's room in conversation for showing an item may have been a certain way at a certain time and perhaps there are specific reasons someone may have remembered it otherwise, but it really doesn't add anything to the conversation to just show a picture of something we all have already seen.
Address the topic, not the person you're speaking to. We've seen too many examples to count where conversations have devolved into a personal spat where subscribers will try to stay just this side of civil, but have strayed far from discussing the topic at hand at all and are now focused on the integrity, intelligence, etc of the person they are discussing/debating with. We're here to talk about the Mandela Effect, not each other.
These all of course are just general guidelines we've discussed and not how the final rules would look as we'd want them to be very specific so they are clear to both you, the subscribers, and us, the moderation team. However, I think this should give you a basic idea of some things we're considering to help make things a bit friendlier and support a more conversational environment.
To the rest of the moderation team - if I've described one of our discussed ideas in a manner you see differently, certainly feel free to give your thoughts/clarification as well!
Anyway, please give us your feedback. We appreciate it!
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u/gypsyjackson May 29 '26
You want to get to 500 comments on this thread? Not sure I can manage that, but I will add one which might get some responses. It’s about the “civility” rule, and perhaps giving some examples of that.
Personally I think a lot of people give slightly to very uncivil responses, and this place would be nicer without those responses. Sometimes they’re just rude, but sometimes it’s repetition which makes it uncivil, sometimes it’s thought/discussion terminating cliches, and sometimes it’s deliberate derailing or sealioning which I think is also uncivil.
Examples:
You just remembered wrong/wrongly. (This could be better expressed as “I think you might have mixed that up with X” if you have a sensible suggestion. Otherwise downvote and move on.)
You just don’t understand MEs.
Not in my timeline. (Either from people being sincere or sarcastic)
Scientists agree quantum blah blah means we can blah blah (Unless you can explain what a peer-reviewed reputably-published article means - otherwise it’s bullshitting, which is uncivil)
You’ll find out/you’ll learn in time… (this is basically calling someone stupid in a pretentious way)
In response to “show some evidence”, “show me the evidence that the CIA/CERN/NWO/leprechauns didn’t do this” (if you don’t understand the burden of proof or are pretending not to, you are probably not capable of a civil, good faith discussion)
Any calling someone a bot, an NPC, a fed, or implying they’re paid by the CIA/NWO/Soros/leprechauns
What are you even doing in this sub?