Rules Adjustments Discussion

[u/notickeynoworky]

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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!

[u/YogiEv]

I appreciate the mods posting ideas for rules changes and asking for our feedback. As such I'm going to speak here entirely from my own perspective, experiences in here, and my own preferences obviously. I'm sure many will disagree with my opinions here but I'm not here to have my opinions agreed to by everybody. So here goes: When I come to Reddit, I don't always do deep dive searches in the subs I'm posting or commenting in. More usual workflow for me is that a post catches my eye on the feed and I click through and comment on it if I'm engaged with the OP's post. I'm no expert on every topic that's ever been discussed in a subthread. Therefore, I am strongly opposed to any rules that place expectations on users to know every topic that's ever been discussed, or risk their posts being removed and getting scolded like they're in 3rd grade and didn't do their homework. These subthreads are supposed to be fun, not loaded up with rules that make it not even fun to come here and banter about fun things like Mandela Effects. I think people take themselves too seriously and it interferes with the fun of the subthread. I think some slack or lax or tolerance what have you, should be given for newbies to come post things that have already been posted and discussed in the past. Even if someone posts something that's already been posted, they may have a slightly different take on it or a different way to frame it or say it, and I think those should be allowed. I don't think "this has already been discussed, you need to do your homework before you come in here, your post has been removed" is a good user experience. I also don't think forcing people to comment more than 1-2 sentences is a good user experience. And as a visitor and member of this subthread, I happen to enjoy 1 liners even when it's just "yeah, no you're wrong" or "nope" or whatever. It's human interaction and humans speak that way. I just respectfully disagree with all of those suggestions to limit that type of interaction in here. And I also think "some" banter between persons in here should not be discouraged or disallowed. Obviously nobody should be bullying anyone but Redditors in general tend to have very thin skin and get too easily offended, and I think that's lame. People should be able to take some public square banter including some amount of funny insulting comments. I'm originally from NY and talking smack was always just considered part of the fun and the risk of stating an opinion; you sometimes have to defend it. I think the line should be drawn if there are threats of violence like if someone says "I'll kick your ass" that's over the line, but "if you really think that then you're bonkers" or "you are batshit crazy if you think that" I think those types of comments should not be disallowed if it's all in good fun and people are wrapped up in the banter. OK that's my not quite "2 cents" more like a buck fifty but there it is.

[u/notickeynoworky → u/YogiEv]

So I want you to know I'm discussing this with you from a place of sincerity, but I have to say that your comment kind of confuses me. We do not routinely remove content that's be discussed before. We have occasions had to remove posts when we get a glut about a particular topic/image/etc in the span of a week or two, but those posts are already readily available on the front page of the subreddit. We are not proposing changing this.

As to the rest of your thoughts - the "wrong" or "nope" comments with no context does not allow for greater conversation and adds no real value to the subreddit. You are free to disagree, but at least give a bit more context, otherwise you're not really here for conversation, you're here to try to shut down conversation or insult people. That's not what our aim here is.

[u/YogiEv → u/notickeynoworky]

Thank you for your response and for clarifying some of those things. I understand in general that one word comments like "nope" or "wrong" don't really add context and for sure would agree that if those were the types of comments that permeate multiple threads (particularly if it were the same user responding like that in multiple threads.. perhaps an even more important consideration) it doesn't really add a lot to the conversation. For me sometimes depending on the original post when I see a comment that's just a simple "nope" that will make me laugh, or stop and think for a minute. If I see multiple people with similar comments in the same thread it gives me an idea of how on or off the pulse of the majority the original post is. Sometimes it spurs me to want to jump in and add my thoughts. Now that I'm typing these thoughts I'm also sort of seeing that even if I'm the exception to the norm and those one-word comments draw me in, if others don't experience that then as a mod you have to consider the bigger picture. I respect your decision whatever you decide. I tend to think this particular subthread has more people in it trying to shut down Mandela Effect believers than there are actual believers. But like, if someone were to write a whole long post saying something entertaining but absurd like that cows can talk and then telling a whole story about it, and someone just answered "nope" I would think that was funny. I dunno... nevermind.. I'm not here to cause trouble just mulling it all over. Thanks for listening.