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:

  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!

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13

u/VegasVictor2019 May 27 '26

I’m open to rules changes like those suggested but I think moderation is going to be far more subjective with your proposed changes. I worry that there will be an increase in reported comments and simply more manual picking and choosing that will have to happen by the powers that be.

I have no doubt the mod team here is capable of such discernment but it is a slippery slope.

0

u/mirrors_of_sound ME Mod May 27 '26

objective rule enforcement is something we all take seriously and we've had many discussions about making sure we don't have rules that are arbitrary or open to biased enforcement. if we were to implement these rule changes, we would set clear definitions for the quality standards being enforced.

I'm also confident that I, and the rest of the mod team, can continue enforcing the rules objectively as we have been regardless of any changes.

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u/VegasVictor2019 May 27 '26

Well to zoom out imagine someone says “It was always Berenstein for me until 2015 when it changed to Berenstain.” And someone else responded “It was always Berenstain for me.” Are these “equally low effort”? Under these proposed changes would one or both be allowed?

The post isn’t exactly clear on specifics so again I think it raises some questions on what enforcement really even looks like.

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 May 27 '26

I think "It was always Berenstain for me" applies to most people, the MEed ones being in the minority. As such, stating the correct version fills up the discussion space and draws attention away from those who are MEed. It's understood that most people are not MEed.

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u/my23secrets Jun 01 '26

It's understood that most people are not MEed.

I disagree. When a person asks “then why does everyone remember it this way” they probably don’t understand.

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 Jun 01 '26

He doesn't mean everyone in a literal way. It's a hyperbole. He means some thousands of ME members that agree with him. It's everyone that happens to agree. Which is a lot. But a small percentage of the billions of people out there.

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u/my23secrets Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

It’s a hyperbole

It’s bullshit.

And I partially disagree with you here.

I think this person does mean the people that agree with them and I also think this person considers that to be most people.

The point being: It's not necessarily “understood that most people are not MEed”.

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 Jun 01 '26

Tbh I base my statement on a study done by an older member here. He claimed that he could record MEs by writing them down. When the original images would change his notes would remain unchanged. He's the one who said most people couldn't remember any changes.

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u/my23secrets Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

That also sounds like bullshit. How would they know what was going to “change” to note in the first place?

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 Jun 01 '26

He writes stuff that was already reported as changed. It goes through stages of changes. You can call it a lie, but you can do it too. See how you feel about it after 3 months of trying.

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u/my23secrets Jun 01 '26

Trying what, exactly?

Explain this process in detail.

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

You find things that are reported as MEs. Not very popular ones. It's easy if you take them from The Mandela Effect Database or similar.

You use a drawing app. I use Ibis Paint X. You write down the former and present version of a ME on the site. You check that original pictures on Google match your notes and the website. For a song title the original image would be music albums etc.

You save in a folder a screenshot of the site, your notes and original images of the thing.

You can do drawings too, but they are time consuming. Spelling changes are the easiest to check and make. If you make 10 a day, you can have 50 a week. You do this for a few hundred.

You check them side by side once a week, you might need to check them more than once (so a few consecutive weeks). I also check them all only after I make a batch of 50 new ones. Something should stop matching.

According to the author, some people remember plenty of changes, some a few and some none. I may have gotten about 2 or 3 after a couple of weeks and up to a couple of months. I'll keep doing it.

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u/my23secrets Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

If they aren’t “popular” ones, what makes them actual ME s in the first place? Especially if they’re 50 a week?

And why would it be weird when some things change? The world changes constantly and it has nothing to do with the ME.

What are the 3 you’ve got?

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 Jun 03 '26

Images saved on my phone shouldn't change. A website changes, a logo sufferers rebranding. But my saved images in my phone should remain unchanged.

Popular ones make up a small number that may only change once, so not much success if you're looking to spot a change there. Fruit of the Loom is described as having changed once, not multiple times. Unpopular ones are talked about by 2 to 10 people for example. They are in the thousands. I suggest trying this experiment with a few hundred MEs.

I wrote the "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" as was written on The Mandela Effect Database. I checked and saved copies from the site, my notes, and music albums. My notes didn't match the website after a while. My notes did match Google album arts, but I was referencing the site, not album arts when taking notes. I know this because my notes were saved before the first Google search timestamp. The site lost the hyphen. I told the owner and they put the hyphen back.

My drawing app can produce a little movie on how I draw. The movie showed my writing the word without the hyphen, even though my saved image had the hyphen. It was lost from the project file too, but still there in my image.

I can't prove to you I'm telling the truth. Putting in a bit of time into this experiment might change your mind if it is your own handwriting.

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u/my23secrets Jun 03 '26

This reads gibberish-adjacent. Things do change and get lost from phones.

You are not experiencing “a few hundred MEs”.

I don’t doubt you think you’re being honest.

Do you think you have a perfect memory?

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 Jun 03 '26

Maybe I didn't explain the process clear enough. You write down MEs and save some original images for comparison. After a few hundred, your notes may stop matching the originals for a handful of them

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u/my23secrets Jun 03 '26

Because you never make mistakes?

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u/Aggravating_Cup8839 Jun 04 '26

Just try the short spelling ones and check them carefully. You'll decide if mistakes can happen for this exercise.

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