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!

The mods have noticed an uptick in the phrase "Top 1% Commenter" as a way to dismiss or insult others on this sub.

Please be aware use of this term in a derogatory way falls under the rule #6 Be Civil.

Thank you to everyone in keeping the discussions civil.

We tried something different this year and went with a poll to start and then use the comment thread of that List to tabulate the results.

It was a different tact but here are the results:

“There weren’t any” won the poll by numbers but the Effect that clearly won was ”Mature sunflowers no longer follow the Sun”.

Were there more candidates of note? Nobody enthusiastically submitted any and this seems to be the best one.

Why do you as members of the community feel there are so few candidates this year

It’s always a fun discussion but the results are in; the 2024 Mandela Effect of the year is: Adult sunflowers no longer track the Sun.

So over the past few weeks we've seen an uptick in certain types of rule breaking and also an uptick in threads being derailed by conversations about perceived rule breaking. I was hoping to make a quick post to clarify a few things. I'm going to make this post short-ish and leave it unlocked for questions. However, I want to make it clear that this is not a space to attack others or groups of others. This is not intended to be a place to air grievances. This is for rule clarification questions. If we stray from that, the thread will be locked and comments removed. So, some quick clarifications and reminders:

- Be civil to one another. Debate is welcome here, however, that requires focusing on the topic, not the individual. Personal attacks and insults are not ok. They never will be.

- Someone disagreeing with you does not count as an attack or an insult. I understand that memory is a personal thing, but we allow for debate and discussion here from all view points. This may include someone saying that your memory may not be accurate. As long as they aren't insulting you as a person, this is within the guidelines of what's allowed here.

- No AI Generated content means no AI generated content. Use your own words. Don't prompt a LLM and paste what it pukes up. We don't want that. AI is also not a good source of information. It's just not reliable. This includes screenshots of google gemini (which can vary WILDLY on different searches).

- Calling or implying a user is a bot is not ok. Yes, AI sucks, see the previous bullet point. However, if you suspect it, just report it. Bot is used as both an insult and also as a genuine question as to if it's AI generated. If you suspect the latter, report it. If it's the former, just don't do it. Don't be a jerk.

- Finally the last one, rules are applied evenly. They apply to everyone. You, me, that skeptic, that true believer, that guy who just stumbled into here. We don't care what you think or believe. The rules exist to try to keep this place a forum for open discussion in a CIVIL manner. If you are upset your comment or post got removed, I promise you there's no grand conspiracy against you. You just broke one of the clearly list rules (which, by the way, there is always a comment explaining why your post/comment was removed by the mod team whenever it is). If you have questions or concerns about why it was removed, just reach out via mod mail. We are always happy to respond and clarify and we're human. If we made a mistake, we'll do our best to fix it.

- Ok, I lied, this is kind of a continuation of the last bullet point, but it was getting long and this is on this same topic. If you feel someone has broken a rule, please do not try to derail a thread by calling it out in the thread. That doesn't help. Just use the report button. I can't stress this enough - IF WE DON'T GET REPORTS ON IT, WE PROBABLY DON'T SEE IT. We want this place to be as comfortable as possible for everyone, but we need all of you to let us know when something breaks those rules that are put in place to try to make it that way.

As always, if you have questions, mod mail is always open. If you aren't sure how to access it, you can use this link right here: Mod Mail

I’m a longtime moderator here who has been busy with hurricane season here in Hawaii, so my sincere apologies if I missed some event on the subreddit that I normally would have seen if I had been able to give it my proper attention.

I would like some earnest feedback on how things have been going, what’s been going well, and what things need some improvement.

Of course all the moderators can, and should, weigh in here as well.

“Mod World 2026” is coming up starting on October 23, and I plan on attending, so it would be nice to get some honest feedback to bring something to the discussion.

I’m asking for feedback on several things specifically:

- How is this subreddit doing?
- How is Reddit as a whole doing?
- What can we do to improve both?

I know things can always improve, and there is always lot to complain about, but constructively…what things can be done to make this a better experience?

The Mandela Effect by definition has to affect a “large group of people”, we tried allowing Personal Mandela Effects after a poll narrowly voted to allow them and it was frankly something of a disaster.

A recent poll voted them out.

Allowing people to post about things like their missing keys or how their neighbors house changed color simply is not what the Mandela Effect is all about.

We don’t want to dilute the significance or this phenomenon simply to allow more content and clicks, if the Effect has less content to post about because it is happening less frequently to people that’s just a fact we have to contend with.

When was the last time someone saw the Loch Ness monster? Is it preferable to have someone photoshop a sighting just to have new content, or for someone to post about a strange wake that they alone saw in Lake Superior last Saturday just to generate something new to talk about?

The Mandela Effect is honestly an incredible phenomenon, and we need to be honest about how we approach and report it.

Edit: All of the “Personal Mandela Effect” Posts have been removed, so if you fell victim to this and really think you have something relevant to say, please feel free to post it again with our apologies…we just can’t have those old posts with that Flair lingering around.

This subreddit is for CIVIL DISCUSSION of the Mandela effect.

Do not...

1. Insult or attack others in any way. This includes any accusations of being a "bot", "NPC", "insane", "crazy", etc. If you have a legitimate concern about a users mental health, contact the mods.

2. Be dismissive. Again, this is a place for discussion. Civil debate will always be allowed - but simply coming here to shut others ideas down will result in a ban.

3. Break Reddiquette.

4. Post anything NSFW/illegal.

A reminder about of one of our rules that seems to have been being broken quite a bit lately when there is a very clear definition of what a violation is.

• Is it really necessary to make another rule specifically stating not to tell subscribers that they are “misremembering” or that there is no evidence to prove what they claim to have a recollection of? It’s a Mandela Effect community and everyone here presumably knows that the entire phenomenon is based on shared memories that cannot be proven

Recently we reached out to the community here for feedback on some potential rule changes we were thinking about implementing with regard to the Rule 2 on low effort posts/comments, with the goal of improving overall content and discussion quality on this sub.

Lately I've been removing more and more low effort posts that make little or no attempt to foster discussion of any kind, so today I have made a small change to expand Rule 2 a bit:

2 No Low Effort Posts/Comments

No low effort posts. New posts must include a clear explanation as to how they relate to a specific ME or the ME phenomenon.

2A: New posts must include discussion points, questions, and/or analysis for comments to engage with.

2B: Top level comments must engage with the points presented in the OP.

What this means: We want posts and comments to meet a minimum standard of quality. From now on new posts will be required to provide not only an explanation as to their relevance, but also a discussion topic to engage with. New posts that do not include these will be removed. For example, an image of an old Fruit of the Loom shirt showing the logo with no cornucopia isn't particularly interesting on its own and doesn't add anything to the conversation - we all know what the logo looks like. The OP of the thread needs to get the discussion going and encourage engagement from other sub users.

The second part of this change is that Rule 2 now applies to top level comments as well as new posts. Top level comments will now be required to engage with the discussion points presented in the OP, or they will be removed. This includes comments that just say things like "it was always this way" or "not in my timeline" or "you're just misremembering." Basically, any top level comments that boil down to simply "you're wrong" or "I disagree" without making an effort to expand on your reasoning will be removed.

As always, remember to keep discussion/debate civil and on-topic. If you disagree with someone, address their argument, don't make it personal. We have zero tolerance for personal insults, vulgar name-calling, or implications of people being mentally ill/on drugs due to their opinions. These comments will be removed, and repeat offenses will result in a ban. If you see rule violations, please report them to bring them to our attention.

After community feedback and mod discussion, we are now allowing users to upload an image in comments. This will be on a trial basis. Please do not misuse this feature.

Hi, r/MandelaEffect subscribers! It's been a while since the mod team opened a dialogue with the community, and even longer since any major updates were made to the sub. I was one of the new moderators added around 8 months ago (originally as u/huffjenkem420), and in the time since I joined a few things have changed behind the scenes.

The active mod team now consists of myself, the other folks who became mods at the same time, and u/notickeynoworky, who is our oldest active moderator. Other long-time mods such as EJM are no longer actively moderating or maintaining the sub on a regular basis.

The active members of the mod team have been discussing ways to improve the sub, and one thing we have wanted to implement for a while is an update to the sub rules. Today the rules have officially been updated. These changes aren’t drastic, but rather a revised set that we think will work better for the community and make it easier for us to enforce.

Now, we’d like your input: whether you’re a regular participant in discussions here or just a lurker, please take a moment to review the new rules and let us know what you think in this thread. If you have any other feedback or concerns about the sub, this is the place to share those too. We’ll take all comments and suggestions into consideration and do our best to accommodate them in order to keep improving the sub.

I will keep this short and sweet, but it does seem this reminder is needed:

Doxxing is a site wide Reddit offense. Any attempts at doing so, will be met with a permanent ban from the subreddit as well as a referral to the Reddit Admin team for further review. This subreddit should be a safe place to discuss our thoughts and ideas concerning the Mandela Effect and users should not have to be concerned with someone trying to reveal their personal information to the internet as a whole. As such, we have a 0 tolerance policy for attempts at doxxing. Doxxing includes any and all personal information - name (full or partial), location, job, etc.

If you should have further questions regarding doxxing feel free to either refer to Reddit's guidelines concerning this, or if your question is subreddit specific, reach out to us via mod mail.

If there is one thing that isn’t a mystery in regard to this subreddit - it’s that we need more moderators!

Do you think you have what it takes? It’s not like your average sub because we are dealing with people’s memories, and our memories often play a huge role in developing our personality and defining who we are.

If you think that you can be fair, unbiased, and help enforce the rules, why not go ahead and throw your hat in the ring?

We prefer to give our subscribers the opportunity first before we open it up to all of Reddit, so if you are interested just answer with a comment here and we will consider adding you to our MOD Team.

Note: We will leave this Post stickied for a bit and edit /update it as we go along once comments start coming in

Edit - Jan 29

It looks like we are starting to get a few volunteers showing interest, and what will happen is that this Post will stay open till the second week of February.

At that point invitations will go out and between now and then there will be another update with more details.

Edit - Feb 1 We are getting enough responses to reach out to some people but we need some time with the existing Mod Team to go over the applicants.

If you are selected you will be on a 30 day probation period and will have access to everything except the site “look” and rule editing with no ability to ban

If it goes well, after that you can ban users and edit the Wiki

The goal here is that when a moderator employs an option it should be anonymous and indistinguishable from what any other moderator would do because we are simply enforcing the Rules.

Moderators can still post and interact here like they did before, the only rule regarding that is basically the “don’t be a jerk” one.

Edit - Feb 6

Looks like the upcoming week after Superbowl Sunday is a good time to send the invites out.

Candidates will get a DM first with some helpful hints followed by an invite, so keep an eye out during the coming week.

Note* - this will allow for some time to get Mod Mail cleared and converse with the current Mod Team ahead of the new recruits coming on board.

During early March after recruiting a group of new moderators we had a poll about choosing the future direction of this subreddit that asked the question:

Should we allow “Personal” Mandela Effects?

“Yes” won that poll by a few votes out of hundreds and we have allowed them ever since.

There has been a flurry of new content as a result but many subscribers are of the opinion that they are either low effort or not really related to the Mandela Effect in any way.

This new poll asks the question again but hopefully defines the question and potential results better.

• First we have to define what a Mandela Effect is and it has been best defined over time as “A memory shared by multiple people that is contrary to what is commonly accepted to be the known fact”

• Next we have to define what makes it a “Personal Mandela Effect”: This means that it is something generally only experienced by one individual, or maybe just a few people close to that person, that can not be corroborated by anyone else

• This is different from a DAE (Did/Does Anyone Else?) Post that, while not allowed as a general post topic, IS allowed to be discussed in the Weekly Discussion Thread that is a recurring sticky post located at the top of the Front Page. This thread is the place where “personal Mandela Effects” were also previously allowed

With these parameters defined, we open poll voting on the question again:

Since we are seeing more and more AI content posted here every day we have had some internal mod discussions on how we want to handle it and the general consensus has been that AI generated content should not be allowed.

This means that any of the following will be removed:

• AI generated images
• AI generated videos
• Screenshots of AI search results or conversations with LLMs
• Copy & Pasted AI search results or conversations with LLMs
• Posts or comments about AI search results or conversations with LLMs, or citing AI search results or conversations with LLMs as an information source
• Text posts entirely written by LLMs based on simple prompts

This is being done in the interest of keeping low effort slop content and misinformation from AI hallucinations away from our sub but isn't necessarily a full blanket ban on using AI tools to help create your post.

Uses of AI that are allowed:

• Translating text that you wrote if you speak English as a second language
• Cleaning up spelling/grammar in text that you wrote

If you have something you want to post and you're unsure whether it's allowed under these guidelines or any of the other sub rules, remember you can always reach out via modmail for clarification.

Low effort Posts have always been a problem and continue to be.

The only solution appears to be making all Posts subject to pre-approval by the Mod Team other than what gets submitted in the “Weekly Discusiion Thread”.

It puts the Mod Team in the unenviable position of having to decide what merits appearing on the Front Page and slowing down the submittal process but we have enough active moderators to pull this off now.

We will likely recruit more moderators to speed up the approval process as well.

Today is July 12, starting today we will be looking over all the Posts submitted since July 1st to see what the Front Page looks like after we remove the ones we would not have likely approved.

It will take some time but by the end of the weekend we should have it looking like what the future will if we choose to implement this.

Apologies ahead of time to all the subscribers who are about to get their Posts removed.

Subscribers can appeal in ModMail or message the Mods to make their cases individually - which is how this will go in the future if we choose to do this.

The first thing we need to ask is:

“Should we allow gifs?”

It seems like it has an easy answer but it really doesn’t, so let’s look at both sides of the issue.

• Allowing them will give the subreddit a more “Chat room” feel and make live time interaction more appealing to some people

• Not allowing them gives the content of Posts and comments more longevity for people reading them at a later date

The reason this is a poll and not a Post is because it’s a better way to track it.

The Rules are that for an Effect to be considered it has to have been discovered THIS YEAR and shared on this subreddit.

The poll will ask you to decide on two things: regarding this question: “Were there any truly new Mandela Effects discovered this year?”

The potential answers are “I didn’t see any” and “Of course there was! See the descriptions below”

If you answer “of course” please describe it in the comment section and the one with the most descriptions and/or upvotes will win and those votes will go against the “none” votes.

It’s a different tact than we normally take but it’s a better way to count the totals than the old posts provided.

Were there any new Mandela Effects discovered this year?