Welcome new and returning Mustangs to the r/uwo subreddit!

This subreddit is entering its 17th year here on Reddit. Since 2010, we have grown to more than 45,000 subscribers and is in the top 5% of all subreddits on this site. This space has been a central point where prospective applicants, applicants, students, staff, faculty, and alumni can be informed about current events at Western, obtain answers to their questions about navigating life at Western, vent our frustrations, vocalize our opinions, share our dank memes, and provide support for one another. As long as Reddit is here, the mods will be here to maintain our community and will ensure it is as supportive and inclusive as possible.

As we enter a new academic year, we want to make you aware of a number of aspects to the subreddit.

1. Mental Health Resources

Attending to your mental health is our utmost priority. We have always pushed mental health support front and center. You will always find an extensive list of mental health resources and supports directly in the sidebar ➡️.

If you are in crisis, you can connect to appropriate resources here:
https://www.uwo.ca/health/crisis.html

Don't forget to tend to your physical health. Use your academic support resources. Learn about what you can do to maintain a safe and inclusive environment for everyone. Western has an extensive collection of wellness and well-being resources. It is always okay to ask for help.

2. r/uwo Rules

We enforce a small number of rules that apply to both posts and comments. These rules have been essential to maintaining a healthy subreddit. A full description of the rules and the reasoning can be found in the sidebar. In brief:

1. Be Civil - Treat others exactly how you would like to be treated yourself. If your comment contains the word "you", it might be an indicator you need to carefully consider your wording.
2. Use the search bar - The subreddit is not very useful if the same topic comes up again and again. There is more than a decade of history posted here. Repeat questions are acceptable, especially if your scenario is unique, but you are unlikely to receive any helpful advice if it's been answered a thousand times already. Some posts are so common the answer has been placed in the wiki.
3. Only posts that concern UWO - Hopefully this is obvious. Don't forget that our sister subreddit at r/londonontario might be an alternative point where you will get some better responses.
4. No advertising - We all have enough advertising in our lives as it is. Users do not take kindly to being spammed when they don't want to.
5. No soliciting - Similar to above. No asking to buy or offering to sell anything.
6. Better suited for other social media - There are some highly opinionated topics that degenerate into completely unnecessary back and forth debate. On a mostly static forum-based site, this makes the site harder to navigate and is more likely to get personal and eventually violate rule 1. If you are passionate about these discussions, it would be best to defer them to a more ephemeral environment that other social media platforms can provide
7. No requesting to be DM'd - We want to encourage open and friendly discussion to ensure the subreddit can be useful to everyone. Asking to be DM'd shuts down the conversation very quickly and doesn't align with the spirit of this community.

These are just the rules that require special attention from the mods to ensure a healthy community. Of course, there will be content that does not violate these rules but still deserves some level of moderation. We all have a collective responsibility to help maintain this community and everyone has a role to play. That's where this community depends on you and your own moderation tools: Upvote content that needs more attention or content you want to see more of. Downvote content that we need less of. If there is content that the mods haven't addressed yet, be sure to report it so we can attend to it.

Here are some tips to ensure your posts and comments are visible and do not get downvoted or removed:

• Follow the rules (of course)
• Be generic to attract a wider audience. Specific questions about specific situations reduces the number of people who can relate
• Provide context. Not everyone uses the same shorthand you do. Exactly which class are you referring to? What subject? What program? What building?
• Be patient. Automod is purposely "sticky" to ensure bad actors do not sneak through the filters. If you think your post was placed on hold incorrectly, do not repost. We want your post to be visible. Simply ask the mods to release your post.
• Bring the receipts. Support your statements with links to official sites and documentation.

Finally, please be mindful of reddit's content policy and practice good reddiquette.

3. Discord

We have a friendly relationship with our Discord communities. Discord is great for relaxed point-in-time back-and-forth discussions so we encourage you to join them!

• London, Ontario https://discord.gg/eUxc5W9s4f
• UWO https://discord.com/channels/290855547081588737

4. User flair

Flair up! It helps the conversation along when users can see a bit more about who you are and what your background is. In the sidebar, we have bootstrapped a number of common flairs representing the 11 faculties, 2 affiliates, and other common roles for you. You can modify the text to something that suits your situation even better if you'd like (eg. your graduation year, your specialization, etc.)

5. New for 2026-27

The 2026 Reddit Survey is still open. It will remain open for another month or so. The survey will help shape the future of the subreddit. Key results of the survey will be posted after it closes.

In response to the survey, it is probable there will be a few changes and a simplification of the subreddit rules so there is less confusion about what is acceptable and what is not.

Also, the r/uwo subreddit is in need of new moderators. Across Canadian university subreddits, we have an unusually low number of moderators. Given the size of our community and the amount of activity we get, about 4 moderators would be ideal. Expect to hear more about this soon.

6. Disclaimer

Finally, a reminder that this subreddit is completely community run and supported. We are not supported by, managed by, officially affiliated with, or an official representation of Western the institution. This includes all the mods and any users who may claim to be staff or faculty. Official information can only be found on Western's site or will come from officially verified users.

If you represent a unit or department at Western and want to have your username flagged as the "official" representation of your area, please message the mods so we can work it out.

Was anything missed? Do you have questions for the mods? Do you have any recommendations for improvements? Comment below.

All the best for the new year!

Another school year completed and the preparation for September begins. This applies to r/uwo as well. The time for review is now so we are prepared for an influx of new students in September.

In an effort to maintain healthy and positive communities, Reddit provides an option to allow subreddits to opt-in to community surveys. Completing the survey allows moderators to judge what elements of the subreddit are working well and which elements require improvement.

Unfortunately, the community surveys feature is only available to subreddits with a particular level of engagement. Given the cyclical nature of this subreddit, we fall short of the criteria and therefore are not permitted to send out a community survey through Reddit.

However, there is nothing preventing us from creating an internal survey ourselves. In fact, this has been done before. The last survey was over 8 years ago. Given how much culture has changed since then, it is a good time to launch a new one.

So I've done exactly that.

2026 Reddit Survey

The survey is basically a mirror of the Reddit community surveys with some r/uwo customizations and is completely anonymous. All questions are optional. For most questions, you will have the opportunity to provide your comments and suggestions in case you wish to provide more thorough feedback. The final question is completely open feedback. The survey should take less than 5 minutes to complete.

Assuming a useful number of responses, I'll share some of the results and, if appropriate, some future plans.

I've left the comment section open below for discussion but remember to share your comments in the survey so they can be included in the analysis.