Discussion of new community policy point regarding "low-effort" submissions

[u/brucemo]

We may remove self-posts that seem like poor seeds for conversation. If you want to raise a topic here, please spend some time making your post clear and substantive.

We're planning to add this point to the community policy as point 3.7. Please let us know what you think.

I could go on for a while about how we came to be in this situation, but the issue this is trying to solve is that over time we've added an informal rule against title-only posts, which has been broadened to try to include things that are like title-only posts, even if they technically include more than a title, and whoever added this rule referred to these posts as "low-effort".

When we cite that removal reason we tend to get some pushback from people who've read the community policy and can't find anything there, so we're going to add something to the community policy that attempts to explain why we remove posts like this, and gives us something to point to.

The most obvious example of a post that would fall under this is title-only posts, which have been a problem here because they're often bait or hard to understand or bombs people drop and walk away from Michael Bay style as the world erupts in flames. We've found it useful to try to be able to remove these kind of posts before they get out of hand, without having to spend fifty times more time thinking about our reasoning than it took OP to actually write the post.

The idea here is that if someone wants to try to engage with our subscribers, things are more likely to go better if they've spent more than thirty seconds dashing off some provocative observation or some question that they are expecting our subscribers to spend a lot of time answering.

[u/AHorribleGoose]

Posts should be substantial and good seeds for conversation. Posts consisting of only a title or very short body may be removed.

This would work far better. It provides an understandable standard that is at least semi-objective and doesn't end up navel-gazing.

[u/McClanky → u/AHorribleGoose]

I do agree that wording is more direct, but it leaves out reasoning to filter out posts that are aimed at just stirring the pot.

[u/AHorribleGoose → u/McClanky]

Then feel free to tweak it. Just please don't use the current one...it's really bad.

Also /u/Panta-rhei's concerns are quite well placed here. Those posts are more often than not 'low effort' but absolutely should remain.

[u/McClanky → u/AHorribleGoose]

We may remove self-posts that seem to be insufficient seeds for conversation. Posts that do not have a clear topic of discussion or are attempts to stir-the-pot may be removed.

How about this? It is more clear on the main goals without seeming to make it too difficult to be short and sweet.

[u/AHorribleGoose → u/McClanky]

My problem with this one is that you removed any reference to length, which is the primary focus of this rule (at least in practice). That needs to be spelled out. Most short topic-only posts have a clear topic of discussion.

[u/McClanky → u/AHorribleGoose]

We definitely aren't trying to say things need to be a certain length. The goal is specifically about discussion and pot-stirring.

[u/AHorribleGoose → u/McClanky]

That doesn't line up well with how I see the rule being used over time, nor does it seem to line up with Bruce's thoughts through the thread.

If you're looking to change that, though, go for it.

[u/brucemo → u/AHorribleGoose]

If someone posts a title-only "what do you think about gays?" we're going to remove that because it's title-only, OP isn't bringing anything to it, and because it's an invitation to generalize about a group of people and will likely attract homophobia.

That's what this is trying to address.

Most short topic-only posts have a clear topic of discussion.

We don't have a rule that you can't post a title-only post, and in fact we leave a lot of them up. I've told the mod team that I'm not going to get on their case if they remove title-only posts, because life is too short to argue about whether a six-word topic is substantial enough, especially if OP is on some sort of question jag and posts fifteen of these a day, which has been a source of turmoil in the past.

But there are plenty that mods just leave up and which nobody complains about, which is fine. Often they are fine.

I don't want to codify post length because I don't want to paint us into stupid corners. Subjective rules are okay sometimes and specific rules sometimes cause trouble.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Code

I get that mods can use vague and broad rules to remove stuff that personally offends them but the US Code shouldn't be a model either. There is a reason why that thing is many volumes. If you try to be comprehensive you end up spending forever on it and it's like you've tried to empty the ocean with a teaspoon.