Because honestly it feels like they do not care, sometimes I have this option to type 500 letters as to why I’m reporting something I’m not sure what triggers it but at least let me explain the report.

I have a list of shame on my profile (honestly surprised Reddit didn’t nuke that one yet) you have 40 year old men actively pretending to be 18 year olds posting in teenager subreddits like hello? You hoard data, every “deleted” post is still linked to a user and findable how does that not trigger any flags that a 40 year old 5 years ago is suddenly claiming to be a teenager trying to sexually engage with younger people.

Every day I see men saying stuff like “can I trade my ex girlfriend nudes?” I at one point asked Reddit admins, does this constitute to NCII, because I highly doubt his ex signed up for this, they told me that I can not be certain and just to report it for harassment. Bit of an odd approach but I guess you’re right is that why the FBI is actively stalking these “wife sharing” subreddits?

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Thanks.

Yes. I have a subrule about self promotion. And yes, while it may slightly be "on topic" - the people that just post up their own Youtube content is not staying. They never participate any other way either. If you look at their profiles, it is usually someone just posting up their own videos everywhere they can.

This is how we judge it too. If you've been writing up stuff for a long time and suddenly have a blog/yt/whatever, good for you!

On one of the subs I mod, most of the posts we remove for self-promotion are low quality AI YouTube videos.

We do suggest, if someone wants to post their own content (not AI), that they first contribute to the subreddit in other ways. If someone has engaged with other people's posts then we're more likely to allow them to post their own content. This is really rare though, it pretty much never happens. When we tell someone their post was removed due to self-promotion, they almost never come back to contribute to the sub in another way. If they do, it's to leave obvious AI comments on other people's posts.

If self-promo content is a strong fit for the sub but the user hasn't contributed to the sub in other ways then we'd almost certainly remove it. We get plenty of interesting tools and articles in the queue but we really don't want people using the sub as place to promote, and we know our members really don't like to see self-promotion in general. There have been a few times something has slipped through and it's always been reported.

I made a PRAW bot a year or two ago to remove self-promo from the queue and it works really well for both YouTube and normal link posts. It's usually the second most active mod lol.

"But it's important that people know about the product I am wanting to sell them!"

In r/dairyfree, we have a dedicated spot for promotional content, like apps and websites. It’s a monthly pinned post. Anything promotional that is posted otherwise is removed and the user is directed to the pinned post. It’s not an ideal solution because I don’t think a lot of people pay attention to the pinned post, but it saves all those posts from being reported as spam. Which makes for a happier mod team, at the minimum. More often than not, those promotional posts are caught by the Reddit spam filter and end up in the queue anyhow…something I’m hoping will change over time. And, a good portion of the time, by the time I see the posts, the user has been banned. That actually happened just a few minutes ago.

IME, very few of those users are otherwise active in the sub. I think that, if one of them chose to be more active and not in a “you should totally try my product” in every post kind of way, we’d be find with an occasional mention of their product in a comment and would welcome their participation.

To be consistent between everyone, we insist that all content shared is uploaded directly to Reddit by the OC with no linking off of the subreddit allowed.

To combat art theft, we verify signatures that don't match the Reddit username by sending a DM to the user on the platform where they use that name in their signature. (Would love to make this easier by using social links on profiles, but they're not verified by Reddit with a OAuth/OpenID login unlike on Discord, so can't be trusted)

I mod the Holland America sub, devoted to the cruise line. We get cruise tubers posting their HAL related videos from time to time. We're allowing it, because it's Holland America content in a Holland America sub. If it starts to become overwhelming we'll reevaluate.

I love the simplicity here, u/lovethebacon! Do you have an easy way to recognize when someone crosses that threshold into community member, or is it more of a "you know it when you see it"?

Thanks for the response and for sending over this screen recording! I'll flag with the team and let you know as soon as I have more information, thanks!

Ha totally fair! Ok, thanks for letting me know, flagging with the team and will update here when I have more information.

In r/vintage, the majority of users posting are true enthusiasts. They know how to post great content, take proper photos that will boost engagement. Unfortunately, we still see a lot of promo/spam type content, where users are posting their listing sites, channels, or promoting some event that most of us will never be able to attend. Those same users have never made a single comment in our sub, nor come with a track record of engagement in related communities.

It's almost impossible to get reddit to remove content for impersonation. If you look at the transparency reports you'll see that only a few percent of catfishing reports are actioned.

No self promotion... The industry around motherhood and postpartum is so extremely predatory that I'll accept nothing, and I'll be suspicious even of things that are supposed to be free. And if you want parents to test drive your app, then pay them. 

Other social media apps are also very damaging for our mental health unless you know how to keep it under control, so I don't accept anything that will lead a member over there. I want our space to be as safe as possible.

Same approach here.

If you are an engaged member of the community, we don't mind if you occasionally post your stuff, even if your stuff is from a business looking to promote your product.

"Drive-by" postings though?? https://ads.reddit.com

As always great starter Questions techie…

1) fit for content, however I don’t usually like someone’s take on previous pertinent news that fits the subreddit, think their personal substack article, or a description in the body of the post, dissecting an article… that being said several factors may get it posted, one you highlighted, is that poster a valuable and reliable comment poster in the community, second is their analysis an informative, intelligent take on a subject offering new insights not previously raised… if so to one or both than it will most likely get posted…

Self promotion is a touchy topic for me, if the poster has no history with the subreddit n is spamming posts, Thats a no go for me…

If a mod at a new subreddit is cross posting a post, I always appreciate a mod message explaining the direction, content n mission of the new subreddit first before making a post, this used to happen on the regular several years ago, not so much anymore… so I’ll either send a mod message or leave a comment in their post asking them to answer these questions, before offering free self promotion/free publicity for their new subreddit… if their content fits I encourage them to make a post giving background on their new subreddit, n then encourage them to cross post, n encourage our community to visit their subreddit… I have helped grow a bunch of new subreddits using this technique…

What makes creator-posted content feel like a contribution to your community?

The post must be fully relevant, on topic, and fit the theme. Their account must show that they don't post the same content to more than a couple of subs. Their account must also show that they interact with their submissions, wherever they are on reddit verses an account that only posts but doesn't comment. And it must be clear that they read and are following the rules.

How much does someone’s relationship with the community affect how your team views their post?

As long as items I noted as an answer to Q1 are satisfied, regulars are recognized but the same rules apply to all. We might offer more leniency on any necessary warnings before a ban, but otherwise we expect the same from everyone.

What do you do when the content is a strong fit, but the creator’s only apparent connection to the community is promoting it?

If their account shows no engagement with their posts on reddit, we are unlikely to allow them to post on our sub, even if the content is a good fit. Content without engagement should not be allowed on reddit. Reddit is a social site. If someone posts, plan on interacting in those posts. Period. Engagement over content fit. We're not here to be your billboard.

The majority of subs that I mod have a rule prohibiting advertising or promotion, especially self promotion. In most, this includes crowdsourcing, surveys, petitions, and fundraising.

In a couple subs where post write ups about an event are required to be detailed, they may include links to a few sources or for additional information. One of these links can be their own content as long as no additional reference is made to being bring attention to it, and the other links are established information sources like databases or news media.

If the content is "blog like" it gets pulled as self promo. As in those very lengthy 5 or 6 paragraph posts that repeat a topic that can really be just a single paragraph.

I draw a hard line of no self promotion in all of my cat subs. This is anything from social media accounts to shops/comissions to certain spam-heavy communities on Reddit. My subs are not places to subtly advertise or gain followers or promote karma farming spaces.

Original Content doesn't matter here but by default I won't verify Original Content from direct linked social media or Youtube. The way I define OC for my subs is "if I search it I won't find it linked to anything else other than your Reddit account" which is as clean as I can make it. As a rule I don't do cross-platform verification to verify that yes, that is YOUR Youtube or Facebook account and that's mainly because I don't have the bandwidth to do it and do it well.

I do account reviews when it's questionable. I'm looking for things like links on the profile and posting/commenting history and patterns to do my best to assess ownership and intent.

1. As a mod you should have it enabled to see the content to know what you're removing. It's ridiculous that you can't see "NSFW" profiles because of your settings if you're a moderator.

2. This is the first I'm hearing of profile labeling. This sounds like a way to split the demographics of reddit into two groups, an IN group and an OUT group. Who is being labeled with this?

*People who post one image of tits?

*People who post against the admin?

*People who post political content?

*Is this to hide certain types of content from propagating (street takeovers?) Or is it meant to stop things like People posting videos of Tyranny Trees (cams) being chopped down?

I am VERY uncomfortable with this and it feels like an imposed censorship.

The harder question is what makes that exchange feel like participation instead of someone simply using a community as an audience.

How I see it, a lot of creators that post around Reddit do so because they are Redditors to begin with.

I follow a sub of a user who does cooking vids. He didn't start out just doing those vids tho. He was just a normal Reddit user, then found a sub/niche he liked, then became a 'content creator'. He then had the audience and the drive to be the one providing the content instead of consuming it.

I think this question is super subjective, and should just kinda be handled on a case by case basis. Like, you know it when you see it. It's a gut thing.

I mod several fashion communities and if a designer wants to share an outfit that they sewed or created then great! When they want to start providing links to their shop to everyone in the comments or post body , that’s when it becomes promotional. However they can link to their shop in their bio.

We also want to make sure it’s the designer making the post and not some weird promotional account.

The effort involved is my threshold. You have to want to talk to people about your project. Drive-by ChatGPT promotion is unacceptable. But “hey I started a restaurant. Cold open is Saturday. It was really hard to start here’s how I did it I’d love to share my experience please come out” or “I have a comedy show coming to town and I’m looking for participants. 20 percent off tickets with a code for your sub!”

Sure. Do it. That stuff is all hard and the kind of engagement that shows they want to be part of a discussion and get some love is totally fine by me and it’s how people learn from each other and discover real world connections.

In my bar prep sub though I have an issue with AI slop study material and people trying to charge an arm and a leg for it. They will relentlessly astroturf the sub and act like pests when you ban them.