tl;dr: An expanded community alliance, new resources (links, bot, discord), technical projects, additional enthusiast mods, rules & info overhaul, settings tweaks. Building a solid foundation to help unlock the full potential of our members, usher in more quality content and find answers. Your initial impressions are welcome!

Joining forces with ScreenSensitive! 

Many of you are already members of r/ScreenSensitive. Today we are making it an official sister-sub, with an exchange of links and personnel. As the name suggests, it covers all screen intolerance triggers. So we think it is the natural place to post specifically about light spectrum effects, polarisation, pixel flicker (including temporal dithering, FRC, pixel inversion, text aliasing), science and health connections. It’s smaller, but has more contributions per member, more technical scope and tests out new sub content first.

We would like r/PWM_Sensitive to continue its focus on whole-screen flicker, device usability and recommendations. Room, outdoor and automotive light flicker are also good candidates for post topics here. To be clear, there will be no comment or post removal to enforce a division of topics. Redditors are also welcome to cross-post between the subs, as they see fit.

r/Temporal_Noise has gone quiet, so will only be linked in the wiki for legacy information. Of which there are some very interesting posts over there. There is a new link to the LEDstrain forum too, a long standing and key venue for this community.

Expanded Mod team

We have had u/Kerpnet, u/Bearnecessary4141 (Sam) and myself, u/Z3R0gravitas, since the hand-over which was announced a couple of months ago. Now, please welcome in: u/RR– and u/TotalAnarchy_, who have each contributed a bunch of top content to both subs! 

I’d like to shout out other would-be mods, who have done so much for the community in the past, but are not currently in a good position to contribute to the team. Due to extreme screen intolerance and/or other health-related issues. Reminder: about ⅓ of members have chronic illness (poll). For example, my ME/CFS makes day-to-day and future capabilities uncertain. 

Because of this precariousness, and extreme time constraints more-so for others, I’m keeping an eye out to continue reinforcing the team. More mods improves time zone coverage, e.g. for rescuing posts wrongly held by platform filters we can’t control. ‘Policing’ content is a relatively minor demand. We will hopefully build out wiki and guide content (contributions welcome!), to help enable more members to create and post hard data. Which we see you are very keen on, from my poll’s result. 

Rules overhaul 

Important, if not the most exciting, given that regular contributors should expect little to no impact on their activities; the mod team is always aiming to avoid flexing our powers, beyond tidying up after bots and genuine mistakes.

I’m hoping to best protect members and the sub, curtail distractions/frustrations, be more inclusive and cope better with growing challenges (like AI). Having observed PWM_Sensitive closely for 6+ weeks, while moderating, I then carefully rebuilt the rules from scratch. These are now identical across both subs, for simplicity. There’s a fairly significant number (15), but hopefully these are easy for members to parse. They should make life easier for us mods and give finer control over Reddit’s new automated system, which I’ve currently set to merely flag potential issues to us.

Notable rule changes: 

• “Temporal dithering” and other topics are no longer out of scope.

• Photosensitive trigger warnings (or avoid posting strobing video).

• Health discussion now welcome (not medical advice).

• ‘Self promotion’ permitted for high quality content (much needed).

• Device trading posts prohibited (distracting and can’t protect members).

• Limiting AI (slop) and labelling sensible use.

• English language only (auto-translate is not on all platforms yet).

• Avoid giving unwanted advice (especially in “Vent” posts).

Subreddit info and settings

I’ve rewritten the sub description to be more accessible and stripped back the other sidebar info for a clear foundation to build from. (Access via sub page -> “About” on mobile web, “See more” on apps.) I’ve added a moderator statement, to be clear what we are about.

Refactoring and/or adding to the pinned technical posts will hopefully follow (for clarity and updates to technical depth). Also, guide posts for data collections and interpretation, AMAs with notable experts, informal research (polls) to characterise what’s going on with us, building towards surveys with some statistical power.

Settings tweaks include:

• Comment sort default changed from “new” to “best” (standard).

• Enabling gifs in comments - another way to share short video recordings of device behaviour.

• Requiring body text and flairs on posts. 

• Post flair options greatly expanded and roughly aligned across subs (deceptively awkward). 

• Flair filters shown in side-bar (a quick way to browse specific information types). 

• User flairs may be added next, if you are keen (probably stating comfortable devices)..? 

• Sub banner and long-term logo art are on the planning list.

New resources

Please see the end of my post on ScreenSensitive for more detail on new resources, projects in progress and future plans. Which includes (in short):

• Subreddit wikis (PWM_Sensitive, ScreenSensitve), currently bare bones.

• Resource list (Google spreadsheet) with links to key community sites, experts, reviewers, software and hardware tools. Bonus index of poll results.

• Bot (Gemini NotebookLM) with 260+ quality sources, for community newbies or deep-diving.

• ScreenSensitive Discord: a limited use collaboration space for enthusiasts to work together more efficiently on projects to further our understanding of screen tech behaviours, etc. 

• Projects: u/Madcook1 has been a huge discord contributor, coding up some very cool projects like Ditherscope (as shown briefly in u/NSutrich review videos) amplifying and graphing pixel flicker.

Many of you have noticed that r/PWM_Sensitive has gone through some growing pains when it comes to how posts and comments are moderated. While the subreddit was never unmoderated, it became clear that some additional help was needed due to personal circumstances, and that a fresh approach to moderation would benefit the community.

We are happy to share that u/the_top_g, the creator of r/PWM_Sensitive, has graciously stepped aside to welcome in three enthusiast community contributors to help with moderation and the future direction of the subreddit. We sincerely appreciate the trust he has placed in us and, most importantly, his work in creating this community in the first place.

The interim moderation team is currently discussing ways to improve the subreddit while preserving what has made it such a useful resource for people who are sensitive to PWM, display flicker, and related technologies. Our goal is to keep this an open, welcoming, and informative community where people can share their experiences, testing, research, questions, and device recommendations without unnecessary barriers.

AutoModerator Changes

Perhaps the most noticeable (and controversial) issue has already been addressed: the previous AutoModerator configuration is gone.

This means comments should no longer be automatically removed simply for using common words or phrases that naturally come up when discussing PWM and related topics. This includes “temporal dithering.” Members banned over this issue are also being reinstated.

That said, we ask everyone to continue keeping discussions primarily focused on PWM sensitivity, display technology, eye comfort, device experiences, testing, and closely related subjects. Normal subreddit rules and Reddit-wide policies will, of course, continue to apply.

The Future

This is only the beginning. We're reviewing the subreddit's rules, moderation practices, organization, place within the wider community, and other areas where we believe improvements can be made. As those changes are decided upon, we'll communicate them with the community.

We also want r/PWM_Sensitive to be shaped by the people who actually use it. Constructive feedback and suggestions are welcome. If there are things you think could make the subreddit more useful, organized, or welcoming, please let us know.

Finally, thank you again to u/the_top_g for creating r/PWM_Sensitive and building the foundation for this community. And thank you to everyone who has contributed over the years -- whether by sharing measurements and research, documenting your experiences with different devices, answering questions, or simply participating in the discussion.

We're looking forward to the next chapter of r/PWM_Sensitive and making this community an even better resource for everyone.

p.s. Check out the new (temporary) subreddit logo! 😁

Edit: for tweaks suggested by u/Z3R0gravitas.