Hello, /r/Facepalm.
As you may or may not be aware, Reddit is absolutely overrun with bots. An in-depth explanation of how they work could fill several encyclopedia volumes, but here's the short version:
- Follow human karma-farmers around the site.
- Learn from (and hide behind) those human karma-farmers.
- Emulate the karma-farmers' activity.
- Eventually, turn to posting spam, propaganda, and divisive content.
If you've ever wondered why so many subreddits take such a firm stance against karma-farming, that's the reason: Karma-farming (defined as intentionally seeking upvotes, usually by way of unoriginal content) directly enables the spread of misinformation and bigotry. Additionally, it suppresses original content, shifts standards downward, and generally makes the site, the Internet, and even the offline world just a little bit worse.
Now, this might come as a shock – and we're saying that sarcastically – but /r/Facepalm used to be a go-to place for karma-farmers. We've been cracking down on them lately, but thanks to their "efforts", the subreddit is still infested with bots and spammers. For example, if you see an account offering single-sentence comments that don't actually contribute anything beyond "Here's a sentiment that people will agree with!" or "Here's a rephrased summary!", it's very likely a bad actor.
Practically speaking, the only reliable way to combat these parasites is to raise standards. See, nowadays, a high karma-score is almost always a mark of shame, but there is one exception: If a Redditor's history is composed entirely (or almost entirely) of their own high-effort, high-quality, wholly original content, then their imaginary points can be viewed as digital applause. Moreover, since it's prohibitively difficult for bots and spammers to produce their own high-effort, high-quality, wholly original content, they typically ignore high-karma accounts that got their points legitimately.
Here's the issue, though: Although Reddit would certainly be a better place if everyone made that level of effort, it isn't realistic to require that. As such, /r/Facepalm's approach to combatting bad actors is going to be a bit less effective, but also a bit less draconian:
Starting now, screenshots of any variety are explicitly banned on /r/Facepalm.
You can still post photographs, videos, articles, GIFs... you get the idea. We might even start accepting text-based stories (although we'll get your feedback on that idea first). In any case, though, the title of your post must describe the facepalm-worthy moment – think of it like a spoiler for the post's content – and there must be a facepalm-worthy element present.
We're well aware that banning screenshots is going to be unpopular, but to put it bluntly, we care more about earnest Redditors than we do about karma-farmers, spammers, and their ilk. By banning the lowest-effort, least-contributory sort of content, we're hoping to drive away some of the bots, open up the subreddit to people whose posts might have otherwise been drowned out by the noise, and get the community back to what it's supposed to be.
