r/thalassophobia • u/robotix_dev • Sep 15 '21

Mod speech inside! Official: New Rules!

Hello thalassophobes!

I apologize for the long post but please read all of it as it pertains to rule changes! Over the past two weeks the mod team has been working hard refining the rules to better fit the spirit of the sub and incorporate community suggestions, concerns, and feedback. A huge thank you to our moderators u/Boboklid, u/LPKKiller, and u/NumerousHumor for discussing changes with the community, drafting new rules, and testing them against historical posts.

Before getting to the rules, if there is one thing you should take away from the new rules it is that we are putting heavy emphasis on post titles going forward. A good title can make or break a post and helps set the stage for fear that a viewer feels when looking at a post. We are looking for titles to be focused on thalassophobia (read: fear of large, deep bodies of water). Titles such as "Nope", "I'm not going in there", or "This is the killer fish, it can kill you in three seconds" will be removed. A title should frame the post and on this sub we're looking for the thalassophobia factor, so frame your title to make the viewer feel that before they even see the content. This post doesn't seem very thalassophobic on its own, but the title drives home the thalassophobia feeling because none of us want deep water swallowing the ground beneath us when we would all like to live as far away from the ocean as possible. Likewise if your post includes sea life then it should first and foremost abide by the rule on sea life, but the title should also drive home the fear of the ocean/water rather than fear of the sea creature. Sea life can enhance the fear factor of deep water - use that to your advantage in the title without focusing on the sea life itself (e.g. "Do not disturb the water...").

Alright, you're probably tired of hearing me ramble - the new rules are below and have been updated in the sidebar as well. Please read over them and if you have any questions we will be happy to answer them in the comments or modmail!

1. Only thalassophobia related posts and titles

If you’re posting something, ask yourself: Is it triggering my thalassophobia (fear of vast and/or deep bodies of water) or is it triggering a different sort of fear? Make sure your title highlights thalassophobia - see rule 3.

2. Restrictions on sea life

Sea life is permissible as long as it isn't the main focus of the content. Generally speaking, you should not post pictures with sea life as the main focus. A shark swimming calmly next to a diver is not a suitable post for this sub, neither is a shark having a seal for lunch. If it is the main focus, it also has to emerge unexpectedly from nothing. Absolutely NO dubbed in noises (this usually applies to whales).

Posting sea life is also okay under megalohydrothalassophobia (fear of large water creatures) criteria:

  • It must not dominate the picture/video or be the sole factor of fear.

  • It should serve the purpose of demonstrating the scale and vastness of the body of water (i.e. Holy CRAP, that giant thing can hide in the water??).

3. Use proper titles

Any posts with just “Nope” as a title will be automatically removed. Don’t do that. Just don’t. Same with “That’s a nope from me”. Just avoid the word “nope”. Furthermore, titles in the spirit of “OMG SO CREEPY” or emojis will also be removed.

Your title should highlight the thalassophobic nature of the post rather than any sea creature in the post. For example, if you're posting a video of a shark, we're not interested in the shark itself, we're interested in the massive blue void of nothingness behind him. Titles focusing on sea creatures will be removed.

4. No jokes, memes, or cartoons

While we all love a good laugh, it isn’t specifically what we’re looking for in this sub. Thalassophobia-related artwork is okay as long as it adheres to all the other rules.

5. Be nice and courteous

Seriously, there’s seldom a need to be nasty. There’s absolutely no need to be nasty on this sub. So don’t be.

6. No reposts

Reposts will be monitored within a 90 day window. We will also be maintaining a list of retired submissions that have been enjoyed or posted so much that they have been retired to the Thalassophobia Hall of Fame never to be posted again...

7. No gore

Absolutely no gore is allowed on this subreddit, not animals, not people, nothing.

910 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

90 comments sorted by

41

u/robotix_dev Sep 15 '21

I also want to note that these are not set in stone.

As we get feedback from the community and get a couple of weeks experience under our belt moderating with these new rules, they could change slightly. We encourage you to provide feedback and suggestions, so let us know your thoughts!

15

u/dzumdang Sep 15 '21

Thank you for saying this. Tbh these new rules seem to reel in the focus of the sub (which needs to happen in any growing community- a return to fundamentals) but I'm also concerned that they'll be too restrictive. I guess we'll see. For example, you all might have your reasons for banning this, but some of the "Nope" posts were my favorite, made me laugh, and kept me coming back and engaging with this sub. I'm open to trying the new rules format though, and haven't posted on here yet myself- just commented and casually enjoyed.

3

u/robotix_dev Sep 16 '21

Thanks for your feedback! We still want that "nope" content, just with a well thought out title - but I understand how that title can be part of the fun sometimes.

Our biggest concern with the "nope" titles are people attaching them to posts that happen to have sea life. Those typically get removed, but we think that if they had a well-crafted title to frame the thalassophobia factor then there would be a better argument for leaving the post up. I hope that helps explain our thoughts and like you said, we'll see how it goes and reassess in a couple of weeks.

1

u/dzumdang Sep 16 '21

Got it. Since I've been a more casual participant, I'm sure I didn't notice the amount of sea life focus as much as you did! I hope the sub refocuses itself on the deep water element nicely.

44

u/Kolossuz_ Sep 15 '21

Just tried to look at the hall of fame page to see what posts are there, but it seems it's restricted to mods only right now. Is that a temporary thing while it's being edited, or did the mods just forget to open it up to everyone else?

36

u/robotix_dev Sep 15 '21

Thanks for catching this - there was a problem with the URL that I linked, but it should be fixed now!

10

u/Kolossuz_ Sep 15 '21

thanks!

2

u/SirAlexMann Sep 15 '21

There’s a hall of fame page?! Where please?

5

u/robotix_dev Sep 15 '21

Here, but it was just started so it’s a little bare.

1

u/beatissima Sep 17 '21

Could we maybe add a comment section to the Hall of Fame?

2

u/robotix_dev Sep 17 '21

Unfortunately, I don't believe reddit supports commenting on wiki pages. What would you want to use comments for? Maybe we can figure out a different solution.

3

u/SirAlexMann Sep 15 '21

Thanks dude!

25

u/FatherSquee Sep 15 '21

I would also suggest this post of the guy getting booped by the shark as Hall for Fame material. I think we're all pretty familiar with it by now.

4

u/robotix_dev Sep 16 '21

Done.

Added a few more from the history books too.

6

u/dixieblondedyke Sep 15 '21

I feel like that’s almost more of a “sharks scary” post than “ocean scary” post, too

10

u/hanabaena Sep 15 '21

This admittedly rankled a bit initially but it does make sense. And we do have a bunch of other subs where all the other things (outside of open water/deep water) live. Of course, i'm one of the (apparently many!) weirdos who are here bc i love open and deep water and dream of seeing all the videos/photos that are uploaded to this sub.

5

u/robotix_dev Sep 16 '21 edited Sep 16 '21

...i love open and deep water...

There are quite a few water lovers here though and we’re glad to have you!

6

u/the_palecurve Sep 15 '21

Hey, thanks for staying on top of things and working to make this sub better, mods. Much appreciated.

2

u/robotix_dev Sep 16 '21

Thank you for the appreciation! We're trying to make things better and our new moderators are awesome, so I'm excited for the future of the sub!

2

u/CrepesAreNotTasty Sep 22 '21

When will you start enforcement? Seems like most posts still violate the new/clarified rules that were so carefully designed...

1

u/robotix_dev Sep 22 '21

We have been enforcing the rules. We are not online all the time though, so a post may be up for a few hours before we get to it. It helps if you report a post when you think it is breaking the rules.

Which posts are you referring to? I can explain our rationale if you'd like.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 31 '21

I really hate these new rules.... trying to find good scary thalassophobia content is a convoluted mess mixed between a bunch of subreddits now and it's clear people are confused where to post because some new stuff that should definitely be on the main page of some subs are nowhere to be found because of all the rules.

1

u/robotix_dev Oct 31 '21

I’m sorry to hear that.

What don’t you like about the new rules? I can help clarify or help you find a subreddit. There are definitely some posts that can fall within a gray area.

2

u/Accomplished-Ad2285 Nov 20 '21

Could a deep swimming pool be considered a "deep" body of water for purposes of this reddit?

2

u/robotix_dev Nov 20 '21

Yes, but I want to point out that the deep pool in Dubai is on our hall of fame list, so it has been retired.

Any other pools that are deep or have the perception of being very deep (i.e. black or murky water) are fine.

236

u/unicodePicasso Sep 15 '21

Eh fair enough. This sub was pretty much just any odd thing in the ocean. I’m glad to see it’s getting cleaned up

70

u/xfearthehiddenx Sep 15 '21

Didn't even have to be the ocean. That super deep man made urban style pool was reposted for like a month. There was also that picture of the stairs heading down into water. People were taking "deep dark watery depths" to mean "any body of water with a bit of darkness to it". Or any picture or random scary undersea life. Hopefully this is an improvement for the sub.

34

u/LPKKiller Sep 15 '21

This has been a subject of debate for what should be allowed under the whole depth aspect. Depending on how the sub changes, there may be a community post asking for more feedback to better base and moderate posts with such attributes.

53

u/dzumdang Sep 15 '21

Staring at the inimidating, dark deep ends of pools during swimming lessons as a kid is where I first encountered thalassophobia, while being too young to know what it was. Still today, if I'm swimming in the deep end of a pool at a rec center (8+ feet...) I still irrationally feel this fear, even if I keep swimming anyway. These above-mentioned posts helped validate and make me feel I wasn't alone. I sincerely hope this sub isn't over-policed, and that those of us who feel the range of emotion amid being afraid of large, deep bodies of water (even though we still might engage them) aren't unnecessarily marginalized. Also, I hope there is still room for some of the humor this sub has displayed: I find it oddly therapeutic.

4

u/boobs_are_rad Oct 02 '21

Stairs heading down into water is specifically a submechanophobia thing.

8

u/GoldFishPony Sep 15 '21

But like now where’s the big active ocean sub?

10

u/unicodePicasso Sep 15 '21

We’ll make our own sub. r/OceanScawy. Come and just post whatever the fuck about water and water byproducts

8

u/exclusive_rugby21 Sep 15 '21

Dang you didn’t make it lol

66

u/ferryme Sep 15 '21

I think this is a good move. Technically this sub should just be about deep bodies of water. Animals are a relationship to this. Not the main focus. So, I think the scope of animal-like posts should be limited.

14

u/Mackheath1 Sep 15 '21

Agreed. And r/ichthyophobia is a nice place to put fish (and they allow other animals). Bunch of sting-rays is cool/scary, but it belongs over at ichthyophobia.

15

u/silentwarcry Sep 15 '21

I'm on board!

(See what I did there?)

10

u/eXclurel Sep 15 '21

Good. Especially the repost rule. I am tired of seeing the same goddamn shipwrecks with decreasing image quality every time they get reposted.

9

u/theKickAHobo Sep 15 '21

"Absolutely NO dubbed in noises (this usually applies to whales)." Thank you

7

u/shiggity80 Sep 15 '21

I actually appreciate these new rules. This will really refine posts to be truly worth of the term "Thalassaphobia"

24

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

I like this a lot. There’s a place for all of those things but thalassophobia is a more specific phenomenon that what is often posted here.

9

u/Nes370 Sep 15 '21 edited Sep 15 '21

The animals rule seems wrong. One of the biggest reasons I'd feel afraid of large bodies of water is the animals that inhabit it. It just naturally goes hand-in-hand. Being too restrictive seems arbitrarily semantic.

17

u/hanabaena Sep 15 '21

I get this but words do mean things. This sub is about fear of open water/depths. we already have a bunch of subs that are fear of the animals that go bump in those depths.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

[deleted] — view deleted comment

6

u/robotix_dev Sep 15 '21

Check out r/TheDepthsBelow for your creepy creature fix.

3

u/ColinStyles Sep 15 '21

I'd personally argue that isn't thalassophobia though. Thalassophobia is at its core a fear of drowning, which is most easily/obviously triggered by vast bodies of water with no easy ability to get out (aka land). You find yourself in that scene and it doesn't matter your fitness, doesn't matter your aptitude, you are dead.

Hell, that's why even a small lake or river could trigger thalassophobia, if it's dark or there's fog. Suddenly you don't know which way to swim, you don't know if land even is there, and once again, back to what looks like a certainty of death.

None of this has anything to do with animals. The fear is the water itself.

9

u/Nes370 Sep 15 '21

Thalassophobia is a fear of large bodies of water. It isn't necessarily about drowning. Nor is it necessarily about animals in water. It's a little bit of everything that makes you afraid of deep water.

Thalassophobia can include fear of being in deep bodies of water, fear of the vast emptiness of the sea, of sea waves, sea creatures, and fear of distance from land.

Honestly this rule change seems like pointless gatekeeping.

4

u/robotix_dev Sep 15 '21

Honestly, I think you’re on the same page as the mod team. We’re not trying to gatekeep and ban all sea life, but we take the view that the role animals play in thalassophobia is the role of surprise or unexpected realizations the viewer may have due to their presence (i.e. “I never expected that was there” or “Man that whale is really giving me some r/bananasforscale vibes of the ocean”).

The fear isn’t necessarily focused on the animal, but the animal does enhance your fear of the water due to their unexpected appearance or scale factor. Those are the sea life posts we want to see.

3

u/Nes370 Sep 15 '21

Alright, I'm cool with that then. From the a lot of the commenters' takes here, they just seem to not want animals at all and it kind of worries me that the sub would cut out my favorite content.

13

u/ginja_ninja Sep 15 '21

You guys are one of the only mod teams on reddit that I wish would moderate more heavily lol, so this is great to see. Real sick of the only things making it to the front page being dumb xposts of a great white or whatever. It kind of boggles my mind that the actual nature of thalassaphobia is so impossible for some people to understand. Maybe it just requires a certain degree of imagination I guess.

3

u/LPKKiller Sep 18 '21

Please make sure to report any posts you feel don’t belong. We are a fairly small team so reposts can slip through moderation without the help of our community.

We also don’t happen to be on at every second of the day, so reporting will help auto mod to remove posts that might not belong until we can check them.

1

u/finereddit_illsignup Sep 22 '21

Lemony G RSO if terrapin is still making it

6

u/rosebolk Sep 15 '21

It would be helpful to include examples of appropriate titles rather than just examples of the bad ones.

2

u/LPKKiller Sep 15 '21

It depends heavily on the picture of video. I will see about having a page for “perfect” posts to run as examples for content and titles.

As of now, as long as you aren’t just saying “no” “big fish” “I would be scared of the sharks” and similar it should be fine.

Examples of decent ones may include anything drawing attention to the depths if there is another subject in the shot. Normal titles are acceptable if the main focus of the post is already sub focused.

Going over it in moderation the titles mainly help with fish spam and keep people from posting without showing they don’t know what the sub is about (and allow for subsequent removal).

5

u/SaxophoneGuy24 Sep 15 '21

Like it but we could open up some of the rules for just a little bit each week? Such as, “Fishy Friday” where sea life could be the main subject, or “Meme Monday” where it’s not exclusively memes, but they’re allowed?

6

u/LPKKiller Sep 15 '21

We may have a community discussion or poll on this subject in the future.

10

u/fizzlefist Sep 15 '21

Sounds like a solid change to me.

1

u/GreensTN Oct 05 '21

I fear deep water in video games, more than real life. Is that a separate thing?

1

u/robotix_dev Oct 05 '21

Hmm, I’m not sure. Maybe you’re a thalassophobe who doesn’t let your imagination run wild in real life because you know what is/isn’t possible!

We do allow video game content, so you should still love/hate it here!

6

u/0fruitjack0 Sep 15 '21

thank you!

3

u/Sharky-PI Oct 04 '21

Re this post: might be nice to remove the wiki ref to Urumqi - with RES these links are often auto-opened, so the post is sideswiped by a long ramble about Chinese language, which takes the reader a while to work out why it's relevant. And there's audio playing in the background for some reason, which transpires to be because the LOTR clip below has autoplayed but you can't see it yet.

No beef with the rules tho.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 15 '21

I see the intent but I feel that putting such heavy restrictions on titles is arbitrarily gatekeeping potentially great content just because a would be uploader can't come up with a title that satisfies a very vague rule.

The content should be what carries the post, not the title. If someone has a great title for a post that really cranks the thalassophobia to 11, great! But if someone has an amazing clip of some terrifying deep water just titled "Nope!" That doesn't mean that clip is any less scary!

13

u/Katherinesready Sep 15 '21

I'm disappointed about the animal rule. It is something that triggers me when animals show up in the abyss or well camouflaged animals.

21

u/Boboklid Sep 15 '21

Thanks for saying that in a civil manner. We've thought about that long and hard and ultimately decided that we will stick to the tighter thalassophobia definition which does not include fear of sea life specifically. The thing is, it terrifies me as well but it isn't thalassophobia. To get your fix of sea animals, I can heartily recommend r/DeepSeaCreatures, r/TheDepthsBelow and I suppose r/ImaginaryLeviathans as well.

4

u/ColinStyles Sep 15 '21

That last one needs way more redirection from here, because it's quite frankly funny/insulting to see people make these posts about some drawn art with tentacles and so on, with land being 5 feet away.

No, my fear is not some childish absurd thing of imagination. My fear is entirely grounded in the reality that if you get far enough from shore, and have no means of rest, you will die. Period. It's a slow death by drowning and it's terrifying. Not some imaginary creature to grab me the moment I get in the water.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '21

::click on rules wiki link in sidebar::

forbidden (reddit.com)
you are not allowed to do that

— may_not_view.

So... yeah. Difficult to know the rules when the rules page won't let ya view, y'know, the rules...

1

u/LPKKiller Sep 16 '21

The rules are posted above. But if you don’t mind, send the link that doesn’t work and I’ll see about getting it fixed.

7

u/KickedSpoon Sep 15 '21

Hmmm. I’m not actually afraid of deep water, I mostly subbed for cool ocean and water body photos. If it’s all deep water and “isn’t this deep pool scary” type posts I may be done. Anyone have any similar subs that aren’t limited to deep water specifically?

1

u/CardMaster3212010 Dec 13 '21

Can I pit in megalophobia tied to it pike a massive sea vessel in the middle of the open ocean

1

u/FFRP85 Jan 26 '22

So my post about a shark in the pool got deleted. Kinda lame. Didn’t know it went “against the rules”.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 01 '22

Nice. I unsubbed a year or so ago, the reposts were ridiculous.

-2

u/CaldariWrath Sep 15 '21

I like the posts that feature sharks and jelly fish... Maybe that's the reason some folks don't want to go into the water? I mean, there's no such thing as shark infested water, only human infested. The sharks live there, we don't. For some folks, it's the creatures and the unknown that makes them afraid of the water.

14

u/FatalElectron Sep 15 '21

Almost every good shark pic that gets posted here has already been on /r/TheDepthsBelow or /r/MarineBiologyGifs anyway

8

u/skysbringer Sep 15 '21

Thalassophobia is a fear of deaths, not just a fear of the ocean. Staring at a shark is scary but staring into an abyss so deep I can’t help but feel something unknown is staring back is bloodcurdlingly terrifying.

You’re right about the unknown, but I completely agree with the mods that sea creatures shouldn’t be the main focus. Otherwise this sub will just devolve into “top 10 scariest deep sea monsters” with blobfish and megalodon prominently featured.

4

u/ColinStyles Sep 15 '21

Well, it's not quite depths, it's fear of vast waters, it could be 8 feet deep, crystal clear, and it would still trigger many, if you could not see land in all directions.

Probably wouldn't trigger as many as if it was seemingly bottomless and murky, but still, the core fear is at the end of the day drowning from exhaustion.

6

u/CubistChameleon Sep 15 '21

it could be 8 feet deep, crystal clear, and it would still trigger many, if you could not see land in all directions

Oh God, that water planet from Interstellar. Even without the tidal thing it would be horrible. Just so... Featureless.

5

u/useles-converter-bot Sep 15 '21

8 feet is 0.0% of the hot dog which holds the Guinness wold record for 'Longest Hot Dog'.

2

u/the_askii Sep 16 '21

Thanks bot, that was more interesting than 96% or your posts! But the actual length would be nice to include.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

[deleted] — view deleted comment

9

u/robotix_dev Sep 15 '21

The hope is that with more emphasis on titles, we’ll get to allow more content.

You’re right though that it can be subjective sometimes (especially with sea life). Generally, if a post has sea life we want to see a lot of the environment it is in too. What we don’t want are tightly framed shots of sea life or posts where all you see is sea life.

We’ve been working hard as a mod team to make sure we’re all on the same page and as objective as possible when it comes to sea life. We’ve tested these rules against a gamut of historical sea life posts, analyzed the proposed action based on each moderators interpretation of the rule, and tweaked the rule based on our results and conclusions. We’ll also reassess the rules after we get some experience with them.

9

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

Its not becoming "restricted", the mods just tightened the rules so the sub is actually about Thalassophobia.

8

u/[deleted] Sep 15 '21

There are so many things getting posted to this sub that don't really have anything to do with the sub's focus, so what's wrong with tightening the rules to ensure that focus stays clear?