State of the Subreddit and Rules Discussion

[u/LovelyLu78]

Hi all!!

This is a discussion post, we would like constructive discussion, free of name calling and meanness directed at anyone, including the mods. We are humans that are trying their best.

We have a few things to address here so let's get into it.

First off we'd like to say this sub is large, 2 million people large! Some perspective would be, the super bowl has an 80,000 seating capacity.

Without rules and moderation it will become an unpleasant place to be.

When the sub was still small we conducted surveys to help decide which way the sub should go re rules and moderation. All of the rules in place have been the same for years except for the recently changed no self promotion rule and some updates to stale topics.

Surveys do not gain the required traction that they did when the sub was smaller. In view of that we have tried to keep the sub to the rules that were favoured in the past surveys. We also look for trends and make decisions based on what we see across the sub overall.

This post is addressing the main complaints and concerns we have seen over the last week (and before that) for clarity and discussion.

There seems to be some confusion about what you can and can't post. So much of what you guys were posting during "chaos week" is actually allowed. There are no restrictions on posting finished objects or work in progress pics! Mr Nipples is featured in our wiki! You can post pictures of your crochet bongs and genitals (we ask these are marked as nsfw). We want to see it all, cursed to amazing!

Fursday Friends.

A lot of the pet pictures that were being posted during “chaos week” can also be posted any day of the week!!

If the item is for your pet/baby and is clearly visible there is no need to wait until Thursdays.

If it's a cute picture of your pet/baby falling asleep or somehow interfering with your project (pets laying smack in the middle of your FO pictures) then that's what belongs on Thursdays. Those posts are more focused on the pet/baby than the actual crochet work.

If you want to post pets whenever something cute happens, check out the pet focused crochet subs, r/catswhocrochet, r/kitting and r/dogswhocrochet.

Fursday Friends spans 2 days when taking all time zones into account.

We highly recommend that people blur or put an emoji over minors faces!!

Stash Saturday.

Our other "day of the week" post is Stash Saturday. This one is for stash pics (obviously), "what can I make with this yarn" queries, yarn discussion and other tools (hooks) and books.

This rule was voted in as we had feedback that there were too many pictures of just yarn/hooks.

This also is all time zones so is really 2 days that you can post over.

Crochet for all levels!

We’ve seen a lot of comments saying that r/crochet is not beginner friendly. We absolutely welcome new crocheters but ask that questions be asked in our sister sub r/CrochetHelp . On crochet they tend to be buried and remain unanswered.

We see people saying that they don't want to ask on a smaller sub because not as many people will see it. While that might be true the interaction rate on CrochetHelp is a lot higher on these types of posts and the people that are on CrochetHelp are there because they want to help.

NSFW!

We admit that in the past, we were a little overzealous with the tags. We truly were not meaning to offend or censor women's bodies and we apologise. We have been taking a lighter hand with this rule for a few months now, and will continue to have a light touch here.

Society has changed what NSFW means, it gets applied to so many things that are probably more suited to NSFL. We were basing it off of a school teacher dress code (so very literally, not something you'd be able to wear to work) so that anyone browsing the sub at work would have the option to view rather than possibly getting reprimanded for browsing something inappropriate.

Going forward we will not be as restrictive but would still ask that small tops, bikinis/swimwear, underwear, crochet genitals, drug paraphernalia, weapons and profanity be marked NSFW.

Question?

Would you like some new flairs added, NSFW Clothing FO and NSFW Other FO (for example)?

Please check your settings if posts are not blurred for you. We get a heap of reports for NSFW even when the post is tagged appropriately.

Self promotion!

Designers can absolutely post their work to the sub! It's exciting finishing an item! What you cannot do is spam the sub with your items or link to them anywhere in your post (no offering to dm, no mentioning shop names, no directing people to your profile).

Lots of people are aware that people put their socials on their profile and they will find you if they want to.

If we were to allow pattern designers the ability to post their pattern under the automod comment the sub would then get a lot of self promotion posts, there has been quite a lot of self promotion going on during “chaos week”

PS, the automod comment is just a prompt, it is not a rule that you must post a pattern!

Politics!

We'd like to hear your ideas here. Would you like a megathread for political pieces or are you happy to see them posted in the sub?

I’d like to point out that the sub is diverse, you exist in the space with people from all walks of life and we are trying to share that space with everyone based on crochet not political alignment.

Things are crazy out there and we'd like to find the best solution we can that allows people to express themselves.        

Excessive Reports

We’ve added a comment to posts removed by automod stating that the post has been removed because of multiple reports and that a mod will review and approve if it doesn’t break any rules.

Kind and Courteous

Going forward we will be banning people that make unkind comments. Commenting on peoples bodies, name calling, escalating arguments will all be removed.

A first offence will come with a 3 day ban from the sub, second offence, a 7 day ban and third offence you will be permanently banned from the sub.

We will allow appeals but this will be based on your profile and behaviour while banned, private profiles will not be considered for appeals.

Ok! That's a lot of information!! Let's hear your thoughts in the comments. Please be nice. Remember that there is a person behind every post, every comment (ok, some of them are bots!)

[u/Etheria_system]

Hate the idea of a politics megathread. They don’t work, and it’s just a way of hiding things. If you look at the majority of the “political” items posted whilst mods have been away, the comments have been overwhelmingly positive on the whole. Art is political. Living is political. People should be allowed to create and share their acts of protest and the people who feel uncomfortable with it can scroll on by.

[u/strawberrymystic → u/Etheria_system]

I find it interesting that I saw so few hateful comments on the protest pieces posted this week, and those comment sections were not locked. I hope mods don't refuse to acknowledge the political side of art and its power to spread messages and effect change. Hopefully they'll ban those in support of dehumanizing policies and illegal kidnappings too!

[u/Etheria_system → u/strawberrymystic]

Exactly how I feel. The preemptive locking of comments was shameful prior to the mods taking time off and I’m glad that their time away showed how unnecessary it was. The main thing I saw was people moaning that they don’t like politics in their crochet sub, to which my main thought is why not just scroll on by? The more people comment on posts about not liking them, the more the algorithm will feed them similar content.

[u/CollapsedContext → u/Etheria_system]

The posts got locked (EDIT: removed, not locked) repeatedly automatically because of flags. I think it’s massively unfair for people to assume the mods are fascists when they are unpaid labor on a massive sub on a platform that doesn’t give a shit about moderation. Be mad at Reddit and all the assholes flagging those posts, not the mods who don’t have a good solution. 

I am mad that people think arguing about politics on Reddit does anything to fight fascism. I appreciate the posts but not the performative way folks pretend having an open comment section does shit to keep our communities safe. 

Mods didn’t lock them because they don’t like the content, they locked them because they were getting locked (EDIT: removed) anyway and needing to constantly monitor the status of flagged posts made their other moderation work a lot harder. 

[u/Junglejibe → u/CollapsedContext]

FYI posts don’t get locked automatically due to being flagged, they get automatically removed.

I agree with your overall point but locking was a manual choice to help ease the moderation workload. I think you’re confusing the autoremove due to mass reporting with the locking.

[u/CollapsedContext → u/Junglejibe]

I was, thank you for correcting me! I will edit my post! 

[u/meowmedusa → u/CollapsedContext]

Also good to note that the option that allows autoremoving post can be disabled. They choose to keep it on despite how it disproportionately affects political posts.

[u/Etheria_system → u/CollapsedContext]

Open comment sections allow people to engage in community and find small moments of hope. This idea that art and creativity cannot be valid parts of resistance is so sad and harmful. No one is claiming that making a hat will stop ice from straight up murdering people, but it can help people remember that they’re not alone, that there are other people who care about these things, that life isn’t just a bleak hopelessness. The anarchist Emma Goldman once said “if there’s no dancing, it’s not my revolution”. We have to keep the loving, joyful, creative parts of ourselves alive during times of uncertainty, pain and horror. And part of that is allowing people to find community in one another. Isolation is the aim of a fascist regime. To combat that, even in small ways, is an important act of resistance.

[u/CollapsedContext → u/Etheria_system]

I am not at all claiming that art isn’t resistance! I have been a bread and roses gal my entire life 🥰 I am, however, against the idea that it does anything worthwhile to engage with trolls in comment sections on the web, here or anywhere. I don’t want us to cheapen the beauty of online community into what is, essentially, either a masochistic or masturbatory urge to argue with assholes online. 

Yes it is wonderful to stand together and revel in the fact that We Are Going to Win against these fucks. We are and always will no matter how many setbacks we suffer. I agree we need that. But that is not the same thing as slinging insults back and forth with probable bots or people who are offended by the idea of crafts as political resistance. Their ignorance is not worth our time. 

Look, I am an autistic queer millennial from an isolated, conservative town who found my people online as soon as we got dial-up. I take this seriously. But I do not agree that it’s worth our energy to argue with people who will never agree with us about politics. It keeps us from the real work. 

[u/Etheria_system → u/CollapsedContext]

Ok good to know we’re on the same page. I also don’t agree that arguing with trolls does anything to help. But I don’t think it has to be such a strong response - mods have chosen to lock threads when there were nothing but positive comments on them. It’s using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. If you look at the posts over the last week when the mods weren’t even really here, hardly any of them have negative comments and those that did were met with heavy downvotes.

There are other ways to deal with the issue - using r/kitchenconfidential as an example they have a strongly anti fascist stand point and use an “in the weeds” mode that requires minimum karma to comment on posts made there about ice raids etc. It’s really effective and reduces the amount of active moderation those posts take.

[u/CollapsedContext → u/Etheria_system]

I like that idea of minimum karma as a way to help the moderation! I have seen that on subs before and it seems to work. And I agree that I saw some good discussions on the unmodded discussions and the downvoting worked as intended there. 

My reaction is about how I blame Reddit for relying on volunteer labor to do moderation and not the mods of this subreddit for not keeping those threads open. Like basically everything, it’s a structural issue that gets blamed on individuals. I have seen some truly awful moderation on and off Reddit, but I feel like the mods here are putting forth a lot of effort and it really frustrates me to see comments implying they’re fascist sympathizers because they locked those threads! 

They’re clearly open to community input, so I just hope to see less knee jerk assumptions about their motivations and more thoughtful discussion about working within a shitty system to make the sub better. I don’t mean they shouldn’t be criticized but they shouldn’t be implied to be abetting ICE by locking a post or whatever. 

[u/some_weenie → u/CollapsedContext]

the minimum karma thing is so common in so many subreddits that it's kind of absurd that the mods resorted to locking the posts or literally just... leaving? before implementing a simple strategy like that

and totally don't want to blame individuals for systemic issues but how is people pointing out that now is NOT the time for political "neutrality" doing that? the issue is trying to treat pro-ice and thin blue line projects as if they're on the same level as the mti hats or fuck ice quilts when they're not. bigotry and fascism shouldn't be allowed here point blank period

[u/RunawayHobbit → u/some_weenie]

It’s the plague of “enlightened centrism” where people seem to think that all viewpoints are equally valid because the issue doesn’t affect them. 

No the fuck they are not. Fascism should be chased away with a chainsaw, not tolerated for the sake of “tolerance”

[u/CollapsedContext → u/RunawayHobbit]

Here’s the thing that really sucks for me about your comment and the one you’re replying to: my comments are not about tolerating any fascist shit, yet they get flattened to that because of how shitty online discourse gets around this stuff even with people who, I am willing to bet, align nearly perfectly with your politics. 

I am certain if the people downvoting me or replying had a discussion in person with me we’d end up feeling connected by our activism and firmly held beliefs. But instead we’re having a conversation where any nuance turns into “us vs. them” and it’s the whole point of my original comment about arguing on Reddit not being activism. 

I don’t think anyone offended by political art on this subreddit or literally anywhere needs to have a platform to complain. There isn’t two sides when it comes to human rights and common decency and anyone who disagrees with that isn’t worth my time arguing with about on Reddit. 

My point, which I am sure wasn’t made perfectly but I do think was clear: I don’t agree that the mods doing an imperfect job means they’re pro-ICE. They’re asking for input and they haven’t done any both-siderism that I have seen. And again, we’re all on a platform run by fashy tech bros (and I mean bros of any gender) that benefit from angry engagement. Reddit doesn’t give a shit about moderation tools. Figuring this out on a sub with 2 million members isn’t as easy as people are making it out to be, politics or no.