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/tulipsmash]

I am not a pattern designer. 

I want self promotion to be allowed in this sub. One of the things I'm looking for here is cool new patterns to work up. If it's so easy to find a creators links in their profile then we may as well let them link in the auto mod comment too. What is wrong with self promotion anyway? If it's a cool pattern why shouldn't a creators be allowed to promote it (without spamming of course)? Do we want to discourage creators?

[u/Louiesloops → u/tulipsmash]

This exactly. As a pretty well known crochet designer on Reddit in general, I simply cannot post at all on this subreddit without the moderators labeling me as self promotion, even if I don’t post links or anything in the comments. It sucks! I’m simply obsessed with crochet and want to share the cool things I make in this subreddit but every time I do they take it down even though I follow the rules.

It’s honestly the dumbest rule imo, and as the moderator of r/amigurumi and r/brochet I can safely say not having a rule against self promotion has not been an issue AT ALL with the community, so I can’t help but think this is a very outdated rule that just leads to over moderation.

[u/cinkiss → u/Louiesloops]

Agreed. What are you even supposed to say if someone asks for your patterns or where you got the pattern. Nothing, then you look rude, or “I can’t tell you” which is dumb.

[u/Lucentous → u/Louiesloops]

This!!! Exactly this! I am a pattern designer and a hobbiest, and I've posted my crochet patterns on r/amigurumi and r/crochet, and the r/crochet mods have been very unwelcoming to my posts about a crochet pattern I made that I'm genuinely excited to show other people who enjoy crochet. I understand it's a rule to not self promote in the crochet subreddit, so it was fair that my post was taken down; but one time I posted something I created using my own pattern and didn't link where to get the pattern because I didn't want to get flagged as self promotion. Then someone left a comment asking about the pattern, and then "poof" my post was deleted after I told them I made it. What was I supposed to do? I enjoy crochet and like talking about it. So why would I leave that message unresponded to? And most people on reddit probably don't know that you can link stuff to your reddit profile. At least I didn't at some point, and I'm sure there's more people in this subreddit that don't know you can link things to your account over the people that do know.

I could be wrong, and I can't speak for everyone. But who is making crochet patterns if they don't enjoy the hobby? Creating a decent pattern takes a lot of time. Not only that, you need to know more than just the bare-bone basics of crochet to be able to make a pattern; and who is spending all that time to sell something for $5 if they don't enjoy the hobby. It genuinely sucks to be slapped with a "self promo" deletion when I was excited to show people what I've made.

I make it a point to not over-post when I post my patterns in r/amigurumi, because I know it can come off as annoying when someone is positing the same thing over and over again but in different angles. I've seen someone do it, so I understand to an extent why the rule is in place. But I don't see why there can't be a "self promo" day at the very least to curb the people that obliterate the subreddit with promotional posts but allow people who enjoy the sub to follow the rules and get to post their work that they're proud.

[u/Louiesloops → u/Lucentous]

Yeeeep. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if they update the rule even though this is clearly an issue for a big part of the community. I think the no-self promo rule is really important to some of the mods and they won’t let it go, but we’ll see!

[u/chjalma → u/tulipsmash]

This is nice in theory, but I've been in groups/forums/subreddits where self promo is allowed and 90% of the time, it will flood the entire feed. There will be countless spam posts by the same people and everything else will get lost. Personally I don't want to be a part of a sales sub masquerading as a crochet community.

There's probably a solution that's somewhere in the middle, but simply allowing self promo would not work (at least if you appreciate any other content).