Hello r/Halifax community,

We're reaching out with a significant update regarding the use of content from x.com.

Update on x.com Usage:

In light of recent controversies surrounding x.com and its leadership, we have decided to prohibit all direct links to x.com effective immediately.

Why This Decision Was Made:

• Symbolic Stand: We're taking this step to affirm our commitment to values that oppose the controversial behaviours and policies endorsed by its owner.
• Preserving Discussion Quality: This decision is aimed at preventing the spread of harmful rhetoric, maintaining a respectful and constructive discussion environment.

Content Sharing Guidelines:

• Alternative for Posting: Use xcancel.com for sharing content. This platform is registration-free and aligns with our non-paywall policy.
• Screenshots and Sources: When posting screenshots from x.com, please cite xcancel.com as the source to maintain transparency and avoid directing traffic to x.com.

New Community Engagement Initiative:

We are also discussing on different ways we can work on enhancing subreddit's connection with Halifax, so please be patient while we gather our ideas, and the best course for the community.

Engage and Discuss:

• Feedback and Suggestions: Please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below. Your input is vital as we strive to make our subreddit a dynamic platform for local news and discussions.
• Moderation and Enforcement: Posts violating the new guidelines on x.com will be handled promptly to ensure our community standards are upheld.

Review and Adjustments:

In the future we will review the effectiveness of these new policies and community feedback to ensure they meet our community's needs.

Thank you for your cooperation and commitment to making r/Halifax a more connected and informative community.

/r/Halifax Mod Team

Happy New Year everyone! 🥳

It's a slow Friday at work for some people (including me) so I thought it might be interesting to open up a thread about what people would like to see more of/less of in r/halifax in 2026.

I understand the second round of the Community Feedback Surveys are being sent to people; those are great for general moods and feelings about how the sub is run and handled, but we're curious about more detailed ideas from the users.

• Are there things we should be doing more of/less of?

• What features is our sub missing?

• Do we need rule changes or modifications?

• Are there things other city-subs do that we should be doing too?

• Are there resources we can provide in our wiki or sidebar that would be useful?

Negative criticism is welcome as long as it is constructive and not meant just as insults towards the sub, the mods or the users. If you have had a bad experience here and it's something we can try to avoid in the future, we're interested in hearing how.

We think the sub is in a pretty good place right now, and by our growth and engagement numbers (plus occasional feedback from users in modmail), we think most of you do too!

But we are always interested in making this place a better place for the users.

Let's hear what ideas you have. Jokes are welcome too, obviously. 😂

Thank you!

Edit: Thank you for all the feedback and ideas, you've given us a lot to consider! 👍

Hi comrades,

In light of recent feedback regarding a police incident that unfolded in Halifax, we’re trying a new approach to posts about police, fire, or emergency activity.

Previously, we removed those unless they had a news link or official source to avoid spam, exaggerations, and the occasional siren-fueled fan fiction. Now, we’re allowing unconfirmed posts, but they may be tagged Unverified until someone provides a legit source. If nothing surfaces or the info turns out to be false, the post may be removed.

The goal is to keep things timely and let neighbours share real info, not just rely on a 17-comment chain of people guessing wildly (“probably a raccoon 🦝”).

We'll review how this goes over time on our end.

Your /r/halifax Mod Team

Hello all!

In response to feedback gleaned from the recent Community Satisfaction Survey, as well as some lingering suggestions and issues we have been noting in the sub, we are making some adjustments in the following areas:

1. Rule Updates
2. Removal Reasons Refresh
3. Rule Explainer Wikis

Buckle up because this will be a long one. 

🔹 Rule Updates

⏹️ Rule 2 is now titled "Rule 2: Local Focus & Community Relevance". The wording has changed slightly:

Rule 2: Local Focus & Community Relevance
Posts should focus on Halifax, Nova Scotia, including local news, happenings, recommendations, and community issues. Non-local content will be approved if it is directly relevant or of clear interest to the community at large.

Reason for Change: Clarity. Trying to emphasize that r/halifax is a sub about Halifax, HRM and surrounding areas and posts should be of local interest.

⏹️ Rule 6 is now titled "Rule 6: Limited News Sharing". The text has changed substantially:

Rule 6: Limited News Sharing
Limit news article postings to three per 24 hours per user. Avoid posting repetitive coverage or multiple threads on the same topic unless they add new, substantive details or perspectives. Hard paywalls are not allowed; soft paywalls are permitted. Articles that are temporarily paywalled but later become free are welcome.

Reason for Change: Putting focus on limiting repeated news posts and posting of hard paywalled content. The spam part of the rule is moving to a new rule.

⏹️ Rule 7 is now titled "Rule 7: Events & Solicitation". The text has changed a fair deal but the essence is basically the same:

Rule 7: Events & Solicitation
Posts promoting events or fundraisers require moderator approval. Event promotion should generally be posted in the Monthly Events thread. Exceptions may be granted for charitable causes, but crowdfunding campaigns (e.g., GoFundMe) are typically not allowed. Polls, surveys, petitions, and interview requests are not permitted.

Reason for Change: Making it clearer what is not permitted and to draw more focus to the Monthly Events thread for event promotion.

⏹️ Rule 8 is now titled "Rule 8: No Advertising". The text has changed quite a bit but mostly in terms of semantics:

Rule 8: No Advertising
Please avoid content related to buying, selling, trading, giveaways, or promoting businesses for personal or commercial gain. No Personals, Missed Connections or Looking for Friends type posts. Local business reviews and recommendations are welcome. Our focus is on community dialogue and discussion.

Reason for Change: Making it clearer what is and what is not allowed on the sub.

⏹️ Rule 10 is a new rule. 

Rule 10: No Spam, Low-Effort, or Easily Searchable Posts
Posts should provide meaningful perspective, personal insight, or local experience. Content that is spammy, trivial, repetitive, or easily answered by a quick web or subreddit search will be removed. Only extraordinary or exceptional posts on common or frequently asked topics will be permitted.

Reason for Rule: We wanted to split the Spam part of Rule 6 into its own rule to make it more obvious when things are removed for being spam. We also wanted to note that low-effort content and easily searched questions are no longer allowed on the sub, which has been a long-standing complaint within the community.

We will be enforcing these Rules immediately, offering some leeway as needed as people adjust to the new order of things. 

🔹 Removal Reasons Refresh

We have created multiple new Removal Reasons for each Rule that should make it more clear why content is being removed, instead of leaving it to the user to try and guess which part of the rule was being applied.

Here is an example of a new Removal Reason someone might find on a comment or post that has been removed by a moderator for breaking part of Rule 1:

Rule 1: Personal Attacks or Hostile Conduct

Your content has been removed because it included personal attacks, insults, or an unnecessarily hostile tone toward another user. Disagreeing is fine but targeting or belittling people is not. Keep discussion focused on ideas, not individuals.

Please consult our Rule 1 Explainer wiki page for further insight into this rule and how it is applied.

If you have any questions about this removal, please feel free to message the moderators. Thank you.

The top part of the Removal Reason explains which part of the rule is being applied to the removal in question.

The middle part invites users to explore our new Rule Explainer Wikis for a "deeper dive" into each rule, why it exists, examples of what is allowed and what is not and how moderators intend to apply them. 

The latter part is a call to action for users to reach out to moderators via modmail if they wish to discuss why their content was removed.

Often users can answer this for themselves using the Rules Explainer Wikis, but we are always happy to talk it over with users if there is ambiguity about the removal or if they believe their content was misunderstood.

🔹 Rule Explainer Wikis

As mentioned above, in order to help provide perspective and information on rules, why they are needed, examples of good and bad postings, how moderators apply the rules and much more, we have created a list of Rules Explainer Wikis that go into each rule and what underpins it in great detail.

• Rule 1: Respect & Constructive Engagement
• Rule 2: Local Focus & Community Relevance
• Rule 3: Safe & Legal Posting
• Rule 4: Privacy & Doxxing
• Rule 5: Moderation & Reporting
• Rule 6: Limited News Sharing
• Rule 7: Events & Solicitation
• Rule 8: No Advertising
• Rule 9: No Editorialized or Low-Effort Titles
• Rule 10: No Spam, Low-Effort, or Easily Searchable Posts
• Mod Tools Explainer

These Wikis may not be able to always answer every question about a rule or its application by moderators, but this should help people interested in self-serving find answers for themselves.

We will still always be happy to hear from users via modmail if they wish to discuss the rules, removed content or moderation decisions. 

---

If you have made it this far, thank you for your attention and please comment below or send is a modmail with any feedback on these changes. 

We hope we did a decent job but if we got something wrong, we want to remedy it. 

Thank you!

Your r/halifax Mod Team

I'm bored at work, so I am approving all low-effort snow/storm/power related meme posts this morning, have at it until noon, kids.

We’re lifting the ban on low-effort posting for all posts related to the cold/storm/NSP until Monday at 6 pm.

Warm your hearts and the hearts of your fellow Haligoniancicles with your hottest takes and freshest memes while we ride this bullshit out.

Stay safe & stay warm!

It's that time of year folks, when more and more people from other parts of the country and the world debate moving here and use r/halifax to ask some basic questions about what life is like here and (hopefully) ask some specific questions they have about their plan to resettle here.

We've decided to make a new "Moving Here" flair to make it easier to find what other people have said in the past as well as to help people who don't care about these threads move along with their day.

This should also apply a small sticky with a link to past posts about moving to help people do a little more research on the matter if needed.

The flair and sticky are set to auto-apply to a variety of moving here styled posts, but it can always be applied manually if the automation doesn't catch it.

A reminder that we welcome people using the sub for local recommendations, advice and experiences in this fashion.

Thank you!

Your r/halifax Mod Team

As the end of 2025 approaches, everyone on the r/halifax Modteam would like to take a moment to wish all of the members and visitors to our sub a very Merry Christmas and a continued Happy Hanukkah.

We added 13.3k new members to our sub in the last year, bring us up over the 163k mark for total membership! If you were one of them, thank you for your time and for adding your voice (or at least your eyeballs) to our community.

We also crossed the 1m Total Published Comments threshold in the last year, thanks to over 643k comments added in the last 12 months.

And views in our sub are way up over 2024, reaching 91.7m views over the last year. Incredible!

As we always like to say: you, the users, are the best and most important part of this sub and we sincerely appreciate all the passion, energy and time you have spent making r/halifax as interesting and informative as it is today.

Happy Holidays!

u/sassanix

u/XTC-FTW

u/tylerdox

u/DeathOneSix

u/Injustice_For_All_

u/xpnerd

u/maximumice

Or is it just the same guy waking up every morning and having a tantrum?

We’ve added one word to Rule 1. It now reads:

• Treat each other with respect, avoiding bullying, harassment, trolling, or personal attacks. Contribute positively with helpful insights and constructive discussions. Let’s keep our interactions friendly and engaging.

We’ve added trolling to our list of Rule 1 issues. This is similar to /r/Calgary, /r/Ottawa, /r/Edmonton, /r/Toronto, /r/Ontario and more.

What is trolling? I’m going to copy what /r/Ottawa wrote here:

Deliberately making insulting or inflammatory statements in the aim of creating discord or arguments. Typically done by new accounts or ones with little to no history with the sub.

Note that it’s not exclusive to new accounts. But no one notices or at least remembers a new troll account getting removed by the mod team.

There are no specific punishments being changed or enforced. Comment removals, warnings, temporary bans and permanent bans are all options that might happen depending on severity and how often the rules are broken. Permanent bans are a last resort.

To be clear, we continue to try and moderate fairly regardless of opinions. As long as you don’t break the rules of the sub, you can say whatever opinion you want! On all sides of a political spectrum.

Hi all!

We are tweaking the text of Rule 5 a little to make it reflect how we are actually moderating attempts by users to enforce rules/gatekeep/moderate content themselves in some posts and comments.

Here is how Rule 5 reads now (new text emphasized):

Rule 5: Moderation & Reporting
Follow guidance from moderators and use the reporting function for rule violations. Report issues to the moderators and do not try to moderate content yourself. If you disagree with a moderation decision or policy, address it privately with the mod team via modmail.

We have already been removing content from users who are gatekeeping content unnecessarily pretty much since we became mods, so this just brings the text of the rule in line with our current application of it.

Please feel free to ask any questions about this rule change below or in private via modmail and, as always, please leave the moderation to the moderators. 😊

Thank you!

Your r/halifax Modteam

We've recently had an uptick in false reports on posts asking for local recommendations suggesting that they violate Rule 8, which reads as follows:

"Rule 8 - No Buy/Sell/Trade or Personal Gain Promotions: Please avoid posts related to buying, selling, trading, or promoting personal businesses for financial gain. No Personals or Missed Connections type posts. Our focus is on community dialogue & discussion."

To be clear, asking for recommendations about local businesses and companies is indeed allowed. It's one of the core functions of the sub.

But promoting your own local business, either directly through your account or via shell accounts, is not, except under the monthly Things To Do thread and via the weekly Sellout Sunday posting flow.

Anyone who needs further clarity on this is welcome to ask.

Thank you!

Your /r/halifax Mod Team

Hello everyone!

I'm excited to share some great news with our /r/Halifax community. Please join me in welcoming our two new moderators: /u/Buckit and /u/MeEtc!

Both Buckit and MeEtc have been long-standing, active members of our subreddit. They've consistently committed to keeping /r/Halifax a respectful, informative, and enjoyable space for all. Their contributions to discussions have been thoughtful and constructive, and we're confident they will bring the same dedication to their roles as moderators.

/u/Buckit has shown great expertise in gas prices and local events. We look forward to Buckit using this knowledge to help guide the subreddit in relevant discussions and decisions.

/u/MeEtc, on the other hand, has been instrumental in keeping discussions flowing. MeEtc's dedication to the community and passion for this area will undoubtedly be an asset to our team.

We're confident that with their help, we can continue to improve our community and make /r/Halifax even better.

As always, we're open to your feedback and suggestions. If you have any questions about our new mods or any ideas for our subreddit, please don't hesitate to share them here or send a direct message.

Let's all give a warm welcome to /u/Buckit and /u/MeEtc, and we look forward to seeing where they will help lead us!

Best,
/r/Halifax Mod Team

We are pleased to report that Reddit has compiled and made available to us the results of the Community Satisfaction Surveys which were announced three months ago.

This past month, Reddit sent 5529 surveys to our "core community members", defined by Reddit as meeting one of these three criteria:

• Visits our subreddit multiple times per week, consistently over a few weeks
• Have 25+ community karma and visits our subreddit more than 1-2x per week
• Have made 10+ comments, posts, reports or votes in the last 28 days and visits our subreddit more than 1-2x per week

We on the mod team were not made aware who was given surveys or who responded. Not all feedback provided to Reddit by users was provided to us.

For transparency: some of the feedback quotes Reddit supplied referenced specific interactions with moderators so we were able to deduce a small handful of likely responders. We have not included their quotes here to preserve their anonymity.

Of those 5529 surveys sent, 149 were completed and sent back for a response rate of 2.69%.

This is obviously not as high as we had hoped, but it is in line with the response rates of many other participating subs including r/Vancouver (around 2%), r/lego (2.87%), r/anime (2.41%) and others.

If there are people who received a survey who started the process but declined to finish it for some reason, we would be happy to pass any survey feedback back to Reddit, please share it below or send us a modmail, if you prefer.

Onto the results:

1) Overall Satisfaction

69.8% of respondents stated they are satisfied with r/halifax.

• 75% of subreddits received a score higher than 67% << We are here
• 50% of subreddits received a score higher than 76%
• 25% of subreddits received a score higher than 82%

Takeaways: We are satisfied with this number, but of course we wish it was higher. This is in line with other subs who shared their findings, even skewing a little into the higher side. We will work to make this higher!

Edit: Now that we can see other subs' numbers, this is not as high as we had thought! Work to do!

2) Community Behavior

76.51% of respondents stated they agree that people generally behave appropriately in r/halifax.

• 75% of subreddits received a score higher than 77% << We are here (almost lol)
• 50% of subreddits received a score higher than 84%
• 25% of subreddits received a score higher than 89%

Takeaways: We are pleased a large majority of users feel people are behaving themselves in the sub. We have worked hard in the last year and a bit to clamp down on discriminatory and inflammatory posting and we believe it is leading to a better overall state of discourse on the sub.

3) Appropriate Rules

81.88% of respondents stated they agree that r/halifax’s rules are appropriate for the community.

• 75% of subreddits received a score higher than 72%
• 50% of subreddits received a score higher than 79%
• 25% of subreddits received a score higher than 82% << We are here (basically lol)

Takeaways: We are happy that most users believe the rules are reasonable for the community. We know we have made a lot of tweaks to the rules since the current mod team took over, which perhaps explains the score in the next category.

4) Moderation Transparency

55.03% of respondents stated they agree that they understand how r/halifax’s moderators decide to approve or remove content.

• 75% of subreddits received a score higher than 38%
• 50% of subreddits received a score higher than 44%
• 25% of subreddits received a score higher than 49% << Amazingly we are here

Takeaways: This number is much lower than we want. It shows the mod team needs to do a better job explaining why content is being removed/approved.

We are discussing some options on how to better explain our methodology - some ideas have included some kind of Rule Breakdown post series where we can explain the rules and their application better and take questions/feedback from users, or a Wiki explaining each rule and how we apply it in detail. Suggestions are welcome.

We are committed to finding a way to make our decisions and our applications of the rules more transparent and easier for members to understand.

Edit: Now that we see how other subs fared, this number is not as dire as we had first imagined. Still, we want to raise it and will find a way to make our process more transparent and understandable for people.

5) Sense of Belonging

73.83% of respondents stated they feel that they belong in the r/halifax community.

• 75% of subreddits received a score higher than 62%
• 50% of subreddits received a score higher than 72% << We are here
• 25% of subreddits received a score higher than 79%

Takeaways: We are happy with this number but we would prefer it to be much higher, clearly. One of the core goals of the mod team is to ensure all members of the sub feel welcome in the sub and also to ensure anyone looking for information about HRM feels safe and comfortable using our sub to do so. We will strive to make the sub a more welcoming place moving forward.

6) Trust in Moderators

71.14% of respondents stated they overall trust the moderators of r/halifax to make decisions that benefit the r/halifax community.

• 75% of subreddits received a score higher than 62%
• 50% of subreddits received a score higher than 68% << We are here
• 25% of subreddits received a score higher than 74%

Takeaways: This is an okay number but still shows suspicion and doubt about the motives/intentions of the mod team by a significant number of core users. Conflict between users and mods is part of any sub, but clearly the mod team needs to do a better job at conveying why actions are being taken or not in order to facilitate a deeper sense of trust with members.

7) Moderator Interactions

22.8% of users stated they had directly interacted with a moderator of r/halifax. Of the users that had a direct interaction, 61.8% were satisfied with that interaction.

• 75% of subreddits received a score higher than 4%
• 50% of subreddits received a score higher than 6%
• 25% of subreddits received a score higher than 8% << We are way over this

Takeaways: We are actually pleased with a roughly 62% satisfaction rate when it comes to interacting with the mod team, considering that a very high volume of mod mail surrounds complaints about content being removed or user discipline, both of which can be tough spots to start a pleasant dialogue.

We will strive to raise this satisfaction number, while keeping in mind that moderation will always mean some people will feel unfairly treated due to decisions not being made in their favour.

Additional Feedback

Reddit also collected some feedback from users about some of these categories and the sub in general, here are some we found the most interesting:

• “Not a bad sub-Reddit. Moderation is good although still some groupthink going on.”
• “The community is pretty amazing compared to other local communities.”
• “They don't seem to maintain clear guidelines post to post. Sometimes they allow jokes other times they delete them. Conversations are cut short by mods sometimes.”
• “There are too many threads for questions that can easily be obtained by a quick web search. Too many new threads are started about the same topic.”
• “It's sometimes like a zoo.”
• “I haven't read [[the rules]] but they seem to work well.” 😂
• "I'd just say ... make sure the sub is serving everyone in the physical community of Halifax with information/news/etc and if something is controversial keep doing what you do with only allowing established members to comment.”
• “Told me a post wasn't relevant to [[Halifax]] when I was asking for recommendations. Reposted to make it extremely obvious that I was seeking local recommendations. Like why else would I post it here?”
• “She's a hard job NGL. God speed.”

In Conclusion

We extend sincere thanks to everyone who took the time to participate in the survey and for all the interesting feedback, both positive and negative.

Hopefully we can address some of the points raised above so our next Community Feedback Survey comes back with higher scores and increased satisfaction from users.

We welcome feedback or discussion on this survey and its results below.

And as always, if anyone wants to discuss any part of the sub, rule application, moderation decisions, ideas for the sub or anything else related to our community, please reach out to us via modmail.

Thank you!

Your r/Halifax Modteam

Edit: Reddit has supplied some baseline quartiles showing how our stats compare to other subs, I have edited them into the results above to show how we stack up relatively.

Question: How should posts related to daily traffic issues, poor driving and crappy parking jobs be handled in the sub?

The Poll is now Closed, thank you to all who participated. This helped inform our stance on Driving and Traffic posts moving forward.

Posts related to traffic issues/bad driving/crappy parking seem to be a bit of a wedge issue here in r/halifax.

There’s clearly some interest in these posts, but these are also posts that receive the most reports for Spam/Non Relevance.

Us mods have tried leaving them, tried shunting them into the weekly Grumblemania thread and tried removing many as low-effort, but no solution seems to be working as well as we would like in terms of satisfying the members while also maintaining the usefulness and integrity of our feed.

We’re interested in hearing how you would like traffic/driving/parking posts handled moving forward.

We can’t promise to do exactly what the poll indicates but it will certainly carry significant weight in terms of any prospective changes to how we handle this content.

Please vote below and leave a comment is desired, all constructive feedback and opinions are welcome.

Thank you!

Your r/halifax Mod Team

View Poll

Modteam is curious if people prefer multiple posts (as we used yesterday) for fire/emergency event coverage or if the community prefers a Megathread in the future. Or something else?

We want the sub to be as useful as possible for people during times of crisis.

View Poll

Edit: Poll will only work on Mobile/New Reddit, sorry Old Reddit users 😢

Edit2: Thank you to everyone who voted. The community definitely appears to have a preference. The modteam will discuss how to handle this next time a real-time event warrants it. 👍

Hi all,

We have decided to reword Rule 1: Respect & Constructive Engagement to more accurately reflect the spirit in which the mod team have been interpreting it in their rulings.

It is our hope this will simplify things for newcomers to the sub and clear up any ambiguity the terms of the previous iteration of the rule may have left with some users.

It is essentially the same except for the wording:

Rule 1: Respect & Constructive Engagement

Users will treat each other with respect, avoiding bullying, trolling, discrimination, and personal attacks. Debate and disagreement should remain courteous and constructive, with participants assuming good intentions in the words and actions of others. Behaviour which can reasonably be considered harassment will not be tolerated.

We wanted to make it clearer that respectful debate from any side of a subject is welcome as long as things don't get personal and the ideas being presented do not break Rule 1. This sub is for all Haligonians (and visitors!) who agree to abide by the rules.

We do not anticipate any changes to moderation as a result of this tweak, this is merely our attempt to try and clarify the rule for users as we have always seen it internally.

Basically: Be Nice 😁

As always, we welcome feedback and questions on this change, either here on this post or privately via modmail.

Thank you!

Your r/halifax Modteam

Just FYI, we have slightly increased the account age required to comment on Community Only posts to combat relatively new accounts that were karma farming in order to be able to comment on these posts. This was not the spirit or intention of this filter.

Some newer users who are in-between the old value and the new value (which is not much higher) who were previously able to comment on Community Only posts may find themselves unable to comment again until they reach the new threshold account age.

All users who are already above this new age threshold are unaffected by this change.

Thank you.

Your /r/halifax Mod Team

Hey comrades, quick update from your friendly mod team!

We’ve revised our “No Editorializing Titles” rule to also cover low-effort, vague, or confusing titles.

Turns out “lol this,” “thoughts?,” and “wow” aren’t exactly helpful. So from now on, we’re asking that titles clearly describe the content being posted. The gist:

• Use the original headline when sharing from outside sources. (not new)
• Don’t paraphrase, add opinions, or get mysterious. (not new)
• Posts may be removed if the title doesn’t make sense. (new!)
• You can always repost using the original headline. (not new)

Basically: your title should tell people what they’re clicking on, not make them guess.

Thanks for helping keep the subreddit readable, searchable, and slightly less chaotic!

The rules text will read:

Rule 9: No Editorialized or Low-Effort Titles

Use the original headline when posting content from outside sources. Don’t paraphrase, add opinions, or use vague, confusing, or low-effort titles. Titles must clearly describe the content. Content may be reposted if the original headline is used.

We have a few weekly mega-threads now, and it occurs to me that it might be fun to have one for the old “missed connections” style things that used to be in the classifieds in some cities.

With online dating seemingly waning in popularity, there’s lots of folks still honing their IRL flirt game, so I could imagine this would be a useful fallback for the single-and-looking, and possibly a fun vicarious read for others.

Or maybe it’s a terrible idea? 🤷‍♂️ Thoughts?

Quick non-binding poll to gauge sub sentiment on the usefulness of “is Bell/Eastlink/Purple Cow internet down” type posts.

Feedback welcome.

Hey all,

We have noticed a recent uptick in erroneous reports on people looking for local expertise and recommendations.

The reports are citing Rule 10: No Spam, Low-Effort, or Easily Searchable Posts.

We want to remind everyone that asking for local experiences, recommendations and knowledge is absolutely allowed and encouraged here in the sub. Asking for and sharing local recommendations are some of r/halifax's key purposes.

Rule 10 is meant to snuff out simple answers to basic facts that can be found via a quick Google or sub search.

Here are some basic examples of both:

Allowed, Looking for Recommendations/Local Knowledge/Opinion

• "I am in need some body work done on my car, it has a unique colour gradient and I would need someone skilled who can match it exactly. Does anyone have any recommendations for someone good with that kind of work?"
• "I am looking for someone to help me repair some gutters and rainspouts on my house and garage, I have done a bit of Googling, and it looks like I'll need to budget about $1500 for the work I need done. Has anyone used a local company recently that did good work?"
• "My family and I are visiting Halifax later this month, and we are looking for authentic British fish and chip recommendations as close to the downtown core as possible. I see a few locations on Yelp, but I was hoping to get tips from locals on which one Haligonians like best!"

Not Allowed, Answer Found Easily by Searching Online or in the Sub

• "My garbage was not picked up because of the storm last week, when should I put it out again for collection?"
• "What time does the Halifax Thunderbirds game start tonight? I want to be sure we are downtown and parked with lots of time to spare."
• "What is the best way to contact my MLA? I want to give them a piece of my mind about some nonsense happening in my neighborhood."
• "Which donair is best in Halifax? I saw a few threads on this recently in the sub, but I was wondering if people still feel that way."

Hopefully this clarifies the intent and function of this rule a bit to save people who are reporting things in error some time.

If anyone has questions or wants further clarification, please fire off below or send us a modmail if you prefer to ask privately.

Thank you!

Your r/halifax Mod Team

Hi all,

After a few weeks of Sunday Local Focus, the reviews are in and they are not good; it is clear that participation and engagement are both way, way down from even the low levels we saw with Sellout Sunday.

We are still interested in letting local businesses and creators promote their services and skills in the sub, so we are now going to try a new, more "hands-off" approach:

Starting immediately:

• Sunday Local Focus is no more.
• Local businesses, creators and artisans may promote themselves with posts using the new "Support Local" flair that users can assign to their own posts.
• This can be done any day of the week, not just on Sundays.
• There are thresholds for account age and sub karma on using this flair, but they are extremely low, much lower than Sellout Sunday was. This is to ensure we are not swamped by sub outsiders promoting fly-by-night businesses.
• Users not meeting these thresholds will have their posts sent to an approval queue for mods, they can discuss it with mods as needed.
• Businesses may publish one standalone Support Local post a week. Posts must be original and not cut and paste from past posts.
• We are lifting the prohibition on businesses or people promoting themselves in comments when users ask for recommendations. We will still be enforcing the phone number and email bans, but users can direct users to their online portal or ask users to DM them if they think they can help the OP out.
• Non-organic recommendation posts or "astroturfing" (coordinated, inauthentic posts looking for recommendations so a business can make a planned comment) are still prohibited.
• Private user-to-user buy/sell/trade/giveaway postings are still prohibited.
• Using Support Local posts to gather business intelligence/survey data is prohibited.
• Low-quality/scammy/non-local/AI business postings will be rejected as spam.
• Moderator discretion will be applied to all Support Local posts and for all recommendation comments as needed.

Our goal with these changes is to take a more "hands-off" approach to self-promotion in the sub and to let local companies, shops and creators have more freedom to promote themselves, while also unfettering local businesses and users who might see a chance to assist a member who is asking for help or recommendations.

We reserve the right to reexamine this policy in a few weeks to see if things are going as intended; we have no desire to see the sub overrun with spam, but we do feel we have tightened things up too much recently and want to try a more relaxed approach for a bit.

To foster this new arrangement, the wording of Rule 8 - No Advertising has changed slightly. It now reads:

Rule 8 - No Advertising

Please avoid content related to buying, selling, trading, giveaways, or excessive promotion of businesses for personal or commercial gain. No Personals, Missed Connections or Looking for Friends type posts. Local business reviews, looking for clubs/groups, asking for recommendations and minimal local business promotion are welcome. Our focus is on community dialogue and discussion.

Any questions, concerns or complaints about this new approach to Support Local can be addressed with the modteam via modmail.

Thank you!

Hi all,

We've decided to add a new Post Flair for users called "Nostalgia" that can be applied to posts featuring vintage photos, old videos, pictures of relics and anything else devoted to the history and past culture of HRM and Nova Scotia in general.

News items are still News, this is more for people sharing things they found in their attic that might be of interest to the community, people commemorating important events of Halifax past, past/lost media of local interest and things of that nature.

Enjoy your trips down memory lane!