Hello everyone! It's your friendly neighborhood moderator here with a public service announcement. I hope everyone is doing well in these COVID-19 times. Many people are working from home, and with increased home time comes increased Reddit time. I know I've certainly had more time to spend on Ask_Politics, both reading threads and working through the modqueue. Judging by the types of things we've been seeing in the modqueue recently, I thought it was an appropriate time to write a general PSA regarding rules, behavior, and the general culture of Ask_Politics. We've been a little light on moderation staff and activity recently, as some of you have noticed. This post is one step in hopefully refreshing the environment of the subreddit and bringing us back to our high-quality standards.

First and foremost, Ask_Politics has always been a place for promoting and disseminating knowledge about politics and the law. It has always operated in a way fundamentally different than other politics subreddits like r/politics and r/politicaldiscussion. A_P is not a news subreddit like the former and is not a general discussion subreddit like the latter. A_P's focus has always been on questions and answers grounded firmly in facts and objectivity. There is obviously room for some personal subjectivity in some discussions, but the basis should always been in facts. A_P also prides itself on being a place where arguments don't devolve into personal attacks, partisan bickering, and the like, and where people can have reasonable disagreements that remain informed and courteous.

Unfortunately, these standards have slipped recently. The modqueue is quite often littered with "you're stupid" personal attacks, "what is your opinion on X?" discussion posts, and other various low-quality posts and comments. It's partially our fault for not moderating as tightly as we used to, so our goal is to start a discussion on the general culture of the subreddit, remind A_P users about our rules and guidelines, and bring the standards back to where they used to be.

As a reminder, the rules page provides a fairly comprehensive look at the types of posts that are not allowed and the types of behavior we encourage in the subreddit and, as always, the subreddit provides an overview of those rules. In general, we do not allow homework questions, poll-the-audience questions, or questions that are obviously loaded or soapboxing. There are plenty of other places for such questions. Sources in top-tiered comments are not an absolute requirement at first if the comment is sufficiently comprehensive, but users who choose to answer questions must take responsibility for the answers they provide and must make good-faith efforts to source their comments when asked.

Please use this post to discuss your thoughts on the culture of Ask_Politics, things you want the moderators to improve on or change, types of behavior you've been seeing as problematic, etc. Ultimately, we need your help in keeping Ask_Politics a great place for high-quality answers and discussions.

Thanks!