Hi y’all! A couple weeks ago we asked you for some feedback about issues we’ve noticed recently around the subreddit. Thank you all for your thoughts! There were many good ideas that came from the community, some of which we are now looking to implement.

To recap the previous thread, posts relating to certain popular authors, books, and series (such as The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson or The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan) have been getting extremely combative. This has become a consistent issue. The aggressive tone these threads take combined with the many fights that they generate has become a lead weight on our community. In the interest of fulfilling our mission to be a kind, welcoming community for respectful discussion, we are looking to implement the following measures.

We will begin these policies effective immediately and review their efficacy in approximately one to two months. The exact timeline will depend on how clear and conclusive the results are. If it’s clear they are not working well, we will cut the trial short and go back to the drawing board. Please anticipate some inconsistency as we test and adjust these policies on the fly in the short term.

Administrative Changes:

• Update the sidebar with links/buttons to recurring threads. - DONE!
• Add a report option for “Unsure - rule breaking, but not certain which rule.” - DONE!
• Create an on-boarding wiki page for new users. This will include helpful tips and tricks for navigating the subreddit alongside links to our various resources. It will be linked in our new user welcome message.
• Add stickied Rule 1 reminders in all large posts. For now, this will be done manually during the trial period. We will look into methods of automating this later. - ongoing -
• Hide comment scores for a period of time after a post has been created. We will test different lengths of time during the trial period to see what works best. - DONE!

Moderation Policy Changes:

• Post title restrictions: discussion posts with inflammatory, clickbait-esque titles will be removed. Users will be asked to repost with a more neutral titles. Examples of titles which will be removed:
  • Does anyone else like/dislike X Popular Book?
  • Am I the only one who thinks X is overrated?
  • I just read X, and I don’t get all the praise.
  • X Popular Book/Author is the greatest/worst author ever!
• Cooldown period: when a heated or inflammatory thread with multiple instances of Rule 1 breaking comments occurs, we will institute a “cooldown” period for that specific topic. This will help prevent post clusters that cause further strife. The intent is to give the community some breathing room and ensure that there is space for other topics to flourish as well.
  • When a topic goes into cooldown, we will sticky a comment on the post that triggered the cooldown. This will be linked to when we remove subsequent posts alongside a link to subreddits that are focused on that specific book or series.
  • The cooldown period will last between three to seven days. We will be testing different lengths during the trial period to see what works well.
  • Reviews may be handled differently from discussion posts. Reviews often turn into combative discussion posts, but if a review is neutrally worded and does not seem to be contributing to strife, we may exempt it. Expect some inconsistency on this front at first as we adjust things on our end.
  • Posts about general topics and themes will be less likely to have cool downs implemented than topics related to singular authors. All cooldowns will be reviewed on a case by case basis.
• More flexibility with our Simple Questions policy: to encourage a greater variety of discussion, we will be more lenient with simple questions that refer to books by authors that are not in thetop 30 of our most recent top novels polls. Posts such as “Should I read X?” will be allowed even they do not have the usual level of detail if the author is not one of the top 30. However, books by authors that do occur in our top 30 will be moderated more stringently. Expect some inconsistency on this front at first as we adjust things on our end.
• Moderator Recruitment: Keep an eye out for mod applications early next week! We strongly encourage people who identify as BIPOC, disabled, and LGBTQ to apply. We have a particular need for people outside of North American time zones.

Suggestions We Will Not Be Implementing:

• Karma or account age restrictions for posts: this would interfere with the way we run AMAs. Many AMA authors would be caught in this filter. Additionally, we feel it would be unwelcoming for new, enthusiastic members.
• New Post Flairs: this was discussed, but is impractical for a number of reasons. We will see about making it easier to search existing flairs in the sidebar.
• Fight club/rant/vent weekly posts or regular posts for big series: as we would not be willing to suspend rule 1 in these threads, that would just move the problem instead of solving it. Other subreddits with rant threads are focused on personal problems that do not generate controversy.
• Reporting bad recommendations: unfortunately, despite our best efforts, the moderation team has not yet read all the books. Given how subjective recommendations can be and the fact that we haven’t read every book, this is something too complex for us to enforce at this time. We instead encourage community members to comment and clarify why they feel it is a bad rec. However, if a recommendation is clearly off topic or the opposite of what OP is asking for, please report it using the “other” or “unsure” options and we will take a look. Remember that this is most likely a person commenting in good faith - it's possible they simply have not read much speculative fiction and are just doing their best. We want to be welcoming.
• Sticky the simple questions thread: people rarely view stickied threads, and most people participating in the daily threads tend to sort by new. That said, we will make it easier to find from the sidebar. Currently, it is always linked in the stickied Megathread.
• Minimum length for text posts: we often get short but specific or creative posts. We don’t want to punish users for being concise.

Individual Actions Community Members Can Take

A repeated theme in the earlier post was that our users felt that lesser known authors were being drowned out. Aside from moderation/policies on our end, there are a number of things individual members can do to encourage these sort of discussions:

• Upvote and interact with posts about lesser known books. If you’ve read them, add a comment. If you haven’t read them, ask a question to encourage discussion. Be the void that screams back
• Sort by new: there was a significant contrast in the previous post between users who said they browse by new and users who did not. If you have a goal of seeing wider discussion that’s not drowned out by popular topics, consider browsing by new
• Participate in book clubs! Our clubs hardly ever pick the best known authors, always have good discussion, and we have many to choose from depending on your interests.
• Write a Spotlights post and share your squee! Spotlight is a new type of post we're hoping will catch on with users and help generate more discussion about less read authors. Anyone can participate. All you have to do is throw together a brief post drawing attention to an author, book or series you think deserves more recognition.
• Comment about great posts you saw in the monthly r/Fantasy Best Of thread! Make use of that "save" button and highlight the good things you see in our community.