For the entire pandemic we have had to create only one rule for COVID posts, that they must be about Medford specifically. We check every post but as we are human we sometimes don’t catch them right away. In almost all cases members of the sub have done a great job adhering to this and I thank you all. Moreover it is obvious that some do not wish to see these posts at all. To strike a balance between the need and importance of COVID posts, and the increased volume of them correlating with increased cases/variants, we now feel it necessary to add one more rule:

From now on, all COVID-19 posts must be tagged with [COVID] in the title. Like this:

• [COVID] Rogue Disposal considering free 65-gallon can upgrade for vaccinated peeps

Disclaimer: Rogue Disposal is not, that I know of, considering this.

If you do not wish to see COVID posts, simply look for a filtering application like Reddit Enhancement Suite and block the [COVID] tag. You won’t feel tempted to respond and, well, you didn’t want to see them to begin with.

Those who deem such posts as useful and/or critical can continue to post about the pandemic and response, related specifically to Medford, and with a [COVID] tag.

Which brings us to another thing

This is a reminder about Reddit Rule 1, which insists on an inclusive community where people are not discouraged from participating or otherwise marginalized. Typically we have only acted on wanton violations of this rule but we will be engaging in a bit more scrutiny as time goes by. We will be issuing short bans for violations of this at first, but the mud slinging has to stop. Please discuss, don’t insult.

Thank you for being an awesome community. You usually keep our workload small and we like it.