Friends and fellow redditors...

In light of the exciting growth of the sub, as well as a contentious presidential election on the horizon, the mods have discussed and debated some changes to how we moderate the sub. Like many of you, we have observed concerns with behavior that seems out of step with the spirit of our sub. That is what led to this call to civility.

However, we also believe that our rules are precisely what make this sub unique in the eco-system of reddit political discussion. Therefore, our approach is not a modification of the rules as much as an adjustment of how we moderate.

Although this change could have simply taken place in the background, we believe in transparency and therefore we want to make the sub aware of our shifting approach. It's important to understand that historically our bias has been towards inaction and we've employed a hesitancy to ban users for rules violations, offering multiple warnings before most bans. Our shift will involve us taking more actions to warn and ban users.

Here's the decisions approved by a majority vote of the mod team:

• Comments that are borderline on the rules will receive a warning to help guide redditors away from rules violations.
• Reduced number of warnings before a ban is issued for clear rules violations.
• Questioning the integrity and good/bad faith of journalists and public figures is a vital part of debate. If a redditor self-identifies as a public figure, they are not protected by our rule against those kinds of comments. Self-identification is the key, we will not tolerate doxxing.

Now, we understand that there are other suggestions out there. We have considered quite a few ideas and all of them have some merit, but all would shift us away from the environment we want to build. Let's talk through some of these suggestions:

• "You should ban people that are clearly a troll, shill, propagandist, or bot." - This creates a highly subjective moderation and requires us to guess as to a redditor's intentions. We try to avoid creating rules that would open the door to subjective bias in our moderation.
• "We shouldn't have to assume good faith." - That tenet is fundamental to the spirit of this sub and we will not bend on it. As a reminder...you should be keeping your comments to content, not character. If you can't, move on.
• "You should create a rule about misinformation." - As much as we all appreciate the need for facts, especially during a pandemic...policing the truth creates opportunities for subjective bias creeping into moderation. We are not arbiters of truth.
• "This sub has too much <insert team> bias." - The sub is certainly very "swingy" depending on the day, topic and overall trend of society. As much as we would prefer constant balance...that isn't our role to police.

As always, we welcome discussion and look forward to your thoughts. On behalf of the mod team, thanks for being great contributors to our wonderful little slice of reddit.

Keep it classy ModPol!

MC