Hello everyone, for those don't recognize my username I've been modding this subreddit for the past 4-ish months now. In that time In that time I've implemented a handful of changes including:

• Tighter removal of scam post removal. Most of these are removed within minutes of being posted and I've noticed a considerable reduction in their frequency as well.
• Implementation of optional verification.
• Rule cleanup and additions (rule 8 and 9 mainly).
• Addition of required Male/Female/Couple/Trans post flair.
  • Meta & success flair exists too, by the way. I'd love to see more of these posts!
• Required post bodies to avoid the lowest possible effort posts with just titles.
• Discretionary locking of F4M and MF4M posts to cut down on low effort comments.
• Small customizations of the sub colors/icon to match a PNW-like theme.

Overall, I've been fairly happy with all of these and I hope you are too. That said, I've been wanting to hear from all of you. What has been working well? What could still be improved? I'd like your input.

Additionally, I've been thinking about a longer term direction for this sub that I'd like other's thoughts on as well. The primary goal of this being shooting for quality over quantity. As many of you are aware, there are a handful of other r4r-like subs for the Seattle area. r/r4rseattle is the largest as far as I know, right behind it is r/seattler4r, and then a handful of smaller, and to be honest, not very well moderated subs. Thus, I believe there's room for a subreddit more focused on quality of posts rather than many pages of low effort M4F posts.

A while ago I stumbled across r/r4rmelbourne and was impressed by the quality of their posts. I'd recommend taking a look to get a better idea of what I'm proposing below. Some ideas I've had to improve the quality of posts here are as follows:

• The biggest one: A required post format to follow. This would entail at least three required sections:
  • About me
  • What I'm looking for
  • What I offer
  • The goal with this is to provide some structure for users to fill out and give other users an idea of what they're looking for and what they are like specifically targeted at reducing the lowest effort posts with next to no details about themselves. Posts that do not follow this format would be removed automatically by the automod.
• In accordance with the above, required post bodies of more than 200ish characters to ensure something of substance is being posted.
• Required post titles of the form [Age] [R4R] [Title]. Most people already do this but I'd like to standardize on it.
• Addition of a few more post flairs to differentiate casual encounters from those seeking longer term relationships and also a non-sexual/platonic flair.
• Locking of comments by default on all posts.
  • I've been against this in the past as I find value in the discussions that start occasionally and by allowing users to call out scam posts if I'm not around to remove one. I'm more open to the idea of locking by default now for the following reasons:
  • I would add an automod configuration to allow users to unlock comments at their discretion.
  • With the required post template I imagine it would greatly reduce scam posts that get their posts removed by the automod for not following our subreddit-specific post format.
• Addition of a new rule prohibiting all forms of consensual non-consent posts. These have a time and place in certain relationships, but in my opinion someone you just met on reddit is not that.
• Strengthen the anti-harassment policy: Anyone sending unsolicited, low effort, on generally unwanted messages to a user will be warned, temporarily, or permanently banned. This is difficult to enforce as it requires users to report these to the mods. Part of this would be making that policy more readily apparent to users so it's hopefully used more often.

Please let me know what your thoughts are. I'm not set on any of these and above all want to follow the direction that the users of this sub want to go in. Would you prefer more structure and higher-quality posts? Or is the existing status quo acceptable? Is there some sort of middle ground that would be better? Please let me know.

As always, good luck finding someone you're excited about and keep the reports of rule breakers coming my way.

Edit: Since this post has unfortunately become 95% about a proposed change to how CNC posts are handled rather than about the other much more significant changes, here's why I brought that up: As it stands, even r/cnc_connect has more rules around these posts than r/r4rseattle does. As a subreddit, I don't think that's a good place to be in. I'm not necessarily saying these are banned entirely, but some guidelines around them may be worthwhile. Exactly what those are and where the line is drawn is something I was hoping for input on. Please be constructive and respectful if you feel like jumping into this conversation. There is no place for personal attacks here.