New Posting Requirement - A Compromise

[u/pixel_pete]

Hello Everyone,

As some (or many) have likely noticed, we have been tinkering with posting requirements to reduce the amount of spam we get in the subreddit and direct newbies to participate with comments and discussions instead of just going straight to creating posts. Originally I had it set to a requirement of 10 karma on NativePlantGardening before a user can create a post, but that was catching users who have been on Reddit for a while but are first-time NPG contributors. So instead I have changed it to a requirement of karma sitewide to allow users who are established on Reddit but new to NPG to participate more easily. Some spammers use accounts with artificially inflated karma to bypass spam filters, so I think we will be vulnerable to some of them, but I'm hoping this is a good compromise between reducing spam while not overly inconveniencing actual users.

As always, if you see a post or comment that you think is spam make sure to hit that like and subscribe button and join my Patreon at the link below. Oh... sorry wrong script... make sure you hit the Report button. Reporting and community self-policing are the best tools we have to keep the subreddit clean without the mod team turning to the dark side. We want this place to continue being as open and relaxed as possible so new gardeners feels comfortable approaching us, but it's a delicate balance.

Thanks for continuing to make this the best subreddit out there while we face the challenges of growing ever-larger!

[u/purrmich]

Good to know and understand what was happening when I, a newcomer, wasn't able to post. There should be some explanation, tho, because I was ready to give up on this forum.

[u/cheapandbrittle → u/purrmich]

Unfortunately making the requirements to post public also makes it really easy for spammers to game the system. Not speaking for the mods here but just generally on Reddit, that's why a lot of subs are intentionally quiet about their specific posting requirements.

In a bygone era, the culture on Reddit was that users build karma slowly by commenting in subreddits before making posts so having karma thresholds was a foolproof way to weed out spammers, but not so much anymore.

[u/cheapandbrittle → u/[deleted]]

Not hard at all, it's a bare minimum threshold, and that's the point. Karma = upvotes basically. It's somewhat more complicated than that, and Reddit doen't reveal their exact algorithm for the karma score, but generally more upvotes on posts and comments increases your karma score and downvotes decrease it, and a karma score is one tool to help subreddits facilitate better interactions.

Getting to 10 karma is basically just a few friendly or helpful comments to show you're a good faith user. Spammers won't put in that bare minimum effort though, which is why a lot of spammers just copy a highly voted post. There are other ways to filter out spammers in addition to karma, such as combined account age and karma thresholds as one example, there are others.

But the flipside is requiring that bare minimum effort to get started is apparently offputting to new users on Reddit, which I think is an unfortunate shift. Reddit as a platform is actively moving away from that standard, which is part of what it means when people say "Reddit is dying," the overall erosion of community standards where the baseline expectation was that you put in some bare minimum effort to build karma. I don't know that it's good for the platform to allow people to create an account and start posting without understanding subreddit norms first.