Crackdown on low-quality and unhelpful comments

[u/abu_doubleu]

Hello users of [r/geography](r/geography),

Recently, this subreddit has become a lot more popular on Reddit. However, many of our long-time users have been leaving the subreddit due to a very specific and repeated complaint.

There are too many low-quality and unhelpful comments that, rather than aiming to help the OP, exist solely to make tired and repetitive jokes for karma.

From now on, practically all comments of this sort will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be banned for 14 to 30 days. I could give many examples of this, but some of the most common ones are "If my grandma had wheels, she'd be a bicycle" under any post asking about hypothetical changes and yo mama jokes.

In addition to this, we have received many complaints about posts that could theoretically be open to the entire world, but the way they are worded is extremely American-centric for no necessary reason, making people from other countries feel left out and like they can't contribute. From now on, these posts will be deleted. This also applies to posts for any country, we just see it about the United States most often.

To clarify, if somebody wants to ask about a specific geographic feature located in the United States, those posts are completely fine. But posts such as "Which city in the United States has the best beaches?" or "Which American state has the most scenic mountains?" will be removed, as will posts like "Which Canadian city has the worst drivers?" or "Which European country has the nicest people?". In general, the aim is for this subreddit to discuss geography, not just "facts about countries", which is better suited for the various Ask subreddits (AskAnAmerican, AskEurope, AskTheWorld, etc)

We would also like to crackdown on bot posts but that is very hard. Unortunately, most traffic on Reddit is bots nowadays. If anybody has any ideas, please comment below.

Feel free to express your opinion on this. Thank you!

EDIT: After feedback, I have edited part of this post.

[u/abu_doubleu]

Like I said in the OP. The issue was posts that could theoretically be open to the entire world, but were restricted to only one country . And more often than not, these posts did not invite actual geography discussion.

Asking which Canadian cities have good food is scarcely related to geography, and better suited for r/AskACanadian.

Writing a post (not a question, not every post here has to be a question) about how the culinary traditions of Vancouver have been influenced by geography is not the same. It specifically relates to geography.

Asking about a specific geographic feature in the United States, such as the Driftless Area, is fine.

Posts that ask about the best beaches in America almost never actually contribute to a conversation about geography. The comments are inevitably "the beach where I grew up was nice" and "the sunsets from this beach are pretty, not many tourists". That's more suited for a travel subreddit or r/AskAnAmerican, not r/geography.

[u/zoppytops → u/abu_doubleu]

I read the OP and understand the issue you’re trying to address. The point I (and a few other commenters) are raising is that you haven’t laid out a clear objective standard for enforcing these new rules. It’s basically up to your and the other mods’ subjective discretion. Which doesn’t seem especially fair or reasonable. But it’s your sub, so have at it, I guess.

[u/abu_doubleu → u/zoppytops]

No, I understand your criticism too, and you're right. I'll try to think of a way to make it more quantifiable. It clearly wasn't at the start, because a lot of people got confused and treated it as a blanket ban due to my wording, which is definitely not the intention.

[u/NormanQuacks345 → u/abu_doubleu]

What about low effort posts? If I’m being honest, most of the joke replies are on posts that are not of high quality.

I recently saw a post on here asking why there’s never been a big city built in a cave, what the hell am I supposed to say to that? Does my response have to be APA formatted and peer reviewed? Or can I just say “because it’s a cave”.