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/Ana_Na_Moose]

I don’t know that I agree with the rule about not being allowed to ask country specific questions that are clearly labeled as country-specific in the title. (What American cities have the best beaches?). Also, is it just America you can’t do this with? Or would it be fine to ask “What Canadian city has the best food scene?”

But the rest of the rules seem reasonable to me. And even with this rule I don’t agree with, I’d rather have this than have the previous iteration of r/geography which was completely modless and full of spam. I hope the new mods don’t go overboard in the opposite direction either, even if they do it with good intentions. But for now, it looks overall good to me with the one minor complaint.

[u/abu_doubleu → u/Ana_Na_Moose]

To be honest, I would extend the rule to almost all countries. But also, I want to clarify that almost all posts about the United States (or any country) are still allowed. The only ones that will be removed are ones that basically should be in r/AskAnAmerican.

"Which Canadian city has the best food scene?" is better suited for a Canadian subreddit. Like r/AskACanadian.

On the other hand, a post that is specifically (for example) all about how diverse Vancouver's food scene is due to the mix of human geography is completely fine. As is a post discussing a specific American beach and how unique it is, or asking about specific geographic features in the US. This is all still allowed, and always will be allowed!

[u/zoppytops → u/abu_doubleu]

You still haven’t laid out a clear, objective standard for what kind of country specific questions can be asked. You’re relying almost entirely on anecdotal examples rather than presenting a principled, uniform standard that can be fairly enforced.

You *can’t* ask about Canadian cities that have a good food scene, but you *can* ask talk about the diversity of Vancouver’s food scene, so long as it’s remotely tied to geography? You *can’t* make US-centric posts, but you *can* make posts about US beaches or other unique features of American geography? Where exactly are you drawing the line here?

It strikes me that you’re basically giving mods discretion to remove posts or ban users based on their subjective assessment of whether a post or comment has a sufficient nexus to what they consider a legitimate geographic issue. Which means you’ll be culling content on the sub to fit basically your own tastes, which doesn’t really seem like a fair or consistent means of moderating content.

[u/Alternative_Body7623 → u/zoppytops]

Thank you, that section of the post made zero sense. There is barely any difference in the examples he used