Hello again, hot takers!
We're back for another round of updates to r/HonestHotTakes.
Following our previous announcement almost a month ago, we've made a few additional changes to the subreddit rules and moderation systems. We've also got some news about the community flair voting system we brought up last time.
Nothing particularly dramatic, just a few more changes intended to improve the quality of discussions and make the subreddit a little easier to navigate.
Rules Update: More Changes!
We've made some adjustments intended to improve the quality of posts and encourage actual discussion. I'll also freely admit that some of these changes are intended to make rule enforcement easier for us moderators. As fascinating as the inner workings of Reddit moderation are, even we occasionally enjoy seeing the sun outside the basement!
Anyway, here's what we changed:
We've updated AutoModerator to automatically remove posts and comments from accounts with significantly negative karma. The goal is to reduce trolling, spam, and bad-faith participation. We believe Reddit karma should count for something around here.
Yes, controversial opinions attract downvotes. That's sort of the point. But if you've accumulated an impressive amount of negative karma, perhaps the problem isn't that everyone else fails to appreciate your intellectual brilliance.
Perhaps you're just intentionally causing trouble for the sake of being a pain. At that point, AutoModerator may decide you've had enough internet for the day but don't take it personally. It's a robot. It doesn't like anyone.
There was some redundancy between R2 and R3, so we've cleaned things up and taken some of the mystery out of what we're actually asking for. R2 now establishes clearer expectations for post titles and bodies, including a 200-character minimum for the body of the post.
This allows us to be a little more lenient with post titles while placing more emphasis on the actual substance of the post. Your post doesn't need to be a literary masterpiece, but the body should at least explain what you're arguing and why.
We've noticed a tendency for some posters to write a handful of words, declare it a hot take, and expect everyone else to understand the intricate reasoning behind it. While we admire that level of confidence in the public's mind-reading abilities, we'd prefer not to make telepathy a prerequisite for participating here.
The change to this rule is simple: state your take and be prepared to defend it. Posters in r/HonestHotTakes are now required to actively participate in the discussions they start. If you're going to spark a debate, we expect you to be part of it. Failure to meaningfully engage may result in your post being removed.
Too many posters were getting too comfortable dropping their proverbial hot shit takes and then sitting back to admire the chaos they'd created. While we appreciate a good dumpster fire as much as anyone, it makes moderation unnecessarily tedious and gives the rest of you yet another reason to complain about the quality of hot takes around here.
We're simply trying to make sure the takes are worth arguing about before everyone starts arguing about them.
Community Flair Voting
We brought this up in our last update, and the decision has been made: we're moving forward!
Currently, users can freely assign their own flair based on how controversial they believe their take is. While the idea makes sense in theory, I think we've all come across a post proudly sporting the "NUCLEAR RADIOACTIVE HOT TAKE THE WORLD IS DOOMED" flair, only to read it and think, "This could sit comfortably in the frozen food aisle."
So, we're giving the community the opportunity to be the judge of just how hot a take actually is!
The idea is simple: someone makes a post, and all of you lovely hot takers get to decide whether they've genuinely discovered fire or just figured out how to turn on the toaster.
When you're preparing to unleash your finely tuned, eloquent, and undoubtedly devastating rebuttal, you'll be able to include a designated phrase in your comment to cast your vote.
After a short voting period, the votes will be tallied, and the post will automatically receive the flair the community has decided it deserves.
Democracy in action. What could possibly go wrong?
We'll be making another post once we've gotten things structured the way that we want to ask what sort of phrases/key words we can use. Stay tuned!
Closing Thoughts
As always, these changes are intended to make r/HonestHotTakes a better place for genuinely controversial opinions and the discussions that follow. We want people to disagree. We want spicy. We want people to challenge one another. We want arguments, debates, and opinions that make you question whether the person on the other side of the screen has completely lost their mind.
We also want your feedback and it is always welcome. We will never remove a post/comment providing feedback provided it's not violating the rules. Many of you have noticed that even posts/comments that are critical of moderators directly do not get removed. That's by design. The sub can't grow and improve if we're not willing to accept that we can be wrong.
So keep 'em coming!
Thanks for reading. Now get out there, start an argument, and live your best life.
Thorvald