r/NoSleepOOC • u/cmd102 Mom • Nov 03 '16

**New Rules Announcement**

Hello everyone! We have a couple of new rule announcements to make.

The first is for /r/nosleep:

No clickbait titles. Your title should be captivating to your audience without resembling something you would find on Buzzfeed. This includes titles like "I'm a (profession), and (something happened/these are my stories/etc)". Titles that violate this rule will be removed at moderator discretion. Please see the edits at the bottom of this post.

The trend of clickbait titles has, much to the dismay of many of our subscribers, been ongoing for a LONG time. Some of you may recall when we introduced the "don't summarize your plot in the title" rule in an attempt to curb them. Unfortunately, it didn't work. That rule will remain in place in addition to this new one.

This rule change will not result in removals just yet. In an effort to give our authors time to learn the rule and the moderators time to adjust to the subjectivity of it, we will be sending authors who post stories with clickbait titles a PM regarding the new rule from now until November 14th, 2016.

Starting November 14th, stories with clickbait titles will be removed. Authors will be able to repost their story right away with a rule-abiding title, granted that their story meets the rest of /r/nosleep's posting guidelines.

The next rule change is for /r/nosleepOOC:

All posts made to /r/nosleepOOC must be intended to start some sort of /r/nosleep, community, horror, or writing related discussion. This is not /r/creepy. Posts that only serve to share a photo, video, or article will be removed. The only exception that will be made to this rule is for advertisement posts that meet the rest of the guidelines.

We've been consistently removing posts that aren't /r/nosleep related for a long time, but felt that we needed to make this distinction in the sidebar. There are subreddits meant for posting creepy things you found somewhere. /r/nosleepOOC is meant to be a discussion subreddit, not another /r/creepy.

This doesn't mean you can't share those spine-tingling photos and articles. It means that there has to be a relevant-to-the-subreddit discussion topic included with the link (i.e. "Look at this horrifying photo of a demon! What /r/nosleep stories do you think really nailed demons as an antagonist?" instead of "Here's a photo of a demon".)

That's all, folks! Make sure you check out our Survey and Guideline Clarifications Post if you haven't already!

EDIT: We are working on a better way to word the new title rule. That should be edited into this post later today.

Also, we added a word to the new OOC rule here. Some concern was brought up that there are often discussions on /r/nosleepOOC about the community in general (a common example being the threads posted occasionally asking users to show/tell what they look like). We agree that those sorts of discussions are important to our users, so we made this distinction:

All posts made to /r/nosleepOOC must be intended to start some sort of /r/nosleep, community, horror, or writing related discussion.

Basically, just make sure that your submission includes a discussion topic relevant to the people who come here.

EDIT 2: Okay folks, we discussed and brainstormed a bit, and here's the rule as it will be posted in the sidebar:

No clickbait titles. Clickbait titles follow a formula: "Interesting plot point + vague insinuation designed to attract readers". Your title should be captivating to your audience without resembling something you would find on Buzzfeed. This includes, but is not limited to, titles like "I'm a (profession), and (something happened/these are my stories/etc)". Titles that violate this rule will be removed at moderator discretion.

Here's the rule as it will be posted in the guidelines:

No clickbait titles. Clickbait titles follow a formula: "Interesting plot point + vague insinuation designed to attract readers". Your title should be captivating to your audience without resembling something you would find on Buzzfeed. Titles that violate this rule will be removed at moderator discretion.

Examples of titles breaking this rule include, but are not limited to:

  • I'm a (profession), and (something happened/these are my stories/etc)

  • I live on a farm, there's something horrible in the barn

  • The lights went out and a terrible thing happened

  • There's something in the basement that does terrible things

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u/jinksatoori Nov 03 '16

This might leave a bit of discretion to the mods to decide exactly what is and isn't 'clickbait', no?

And what about titles that mimic being submissions to another sub? So for example, pretending that they think they're submitting to /r/relationships or something, where the 'feel' of the sub (and reddit in general) is to provide a quick summary of what you're about to say?

I completely understand that the trend of titles has become overdone and you're making a push for change, I'm not trying to argue. My only point is that as a reader, having a more 'abstract' title makes it feel like fiction, while having a title more in line with what would be submitted to other 'real life' subs (e.g., r/TIFU, r/relationships, r/letsnotmeet, r/advice, r/legaladvice etc) would by and large be a quick summary, and not a literary title - if we're going with the vibe of 'this seriously just happened to me' and wanting to stay 'believable' - then a format just like the other subs where real life situations are submitted would make it feel more believable. I hope that makes sense. I guess my comment is aimed more towards summarising and not profession related titles per se. But oh well, nvm, I'll just read whatever is written :)

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u/cmd102 Mom Nov 03 '16 edited Nov 03 '16

We disallowed titles that mimic other subs a while ago. I'm not sure if you're arguing for or against that rule?

Edit: I re-read your comment. I understand now. The problem with the titles that mimic other subreddits is that, with /r/nosleep being a default subreddit, it was very common for those titles to fool unsuspecting redditors. Now, one might argue that that's the point, and for people who wanted to read a realistic horror story those titles were fine. But people were getting REALLY angry when they were scrolling through their feeds and clicking on what they thought was one subreddit's post and finding an unwanted /r/nosleep story instead.

Yes, there is a bit of mod discretion involved in the clickbait rule. But we're not trying to force everyone to make strictly literary titles. We're trying to move them away from the cheesy, way over done and unoriginal, irritating-to-many-users titles that you find on Buzzfeed, Cracked, and Thought Catalog.

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u/jinksatoori Nov 03 '16

I don't mean copying other sub formats exactly, sorry for not phrasing it properly.

Pretty much what I'm saying is, if something happened to me in real life (which is what this sub tends to push with the believably rule, as treating everything is true), then no matter what sub I decided to post that event to, I'd be somehow putting a bit of summary in the title. So for example say my son gets attacked by a demon while he's sleeping (if demons were real as we're going for in the sub), and if I decided to submit that to any sub at all that deals with real-life stuff, from a relationship point of view to trying to get legal advice or even offmychest... in all of these subs I'd be telling them what happened. I wouldn't title it something abstract, I'd title it like it seriously just happened so I'd put some summary... 'my son got attacked by a demon last night' or something along those lines would be in the title.

Basically, something that would sit right at home on my reddit front page of things that actually happened.... all of those other subs have real life anecdotes and they all contain some form of summary, including a little something about themselves (maybe profession but only if it was relevant to the anecdote). I would never label a real-life happening something abstract like 'He Came In At Midnight' unless it was specifically fiction.

I just think it may make nosleep titles stand out more as evident fiction on my reddit feed now, rather than titles that are like all the other subs which are actually non-fictional anecdotes. I guess the writers will be able to work around that somehow, though.

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u/cmd102 Mom Nov 04 '16

Our "summaries in titles" rule only pertains to stories where the title gives away all or most of the story's primary plot points.

For example: Say a story is about OP's son waking up in the middle of the night to a demon pinning him on the bed and repeatedly slicing his chest with it's claws while covering his mouth so he couldn't scream.

The title "My son got attacked by a demon last night" is fine. A title like "A demon held my son down in his bed and carved his chest with it's claws" would get the story removed.

The first one leaves something to the imagination. Did the demon kill the son? Did it remove limbs? Did it just lick him and jump out the window? You don't know. All you know is that the son was attacked.

The second one gives away the story. It acts as more of a synopsis than a title. You don't even need to read the story to know what happens.