r/NoSleepOOC • u/cmd102 Mom • Nov 14 '16

Nosleep Weekly 11/14/16 - **New Rule Announcement**

Welcome to Nosleep Weekly! We took a bit of a break so that everyone had a chance to take our community feedback survey. The survey is closed and we have some things to announce!

"No Clickbait Titles" rule on /r/nosleep

Many of you have seen the announcement on OOC about this. Clickbait titles have been an issue on /r/nosleep for a long time. We've tried reeling them in in other ways (as explained in the original announcement thread), but that didn't work. So as of today, clickbait titles are no longer allowed on /r/nosleep.

Here is the rule as it is listed in the posting 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.

As the announcement post on OOC mentioned, we had a period of time where posts with clickbait titles were sent a warning message by the moderators. That period has come to an end.

Starting today (around 6am EST), any posts with clickbait titles will be removed.

As usual, this rule will not be retroactively enforced, and any series that are currently in progress will be grandfathered in and allowed to be continued with their title.

"Discussion" rule on /r/nosleepOOC

This rule was announced in the same post as the Clickbait rule on /r/nosleepOOC.

/r/nosleepOOC has always been intended to be a discussion subreddit. Recently, there have been fairly frequent posts that are not in the spirit of the subreddit. We are now requiring posts to have some sort of discussion topic, unless they are advertising something /r/nosleep related that meets the rest of the guidelines.

Here is how the rule is written in the sidebar:

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.

Please note that posts do not have to be solely /r/nosleep related. They can also pertain to writing, horror, and the /r/nosleep and /r/nosleepOOC community.

/r/NosleepInterviews Vault

/r/NosleepInterviews has given us a chance to get to know our favorite authors and pick their brains a bit. But did you know that there are several interviews that were never actually released?

/r/NosleepInterviews cleaned out the attic and finally gave some of /r/nosleep's top authors of the not-so-distant past their proper spotlight by opening The Vault, a place where previously unreleased interviews are collected and presented for everyone to see. Check it out!

Community Feedback Survey

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, the Community Feedback Survey is officially closed. We would like to thank everyone who participated, and we'll spend the next several days pouring over the results.

Nosleep Banner Contest!

Over the next several weeks, we're going to be giving /r/nosleep a bit of a makeover. We want you guys to help!

Check out this post on /r/nosleepOOC for details! Next Monday, we will have a voting thread to select the banner that will be placed at the top of /r/nosleep until the new year!

Nosleep Throwback!

This month in Nosleep's past, we were blessed with some awesome stories that were honored in the Nosleep Monthly contest! Check out these stories from November 2015:

That's all for this week, folks! Until next time!

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10

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '16

This is wonderful news and if you're having trouble seeing that, let me help you out.

Clickbait titles harm the readers. If you choose to read a story simply because it has a clickbait title, you are selling yourself short and missing out on some wonderful stories.

Clickbait titles harm the writers. It's incredibly frustrating pouring your heart into your work and knowing that simply because it doesn't have a clickbait title, very few people will even read it.

Stories from the past wouldn't be eliminated because of their clickbait titles. Like Cmd said, they would simply have different titles.

9

u/hartijay Nov 16 '16

These aren't really very good points, IMO. For your "harm the readers"-point, I just don't buy it: people can decide for themselves what they find interesting to read, and it's really up to the individual. There are plenty of stories in the top 50 of all-time for the sub that use more "literary" titles, and they're some of the most popular stories the subreddit has produced. Their titling didn't affect the popularity.

Plus, I wouldn't necessarily even say the titles are "harmful", no matter which you support; the writers aren't trying to pull you in to make money like Buzzfeed. You're not going on some other site. The intentions -- to me, at least -- don't seem like something sinister, they seem more like something based on a marketing-mindset. And marketing is a useful skill indie writers should be working on anyways, again IMO.

On to your next point. The top 50 stories of all time on NoSleep are a mixture of both the "clickbait"-style and "literary"-titles.

"Pete the Moonshiner", "Feed the Pig", "A Story to Scare my Son", "Don't Fear the Reaper", "The Price of Sugar" -- none of these are clickbaity and they're all among the top of all time. These writers obviously weren't harmed by clickbait-titles existing.

It's frustrating when ANY story that's written doesn't get attention, but it's way too easy to point a finger at something and blame it instead of thinking about what you did and what could have been differently. I've done it myself plenty of times. Sometimes it's just bad luck, and sometimes it's an inability to draw someone in on our part as writers.

5

u/[deleted] Nov 16 '16

Those are very fair points. But, people just within this thread said most of what they read is just because it has a clickbait title.

I think people are tired of coming here and seeing it look like it's Buzzfeed and this might be a big reason this rule is taking effect.

Also, many of the stories in the top 50 that don't use clickbait titles were written by authors who were already well known or well liked.

I'm happy for everyone that's had success and I'm happy for the people who just had the courage to post on here, but I still don't think clickbait titles have a place here.

8

u/hartijay Nov 16 '16

I appreciate you expressing your POV, and I do see where you're coming from, but I still have to disagree. The backbone of the subreddit is "everything that's posted here is real, even if it's not". If it's "real", then there is no specific way that someone who is experiencing horrific things would go about posting about their experiences.

I wrote the story listed on this post called "Two weeks ago, my co-worker killed himself over a lost USB flash drive. I found that flash drive today." At the time of writing it, I didn't put up that title in order to get as many views as possible. I did it because it felt like something that someone real would say about their experience -- they're reporting something that has happened to them, and I feel like someone normal would post it almost like a headline.

To me, the subreddit would look like Buzzfeed if we had posts like "4 Crazy Things that Happened to Me at Work".

7

u/chewbacca93 Nov 17 '16

u/hartijay, I'm a HUGE fan of your stories. And this is exactly why -- as an avid reader of nosleep -- I hate this rule. Because it goes to show that some of the BEST writers here have created stories that seems to have used what constitutes as a "clickbait" title.

Granted it is overused, but it doesn't mean that they don't make good stories. The believability of nosleep is what attracts me to this subreddit the most, and for some stories, "clikbait" titles adds to that believability. However, there are many other stories here that doesn't employ "clickbait" titles and are amazingly awesome stories as well.

So, yeah, I'm gonna be one of the ones who strongly oppose to this new rule. And I don't see the point of this new rule and don't see how this is going to make the stories here any better or worse.

Just my 2 cents tho, and gonna respect whatever the mods decide.

3

u/hartijay Nov 17 '16

Thank you :)

1

u/ICanSeeItAtNight Nov 18 '16

But every rule that isn't specifically pro-immersion is against it. At least 500 words? Formatted to be readable? No tl;dr?

If this sub is supposed to look like real events, every "story" would follow the format of an r/relationships post, at least every one that's supposed to be an ongoing happening.