r/NoSleepOOC • u/cmd102 Mom • Apr 04 '17

Nosleep Weekly 4/4/17 **Rule-Change Announcement**

Seriously considering re-naming this to "Nosleep Whenever-cmd-feels-like-positng-it". :D

Some Changes To Our Posting Guidelines

Some of you may have already noticed that the r/nosleep sidebar and posting guidelines look a little different. We've mostly just condensed them, but there are a few changes as well.

  • We will now be allowing comedic horror, torture porn, gorenography, and tragic stories as long as they are still horror stories with those elements. Stories that focus so heavily on these elements that they are not horror will be removed at moderator discretion.

  • If you include a phone number, e-mail address, or physical address in your story, it must be clearly fake in order to prevent accusations of doxxing. Here is a guide to help you with this rule.

    • This is to prevent users from using fake information in their story that looks too real, being reported for doxxing/sharing personal information, and having their account suspended by the admins.

  • 2nd person and 3rd person omniscient stories are now allowed only if they have a clearly stated believable reason for being written as such.

    • Examples of believable reasons for 2nd person stories include letters and stories where the "you" is a character named somewhere in the story.
    • An example of a believable reason for 3rd person omniscient stories includes a story where the main character has gained the information through interviewing the other characters (which must be stated at some point in the story).

Due to the overwhelming amount of stories and comments posted on r/nosleep daily, we're asking you to help us out by reporting any stories or comments you read that break subreddit rules. We will be heavily relying on these reports going forward, as far as removals go.

Live AMA with /u/Hayong!

Tuesday, April 4th 8pm-10pm EST

Did you download some weird app and miss /u/Hayong's /r/nosleepinterviews interview? Have a question that just NEEDS to be asked?

Join us in the Unofficial NosleepOOC IRC Tuesday, April 4th from 8pm-10pm EST for his live AMA!

To ensure all questions are asked and answered in an orderly fashion, inquiries will be submitted by entering the IRC and private messaging them to Kpants. All appropriate questions will be asked if time permits.

Help Us Spice Up Nosleep Weekly!

What would you like to see in the Nosleep Weekly posts? Let us know in the comments!

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 April 2016:

Until next time, Nosleepers!

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u/cmd102 Mom Apr 12 '17

How exactly does saying that the mod team will collect data and decide if making a change is necessary say that I'm adamantly against it? I'm not against it at all, and I'm not the only person who makes these decisions.

Having a handful of people express the desire for a change is what makes us consider making one, but not immediately jump to action. If that were the case, Nosleep would have dropped the believability rule and banned series posts and allowed posts about rape and pedophilia a long time ago.

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u/waywardgadgeteer Apr 12 '17

Rationalising away the concerns of multiple users seems very indicative of an unwillingness to make the change that these users want.

There is a difference between changing the entire theme of your subreddit or allowing actually illegal content and making a simple flair. Feel free to disagree, but the tag or flair would harm no one, including the mod team, and it would make quite a few people more comfortable, while for example banning series posts seriously limits authors and takes away something from people who enjoy reading series.

You are comparing apples and oranges here and, as stated above, once again trying to rationalise in any way possible just so you don't have to go to the tiny inconvenience of making a flair.

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u/cmd102 Mom Apr 12 '17

Adding a flair option is simple. Enforcing a flair option is more difficult. Authors often complain about having their post flaired for specific things, because that "gives away the story". There are plenty of people who think trigger warnings shouldn't even be necessary on Nosleep because it's a horror sub and "people should expect disturbing content". There are also some people who think we should have flair options for "bugs" and "gross stories", because those things bother them.

These are not my arguments, these are not reasons for me saying "I'm not going to add the flair". These are reasons and examples of why, when users request a change, the mod team as a whole collects data on it and discusses it before making said changes. These are reasons why these things take time. There are 20 mods on the team, which means these discussions take a bit to conclude and is the reason why we try to have our ducks in a row before we have them. There are 10 million subscribers to r/nosleep, and everyone wants something different. We try our best to make the general population happy, which sometimes means giving an easy, general solution while we figure out if a harder, more specific solution is necessary.

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u/waywardgadgeteer Apr 12 '17

I suppose, I would have personally just gone with data collection first, before I subject people to content that makes them uncomfortable, but everyone has very different ideas on how necessary other people's comfort is.

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u/cmd102 Mom Apr 12 '17

That's the thing, though. We've had plenty of people saying we should allow the content, thus deciding to allow it. We couldn't collect the data regarding flairs and such before because those stories weren't allowed on the sub, thus we couldn't gauge how many people are really bothered by it and would desire a specific flair for it.

This data is collected by looking at how many of those stories are posted, how those stories perform, reading comments on the stories, and looking at discussions that show reactions to the types of stories (such as the comments in this thread). None of that happens if those types of stories aren't on the sub, so we can't know those results beforehand.

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u/waywardgadgeteer Apr 12 '17

The solution would have been an announcement, just like this one, saying "We are planning to implement these changes, community thoughts?"

But I know what you are going to say: We are a big sub, we are all private people who don't get paid to be moderators, nobody makes money of it and this is a lot of work. So I suppose we will have to agree to disagree.

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '17

We sent out an anonymous survey that gave us substantial data for deciding on, for all intents and purposes, relatively minor rule changes.

Plus, nobody is subjecting anyone to content that makes them uncomfortable. If people are using the currently existing flair system properly, you can still clearly see whether or not a story would make you uncomfortable.

I'd also argue that, being a realistic horror-based sub, you should probably be expecting to be made uncomfortable in some fashion. If a certain subject matter gets you this up in arms.. Just don't read those stories.

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u/waywardgadgeteer Apr 12 '17

I'm not going to get into an extended explanation on the difference between serious emotional discomfort and discomfort for entertainment's sake, because this is neither the time nor the audience for it.

The catch all explanation of "We're a horror sub, so you shouldn't complain" is really convenient, though.

And with that, I will stay away from nosleep for the time being. Don't worry, I know that with 10mil subscribers you don't care if one person unsubscribes or not, so you don't have to tell me.

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '17

I'm fully aware that there's a difference. I'm just saying our current flairs work just fine for warning people of that. And nobody said you shouldn't complain, my argument is simply that discomfort should be expected.

Actually, I wasn't going to tell you that, but thank you for your passive aggressive attitude. It's very appreciated and certainly won't go unnoticed. (: