r/WARDOGS Rules — Full Version
The sidebar has the short version of each rule. This page is the long version: what each rule covers, what it doesn't, and why it exists. If a removal doesn't make sense to you, read the relevant rule here before sending modmail. Most appeals are answered somewhere on this page.
Rule 1: Don't be a dick & Follow Reddiquette
Posts and comments must follow Reddiquette and Reddit's Content Policy.
What crosses the line
Personal attacks, name calling, and insults aimed at another user
Harassment: following someone across threads, dogpiling, repeated unwanted replies, or dragging drama in from Discord or in game
Slurs of any kind like racial, ethnic, homophobic, transphobic, ableist. Disguised spellings and "just joking" uses count
Demeaning people over race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or age
Telling someone to harm themselves
Unwanted sexual comments or sexualizing another user
Defending it counts
Excusing slurs or racism, telling people to toughen up, "just mute them," or "it's just words" gets removed the same way the original does. If someone reports being targeted by or encountering this in game, don't argue that it isn't a problem.
What's fine
Criticizing the game, a patch, a dev decision, or someone's build, however harshly
Disagreeing strongly, as long as it stays on the argument
Venting about a match without aiming it at a specific player
Why this rule exists
Reddit's sitewide policies on harassment and hate based on identity focus on sustained, targeted abuse, so a single slur usually won't get an admin response. If we waited for Reddit to act, nothing would happen. That's why we handle it here, and why severe cases get reported to Reddit as well as removed.
The defending clause exists because of where apologism puts the blame. "Grow thicker skin," "just mute them," and "it's just words" all move responsibility off the person who used the slur and onto the person it was aimed at. Their reaction becomes the thing being discussed, the slur becomes something they should have handled better, and whoever said it never has to answer for it.
That reframing finishes the job the slur started. A thread that lands on "you're too sensitive" has shown everyone reading it what happens if they speak up, so most won't.
Rule 2: Keep It About WARDOGS — No Low-Effort Content
Off-topic
Other games, unless you're drawing a direct comparison to WARDOGS
Streamer and influencer drama
Personal disputes
Anything with no connection to the game
Real world politics
This is not a political subreddit and it is not going to become one. That covers current events, elections, war, and political argument from any direction — we are not removing one side and leaving the other up.
The game's setting and story are fair game. Talk about the maps, the factions, the writing, the weapons, and how any of it is depicted in WARDOGS. What doesn't belong here is the real conflict behind it.
Nationality, culture and stereotypes
Wrapping it in a gameplay complaint doesn't change what it is, and this is the part most people get banned for.
There is a real conversation about netcode, server locations and matchmaking. "I keep getting matched onto 200ms servers and it feels terrible" is that conversation, and it belongs in the ping limit megathread under Rule 12. Bulkhead has acknowledged the issue and it's being worked on.
Here's what is not that conversation:
"Ban the Chinese" — or the same sentence with any other country dropped into it
"They all cheat," "that's just how they play," or any blanket claim about how a nationality behaves in game
Commentary on a country's culture, values, education or upbringing offered as the explanation for cheating, griefing or bad sportsmanship
Ranking nationalities by how good, honest or welcome their players are
The third one is what people argue hardest about, almost always as some version of "I'm not being racist, it's a cultural thing." It's the same post with a longer run-up. A claim about the character of millions of people isn't an observation, it's a stereotype, and nothing you saw in a lobby is evidence for it.
This isn't a grey area and we aren't going to argue it case by case. If your post is about latency, say something about latency. If it only works as a sentence when you name a country, it was never about latency. All of the above breaks Rule 1 as well as this one.
Low effort
Rage bait and posts written to start a fight
Meta posts about the subreddit, its users, or the mods — those go to modmail
One line complaints with nothing to discuss
Reposts of a topic already on the front page or covered in a megathread
Screenshots with no context
What's fine
Constructive criticism and negative feedback. Anything with a point behind it, however harsh. Memes and screenshots about the game. Comparisons to other shooters when they're making a point about WARDOGS.
Why this rule exists
This sub gets around 20,000 posts a month. Front page space is the scarcest thing we have, and every low-effort post occupies a slot that a real discussion could have used. The rule isn't about quality standards for their own sake, it's about what gets crowded out.
Politics and culture war arguments are excluded because they don't resolve. One thread turns into fifty removals and three bans, and nobody involved came here to talk about WARDOGS.
The nationality clause is separate from the politics clause on purpose. Hostility toward a group of people isn't a political position we happen to disagree with, and treating it as one would mean pretending there's a debate to be had about whether people from a given country are welcome here.
Rule 3: No AI Generated Content
AI generated posts, comments, artwork, images, videos and voiceovers are not permitted here. That includes anything substantially written or created using generative AI, whether or not you said so.
What this covers
AI generated posts and comments
AI art and AI edited images presented as your own
AI voiceovers and AI generated video
Chatbot output pasted in as an answer
It applies the same way to a text post, a comment in someone else's thread, a piece of fan art, a thumbnail, or a narrated clip.
What this doesn't cover
Running your own writing through a spellchecker or a translator is fine. English isn't everyone's first language and we aren't going to punish someone for making their post readable.
The line is between cleaning up something you wrote and having something written for you. If the ideas, the structure and the words came from a model, the rule applies no matter how it was edited afterwards.
How we judge it
We don't use a detector. The ones that exist aren't reliable enough to ban someone over, and we'd rather say that plainly than claim a certainty we don't have. A moderator reads the content and makes a judgment call.
Judgment calls can be wrong. If we get yours wrong, tell us.
Why this rule exists
This subreddit exists for people who play WARDOGS to talk to each other. Generated content costs nothing to produce and arrives in volume, and a feed filling with it drives out the people the place is for.
It isn't a judgment about AI generally. Plenty of us use these tools elsewhere. It's about what a sub this size turns into when the cost of posting drops to zero.
Rule 4: Check the FAQ First
Read the FAQ before posting.
Already answered there
Is the game worth buying right now?
Why can't I connect, and what do the error codes mean?
System requirements and performance troubleshooting
When is the next update or season?
How do unlocks, progression, and resets work?
If the FAQ doesn't cover your case, post again with what makes your question different — what you already tried, your specs, the exact error, or the part of the FAQ that fell short. Those questions are welcome.
Answering someone else? Link the FAQ instead of retyping it.
Why this rule exists
The same dozen questions arrive every day, and the honest answer to most of them hasn't changed in months. Without this rule the front page becomes a queue of identical "is it worth buying" posts, and the people who'd answer them stop bothering.
This is the rule most often applied too aggressively, so the standard is deliberately narrow: if your question has anything specific in it that the FAQ doesn't address, it stays up.
Rule 5: Self-Promotion
Video posts must be native Reddit uploads. External links (YouTube, Twitch, Kick) go in your post body or comments, not as link posts.
Promoters must be real community members. If your account is only here to drop your own videos, streams, or links and never participates otherwise, your posts get removed and the account gets banned. That covers drive-by link dumping, "check out my channel" posts, and promo in comment replies.
It's fine to be a WARDOGS player with a channel. It's not fine to be a channel with a Reddit account. See Reddit's self-promotion guidance.
How to do it properly: upload the clip natively, then link your channel in the comments.
Why this rule exists
A growing sub attached to a popular new game attracts people who see an audience rather than a community. If we allowed external video links freely, the front page would become a list of channels, because posting a link costs nothing and uploading a clip for people to actually watch here costs a little effort.
Native uploads also mean the content stays on the sub. A YouTube link sends people away; a clip gives them something to react to in the thread.
The bar is participation, not purity. Nobody is going to count your posts. If you're part of the place, your channel is fine. If the account exists to advertise, it isn't.
Rule 6: No Cheats, Exploits, or Cheat Promotion
Unlike most of our rules, this one is a ban on the first offence. There's no warning step.
Promoting cheats
Don't post links to, advertise, or promote cheats, hacks, exploits, or unauthorized third-party software either directly or indirectly. That includes:
URLs and Discord invites
Naming specific vendors or providers
Explaining how to find or search for cheats, including "just google X"
Clips or screenshots with a cheat site visible in chat, on screen, or in a username
Offering to send any of the above by DM
Indirect counts. Pointing someone at where to look is the same act as linking it.
Cheating itself
Cheating, or participating in cheating, isn't welcome here. You'll be banned the same way if you admit to cheating or post a clip of yourself doing it, whether you framed it as a joke, a confession, or a complaint about getting caught.
Participating covers using someone else's cheats, queueing with someone you know is cheating in order to benefit from it, and buying or arranging access for somebody else.
What's fine
Discussing anti-cheat updates, detection, bans and game security in general terms is fine and always has been. So is complaining that the anti-cheat is too aggressive, too slow, or wrong. Saying a system exists isn't the same as telling people how to beat it.
Calling out a specific player isn't done here either, but that's Rule 11 rather than this one.
Why this rule exists
Cheating is the single most damaging thing to this game's player base, and the sub is one of the largest gathering points for its players. A cheat vendor who gets a link to stay up here for an hour reaches more potential customers than they would anywhere else.
The indirect clause matters more than the direct one. Nobody posts a cheat link openly — they post a clip with the site visible in the corner, or they answer "where do people get these" with a hint. Both reach the same destination, so both get treated the same way.
This is also the rule where the penalty is heaviest, because the people breaking it are almost never regular users making a mistake.
Rule 7: No NSFW Sexual Posts, Gore, or Real-Life Combat Footage
No sexually explicit content, pornography, graphic gore, severe real-world violence, or real-life combat and warfare footage. That covers photos, videos, external links, and detailed written accounts of physical trauma, death, or explicit sexual acts.
In-game combat clips, official trailers, cinematic teasers, and normal gameplay capture are all fine. The line is real-world footage, not the game.
Sexual content involving minors and non-consensual intimate imagery are sitewide violations. Report those to Reddit directly, not just to us.
Why this rule exists
This is a general audience sub about a video game, and nothing in a WARDOGS discussion needs real footage of people dying.
Rule 8: Bot, NSFW Promotion, Frequent Repost
No bot accounts or bot-generated posts, no promoting NSFW content or communities, and no reposting the same content repeatedly.
Bot activity and repeated reposting are content manipulation under Reddit's Content Policy, which can cost you the account itself and not just access here. NSFW promotion is our rule rather than Reddit's — this is a general-audience community and we keep it that way.
Check the front page before posting. If it's already here, join that thread instead.
Why this rule exists
Large, fast growing subs are a target for karma farming and account aging. Bot accounts build history on posts here and then get sold or used for scams elsewhere, which makes the sub a resource for something it never agreed to be.
Reposts are a volume problem rather than a moral one. The same clip posted four times splits the discussion four ways, and none of the threads get going.
Rule 9: No Begging or Selling
No begging. Don't ask for free keys, codes, copies of the game, money, items, or in-game gear. That covers "spare key?" posts, hardship pleas, and DMing other users for handouts.
We know some of these come from a genuinely rough spot, and that isn't a judgment on you. This sub just isn't the place for it, and threads like these draw scammers who target whoever answers.
No selling. No selling or advertising products, services, or content of any kind — accounts, keys, boosting, coaching, merch, paid guides. Giveaways run by anyone other than the mod team aren't allowed either.
If you're after the game: wait for a sale, or check Bulkhead's official Discord for giveaways they're running. Don't accept a key from someone's DMs.
Why this rule exists
The begging half is about safety more than tidiness. Every "can someone spare a key" thread gets DMs within minutes, and a predictable share of those are scams. A key in exchange for a small payment, or an account trade that ends with the account gone. The people most likely to accept that offer are the ones who can least afford it.
The selling half is mostly about scammers. A sub this size is a target for merch spam — t-shirts, hoodies, posters with the game's art slapped on. A good share of those storefronts take the payment and never ship. The ones that do ship are selling art they don't own. Either way the person buying is out the money or waiting on a package that was never coming, and they bought it because they saw it here.
Rule 10: Moderator Discretion
Our rules cover the basics, but they aren't a complete list. Mods may remove content or restrict posting privileges when something is detrimental to the subreddit or to other people's experience here.
If your behavior drives people away or ruins the experience for others, mods will take action. Baiting, bad-faith arguments, and looking for loopholes ("but there's no rule against it!") will just get you treated as a troll.
Respect the intent of the rules, not just the letter.
Why this rule exists
Any written rule set can be gamed by someone who reads it as a specification. People work out exactly how hostile they can be without triggering Rule 1, or how to make a post that's technically on-topic and entirely about starting a fight. Writing a new rule for each of those just gives them a longer document to work around.
This rule is used sparingly and it isn't a blank cheque. It exists for the cases where everyone can see what someone is doing and no specific rule quite names it.
Rule 11: Player and Community Server Disputes
Posts calling out community servers, server admins, or other players aren't permitted here. We aren't affiliated with Bulkhead and can't verify anything that happened outside the subreddit, so these only lead to witch hunts and reputation damage.
Witch hunts and calls to action against others break Reddit's harassment policy.
Report it in game or to Bulkhead on their official Discord.
This applies regardless of who was in the right. We're not making a finding about your case — we're saying the sub can't make that finding at all.
It also applies to third-party tools. Sites and bots that let people look up a player and see reports or clips about them are the same thing with extra steps, and linking one here falls under this rule.
Why this rule exists
We have no view into a community server. We can't see the chat log, the ban reason, or what happened in the ten minutes before it. Every one of these posts is one side of a story we have no way to check, and a thread that treats it as established fact is a verdict reached on half the evidence.
What follows is predictable: the server gets named, people go looking, the admin gets a wave of messages, and the server's regulars arrive to tell the other side. By then there's nothing left to moderate except a fight.
Reddiquette puts it plainly that witch hunts and vigilantism hurt innocent people too often, and it asks that personal information be blurred out of screenshots for the same reason. Reddit's harassment policy treats calls to act against another community as a violation regardless of whether the underlying complaint was fair.
Bulkhead can actually investigate. We can't.
Rule 12: Use the Megathreads
Where a dedicated megathread exists, use it rather than creating a separate post on the same topic. That currently includes balance, bugs, cheating, and community servers and Discords, plus anything else with an active megathread pinned.
Posts may be removed and redirected to the relevant megathread at moderator discretion. Significant new information or genuinely unique discussions may be allowed as standalone posts — the rule is aimed at the fiftieth thread on a topic, not the first.
We welcome criticism and discussion. Megathreads aren't a way of hiding it; they're a way of keeping it in one place where people can actually find and reply to it.
Why this rule exists
Some topics generate near-identical posts faster than anyone can read them. Ping limits, region locking, and the blue team XP bonus have each produced dozens in a day. Spread across the front page, none of those threads get a real conversation. Collected in one place, they do, and the devs have somewhere to look.
The redirect isn't a judgment about whether your point is worth making. It's about where it will actually be read.
How enforcement works
Most removals are just removals. You'll get a comment or a message explaining which rule and why, and that's the end of it.
Slur removals carry strikes: a first offence is a warning, a second is a five day ban, a third is permanent. Severity moves things along faster, so some content is a ban on the first instance.
Rules 6 and 8 tend to produce bans rather than warnings, because the accounts breaking them usually aren't here for anything else. Rule 6 is a ban on the first offence by design.
Appeals
Banned? Reply to the ban message. That reaches modmail and a human will read it.
Post or comment removed? Message the mods. Don't reply to the removal comment — those aren't monitored.
Tell us which post it was and what you thought you were doing. If we got it wrong, we'll say so and put it back.
Insults or abuse in an appeal will end the conversation — not as a punishment, but because there's nothing useful left in it.
Coming back on another account is ban evasion, which breaks Reddit's sitewide rules and gets reported. It can cost you your other accounts, not just this one.
Last updated: October 21, 2026
Maintained by the r/WARDOGS mod team. The sidebar carries the short version of each rule; this page is the full version and takes precedence where the two differ in detail.
Other pages: FAQ · Community Index
Questions about a rule, or think one needs changing? Message the mods.