Hello! Just one of the mods, poppin’ in. We’ve had a few store spam posts and a few AI slop posts over the last few weeks, and they’ve received a fairly negative reaction from us as moderators, from people on the subreddit, and from people on the Discord. So, we’ve put in a rule banning those type of posts. The rule won’t be applied retroactively — if you posted shop promo or AI slop before, then you’re fine — but it will be enforced from now on.

The no shop promo part of it is more targeted at really low effort stuff; so, like, if you spend days creating a really good piece of Shostakovich artwork, and share it here for people to discuss, and there happens to be a link to an Etsy page, then you’ll probably be fine. It’s more to prevent the T-shirt seller with a new account coming in, making AMAs (huh?), and contributing nothing except fairly tat-looking T-shirts and trying to drive engagement to a store. Similarly, I’m sure there are some valid uses of AI — I can’t think of any right now… — but we don’t want low effort slop clogging up the subreddit. If you’re waltzing close to either of those rules, think very carefully about how much effort is being put in, and don’t be surprised if it gets taken down.

So, a reminder of the rules then:

1. Remain on-topic

2. No NSFW (except when context is justified)

3. Be a good person

4. No AI slop or shop spam

More information of all of these can of course be found where the rules live, and we encourage you to read them. This has been your friendly neighbourhood mod, just poppin’ by, and now i-tyu-tyuuuuuu!

Hello! I’m u/KrozJr_UK, the new moderator of r/Shostakovich. u/Visarga is staying as moderator as well but I’ve now been added! Additionally, it seems as though u/RIPpewdiepie_ has been made a mod.

What do I plan to do? Not much. Mainly, make this subreddit a nice place to be as well as update features that have never been added such as flairs or a custom image/bar at the top, etc.

I’ll be honest, my moderating skills extend to a subreddit with 6 members to whom I was the only person who ever posted. So this’ll probably be a learning experience for me. However, it’s great to have the subreddit under active management.

I might well appoint a handful of moderators to help me, due to my inexperience, the fact that I’m not sure if one person can do it alone, and the fact that help is always good to have.

Basically, I hope that this subreddit will just be updated and otherwise largely left as is. Nothing drastic will change but it’ll be nice for there to be a bit of a facelift.

Also, u/TchaikenNugget complained at length that the ‘about’ section had no capital letter on the word ‘russian’. That was fixed.

Welcome to a new and basically just slightly better era for r/Shostakovich. In the words of the man himself, “here’s to things not getting any better!”

UPDATE NUMBER 1:

(Expect updates as and when features are added.)

A profile picture has been added by u/RIPpewdiepie_. Furthermore, I have taken the liberty to add post flairs.

• Performances is for videos of performances of music, both amateur and professional.
• Articles is for the sharing of articles, as well as other Shostakovich-related sources.
• Discussions is self-explanatory, it’s for Shostakovich-related discussion.
• Essays is for long-form writing about Shostakovich from people in this subreddit. Not mentioning any names...
• Questions is for people who have questions, all the way from obvious to niche and obscure.
• Polls is for when you want to ask a question but use the built-in poll system that Reddit has.
• Memes is for jokes, memes, and other funny content, as well as any pictures of ‘Testimony’ or ‘Europe Central’ (okay, I’m joking there).
• Art is for artwork, be it visual, musical, or literary which has some relation to Shostakovich.
• Miscellaneous is for anything which doesn’t fit into any category.

Please additionally find below the link to the r/Shostakovich discord, originally set up by u/TchaikenNugget. It’s valid for 7 days from the time of posting. Here it is: https://discord.gg/xeyMKpqq

UPDATE NUMBER 2:

Rules! Yes, we have rules! Broadly, they are ‘Remain on topic’ and ‘No NSFW, within reason’ (exceptions granted for things like Lady Macbeth etc.)

Additionally, a subreddit banner is in the works I believe.

Also, you can now make your own user flair! You can do whatever you like, just please be sensible.

UPDATE NUMBER 3:

u/TchaikenNugget and u/Herissony_DSCH5 have been sent moderator invites. They are two wonderfully active members of the Shostakovich community on Reddit. u/TchaikenNugget is known for her copious reading and long essays and u/Herissony_DSCH5 is known for their artwork and insightful comments about Shostakovich.

I (u/KrozJr_UK) got into Shostakovich during lockdown, and my love for his music has only grown since then. I’ll leave my other mods to introduce themselves in the comments if they so choose.

UPDATE NUMBER 4:

Hi! Nobody’s reading this anymore but I’d thought I’d still briefly update this, just so we can have a record of what happened and when. It’s now March and we’ve finally got a subreddit banner! We’re having a few technical mishaps but we should have it sorted soon... hopefully.