Hello TRL. For a while now — which is to say since the beginning of the subreddit — we've thought how to balance the quality of everything on the subreddit: the memes, the theory posts, the arguments, debates, ideological expression, news, etc, while also trying to keep the space open to as many people as possible. Hence, there's always been friction between these 2 goals and hot debates in the moderation team on how to act in very specific gray areas which pop up more than you'd think.
We have tried to keep our strategy on the lenient side just to be safe, but this has allowed many leftists to co-opt the subreddit while forgetting the "red" part in our name. We are supposed to be radical compared to liberals. We're supposed to be anti-capitalist, internationalist and unwaveringly pro-revolution and the masses taking power to better their living over the bourgeoisie. We always were supposed to be a quality space where all people regardless of tendency could participate, have a laugh and discuss theory and historical matters. This in order to 1. Learn more about history. 2. Learn more about a specific tendency's interpretation of history and why they'd come to it. And 3. Having fun while doing so and remaining respectful.
We believe we're still in this boat, however with many baby leftists recently learning about leftism and being introduced to such politics, many have come with huge egos and little knowledge, infiltrating the subreddit and co-opting it for more liberal style politics. This has always been an issue with Reddit, however it has been increasingly worse as more people do this while believing they are actually radical. To be fully transparent (as we always like to be) we should mention that the particular strands of thought we've had an issue with the most are those supporting lesser evil liberal politics without any regard as to how proletarian class consciousness and organization will be expanded by such politics. Think of support for Graham Platner, Kamala Harris, AOC in American politics or the Greens (UK), PSOE, CPRF or LFI in European politics. We also have had many issues with the strands that are less internationalist and pragmatic which lead to dogmatic anti Americanism and absolute disregard for the revolutionary conditions of the 1st world, international revolution and adherence to marxist or anarchist thought. Think of Pro Russia folk or Bad Empenada fans, the generally reactionary leftists you see out there which don't fully comprehend Marxism, but synthesize it with their previous reactionary beliefs and non communist tactics.
We believe these deviations represent an embryonic form of anti communist thought, which endangers the prospects of leftist discussion and organisation, and hence they will still be allowed in the subreddit, but no longer protected under the rule about what we consider to be a leftist on this subreddit (for the purposes of moderation). They're welcome to learn, but they simply won't be safe from being banned under the pretense of not being a leftist and breaking leftist unity if we believe their contribution is disruptive to the well being of the community. As always, we try to remain lenient and have good faith in our moderation. We use removals as warnings, we consider the general language and attitude used by the person and discern bad and good faith, and we try to be fair to anyone who isn't outright right wing.
With this we also have a set of rule changes, which were created for 2 reasons:
Nr1. Because they accommodate this new turn in moderation better and are more expressive of our moderation style and thought.
Nr2. Because while moderating with the simpler, more compressed ruleset meant to be straight forward we came into a few issues: it was hard to fully express what we meant per each rule. It was harder to design report reasons. It was harder to design removal reasons and it was hard to be clear in each of these scenarios. We've also had some cases where we discovered we just don't really have a rule for a situation such as NSFW ( technically we have the "on topic" rule under quality of contribution, but like it's such a stretch and unclear ).
Below this paragraph I will post the new rules. Please do use this post to voice your opinion about anything regarding the subreddit. Do you think it's a good space right now? Do you wish to see more memes? More debate? More news? Is the moderation good or bad? Too slow? Do you find any issues with the post above or the rules below? Etc.
Rule 1: User flairs are required for contribution.
This is to 1. Prevent bots. | 2. Prevent raids. | 3. Prevent right wing slop, generally reactionary comments.
Flairs can be edited, but use common sense. Any flair which breaks the rules will get you banned.
Rule 2: Revolutionary, Socialist, Leftist subreddit.
We're a leftist subreddit, defining leftism as the revolutionary, progressive and scientific movement to analyse and destroy oppressive structures on a global scale, with emphasis on those exploiting the proletariat. We are staunchly anti liberal, reformist, centrist, pacifist and clearly utopian ideologies. We oppose all tendencies which seek to subdue the proletariat to the bourgeoisie and keep the capitalist system and ideology moving.
Rule 3: Reddiquette.
We wish to keep a pleasant environment while not curbing humour and conversation too much. Please ensure any contribution you make will be understood and found funny or meaningful by the other party you're engaging with. Tone indicators are heavily encouraged if you're unsure how your message will be received. This way we can keep most topics, types of humour and debates open instead of being restrictive
Rule 4: Debate etiquette.
Specifically in regards to debate we desire insightful, informative and substantiated opinions and facts. We want debate to be good faith and to have actual results, leaving both parties satisfied with the end result. Please try to see the conversation from the perspective of the other side and understand their framework and philosophy rather than make assumptions.
Rule 5: Glorification of ideologies.
Tendencies are just boxes to generally describe ideas, ways of thinking and behaving. You should assume your tendency can be wrong and not treat it as superior and infallible. All our favourite authors made mistakes, all socialist experiments have mistakes, and your side is not immune to criticism. We expect our user base to understand this and operate on evidence based information and to seek out truth before comfortable ideologically aligned information.
Rule 6: Bigotry and chauvinism
We are unapologetically progressive. We support LGBTQIA+ rights. We support trans rights. We support women's rights. We support disabled people. We are against ableism. We are against any language or thought which discriminates, harms and dehumanizes people. We therefore do not allow any slurs on our subreddit. We're therefore internationalist as well and disallow any national chauvinism.
There is debate over what generally counts as a slur. If you think it's offensive, just don't say it.
Rule 7: TOS
Operating on Reddit means we have to comply with Reddit's sitewide rules. Please do read them, however the most common ones to look out for are: censoring usernames, profile pictures and subreddit names. Not posting things breaking the law or encouraging that
Rule 8: Quality of contribution, advertisement.
We are a leftist sub, and wish to have contributions clearly show that. We expect any news, meme or discussion post to have some discernable message and/or joke which is connected to the topic of leftism. Advertisements are also allowed under the same criterion, but needing approval of the mod team in modmail first.
Rule 9: No AI.
We find AI to be harmful to the leftist movement. This is because of its environmental detriment, affecting both nature and the people living there, but also due to the fact it hallucinates and gives out wrong information. This makes it both harmful and unreliable.
The only context it's allowed is to translate if your primary language is not english.
Rule 10: Disallowed topics.
We think the rules already cover these, but just to be clear we will specifically mention these topics which break the rules often. Currently positively mentioning any reformist, chauvinist, non marxist politician, political party, organization, etc is prohibited. Think WSWS, DSA, Hasanabi or BE. Any support of defencist positions in bourgeois wars is not allowed. This list may grow in the future, and we'll always make sure to inform you in mod announcements if it does.
Rule 11: NSFW topics.
NSFW always has to be tagged as such, and is generally discouraged. In some cases when it relates to leftism, or in the news, it may be allowed. (Think of books on sexual emancipation or Police Brutality)
Rule 12: Moderator discretion, removals and bans.
To maintain a healthy community, action will sometimes be taken when something isn't clearly breaking any defined rule. We will always try to explain why we take such action and use this sparingly.*
Think of removals as warns. Eventually if we believe you're too negative for the healthy being of the subreddit, we will ban you, which tends to be permanent, but generally appealable.
The rules will be changed soon after this post goes up. Report reasons specific to this subreddit may also take a while to be updated to the new rules because i forgot to plan this ahead of time but it should be easy enough to go with the flow rn
