18 ms·

Posting Rules in Online Discussions Prevents Problems and Increases Participation

39 points by shrikant 10y ago

vinhboy 10y ago
I have a feeling this effect will soon be nil. The more subreddit sticky comment rules, the more people will adapt to filter them, like the way we ignore ads. A lot of the subreddit I subscribe to have rules. I barely notice them anymore.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  But if the rules are strictly enforced, then people generally stick to them.
  - Normal_gaussian 10y ago
    The rules also tend to be largely similar. - Be polite - Be on topic - Use approved hosting So it is relatively easy for most of us to stay within the lines
- criddell 10y ago
  The Trump subreddit (r/The_Donald) prohibits any criticism of Trump or his supporters. It's purely there for celebrating all things Trump. I suspect it has the highest number of banned users of all the subs. The eager use of the ban hammer means you can't ignore the rules.
vacri 10y ago
I wouldn't be so sure of that. I've seen two separate communities completely fizzle out when rules were posted. These were smaller communities, with 20-50 people, though, and not reddit-size communities.
- dageshi 10y ago
  There is a regular pattern I've seen with a lot of subreddits where they initially start off being fairly lax in what they allow. Eventually the "old timers" get bored of seeing the same types of content being repeated and so they come up with rules for the sub. If the community is small enough this has the effect of putting off new users from posting and drastically cutting post volume. If the subreddit is big enough on the other hand then this often improves the quality of discussion and effectively reduces the amount of what the old timers consider to be low quality content.
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    On a larger scale just look at Wikipedia and Stackoverflow and the discussions and blog posts about how bad they have become especially for newcomers the last few years. Maybe a multi-layered approach could be tried, where people can choose to see content on different layers? Long-time users fed up with mundane questions only get to see "advanced" posts, but beginners can still post a million "How do I (standard task)" questions without bothering anyone else. Instead of trying to split the people and direct them to different sites use layers. Same could be done with "funny" content (reddit especially, where every attempt of a serious discussion is swamped by 80% posts form people who don't really know anything about the subject, don't care, and just want to be entertained). So instead of trying to achieve what now seems to be impossible I think we might actually be able to find better ways to keep disparate users in the same forum. The problem with trying to separate beginners and advanced etc. is hat people change. What was a beginner becomes a an advanced user, but they don't see that they should shift to a different site for "advanced users". After all, they've always been here! So sites like SO or Wikipedia seem to have a natural tendency to eventually become more and more beginner-unfriendly over time.
    - stuartaxelowen 10y ago
      The problem is that everyone's post is "advanced", just like every bug is priority 0.
      - the8472 10y ago

39 points by shrikant 10y ago

I have a feeling this effect will soon be nil. The more subreddit sticky comment rules, the more people will adapt to filter them, like the way we ignore ads. A lot of the subreddit I subscribe to have rules. I barely notice them anymore.

Ar-Curunir 10y ago
But if the rules are strictly enforced, then people generally stick to them.
- Normal_gaussian 10y ago
  The rules also tend to be largely similar. - Be polite - Be on topic - Use approved hosting So it is relatively easy for most of us to stay within the lines
criddell 10y ago
The Trump subreddit (r/The_Donald) prohibits any criticism of Trump or his supporters. It's purely there for celebrating all things Trump. I suspect it has the highest number of banned users of all the subs. The eager use of the ban hammer means you can't ignore the rules.

vacri 10y ago

I wouldn't be so sure of that. I've seen two separate communities completely fizzle out when rules were posted. These were smaller communities, with 20-50 people, though, and not reddit-size communities.

dageshi 10y ago
There is a regular pattern I've seen with a lot of subreddits where they initially start off being fairly lax in what they allow. Eventually the "old timers" get bored of seeing the same types of content being repeated and so they come up with rules for the sub. If the community is small enough this has the effect of putting off new users from posting and drastically cutting post volume. If the subreddit is big enough on the other hand then this often improves the quality of discussion and effectively reduces the amount of what the old timers consider to be low quality content.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  On a larger scale just look at Wikipedia and Stackoverflow and the discussions and blog posts about how bad they have become especially for newcomers the last few years. Maybe a multi-layered approach could be tried, where people can choose to see content on different layers? Long-time users fed up with mundane questions only get to see "advanced" posts, but beginners can still post a million "How do I (standard task)" questions without bothering anyone else. Instead of trying to split the people and direct them to different sites use layers. Same could be done with "funny" content (reddit especially, where every attempt of a serious discussion is swamped by 80% posts form people who don't really know anything about the subject, don't care, and just want to be entertained). So instead of trying to achieve what now seems to be impossible I think we might actually be able to find better ways to keep disparate users in the same forum. The problem with trying to separate beginners and advanced etc. is hat people change. What was a beginner becomes a an advanced user, but they don't see that they should shift to a different site for "advanced users". After all, they've always been here! So sites like SO or Wikipedia seem to have a natural tendency to eventually become more and more beginner-unfriendly over time.
  - stuartaxelowen 10y ago
    The problem is that everyone's post is "advanced", just like every bug is priority 0.
    - the8472 10y ago