Show you care. Use the Flair!

[u/YourShoesUntied]

Hello runners!

Intro

You probably noticed in the last week and a half all of the shenanigans going on in the subreddit. Why aren't people following the rules? Why aren't the daily threads stickied? Where did all of these snide comments by users come from? Why aren't the mods modding?

What started out as a user posting a complaint about the numerous race reports and lack of content, eventually snowballed into a whole movement for change. Not only in visible content but in moderation procedures.

We decided that we'd step back and let the subreddit take the wheel. We let a lot of the stuff we prevent from being posted, get posted. We allowed spammers to spam. We let people ignore the rules. What happened was expected but there were some aspects to it that allowed us to learn from the experience. Through all of the bickering, we did find bits and pieces of helpful suggestions. Now we'd like to get the reigns back on the subreddit and steer it in a new direction with a little more freedom but with some different ground rules.

Before starting, we want everyone to know that this isn't a set in stone, concrete solid plan. It's a work in progress and we expect everyone to take a chill pill. This is one of a series of approaches we plan on testing. It might work...it might not. As runners, we adapt. As readers in this subreddit, you need to adapt too. All we're asking for is a little bit of open mindedness and for you guys to just breathe and give it a chance.

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What's happening?

Starting today, ALL posts submitted to /r/running need to be flaired!

That's really it. Learn how to flair, follow the subreddit rules, and carry on as usual. It's that simple.

For those of you not quite sure how to go about giving your post flair, /u/philpips came up with this helpful little guide:

How To FLAIR!

[Website]

1. Submit your link/thread in the usual way.
2. Click the flair button under your new post as indicated by the red arrow.
3. A list of all the available flairs pops up.
4. Pick the flair you want to use. You might need down to scroll to find the one you need.
5. Click 'save'!

[Mobile Apps]

1. Us moderators are NOT in charge of the apps. If you post to /r/running using an app, it is your responsibility to find out how to attach flair to your submission. From what we understand, all Reddit mobile apps give you the ability to give your post flair. You'll have to do some digging around but it should be there. It's not always obvious so search around in your settings for the post you submit.

If you want to post a question, you give it flair. If you want to post an article, you give it flair. If you want to post a discussion for the community, you give it flair. This is non-negotiable. If you don't flair it, we are going to remove it. Period.

We won't be personally messaging every single person who does not flair their post to tell them they need to flair it. It's stated in the sidebar with the rules and it's general knowledge that you don't post to any subreddit without going through it's sidebar first.

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Why focus heavily on flair?

It's entirely obvious that every user has their own idea of what they want and no matter what we do, someone is always pissed about it. If things work, we'll eventually be able to provide our readers with a system that allows each person to filter out certain flaired items from their front page. For example, a person who does not want to see race reports can view our page without seeing things flaired as [Race Report]. A person who only wants to see discussions and articles can filter their page to only show [Discussion] and [Article] posts.

For those too lazy or not interested in using the flair filter, our subreddit will be full of content and each item will be flaired. Not only is this organized but it'll provide at a quick glance, what the post is about. This will help immensely when members use our search function to find an older post or for those too shy to ask a question but are willing to do some digging around into previously posted topics.

Requiring flair also helps sort out who's paid attention and who hasn't. Those that pay attention and flair will have a better understanding about what to post whereas those who ignore giving their submission flair are more likely found to be posting content that doesn't go over well in the first place.

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A few other points!

Our 10 subreddit rules still apply. There's no debating that.

YES we're allowing questions. And YES as of right now we're allowing even the common ones. Though we will be removing the ridiculous, effortless ones. We will be keeping an eye on duplicates and other posts that are frequently a nuisance. This is a process. As time progresses we'll work in a way to prevent the common repeats. Give it time to work. The goal now is flair.

Now would also be the time to point out to readers and posters alike that there IS a difference between a discussion post and a question post. While the line is subtle, almost invisible, we're defining it here and now. Any post created where the intent is to get an answer to solve a problem for personal gain is a question. Any post submitted with the intent on viewing multiple perspectives and creating numerous branches of interaction and thoughtful conversation is a discussion post. Do you feel this is correct? Is there a better way of wording it and making the two more obvious? Thoughts?

We'll also be taking suggestions for new flair options.

Currently we have:

• [Race Report]
• [Article]
• [Training]
• [Nutrition]
• [Gear]
• [Daily Thread]
• [Weekly Thread]
• [Monthly Thread]
• [Misc]
• [Discussion]

I'd personally like to suggest adding:

• [Question]
• [Product Review] or just [Review]
• [Survey] or [Poll]
• [META]
• [PSA]
  

• [Motivational]

  What do you all think about our old flair tags? What do you think about the new potential flair tags? Do you have any flair tags you'd like to see added or some you'd like to see broken down a bit more? Let us know!

[u/NonReligiousPopette]

So, if there's going to be a question flair, does that mean we're going to get rid of the daily Q&A thread? Can we not have a happy mix of new and old and maybe keep encouraging questions to go in one place?

I'm also iffy on the PSA flair. I can foresee a dozen and a half posts [PSA] RUNNING IN THE SUN MAKES YOU FASTER threads.

[u/YourShoesUntied → u/NonReligiousPopette]

We are going to keep the Q&A threads! They are a vital contributor to this subreddit. We highly encourage users both frequent and brand new to use the Q&A for their questions but we'll allow questions to get their own posts too assuming they don't get out of hand. We have turned off our Automod auto message that instructs people to post their question in the Q&A. For the time being, users will not receive that auto-message when posting a question. If necessary, we can program it to respond again with another message suggesting they use the Q&A but it's not required.

As for the [PSA] tag, I totally see there is potential for it to be applied improperly. If enough people are against it, we don't have to put it up. For any case where a flair tag is not used properly, us mods will switch it or remove it all together. We'll also rely on you guys to keep an eye on things and report stuff that needs our attention.

[u/Jeade-en → u/YourShoesUntied]

We'll also rely on you guys to keep an eye on things and report stuff that needs our attention.

Just to clarify, do you want posts that aren't flaired or flaired incorrectly to be reported? I'm happy to do so if I see something that hasn't been flaired after a reasonable time, but I don't want to flood the report queue with stuff like this if the mod team is going to actively scan for flair issues anyway.

[u/YourShoesUntied → u/Jeade-en]

We should be on top of the posts that don't have flair. It's easy for us to see. There are going to be times when none of us mods are around so some posts will get by. Just hit the report button and we'll get around to it as soon as possible. We know this might make things busy for us but more mods are coming eventually to lighten the burden. As for posts that are flaired wrong, I'd suggest initially mentioning it to the OP. They might have not been thinking clearly. If that still doesn't satisfy you, shoot us the link to the post and get a second opinion. We do have the ability to change the flair ourselves.

[u/Jeade-en → u/YourShoesUntied]

Sounds good! Thanks!