The Rules of /r/Politics:

/r/Politics is the subreddit for current and explicitly political U.S. news.

General

Site-wide rules and reddiquette

Please read and familiarize yourself with redditquette.

Please abide by the Rules of Reddit, the self-promotion rules and spam guidelines – these rules will be enforced in /r/politics.

No Hateful Speech

People that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.

Marginalized or vulnerable groups include, but are not limited to, groups based on their actual and perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, immigration status, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy, or disability. These include victims of a major violent event and their families.

While the rule on hate protects such groups, it does not protect those who promote attacks of hate or who try to hide their hate in bad faith claims of discrimination.

Do not suggest or support harm

Comments that threaten, advocate, celebrate, suggest, wish, hope, dream, express extreme indifference towards, or could result in harm of any kind, violence, or death are prohibited. This includes any comment or opinion post that has the effect of discouraging people from taking the COVID vaccine or playing their part in necessary public health measures such as wearing masks or social distancing, including those promoting misinformation, mocking people following those measures, promoting dangerous alternate remedies, or downplaying the effectiveness of those measures.

The sole exception to this rule is state sanctioned military actions involving active military combatants inside of a conflict zone. Actions that constitute war crimes such as torture or targeting non-combatants are not permitted under this exception.

Spam is bad!

We will ban spammers in /r/politics. We ban for both comment and submission spam.

Vote on quality, not opinion

Political discussion requires varied opinions. Content is often worthwhile and important for discussion even if you disagree with it. Downvote only if you think a comment/post does not contribute to the thread it is posted in or if it is off-topic in /r/politics. More Info.

No unapproved bots

This is a subreddit for people to have conversation. Bots without prior moderator approval will be banned on sight. Message the mods requesting bot approval first before activating your bot on the subreddit. The bot must improve the quality of the subreddit.

About user flair

Mods have verified the identity of politicians and other public figures with flair.

All politicians and public figures who wish to engage the users of /r/politics should message the mods so that we can confirm your identity. Once the account has been verified, we will add a flair to the username confirming that the account is legitimate.

Users may select their own flair.

Users may select a personal flair for their use on r/politics. See here for instructions. Examples Image

We’re unable to accommodate flair requests.

Backend and moderation resources allow for only a limited number of flairs, with no alterations available for non-verified users. Users who don’t feel represented by an existing granular flair may feel free to use a more general flair such as “America”, “Foreign”, or “Indigenous”.

No brigading

Manipulating comments and posts via group voting is against reddit TOS. More Info.

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Comment Rules

Please be civil and constructive at all times.

The topic of politics is generally one that is very contentious and one that people are very passionate about. People who visit /r/politics have a variety of opinions and beliefs that span the entire political spectrum. As such, there are many opportunities for you as a user to be exposed to ideas and ideology that may seem foreign or difficult to accept.

It’s important to mention here that we don’t censor people due to their opinions. People are completely allowed to post an opinion that is not factually true, or that you believe is incorrect, or that you find unacceptable for whatever reason. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions even if you disagree with them – in these instances, remember to debate civilly and focus your efforts on explaining why you disagree. Attack the argument and not the user.

These rules apply everywhere in this subreddit, including usernames. If you notice any violations of the following rules, please let the moderators know by clicking on the report button under the appropriate comment or submission, or if there is not an appropriate report reason by messaging the mods directly.

No Personal Attacks

Treat others with basic decency. No personal attacks or shill accusations.

It doesn’t matter how “well-written” the comment, if your insult is sarcastic, “creative” or absurd, personal attacks are always against our rules. Name calling, ad-hominem, demeaning, inflammatory, or other uncivil comments directed at other users are not allowed. Users who break this rule may have their comment(s) removed and be warned and/or banned.

No trolling, baiting or flaming

Trolling of any kind is not welcome here.

The definition of trolling baiting and flaming on /r/politics:

• Trolling includes, but is not limited to, commenting or submitting links in a way that can be reasonably interpreted as having the intent to shock, anger, or sow discord without good faith. ¹ ²
• Baiting is the act of making comments that can be reasonably interpreted as having the intention of getting a rise out of other users and goading other users into violating rules. ²
• Flaming is the act of attacking other users for their views or opinions and overlaps significantly with our rules on incivility.

¹ Good faith is sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction.

² Trolling and baiting do not include expressing personally held views that are objectively false or in the minority opinion unless they are specifically expressed in a manner intended to gain a rise out of other users.

The followings acts are some examples of trolling on /r/politics:

• Editing comments to brag about downvotes or entice inflammatory replies
• Linking to media with the intent to shock, anger, or sow discord without good faith.
• Links to content showing extreme violence or gore are considered as having the intent to shock or anger and may violate this rule.
• Bragging about trolling or participating in bad faith on /r/politics on this subreddit or elsewhere on reddit
• Concern trolling; pretending to advocate something not believed in in order to parody, make fun of, or otherwise create discord in a group they disagree with (i.e., playing both sides)
• Using a title for a submission that shows intent to bypass the prohibition of text posts
• “Novelty” or “gimmick” accounts

If you disagree with someone, don’t try to bait them into behavior that they would regret. If you think you are the victim of flaming or baiting, use the report button and move on. Don’t engage in personal attacks because someone is flaming you.

Being the victim of trolling, flaming or baiting is not an excuse to break other rules. Report the behavior instead of responding.

No spam or soliciting users

We will ban spammers in /r/politics.

Comments that solicit or include a call to action from users (active petitions, signature campaigns, signups, requests for money, surveys, or polls) will be removed.

• Calls to vote or register to vote are exempt from this rule.

Do not witch hunt or expose personal information

Do not make calls to action directed at non-public persons. Users are not allowed to post information with the purposes of causing harm to or harassment of other people. This includes but is not limited to: names, telephone numbers, street or email address. Hinting that you have this information of other users may also earn a ban.

If you have evidence that someone is a shill, spammer, manipulator or otherwise, message the /r/politics moderators so we can take action. Public accusations are not okay.

Do not use a username mention, regardless of context. These may get removed.

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Submission Rules

Articles must deal explicitly with US politics

The /r/politics on-topic statement

Posts on /r/Politics must be directly related to and have a significant involvement/impact on any of:

1. Policy. This includes any discussion of specific governmental policies or the development of such policies. Government policy can be developed at any level of government (from elected school board to Congress). It also includes court decisions which either create law itself (appellate court decisions) or involve the government.
2. Electioneering. This includes polling, events directly pertaining to elections, and discussion of candidates and political parties, including their platforms and policies.
3. Politician Capacity. Any incident or potential incident that could prevent a current politician from serving in their capacity in government (e.g. death, injury/sickness, criminal prosecution or resignation) is topical. We consider politicians to be either (1) elected members of government; or (2) members of government confirmed/voted on by elected members of government.
4. Advocacy. Any efforts to influence or promote a position on the above 3 areas of topicality. This includes protests, demonstrations and the positions and advocacy of interest groups.
5. Pertinent New Reporting. New articles that cover previously unreported details of past events which both would have been topical if reported when they occurred and have a clear connection to current US politics or future elections. Analysis, editorializing, or speculation on prior events with no newly reported facts is not covered under this clause, even if there is a link to current US politics.

All posts must at least have a significant internal discussion or focus about current US politics as defined above. Therefore, if only a small part of an article contains topical discussion, it may still be considered off-topic.

Moderators make topicality decisions on each individual post, not events as a whole. A non-topical post that draws a significant connection to a topical category described above can still be topical. The moderation team resolves edge cases to the best of its abilities in its sole discretion.

What is Not Topical

The following are some common examples of inherently off-topic content:

• Nonpolitical actions of politicians or their relatives, meaning (1) anything a politician does that doesn’t impact one of the 4 areas of politics defined above, (2) discussion of the non-political actions of a politician’s relatives.
• International politics or US military actions, unless the significant focus of the piece is on US internal ramifications or US foreign policy positions.
• Media discussing other media outlets.
• Crime stories without direct relation to current US politics, such as (1) shootings, (2) crimes of non-politicians such as donors or activists, and (3) and court decisions not tied explicitly to US politics as defined above.

Articles must be published within the last 7 days

Old content is often misleading because the political landscape changes rapidly. We therefore require all submissions in /r/politics to be published within the last 7 days. For example, if the date is January 29 and the article submitted was written before January 22, then the submission is out of date.

Note: The previous submission period of 14 days was changed to 7 days for the election season. This will remain 7 days until the inauguration on January 20, 2025.

Submissions must be from domains on the approved domains list

All submissions to /r/politics must be from domains on the approved domains list. Submissions from domains not on the approved domains list will be removed.

Additionally, users with young account ages are restricted to submissions from only wire services on the approved domains list.

Do not create your own title

Submissions must have titles comprised of the exact copied and pasted headline from the article, and may use the subtitle / subhead at your discretion. Do not include the organization name, extraneous quotes, or the article section. Do not add, remove or change words from either the title or subtitle – with the following required changes:

• If the headline AND subtitle/subhead together exceed the character limit for reddit titles, you may only use the primary headline.
• It is strongly suggested that subtitles or subheads should be marked by separating it from the headline using a dash (-), vertical bar (|), semicolon (;) or other appropriate non-attention seeking punctuation character. Any punctuation that could alter the meaning of the title will be treated as rule breaking.
• Don’t use the word “BREAKING” or other time sensitive words in your submissions – you must remove it if the original title contains it.
• Have commentary like “watch now” “read this” etc. – you must remove it if the original title contains it.
• Don’t write titles in ALL CAPS – even if the original title is capitalized. If a title contains one or more words in ALL CAPS, it will be removed. Exception: Acronyms and initialisms may remain in ALL CAPS.
• No Emojis, use text only. Please remove any emojis from the title prior to submitting in accordance with the above guidelines.

In rare cases where you wish to submit a link and the content is acceptable for r/politics, but there is no headline on the page, you must use the following style for the submission title:

Publishing organization, body or group, published date, Title of document or page

Examples of this style in practice:

• Department of Justice, 2018-7-13, Case 1:18-cr-00215-ABJ
• FiveThirtyEight, 2018-10-19, 2018 Senate Forecast
• State of Alabama, 2017-12-12, 2017 Official General Election Results

If the moderators remove for having a user-created title, you are encouraged to resubmit with an appropriate title.

The most objective way for the moderation team to avoid inserting political bias into how submissions are handled is not to give exceptions and make judgment calls on whether slight changes are “okay” or not. We therefore enforce the title rules consistently even if that means removing articles for minor title changes.

We are aware that websites update their articles and change their titles. The mods will try to keep that in mind when examining articles, but these changes can be hard to follow. If a post is removed where the title was appropriate earlier, please message the moderators.

No Spam: Do not flood the new queue

Please make sure that you allow at least 10 minutes to pass between each submission, and submit no more than 5 articles within a 24 hour period. This is so that other Redditors have the opportunity to submit content and have it visible to /r/politics users. Deleted posts are included in this rule. Moderator removed posts are not. Queue flooding will result in moderator action against offending accounts.

All submissions must be in English

All submissions must be primarily written in the English language.

Do not resubmit “already submitted” content

In order to ensure that a large variety of articles have the opportunity to be seen in /r/Politics, we have strict rules on what constitutes acceptable reposting.

A piece of content may be re-submitted if all of the following apply:

1. All earlier duplicates are at least three days old
2. All earlier duplicates have a low vote score
3. There are no more than two earlier duplicates

In other words, a piece of content may have up to three attempts to achieve a threshold vote score, and these attempts must be spaced at least three days apart.

(note that if a submission is removed due to breaking another rule, it does not count as an “earlier duplicate” for the purposes of the reposting policy.)

Disallowed submission types

/r/Politics is a serious political discussion forum. To facilitate that type of discussion, all submissions must be articles, videos or sound clips. The following are also disallowed:

• Satire or humor pieces. These submissions are better suited to /r/PoliticalHumor. Political cartoons can be posted in the Saturday Morning Political Cartoon Thread.
• Links that solicit users (Active petitions, signature campaigns, requests for money, surveys or polls).
• Submissions that are user-generated content without editorial oversight (ex: C-SPAN clips, selfposts/textposts, reddit polls, any submissions with user created text)
• Political advertisements as submissions. Advertisers should buy ad space on reddit.com if they wish to advertise on Reddit.
• Paywalls which require user subscription or information and cannot be bypassed via an “incognito” window. Domains that offer a certain amount of non-paywalled articles are allowed.
• Submissions which are entirely a copy-paste of the original reporting, or that add one paragraph or less, with a “read more at” link to the original content. Articles or videos that add another take on a subject, or include different verbiage or context are otherwise allowed.
• Live blogs/live threads/live articles

Disclosure of employment

r/politics expressly forbids users who are employed by a source to post link submissions to that source without broadcasting their affiliation with the source in question. Employees of any r/politics sources should only participate in our sub under their organization name, or via flair identifying them as such which can be provided on request. Users who are discovered to be employed by an organization with a conflict of interest without self identifying will be banned from r/politics. Systematic violations of this policy may result in a domain ban for those who do not broadcast their affiliation.

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AMA-specific rules

In order to make sure that AMAs are enjoyable events for all involved, AMA threads are more strictly moderated. The following additional policies apply to AMA threads:

• Top level comments should be a question or supportive statement for the AMA guest.
• Our civility rules apply to all users including AMA guests. You may ask critical questions, but keep things respectful.
• Discussion about Reddit, individual subreddits, or moderation is not allowed.
• Comments such as “they won’t answer this” or “why haven’t you started answering” are not allowed.
• Requests for personal favors from the AMA guest (ex. “Can you send me an autograph?”) are not allowed.
• Repeating the same or similar comment multiple times is not allowed – this will be treated as comment spam.

F.A.Q.

How do I contact the modteam?

• How do I contact the modteam?

You can send us a message here if you have any questions or concerns, please do not message individual moderators directly.

Why can’t I see my post / Why was my post removed?

• Please check near the title to see if the mods have tagged it with the sidebar rule it has violated.
• If your post isn’t showing up in the new queue and it is not tagged then it has probably accidentally fallen into the spam filter. Message the mods with a link to the comments section of your post and we will investigate.
• Some domains are filtered because they are spam or other types of inappropriate content. In addition to reddit-wide domain bans, /r/politics also has banned several domains for spamming, vote brigading, rehosting content, or other types of inappropriate content.

Why was my post removed as off-topic?

In this section you will find some common instances where our on-topic statement does not apply. We understand the complicated and varying nature of political content, and the limitations of our rules to cover all possible scenarios. Where discretion is needed, moderators may be required to make judgment calls to make determinations on submissions that do not fit neatly in our on-topic rules.

Our on-topic rules do NOT include:

• The non-political actions or statements of otherwise political figures, their relatives, or associates. (ex. Donald Trump wore a turquoise shirt instead of a blue one, Ivanka Trump’s fashion line)
• International politics unless that discussion focuses on the implications for the U.S. (ex. How U.S.-Chinese trade deal will affect the EU)
• Discussion of the media and law enforcement agencies/military actions that do not contain a significant focus on politics in accordance with our on-topic scope (e.g. Website analysis of Cable Network host or article, police officer charged with murder)
• Submissions regarding “politicized” topics without a significant, specific discussion or primary focus on legislation, elections/voting, fundraising/lobbying, or the running of US governments, courts, or public services (ex. gun violence, income inequality, environmental concerns, “crime” stories or otherwise off-topic social issues)

Moderators make topicality decisions based on the content of each individual article, not article headlines or stories as a whole. When there are multiple posts regarding a single topic, those submissions may be deemed on or off-topic depending on the content of each.

Why do I see content that break the rules on the front page?

As moderators we strive to ensure that all posts that violate our rules are removed because this is the most fair and consistent way to conduct the business of moderation on this subreddit. The issue is, there are a lot less of us than there are of you. We get a lot of mod mail (which we don’t mind) as well as spam submissions (which we do mind), and that takes up a lot of our volunteered time. We rely on the community to report posts or comments that violate rules to the moderators. If you see rule-breaking content, please send us a message.

Where is the approved domains list / Can I request new domains to be added to the approved domains list?

Click Here to view the approved domains list and here to request a new domain.

Why do I have to wait 10 minutes in between posts / comments?

• This is not policy specific to r/Politics, this is a Reddit site-wide policy which limits the rate of posts/comments of users who fall below a karma threshold. We have no ability to alter or change it in any way. See related info here.

When is a Discussion Thread posted?

Discussion threads are created for certain events, which include but are not limited to, elections and confirmation hearings, often which are hosted on C-Span. Due to the limited number (2) sticky slots within the subreddit there are instances in which discussion threads may not be created as other events such as Megathreads and/or AMAs have priority. If an event occurs in which a Discussion thread may have been warranted and one was not created, this may have been due to moderator availability.