r/ModSupport • u/techiesgoboom Reddit Admin: Community • Sep 08 '26
Mod Topics Original content or self-promo: where does your community draw the line?
Someone making the thing they’re posting can be the best reason to welcome it, and sometimes the first reason a mod takes a closer look.
Welcome back to Mod Topics! Original content and self-promotion aren’t necessarily opposites. A creator can share something thoughtful and relevant while also benefiting from the attention. The harder question is what makes that exchange feel like participation instead of someone simply using a community as an audience.
For some teams, a person’s history in the community provides useful context. Others focus more on whether each post fits the space and gives members something worthwhile. Neither approach makes every edge case obvious, especially when someone new may still have something great to contribute.
So, let’s compare notes:
- What makes creator-posted content feel like a contribution to your community?
- How much does someone’s relationship with the community affect how your team views their post?
- What do you do when the content is a strong fit, but the creator’s only apparent connection to the community is promoting it?
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u/wheres_the_revolt Sep 08 '26
Most of my subs have blanket no promoting/sales/advertising (we get a ton of app/software developers who think they invented the wheel, when if fact there are multiple legacy options that have been tried and tested already). Our users overwhelmingly do not want that shit in our subs.
It’s actually a really bad problem on Reddit everywhere right now and users are pissed about it. Admins really need to address it because it’s definitely part of the bot/spam problem that Reddit has right now.
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u/Clear_Ambition6004 Sep 08 '26
Same! Lots of bots advertising apps and other nonsense nobody wants to see.
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u/rachycarebear Sep 08 '26
One of the guidelines I've used in the past is "would someone else post this content"
Sometimes it really is a niche that isn't met or the recommendation is a good fit for the person's specific question. 99% of the time, it makes it clear that it's only being posted for self promo.
It works best as an internal guideline, people are generally terrible at honestly assessing their own content.
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u/DDevil333 Sep 08 '26
No self promotion... The industry around motherhood and postpartum is so extremely predatory that I'll accept nothing, and I'll be suspicious even of things that are supposed to be free. And if you want parents to test drive your app, then pay them.
Other social media apps are also very damaging for our mental health unless you know how to keep it under control, so I don't accept anything that will lead a member over there. I want our space to be as safe as possible.
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u/ProudnotLoud Sep 08 '26
I draw a hard line of no self promotion in all of my cat subs. This is anything from social media accounts to shops/comissions to certain spam-heavy communities on Reddit. My subs are not places to subtly advertise or gain followers or promote karma farming spaces.
Original Content doesn't matter here but by default I won't verify Original Content from direct linked social media or Youtube. The way I define OC for my subs is "if I search it I won't find it linked to anything else other than your Reddit account" which is as clean as I can make it. As a rule I don't do cross-platform verification to verify that yes, that is YOUR Youtube or Facebook account and that's mainly because I don't have the bandwidth to do it and do it well.
I do account reviews when it's questionable. I'm looking for things like links on the profile and posting/commenting history and patterns to do my best to assess ownership and intent.
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u/InGeekiTrust Sep 08 '26 edited Sep 08 '26
I mod several fashion communities and if a designer wants to share an outfit that they sewed or created then great! When they want to start providing links to their shop to everyone in the comments or post body , that’s when it becomes promotional. However they can link to their shop in their bio.
We also want to make sure it’s the designer making the post and not some weird promotional account.
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u/berntout Sep 08 '26
I believe that OC is beneficial to everyone if it fits the sub. Reddit gets the ad traffic, mods get the sub traffic and user gets the views for their content.
However, when that balance starts to shift is when I believe it needs to be reigned in. What do we define as self-promotion and where is that line is the question.
Once posts start to turn into glorified marketing ads is where that balance starts to fade IMO. Now you're starting to try to use this opportunity for other things that shifts the balance in the user's favor. There is a line there that has to be decided upon.
I see this on subs where business owners will upload a photo including their product in the background and expect people to ask questions about it then starts answering product questions in the comment section. My prime example are sports ticker products on man cave subs...."check out my man cave" turns into a product Q&A and the posters are always new accounts. Most users don't see what's happening, but a few can.
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u/orangejulius Sep 08 '26
The effort involved is my threshold. You have to want to talk to people about your project. Drive-by ChatGPT promotion is unacceptable. But “hey I started a restaurant. Cold open is Saturday. It was really hard to start here’s how I did it I’d love to share my experience please come out” or “I have a comedy show coming to town and I’m looking for participants. 20 percent off tickets with a code for your sub!”
Sure. Do it. That stuff is all hard and the kind of engagement that shows they want to be part of a discussion and get some love is totally fine by me and it’s how people learn from each other and discover real world connections.
In my bar prep sub though I have an issue with AI slop study material and people trying to charge an arm and a leg for it. They will relentlessly astroturf the sub and act like pests when you ban them.
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u/AlphaTangoFoxtrt Sep 08 '26 edited Sep 08 '26
No Self Promotion
You can post your own content. but linking to your website, or store, or patreon, or instagram/youtube/tiktok is a no.
If you want to share the content for the sake of sharing content, go for it. If you want to advertise your content, then you can purchase ad space.
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u/exactly_how_it_is Sep 08 '26
What makes creator-posted content feel like a contribution to your community?
The post must be fully relevant, on topic, and fit the theme. Their account must show that they don't post the same content to more than a couple of subs. Their account must also show that they interact with their submissions, wherever they are on reddit verses an account that only posts but doesn't comment. And it must be clear that they read and are following the rules.
How much does someone’s relationship with the community affect how your team views their post?
As long as items I noted as an answer to Q1 are satisfied, regulars are recognized but the same rules apply to all. We might offer more leniency on any necessary warnings before a ban, but otherwise we expect the same from everyone.
What do you do when the content is a strong fit, but the creator’s only apparent connection to the community is promoting it?
If their account shows no engagement with their posts on reddit, we are unlikely to allow them to post on our sub, even if the content is a good fit. Content without engagement should not be allowed on reddit. Reddit is a social site. If someone posts, plan on interacting in those posts. Period. Engagement over content fit. We're not here to be your billboard.
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u/abrownn Sep 08 '26
We get OC in r/woahdude, but if their entire history is just spamming their art (especially spamming links to buy prints), then they get shitcanned. Dropping the art plain and simple is welcome. More than that is not. Everywhere else I moderate has STRICT no-spam policies. The blogs people post are typically garbage AI/content theft slop, or they're explicitly ads. The former can take a long walk off a short pier, the latter can pay Reddit Inc for ads. Zero wiggle room, play by the rules.
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u/ohhyouknow Sep 08 '26
I don’t make any money from the subreddits I moderate, therefore no one else can make any money from the subreddits I moderate.
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u/WalkingEars Sep 09 '26
Agree! Aside from admin selling all our personal comments and stories to chatbot developers which we have no say in at the moment.
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u/Charupa- Sep 08 '26 edited Sep 08 '26
A personal pet peeve of mine are the people that make some seemingly innocent post, but you look at their account and they actually sell the product they are posting about. They know they are self promoting but try to be as underhanded and disingenuous as possible.
For all my fan artists in my comic subs, I have no problem with them dropping their socials in the post title or comments.
In my health subs, I remove all apps, studies, surveys, trackers, or whatever else Claude did for them. Not a single time has the user ever participated in the community before pitching their product. I always ban these accounts, the sub is just a marketing vector and they are meaningless users to me.
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u/Phatbrew Sep 08 '26
As always great starter Questions techie…
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fit for content, however I don’t usually like someone’s take on previous pertinent news that fits the subreddit, think their personal substack article, or a description in the body of the post, dissecting an article… that being said several factors may get it posted, one you highlighted, is that poster a valuable and reliable comment poster in the community, second is their analysis an informative, intelligent take on a subject offering new insights not previously raised… if so to one or both than it will most likely get posted…
Self promotion is a touchy topic for me, if the poster has no history with the subreddit n is spamming posts, Thats a no go for me…
If a mod at a new subreddit is cross posting a post, I always appreciate a mod message explaining the direction, content n mission of the new subreddit first before making a post, this used to happen on the regular several years ago, not so much anymore… so I’ll either send a mod message or leave a comment in their post asking them to answer these questions, before offering free self promotion/free publicity for their new subreddit… if their content fits I encourage them to make a post giving background on their new subreddit, n then encourage them to cross post, n encourage our community to visit their subreddit… I have helped grow a bunch of new subreddits using this technique…
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u/Shimmering-Sky Sep 09 '26
On one of the subs I mod, people are allowed to post on-topic fanart or cosplay, but we have the following rule regarding people who also sell what they're posting about:
Accounts which are, at the discretion of the mod team, deemed to be primarily centered around advertising goods and services will have their posts removed if they advertise (directly or indirectly).
Users can either primarily post their own content they've created, or they can sell their content, but not both. This does not prevent someone who is selling their content from occasionally posting their content, provided they are active community members.
We like seeing people's fanart & cosplay, we just don't like it when the people behind them are clearly only using our sub to try making money.
As far as people trying to promote something like their YouTube channel goes, people are allowed to post their own videos (limited to 1 post per week) that are on-topic for the sub, but they can't go around and be like "Hey check out my channel" or anything like that since we fully ban that sort of community advertisement.
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u/RallyX26 Sep 09 '26
If you post the same content to 20 subs, it's self-promotion. If you post content to just the subreddits that it relates to, it's probably still self-promotion, but it's mildly tolerable. If you actually participate in the subreddit outside of posting your own content, then we're talking.
If your profile history is hidden, I'm erring on the side of spam.
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u/Malvania Sep 08 '26
For the love of god, there needs to be a way to ban those cheap t-shirts, where there's always a bot immediately saying "I need this, where can I buy it?" and then someone "helpfully" provides a link (usually not the OP).
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u/Lacy-Gray Sep 08 '26
I do have one hard and fast rule: Zero tolerance for any survey. Auto-ban, every time. Don't even try to modmail asking for a special exception, I won't read about your supposed school project, I'll just ban you the moment I see the word survey, I hate them that much.
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u/drknowdr1 Sep 08 '26
We have a hard rule against self-promotion. 9/10 its someone wanting to promote their app.
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u/MartinoStone Sep 08 '26
That’s a very good question, and in my opinion—and based on my experience in the r/mediastudies community, where I serve as a moderator posting one’s own work not just as a one-time post, but with links to one’s projects, academic papers, research, or other social media accounts that a person maintains as part of a project is very much encouraged.
I believe this is normal; it helps people grow and makes their experience in the community more comfortable, without the constant pressure and fear that their posts will be deleted simply because they shared their work or material published outside the community or platform.
But I want to emphasize and point out that we have certainly addressed this in our rules, and the most important thing here is that it benefits the community in other words, the philosophy is this: first, think about the community and how this benefits the people in it. Only then can you think about yourself.
As for your third question, in borderline cases I take a gentle approach and try to explain how to format a post correctly so that it’s truly helpful. We can discuss this both in the comments and in private messages to reach a mutual understanding. This approach has been effective, and several people are already publishing series of their research.
I’ve also created another community, r/photosociety, where I’d like to apply these same principles. What’s more, these communities have another key feature: interaction! That is, people from different fields, countries, and with different professional backgrounds can even work on collaborative projects and grow together.
Based on my experience, this works great.
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u/lovethebacon Sep 08 '26
It's simple: If your only interaction with the community is submitting links to your own YouTube channel (and other subs), then you're spamming us.
We love* hearing from our community members on their latest side-hustles, but aren't here to serve those only interested in driving their own views.
*Unless it's crypto spam or similar low effort jiunk