Due to the large number of reports we’ve received about recent posts, we’ve added Rule 7 stating “No low-effort posts. This is subjective and will largely be determined by the community member reports.”
In general, we allow a post’s fate to be determined by the amount of downvotes it receives. Sometimes, a post is so offensive to the community that removal seems appropriate. This new rule now allows such action to be taken.
We expect to fine-tune this approach as time goes on. Your patience is appreciated.
This is a tough one. “Low effort” is where engagement metrics start dictating what kind of discourse we get. I think the real metric should be whether someone read what came before and actually responded to it.
We built a project trying to measure public opinion through thoughtful email replies instead of hot takes and quick reactions. The pattern I see is that most “engagement” is people pasting headlines, quoting selectively, or dropping one-liners. The good stuff happens when people actually wrestle with an idea.
Moderation works best when it focuses on whether a contribution adds new information or perspective. A short comment can be high effort if it synthesizes well. A long ramble is low effort if it adds nothing.
I think redundancy is an important factor here as well. That was an issue I saw frequently on subreddits and a primary reason for me disengaging from those communities.
You would see the same low effort question posed with other users responding with high effort/detail (albeit redundant) answers. Regardless how well constructed the feedback might be, that response is dragged down by the lack of effort inherent overall to the post.
If nothing else except for the sake of space saving, a large percentage of those posts could have been nuked with no real impact to how readily the subjects/solutions could be found.
Well, your last paragraph kinda defines engagement. And low-effort posts mostly don’t get any engagement.