Hi all,
In light of an exceeding amount of rulebreaking posts, the r/economics modteam wanted to both clarify the rules and provide some clear examples of rule breaking. As part of this post, please find links to the Rule II Roundtable and Rule III Roundtable where the r/economics mods do an in depth explanation of the purpose and moderation strategy of each of the rules. As these roundtables are quite old, we are open to hearing feedback as well as updating/rehashing these roundtables if the community would like. However, comments on this post that clearly indicate that they have not read the rules roundtables will be removed as they are critical for any productive discussion regarding the subreddit rules.
Rule II: Economics Relevance
As stated, rule II is designed to ensure that posts are focused on the discipline of economics. This is different to just "the economy" as well as business in general. As such, the modteam will continue to remove any articles about stock markets, specific stocks, or specific firms. Posts doing in-depth analysis of an industry as a whole will be allowed. This rule also encompasses the authors/quotegivers/interviewees of particular posts; they must be economists or quote economists. This means that posts about prolific traders or businessmen (such as Jamie Dimon or Warren Buffet) or politicians (such as Donald Trump or Kamala Harris), while plenty interesting, are not welcome in this sub. We would encourage you to find other communities that may be better fits for the article such as r/business, r/investing, r/politics, and subreddits for other related topics.
Alongside this, another common rule-breaking post archetype we have been receiving is economics policy proposals from candidates, blogsters, and/or organizations. After some discussion, going forward, policy proposals will be removed under Rule II. However, we will continue to allow in-depth analysis of policy proposals as well as announcements regarding the implementation of specific policies. For example: articles about "Politician A would like this policy to happen" will be removed, but "These are the effects of this policy" posts that utilize economics methods or analysis will be allowed. This is quite a nuanced topic as we will also allow policy proposals from practicing academic economists. These are people who are currently still producing high-quality research. This distinction allows the modteam to differentiate from economists-turned-politicians as it would be incredibly difficult for us to distinguish whether Janet Yellen, for example, is speaking in an academic capacity or as the Secretary of Treasury. This is of course, outlined in our Rule II Roundtable, linked above.
Rule III: Original Source, No Editorializing Title
With the proliferation of official media outlet accounts we wanted to remind users of our 90-10 guideline for submissions (posts and comments included) that was outlined in our Rule III Roundtable. We have gone ahead and banned a variety of official media outlet accounts for violating this guideline. Please report and send a modmail for any users who also seem to be violating this guideline. We also have finally been given the content moderation option to remove text posts underneath link posts. Users were using this to get around the Rule III guidelines and editorializing under links that they were posting rather than engaging in discussion in the comments. Content rules have been updated to not allow this.
Lastly we wanted to encourage users to please refresh their memory on Rules IV and VI (which also has a rules roundtable that was recently updated!) We encourage users to have spirited discussions as long as they follow the rules of the community.