The following post was written by u/insomniasexx with input from the other mods

Hello /r/ethereum,

We hear you and we agree that our subreddit could be better. The content could be better. The community could be better. The discourse could be better. It could be a better representation of Ethereum as a whole.

For background, modding /r/Ethereum feels, at times, like walking on eggshells. Is removing this post the right choice? Is leaving this post up the right choice? Are we biased because we know the poster or don’t know the poster? Are we going to get a rage-filled message tomorrow because we removed this? We do our best to fall back on the letter of the posted rules… but that often results in opting to not remove posts that aren’t explicitly prohibited or, worse, we end up removing posts that are technically against the rules but resulted in a good conversation.

We want to re-invigorate this community. And after growing sentiment was passionately vocalized here and on Twitter over the past few weeks, we’re going to do an experiment for the next few weeks. This experiment starts today. Don't freak out though—if this experiment makes things worse, we will revert the changes fast. ????

Feel free to chime in with anything you think could and should be better about this subreddit. We simply ask that you aim for constructive comments—don’t only point at the things that are horrifically wrong, please.

After the experiment is done, we'll publish and pin a post that will act as a public retrospective on the good, the bad, the ugly, and how we want to push this subreddit forward. Mods will be participating in this conversation as well as individuals. Because, surprise, the group of moderators even has differing perspectives on what is best.

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The New Game

For the next few weeks we're going to throw out the existing rules, which is basically a list of what not to post, and instead aim for what we want this subreddit to be. The overarching “rule” which will determine if we remove or approve or don’t take action on a post/comment will now be: does it encourage relevant, productive, meaningful discourse? That’s it.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be successful in generating productive, meaningful discourse–only that it encourages it. Attacking people? Not productive. Talking shit about people/coins? Not productive. Shitposting? Not productive. Original meme thing that resonates deeply and sparks a discussion? Leave it be. Asking whether ETH will moon tomorrow? Not productive. Dreaming about ETH on the moon while speculating on how the network’s security will evolve because of that price change? Sounds… really good, actually. Dropping an image of your dog’s poop that looks just like the Ethereum logo? No thanks. Trying to sell it as an NFT? … Dude, stop.

We theorize that this model will result in more leniency for text posts and questions over mediocre news links. Posts with deep discussions in the comments will be given even more leeway, even if the headline is a bit suspect. We think both of these would be a positive change—it encourages community discourse over a wall of links. It also means that links that may or may not be shameless self-promotion spam with no comments can be removed with far less hesitation. Those who want to self-promo may have to put a bit of effort into showing they are really trying to add to this community rather than just drive-by link spamming all the crypto subreddits.

We also theorize this method will allow us to moderate content that dances on the edge of the current rules without fear of the tedious arguments that often ensue when we remove a post.

Lastly, note that removing all existing rules means that, technically speaking, mining and price discussion is no longer prohibited. We urge you to 1) not shitpost all over and 2) do your best to avoid making the price/mining the primary focal point of your commentary or discussion. For example, discussing the impact $100k ETH may have on staking so long as the discussion is more about staking than the fact ETH will be @ $100k.

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We aren’t removing all structure

To maintain baseline sanity, the following core rules are in place to maintain some hard lines in the sand. The above gives you more flexibility in posting and reporting and us more flexibility in modding. The below is so that we’re crystal clear on the stuff that’s not up for debate.

Rules:

1. No shilling other coins/networks. No shitting on other coins/networks. Tangential discussion of other coins/networks in general is allowed, but we don’t want blatant shilling/hating of other networks.
2. No giveaways. No ICOs. No airdrops.
3. No blogspam or shameless self promotion or drive-by posting. Basically: if you want to use /r/ethereum to get clicks, don’t. Engage more. Your post should be primarily for the benefit of others not because other’s clicking your spam benefits you.
4. No personal attacks, name calling, slurs, racism, misogyny, etc.
5. No doxxing, posting people’s PII, etc.
6. No scams. No malware or phishing links.
7. All the reddit-wide rules.

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Now that that is out of the way, here's the second half of our exciting experiment!

We’re going to set up some AMAs with kickass Ethereum leaders, builders, and whoever you think would be fun to collectively interrogate via an internet forum! And, we need YOUR help!

We'll made a separate thread where anyone can drop a comment with:

1. The name of a (Ethereum-relevant) person you’d like to see an AMA from
2. A question you would ask them

Once there's a bit of demand showing in that thread, we'll work our butts off to set up an AMA with the most upvoted folks ASAP.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Make yourself heard. Otherwise, jump right in and make this subreddit what you want it to be.