We appreciate your concerns regarding r/PICS being marked as NSFW, and we hope that you will be reassured by our response. In short, the shift in question was not a sudden change, nor is there any risk of users being confused… and most important of all, an abrupt reversion would itself constitute a violation of the site-wide rules that you cited.
On June 16th, 2023, r/PICS (then r/Pics) asked its subscribers to vote on the state of the subreddit, and they overwhelmingly decided to feature only “images of John Oliver looking sexy.” On June 20th, 2023, a second poll was held, and it was determined that “any and all media featuring John Oliver” would be allowed. This also precipitated a change in the subreddit’s name from “/r/Pics” to “/r/PICS,” with the latter being an acronym for “Posts Illuminating Comedian’s Sexiness.”
As we moderated r/PICS, however, we discovered that large amounts of profanity and offensive content – both of which are listed as NSFW by Reddit’s policies – were present in non-NSFW threads. This was problematic, as users expecting work-safe experiences were very likely to encounter non-work-safe material. Rather than abruptly alter our rules without first consulting the community (which would have confused users), we asked on June 26th, 2023 for subscribers to refrain from offering any NSFW content in non-NSFW threads.
We also requested a response from Reddit on that same date.
By July 3rd, 2023, the amount of profanity and offensive content in r/PICS had not declined, and Reddit had not responded to us. It was publicly announced that we had no choice but to mark the subreddit as being NSFW, so as to adhere to Reddit’s own mandates. It was also made clear that our longstanding rules – rules which should have seen r/Pics (in any form) being a NSFW community from the get-go – would be unchanged; that neither gore nor pornography would be allowed, but that tasteful nudity, profanity, and “offensive” content would continue to be acceptable. To reiterate, while we do celebrate a British comedian’s undeniable allure, we do not allow anything sexually explicit to be posted.
Our surfaced resources – our sidebar, our rules, our wiki, and our announcements – make all of this exceptionally clear, but since Reddit provides no method by which users can be required to read said resources before participating, the visible marking of r/PICS as NSFW is vital to establishing reasonable expectations. Furthermore, as Reddit assures its partners that their advertisements will not run alongside profanity or offensive content, the aforementioned marking is also in said partners’ best interests. That same assurance indicates that moderators “set their own standards for conduct and ‘appropriate’ content,” indicating that r/PICS is solely responsible for determining what is and is not offensive (and policing accordingly). A failure on our part to appropriately list r/PICS as NSFW would therefore run counter to what advertisers have been told.
We do understand that the shift may have caused some minor issues for Reddit, however, and as we have no desire to harm the platform, we are more than willing to discuss the situation with you. Please respond to our previous request for communication, and we will look forward to exploring productive paths forward. In the meantime, to ensure that r/PICS is adhering to all of Reddit’s guidelines and requests, we would be happy to revert the NSFW setting, restrict posting, and remove any and all content that could be considered “offensive” by anyone. If this compromise does not meet with your approval, please offer a publicly visible comment in response to our open letter. We understand that you are likely very busy, so we will wait until Friday, July 7th before taking any additional steps.
/r/PICS moderators receive /u/ModCodeofConduct message accusing them of breaking site rules by switching to NSFW; mods can't reply, so post public response instead ( www.reddit.com )