Submitted by blackdynomitesnewbag t3_10ol91s in CambridgeMA
Hey Cambridge?
We, the mods, are considering a rule change to self promotions. Currently, no self promotions for events or otherwise are allowed without pre-approval from the mods, which we rarely approve. How would people feel about allowing posts for free events in the city? Event planners would get two posts. One the week before and one the week of. Please comment your thoughts.
This. See how it goes, then seek input after the trial period. I'd also consider just limiting it to a single post per event.
The other alternative is to do a sticky post for each week, and let all event promoters post within that as comments.
I like the idea of a sticky. This sub is relatively low traffic in terms on new posts. I don’t think having events be a significant portion of new topics would be a good thing.
I had been doing a weekly sticky post with events I pulled from the city calendar and a prompt saying that anyone could post any event in the comments. I got lazy though and stopped doing it. I've picked making the post back up, but I haven't populated it with calendar events.
Cambridge Day puts out a weekly event list every Sunday that you can easily link to. The full link name rotates every week, but it looks like you can chop off the end and it’ll still link like:
Full (unpredictable): https://www.cambridgeday.com/2023/01/29/a-week-of-events-in-cambridge-and-somerville-from-valentines-rb-show-to-hasty-pudding/
Abbreviated (predictable): https://www.cambridgeday.com/2023/01/29/a-week-of-events-in-cambridge-and-somerville
Oh, that’s nifty. I’ll find a way to use that somehow
I like the idea of a trial period. Would probably want to to keep it to events in Cambridge proper.
Agree. Trial it.
So I started to say, no-profits would be okay but then I wondered, would I mind a weekly ad for the farmer's markets or open studios events? Local craft fairs? That lands different than someone trying to attract people for an MLM or a bank having an "event."
Can anyone give a sense of what would be exclusionary criteria for these posts?
This is an interesting point. MLM seminars should always be excluded, free or otherwise. Same with large comercial events. I wouldn’t want to exclude postings from local music venues. Thankfully, our rules don’t have to be perfectly worded and we can use our digression for individual posts
How about a stickied post where people can comment and self-promote? That way, those who want to know what’s happening can stay in the loop, and those who would rather not see it can avoid it
THIS.
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No self-promotion for commercial events, even if it's free. I think self-promotion is fine if it's something like city government or philanthropic events.
Just to be clear - I'm imagining a self-promotion being something like "Hey folks, I finally opened my pizza shop! Come in today if you'd like to try a free slice :)". And in that case, I'd see no problem with it. I like the idea of letting cool local businesses support themselves, on the condition that there has to be a free event involved, and if someone gets spammy about it, they can be asked to stop.
How do you feel about that? Is that considered a commercial event, which you'd be opposed to?
I'm not a mod or anything, just curious to make conversation with other people.
If it's one post and they're actually engaging with the community and not just dropping the ad and leaving, then I might be okay with it. Even if they're not offering free slices.
The ones that bug me things like the constant ads for comedy events, where they blindly blast it across multiple subreddits, and continue to do so even when they don't get any engagement.
Reddit has pretty good guidelines here: https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/360043504051-What-constitutes-spam-Am-I-a-spammer-
And while it's no longer updated, the self-promotion guidelines are really good: https://www.reddit.com/wiki/selfpromotion
I like this, and even think that non-free events run by non-profits should be allowed, but I think mods still need to be active in setting limits:
What if there's a free open mic Tuesdays and Fridays? Can they advertise three or four times every single week? That seems excessive, unless there was sustained interest from the subreddit.
If, every week, there's a discussion about the upcoming performers, and the posts get upvoted, then sure, post again later this week and next week and the week after. If the posts end up in the negatives a few times, then it's spamming to not wait a little longer to advertise again.
So, like, I think it should be modified to
Allow fewer posts for recurring events.
Allow posts for non-profits even if they have an affordable entrance fee.
A warning to frequent posters that they should be cognizant of the interest shown to their past posts on the subreddit so they can avoid spamming.
I like the nuance in this, and the idea of a trial period to see whether these situations shake out or not.
Instead of polluting the community page with promotions, why not create a separate subreddit that you directly link to in the sidebar? Then you can be a little more lax about the permissible posts and this page’s quality isn’t negatively effected.
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The idea is that we as residents could benefit from postings about local events like farmers markets and bands. I could see how such a rule change could be abused.
I support allowing free event planners post.
I'd vote to allow social and public interest events like block parties, music shows, lectures, political rallies, etc.
I think self-promotion is fine as long as it's disclosed and the same things isn't posted too frequently. For example, if someone on this sub is putting together a Mexican cooking class, I'd like to hear about it. But if they run a class every Sunday, they shouldn't post about it more than once every 6? months or so.
I'm all for it so long as the ads are strictly for things inside the city. Don't care about stuff in Somerville or Boston. Always down to support local business or events
Commercial-Life-9998 t1_j6ff2qj wrote
It sounds great if you do it for a trial period to see if it’s a good thing for the subreddit. Might put some add how far out from Cambridge would be acceptable.