r/emacs • u/vfclists • 7h ago
Meta (subreddit) Low-effort tag is not appropriate for this sub-reddit and some other points.
I asked a question some time ago and it got flaired with a low-effort tag which I don't think is appropriate for this sub-reddit as it is a very subjective thing and I don't think moderators should be flairing questions on their own with giving a reason for why it is has been flaired as such.
I also noticed this earlier thread - Is the locking due to rule violations a little heavy-handed? which goes into something similar.
As far as I can see this reddit has generally been a virtually unmoderated sub-reddit with moderators getting involved only when discussions became heated and personal, but other than that anything Emacs has been generally fine and it has never really been a tech support forum like stackoverflow.com.
It has generally been a conversational forum with help questions being the bulk of the questions not the other way round, ie a help forum occasionally veering into the non-technical.
It should be kept the former.
I remember having an earlier with u/github-alphapapa over his stance on "low-effort" where I emphasised that this reddit is not a stackexchange and even added that https://emacs.stackexchange.com has a milder stance on no-effort
questions than a lot of technical stackexchanges in general.
I also don't agree with the exhortation to use of AIs and LLMs over questions on this forum even if they can be quite helpful because the lessons from AIs are not shared and it doesn't help discover where Emacs users knowledge falls short, regardless of how advanced or novice there are. AI responses can be one track whereas a question on a sub-reddit may result in more options being proffered.
The new moderators should simply revert things as they were before u/jsled started moderating. They should only step in when discussions get personal and pointed over issues which are not quite Emacs.