Starting now All political posts on this subreddit need to be from accounts that have participated in this subreddit before.
Additionally, Any posts with political flyers must have the text included in the post itself. Posts with only flyers will be removed and need to be submitted with alt text.
New accounts will still be welcome to comment and participate in discussion on political posts; they just won't be able to make political posts until they have participated in discussion in some way before. Political discussions still need to have a direct local connection as well or they will be removed. Exceptions may be granted on a case-by-case basis (in keeping with the spirit of the rules), and efforts to violate the spirit of the rule may result in a ban.
This change is in response to a couple of low-effort posts from new accounts that have posted political posts and not engaged in the discussion after posting. For reference, the posts were removed by the reputation filter for my manual review. Since the posts met the rules at the time, I manually approved them. I can see subreddit participation when reviewing posts, so these would not have been approved with these new rules (I am also not removing them at this time because they met the rules at the time they were posted).
This subreddit welcomes open discussion on local issues, and this is not meant to censor any specific viewpoint. There is a balance to be struck between allowing total participation, including from people new to reddit and the subreddit who may not fully know how things are done on reddit, and allowing unfettered access to a semi-anonymous message board without verification that people participating actually live, work, or play here or are actually impacted by decisions in some way. Philosophically I lean more towards allowing participation (and have no desire for requiring verification), but I also want to make sure we're having productive discussions and aren't just regurgitating whatever Facebook-level comments make their way over here where possible.
This is only meant to curb a specific, recurring pattern of behavior not fitting for this subreddit. Posts will not be removed for content or position unless they violate the rules.
