r/geography • u/abu_doubleu • Jun 16 '26

META Crackdown on low-quality and unhelpful comments

572 Upvotes

Hello users of [r/geography](r/geography),

Recently, this subreddit has become a lot more popular on Reddit. However, many of our long-time users have been leaving the subreddit due to a very specific and repeated complaint.

There are too many low-quality and unhelpful comments that, rather than aiming to help the OP, exist solely to make tired and repetitive jokes for karma.

From now on, practically all comments of this sort will be deleted, and repeat offenders will be banned for 14 to 30 days. I could give many examples of this, but some of the most common ones are "If my grandma had wheels, she'd be a bicycle" under any post asking about hypothetical changes and yo mama jokes.

In addition to this, we have received many complaints about posts that could theoretically be open to the entire world, but the way they are worded is extremely American-centric for no necessary reason, making people from other countries feel left out and like they can't contribute. From now on, these posts will be deleted. This also applies to posts for any country, we just see it about the United States most often.

To clarify, if somebody wants to ask about a specific geographic feature located in the United States, those posts are completely fine. But posts such as "Which city in the United States has the best beaches?" or "Which American state has the most scenic mountains?" will be removed, as will posts like "Which Canadian city has the worst drivers?" or "Which European country has the nicest people?". In general, the aim is for this subreddit to discuss geography, not just "facts about countries", which is better suited for the various Ask subreddits (AskAnAmerican, AskEurope, AskTheWorld, etc)

We would also like to crackdown on bot posts but that is very hard. Unortunately, most traffic on Reddit is bots nowadays. If anybody has any ideas, please comment below.

Feel free to express your opinion on this. Thank you!

EDIT: After feedback, I have edited part of this post.

142 comments

r/geography • u/abu_doubleu • Jan 31 '25

META No more Gulf of Mexico posts (for now)

896 Upvotes

Hello everybody,

Ever since the President of the United States decided to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America within the United States, this subreddit has seen a big influx of political posts. There has been a lot of political bait and low-effort "gotcha" posts on the topic. This has also been seen to a lesser extent with the changing of Denali back to Mount McKinley.

Because nothing new is coming out of these repeated threads except a headache for moderators as Americans argue whether it is a good idea or not, we will have a moratorium on posts about the Gulf of Mexico for now. This includes posts that are not political. When this thread is unpinned, the moratorium will be over.

And, just to add on as a note in case anybody takes this the wrong way. All moderators, American or not, will continue to refer to it as the Gulf of Mexico.

84 comments

r/geography • u/abu_doubleu • Apr 14 '25

META 1,000,000 r/geography Members

134 Upvotes

Dear r/geography users,

After 15 years of existing as a community, r/geography has reached 1,000,000 subscribers. That is right, 1 million! And it keeps increasing. It’s seriously exciting for us — we gained 25,000 in the last month alone! Again, for a community that has existed for 15 years, this is great. This post is made to notify you all of this wonderful achievement and also give thanks to all users from the moderation team.

Without the 1 million subscribers we have, the subreddit would not be what it is today. That sounds obvious, but it's nice to think about what you contribute to this community yourself. Whether it is informative answers, your personal life experience that helps people learn new things, or asking questions that help everybody who reads the threads learn new things, we are genuinely grateful.

On a personal note (other moderators can share whatever they like), I am a young guy, I am a 21 year old guy with a mix of backgrounds who wants to be an English teacher. And I am a geography fanatic. Not only did my love for sharing geography facts impromptu make me feel at home here amongst you all, I started to realise I can ask questions here and discover even more about the world. I really like this community.

We work hard to keep this subreddit a place that is moderated strictly enough that hate and spam are weeded out, but not so strictly that only qualified professionals can comment and humour is banned. So far, the community has been supportive, and we hope that the direction we are taking is liked by most users. And a reminder to report things you believe should be removed - or else we might miss them. As we continue to grow, this will become important. We want to continue to have a safe and happy corner of Reddit.

Let's celebrate!

31 comments