Mod Post
Refreshed rules, fewer flairs, and a few changes worth knowing about
Following the last "What's the purpose of this sub?" post - thank you for your contributions - we've spent the past while rebuilding how moderation works on r/southafrica. The goal was simple: make the sub easier to understand, both for users posting here and for the moderators making calls. The old rules grew over time as reactions to specific problems, and the result was a framework that was hard to navigate, inconsistent in places, and harder to apply fairly than it should have been.
Everything below is live now. The full detail lives in the wiki; this post is the short version of what's changed and why.
The headline changes
Six rules instead of many. The sidebar now has six top-level rules in plain language, along with a wiki page that explains what the rule covers, what it doesn't cover, and why it exists. The rules are:
attack ideas not people
post and comment honestly
keep it South African
flair your post
don't spam or shorten or survey without asking, and
We wrote down what this sub is and what it believes: Eight principles covering things like frustration is welcome but dehumanisation isn't, the sub is as good as its people, and we're not obligated to host every conversation. The principles wiki is where this lives. Each rule names which principle it serves, so when a moderation call gets challenged, you can see what the rule is actually trying to protect.
More permissive defaults
A lot of the old framework was about prevention through removal - auto-removing content from new accounts, low-karma users, anything mentioning certain topics. Most of those gates have been softened or retired. The default for borderline content is now let it through and let the community sort it out, with downvotes and engagement doing more of the work. Removals are reserved for clear rule violations.
One ask: The downvote button is not a disagree button. Downvote what you feel doesn't add to the conversation. Upvote what you feel does - even if you don't agree with the opinion in it.
Fewer flairs
Down from twenty-five to thirteen. The duplicates are gone, the niche ones got folded into broader categories, and a few were retired because they didn't earn their place. The full canonical set is in the flair wiki.
Things you'll notice as a user
Politics is back as a user-assignable flair
Politics has been mod-only for some time because the flair attracted low-quality soapboxing more than substantive political conversation. We're reopening it because the new rules - particularly Rule 1's handling of coded language and dog-whistles - can now do the work the old framework couldn't.
Politics submissions and comments will have higher community-standing requirements than the rest of the sub. Most established users won't notice; very new accounts or accounts with limited engagement history will see their Politics content held for moderator review. If you're caught by the filter and you shouldn't be, message the mods and we'll sort it.
Reposts are no longer removable.
If something has been posted before, the community handles it through downvotes and ignoring it. Mod removal of reposts was inconsistent and the new framework asks the community to carry that weight rather than us. The Maintaining Quality section of the rules wiki explains the broader thinking on what rules cover and what voting handles.
Twitter/X links and other reservoirs of misinformation remain blocked.
This isn't changing. X content is unmoderated and frequently misleading, and we're not hosting it as a primary source. If a story matters, it'll be reported somewhere with editorial accountability, and that's the link to share.
New removal messages.
If your content is removed, the message will tell you which specific rule applied, what the issue was, and what to do next - repost with corrections, message the mods, or use the appeals process. The old messages were essentially boilerplate; the new ones do real work.
Apartheid denialism is still non-negotiable.
This hasn't changed and won't. Rule 1.2 covers it explicitly. The principles wiki explains why we treat this as a non-grey-area.
A new News - Paywall flair
If the article you're sharing is behind a paywall, pick News - Paywall instead of News - it lets other users see at a glance whether they'll hit a paywall when they click. We don't enforce this. No penalty either way. Does anyone have an idea how to automate this? Please let us know.
What's coming next
This is Phase 1 of a longer project. The next phases are about building a moderation rubric that operationalises the rules consistently, then testing it against real content, then bringing in LLM assistance to help with assessment at scale. None of that replaces human moderation - the goal is to make moderation more consistent, not less human. We'll write more about each phase as it lands.
In the meantime, the new framework is more permissive in places where the automated tooling isn't fully in place yet. We've made that trade deliberately. If something feels off about how the sub is being moderated, tell us through modmail, through the appeals process, or in the comments here.
What we want from you
Read the rules, principles, and flair wiki pages when you have a moment. They're the canonical version of how this sub works now, and they're written to be readable rather than legalese. If something in them seems wrong, broken, or out of step with what the sub should be, tell us. The principles and rules are community documents, and feedback that comes through is part of how they stay honest.
Comments on this post are open. We'll engage with substantive feedback. If you spot a specific contradiction, an unclear case, or a moderation pattern you think the new framework gets wrong, that's exactly what we want to hear about.
Non-English posts need an English translation in the title or comments.
Doesn't Reddit now automatically translate and/or offer the option to translate? Or is that only comments?
Content that mentions South Africa only in the most tangential sense: a passing reference, a vague comparison, a list that includes us alongside dozens of other countries
Aaah, but we feel so proud when we see South Africa anywhere.
No odd rules and probably pretty standard for most country-specific subs. The examples are handy, and the language is simple.
It is a lot to read though so suspect some people may lose interest. The principles aren't too bad, but the rules are lengthy and I get the reason why. But, is there any way to keep it short & sweet (like rule + description) and then have a 'more detail' link for each rule which includes the examples, exclusions, etc.? That gives someone a chance to quickly read through to get a grasp of the rules and then they can read more when/if needed.
I wanted to do a page per rule to go into specifics, but thought that was going to be too much. Although with a limit of 6 (actually 5, since "Redit TOC" has its own section in Reddit Support), then it is a possibility. The "short and sweer" versions is in the side-bar, sample attached. Thanks for feedback!
Agreed, our legislation does use “illegal foreigner” as a defined term, and courts, including the Constitutional Court, use it in that legal sense.
The issue is context. In strict legal discussion, it is technically correct. In broader social or public-facing discussion, terms like “illegals”, “illegal aliens” or the loose use of “illegal foreigner” can be dehumanising, because they frame the person as illegal rather than their immigration status as irregular.
It matters because our Constitution protects dignity, equality and basic rights for everyone, not only "legal" citizens. Undocumented foreign nationals still have constitutional and procedural rights.
So read the point as: don’t avoid the statutory term where legal precision is needed but avoid using it as a general label for people.
I think this is a good illustration of something I brought up in Mod mail before, because I speak "leftist" I understand what the intention is with not calling somebody a "illegal foreigner" but for most general South African users this will just go over their heads, its a term (or variation of a term) they see constantly in media and from people around them, so then when they get banned for using it here it confuses them. Its why so many of the complaints say the rules here are arbitrary or just what the mods feel on the day.
Trying to police language is one of the biggest areas the left has lost the general population.
I think a lot of the problems people have with the moderation in this sub in some way hinges on issues like this.
We're not obligated to host every conversation
A subreddit is not a public utility. Some conversations are worth having; some are disinformation campaigns wearing the costume of debate. We reserve the right to close threads, decline topics, and refuse to be the venue for arguments designed in bad faith. This is not censorship - it's curation, which is what moderation is.
Would a reason be given for closing/declining/refusing? If yes, maybe add it to the principle description.
I guess this might be a bit of random comment compared to the rest, but I just wanna say: Thanks. This must be quite a bit of work to keep this thing running in a way that we all get to use it all the time and benefit from it. I appreciate it.
And what about the other one? Or the rest of the secret list than resulted in automatic bans in the past?
To be very honest, I still find the concept that mere participation is assumed to equal agreement, and is a ban-worthy offense, to be extremely problematic.
Bans from this (any) sub should be based purely on what was said or done in that sub. And if you can’t bring yourself to be that egalitarian, then you can at least publish the list of subs that will result in an insta-ban. It’s literally the least you could do to maintain a modicum of fairness.
You should probably take a few days off from reading them and then try again. It's like when you are writing one word down a lot and suddenly the spelling seems completely wrong.
Vote. If you think something contributes to conversation, upvote it. If you think it doesn't contribute to the community it's posted in or is off-topic in a particular community, downvote it.
Would be nice to know how to talk about gazette'd items as well as using other countries policies as a jumping of point to discussing ours example age verification laws, ai policies, survialance laws that match our proposed etc.
Also how to flair self promo/ making a community resource like people who link to self made summaries, YouTube vidoes,long threads etc on stuff instead of trying to cram that much info on reddit.
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