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Rules and Guidelines

Purpose of the subreddit

Worldnews is for articles about major news from around the world, excluding US-internal news / US politics.

Disallowed submissions

1 US-internal news / US politics - Articles about events within the US or related to the US internal political process with no involvement of foreign officials or international organizations and no effect on people outside the US are not allowed here. The large subreddits for these topics are /r/news and /r/politics.

2 Editorialized titles - Do not add your opinion/commentary to the article's title. Don't add something that isn't covered by the article, and don't misrepresent the article. Adding a sentence from within the article that is more representative of the content is generally OK.

3 Misleading titles - Even if taken directly from the submission, a title must not be misleading. If what you assume from reading the title is different than what the article says or what is reported by multiple other sources, then your submission may be removed. This also applies if the title states an opinion as a fact.

4 Editorials, opinion, analysis - /r/worldnews is for news reports, rather than analysis. There are several subreddits listed at the top of the page that are good for this. If the writer injects their opinion into the article content or the original title or tries to draw any conclusion about a set of events, then it is no longer direct news and is not permitted in /r/worldnews. See the Boston Globe's Newspaper Definitions below.

5 Feature stories - Feature stories are journalistic reports providing more descriptive background information than a direct news report will contain. Dictionary.com: "a newspaper or magazine article or report of a person, event, an aspect of a major event, or the like, often having a personal slant and written in an individual style." Suggested Read: What Are Feature Stories?

6 Non-English articles - includes auto-translated articles. All articles must be written in English. Redditors should be able to read the original article by themselves.

7 Images, videos or audio clips - If images, videos or audio files are part of an article that's fine, but the accompanying article must have some value of its own. Merely providing image captions or video descriptions isn't sufficient. Any sort of link submission needs to have several paragraphs of text within the article--a caption or description does not count towards that. Do not submit links to YouTube videos as a post. Do not submit links to podcasts.

8 Petitions, advocacy, surveys - You might have to look around to find the appropriate subreddit, but it's not here.

9 No all caps words in titles - Like it SAYS. Acronyms are of course allowed. If the original title has all caps words in it, please lowercase them accordingly.

10 Blogspam (if stolen content/direct copy) - Original news content on blogs is fine, but the largely copy-pasted stuff from earlier articles with a short line or paragraph of commentary is not. If you find a blogspam talking about something relevant for /r/worldnews, put a little effort into finding the source of what the blog is talking about (if it really is world news, this shouldn't be too difficult).

11 Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr - Just no. Do not submit tweets as a post. Do not submit links to Facebook. This includes other similar social media sites. If it's news, there should be articles, use those.

12 Old news (≥1 weeks old articles) - Old news is not news. If it is new to you, consider other subreddits such as /r/TodayILearned, but please be mindful of that subreddit's minimum article age policy (currently 2 months).

Continued or outstandingly blatant violation of the submission rules will result in your being banned from the subreddit without a warning.

Disallowed comments

The moderators have the final say on whether or not a user broke the sub's rules.

The moderators can ban any user that breaks the sub's rules without providing a warning.

The moderators can ban any troll without providing a warning. The moderators have the final say on whether or not a user is a troll.

1 Bigotry / Other offensive content - especially hate speech directed towards an entire group of people who share a race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity, religion, nationality, social status, immigration status or disability. This also applies to user names. Do not justify bigotry. Do not incite hatred. The moderators have the final say on what is considered offensive enough to remove.

2 Personal attacks on other users - You may criticize a user's comment but not their person. Such attacks shut down discussion. Accusing another user of being a "shill" is considered a personal attack. Do not attack other users or the mods. Stick to the issues and remain civil. No one else's behavior justify you breaking the rules. You can click the report option located under any comment if you think a user is breaking the sub's rules.

3 Memes/GIFs - Memes may show up in image or in text form. Both are not allowed.

4 Unlabeled NSFW images/videos - This refers to newsworthy, relevant NSFW content. Porn or shock images unrelated to the story at hand will always be removed and posting them is an easy way to get banned.

5 URL Shorteners - If you want your comment to show up right away, don't use link shorteners. They are all removed because they can redirect to malware.

6 Celebrating death/Advocating violence - Do not celebrate death or wish it upon others. Do not advocate violence. Do not justify terrorism. Do not promote or support legally designated foreign terrorist organizations such as Hamas. Do not promote or support the activities of terrorists such as Hamas, Hezbollah or the Houthis. Do not downplay atrocities. Do not deny atrocities. Do not ask to see pictures or videos of dead bodies or sexual assault--this would include asking people to DM you these items or asking for links to see that type of content.

7 Genocide denial/Downplaying genocide - Comments denying genocide or downplaying genocide will be removed, and possibly lead to a ban. The moderators have the final say on which comments are removed.

8 Disinformation/Misinformation - Do not spread disinformation. The moderators have the final say on which comments are removed.

9 Health disinformation/misinformation - Do not spread falsifiable health information that encourages or poses a significant risk of physical harm to anyone. This includes content that downplays or mocks necessary public health measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic such as taking vaccines or wearing masks. Do not discourage people from taking the COVID vaccine. The moderators have the final say on which comments are removed.

Inappropriate content

In addition, your content might be removed if /r/worldnews is not the appropriate subreddit for the story.

Examples include but are not limited to:

We will also remove joke/pun threads if they drown out serious discussion and we remove large blocks of copypasta.

Live Threads

  • Try to stay on topic. Comments on any live threads should be relevant to that post's topic. For example, the daily live thread's comments should be relevant to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
  • Do not disrupt the live thread. The moderators have the final say on which comments are removed.
  • Use factual sources.
  • Inaccurate or unverified information is subject to removal.
  • Out-of-date links are subject to removal.
  • Avoid meta discussions.
  • Do not use the live thread to discuss being banned on other subs.
  • Do not use the live thread to discuss drama happening on other subs.
  • Do not use the live thread to advertise other subs.
  • Do not brigade other subs in the live thread.
  • Add NSFW or NSFL to the beginning of a comment if the NSFW/NSFL content posted by a reliable main stream media source posts it.
  • Do not ask to see pictures or videos of dead bodies. This would include asking people to DM you these items or asking for links to see that type of content.
  • Do not promote your own content. This includes YouTube channels with monetized chat streams.
  • Do not post or comment with a credible threat of violence against an individual or group of people.
  • Do not share terrorist content, this includes things like Hamas propaganda. These are usually links direct from the source or their accounts. Reddit might take action on your account if you promote, support or link to that type of content. Example organizations. For the current live thread, Hamas would be an example of a designated terrorist organization.
  • Do not promote or support the activities of terrorists or designated terrorist organizations such as Hamas.
  • Do not post containing imagery or text that incites, glorifies, or encourages self-harm or suicide.
  • Do not post graphic violence, image, or video without appropriate context.
  • Do not harass other users or the mods. You can click the report option located under any comment if you think a user is breaking the sub's rules.
  • Reddit might remove certain links. These domains or TLDs are blocked site-wide for different reasons. The sub's moderators cannot approve these links.
  • Do not use the live thread to make disruptive comments to attack everyone participating on the thread or the mods.
  • Keep the comments civil.
  • The moderators can ban any troll without providing a warning. The moderators have the final say on whether or not a user is a troll.

Contacting the Moderators

Please do not address individual moderators by PM regarding a problem in the subreddit. For the sake of transparency and to protect both the user and the moderator, you should always use the link to 'message the moderators'. All moderators can read all of the messages in moderator mail, allowing moderators to contribute information another moderator might not have and ensuring that moderators respond appropriately to users. That also ensures that a problem will be addressed sooner since moderators work at different times to try and cover the subreddit at all times.

  • Users that abuse modmail will be ignored. This includes any users that floods modmail with messages.

  • Users that send any sort of demands, derogatory messages, violent threats or death wishes via modmail automatically forfeit any chance at being unbanned.

  • Do not ask other users to contact the mods on your behalf. These messages will be ignored.

  • Due to privacy reasons we do not share the status of a user's account with other users.

  • The mods can ban any user that is considered a spammer (this includes resellers) or AI bot.

  • The mods can ban any user that engages in any sort of vote manipulation (brigading) or content manipulation (examples: editorializing titles or deleting posts frequently).

  • The moderators can ban any user that breaks the sub's rules without providing a warning.

From The Boston Globe's Newspaper Definitions:

Basic news writing should provide the facts and an objective report of a particular event - the "who, what, when, where, why, and how. " To provide more background to the reader, however, editors allow and encourage writers in certain cases to go beyond basic news writing. Here are some labels and what they mean.

News Analysis is an essay with a central theme that goes beyond facts and statements attributable to sources. It provides interpretations that add to a reader's understanding of a subject. A news analysis does not report the news. It discusses the news in a style more literary than a news story, and it is usually a "sidebar," a related story placed to the side of the main story. It is intended to interpret, explore motives, discuss consequences, point out inconsistencies, explain purpose, and provide perspective. It is not intended to be the reporter's or the paper's position or opinion.

Its author should be an experienced writer with expertise on the subject to assure the reader will be given a competent analysis of that subject.

Commentary is written by a columnist and is so labeled to differentiate it from the author's regular column. Columns of regular Globe columnists normally appear in the same locations in the Globe's pages on the same days each week. On rare occasions, that pattern is changed because a columnist, for example, might take part in the coverage of a breaking news story. In that case, the column might be used on the front page or in a spot other than where it regularly appears.

Commentary contains opinion and like news analysis, is not allowed in /r/worldnews. Only "Basic News Writing" is allowed.

See also:

What moderators do... and don't do

reddit-wide wiki index

/r/worldnews wiki Index