/r/CFB Rules
Submissions may be removed or a user banned at the moderators' discretion if deemed to be detrimental to the community. This is a general guideline that can encompass all other rules.
Content that seeks to deceive, misinform, or otherwise harm others, or to entertain the notion of such, is prohibited.
We want /r/CFB to be a friendly place for everyone. Even if you're joking, you never know when someone might misunderstand. This also applies to overly sexually- or racially-charged comments that may make groups of people feel uncomfortable or unwelcome. It also applies to jokes about sexual assault, rape, rape scandals, and jokes about domestic violence, as well as mental and developmental disorders. Using sexual assault, rape, domestic violence, or other such cases for flamebait also violates this rule.
You may not post any personal information of private individuals. That means: no names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, Facebook links, or anything else that might identify someone, including yourself. This applies whether or not you have permission from the person. The posting of public information with the intent to brigade or harass anyone is forbidden. Posting widely-available information for public figures is permitted so long as the intent is not to brigade or harass the individual. For more information about what is considered personal information (and other Reddit sitewide rules), refer to the Reddit Content Policy. We're bound by site rules to enforce this strictly.
If there is already a weekly thread for a particular type of content, please keep that content in that thread. Pictures, videos, and gifs go in the Picture/Video/GIF thread. Screencaps and signs for ESPN's College Gameday belong in the weekly show thread. And so on.
Avoid all political/religious discussion or threads unless it's directly related to college football - and keep it civil!
If your bot randomly wanders into /r/CFB and is not providing a service we have much of a use for, you can expect it to be banned. Don't take it personally - we just prefer to keep the bot fluff to a minimum. This includes bots that overwrite past comments. We make exceptions for certain bots on a case-by-case basis.
We do not permit cross-posting (x-posts) to "drama" or brigade subreddits. If you see posts that are too heated or otherwise objectionable, report them or message the moderators directly with a link to the post(s) in question. Any posts or comments designed deliberately cause drama about /r/CFB externally break this rule.
We do not permit linking to removed and/or deleted posts and comments or to sites that are designed to get around those removals and/or deletions. We also do not permit comments redirecting other users to removed comments or posts in any way.
Do not message the moderators until you have read this in full. Doing so could prolong your ban. In particular before messaging please note:
If a rule is broken with intent, we often start with a suspension. This helps us meet the primary goal of quickly cleaning up posts that break the rules and preventing widespread rule violations.
If you are banned, you have probably broken the /r/CFB Rules (See above). There are three levels of corrective action that we can take:
Which action is applied to you is a function of the severity of the infraction, whether you are a repeat offender. Additionally, on high traffic days (particularly on game days) we tend to be less lenient simply because we lack the bandwidth to be gentle.
A warning comes in the form of a message from /r/CFB, and is generally reserved for rule violations that are inadvertent or borderline. There are no specific penalties from a warning, but do note that if you get one there will be less leniency for future infractions. You are not guaranteed to receive a warning for your first offense, as these are given out under very specific conditions.
Suspensions are temporary bans, and are given out as a corrective measure to curb rule-breaking behavior. Suspensions are often given out as an official warning for blatant rule breaking. Bans disable commenting on or submitting to /r/CFB. If your suspension is under 5 days, it will not be reviewed. Longer suspensions may be reviewed if and only if you follow the instructions on this page. The length of your suspension is proportional to the severity of the infraction. If you are suspended we suggest cooling off and reflect on how you can change your posting habits to avoid running into problems again.
Permanent bans are issued on occasion to flagrant violators who are unlikely to be productive members of the community, generally limited to spammers, trolls, and repeat offenders. If the message you receive does not say it is temporary, then it is permanent. It is rare that we lift a permanent ban, but you may apply for clemency by following the directions below.
Bans are reviewed exclusively in Moderator Mail. We won't discuss bans in private messages, nor publicly on the subreddit. Attempting to discuss your ban in any other place (via PM or by making another account to post on the subreddit) will work against you.
Modmail is a semi-private forum that all moderators can view. All official /r/CFB moderation discussions and decisions, including bans, are handled by the moderators as a team. Reviewing bans in modmail where all moderators can see it promotes transparency and allows all moderators to weigh in on a situation as needed.
Modmail is not like other types of messages on Reddit, so if you have never had a conversation in modmail before, here are some screenshots to show you what it looks like:
To begin a conversation in modmail, simply respond to the message you were sent informing you that you were banned. If you were not banned and you want to talk to the us anyway, or you cannot find the ban message in your inbox, you can always just message us directly using the "Message the Moderators" link in the sidebar. If you get responses from multiple moderators, it is not necessary to reply to each of them. A response sent to one moderator can be seen by all the moderators.
If your ban is 5 or more days, you can appeal it following these steps. An appeal is a chance to have your ban reconsidered, but is not a guarantee.
The following is a list of bad ways to react to getting banned. These reduce the chances of an appeal and increase the chances of a permanent ban
When the subreddit is not very busy, or all is quiet on the moderating front, mods will sometimes take the time to explain the warning publicly instead of banning. Public warnings are also given in some instances where moderators feel a more visible reminder of the rules could benefit other people in addition to the user they are directly responding to (as a sort of PSA).
We're not so busy that we don't see most modmail that comes in fairly quickly. If you haven't gotten a response for a while, one of these things might be in play:
Shadowbans are a sitewide disciplinary action from Reddit that makes it impossible for others to see your posts. The /r/CFB Mods have no control over this, and your only recourse is messaging the reddit admins.
If this is really the case, reply to your ban message and let us know. If you're honestly confused, we'll usually be willing to explain things for you.
You may not receive a notification or warning if your thread is removed. If your thread is removed and you want to know why, send a polite modmail requesting clarification. You may also receive a ban for such posts.
| Reposts | Make a good-faith effort to check whether or not what you're posting has already been posted. Certain discussion topics are deleted if posted too frequently. For more information on this, check out our wiki page for common reposts. |
| Anything not CFB-related | Direct posts that aren't college football-related to /r/CFBOffTopic. |
| NSFW content | Unless it is 100%, absolutely, directly related to CFB and clearly labeled, no NSFW content. Posting non-CFB-related NSFW content, even if it is labeled as such, is not allowed. |
| "Baseball Stats" | We allow record breaking news to be posted but we do not allow "baseball stat" style posts along the lines of "the first touchdown scored by number 89 on a team on a Tuesday" or "8000 teams have done this but Team A has not." |
| Other posts about Former Players | News about a player leaving a team is relevant to /r/CFB. Any further news about a player who has left a team is not relevant to /r/CFB. Exceptions may be allowed if the news is focused on their time at the school as a player or relevant to college football in the present. Posts about former player deaths are also allowed. |
| Posts about the NFL | Posts about the NFL, or any player who has been drafted to NFL should be directed to /r/NFL. Players who have declared for the draft are still college football related until they are drafted. UDFAs are college football relevant until the NFL Draft is over. |
| Streaming Links | Do not link to illegal stream sites or to subreddits aggregating those links. Discussion about options like Hulu Live, You Tube TV, etc. are allowed, but keep in mind that quality master lists have been posted already and generic requests for cord cutter options may be removed. In addition, any links to full games, request to links for full games, or similar requests will be removed, in comments or posts. |
| Images, gifs, streamables | All link posts just to images, gifs, Streamables, and similar, will be removed automatically. This applies to imgur and other image hosts. You may submit them as self posts ("Submit Text") providing context for discussion, or preferably as comments in related threads. We often have official threads that are an appropriate forum for these. |
| Memes | lmage macros and meme videos and such will be removed on sight. Post them to /r/cfbmemes instead. |
| Twitter links | All link posts to a tweet will be automatically removed. Tweets are welcome in the content of self posts ("Submit Text"), which allows you to provide additional context. A rationale for this rule can be found here. |
| Editoralized titles | If you're posting a link to another site, and want to let your opinion about it be known, post the link and put your opinion in the comments. Don't editorialize the title. |
| Team/Fanbase attack Threads | Threads designed to put down other teams or fanbases will be removed. We want posts that encourage positive discussion and debate, not collective hate. Example thread titles include "Which fanbase is most delusional" and "Which team do you irrationally hate". It also includes other threads whose true purpose is to ridicule other fans, fanbases, and teams. |
| No link shortener URLs | This includes URLs from t.co, tinyurl, ow.ly, bit.ly, youtu.be, goo.gl, etc. Some types of shortened URLs such as Google Maps links or youtu.be links are generally OK in comments, but avoid them where possible. |
| Mobile links | Post a link to the normal, non-mobile, non-AMP version of the site. |
| Fundraiser links | Don't post direct links to fundraising sites without discussing the fundraiser with the mods first. This is to protect our users and prevent the sub from being flooded by requests for money. |
| Posts about recruits below 3 stars | To keep recruiting spam down, we limit posts about recruiting to those that involve recruits of 3-stars and up; note: we use 247 Composite ratings for headlines about player rankings. Please follow the recruiting guidelines listed in the "Recruiting Post Rules" section. |
| Word-for-word pasting of paywall content | To avoid copyright issues, comments that are word-for-word copies of paywalled content (including, but not limited to, sites like The Athletic) will be removed. Writing your own article summary or list (in the case of "top ten" or ranking articles) is acceptable. We do allow articles to be posted if they are behind a paywall and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. |
| Low effort or title-only self-posts | Be sure to include meaningful content in your self posts. Do not just submit a title or a "what the title said" post. For example: answer your own question/give your own opinion in the text of the post, post a link to more information, explain what you mean in more depth. Do not post open letters. These threads will be removed. Generally low effort threads may also be removed. Simply making a longer post with more words does not guarantee it is not a low effort post. |
| Old or out of date articles | We allow posts about college football history. We generally do not allow posts or reposts of out of date, older articles as new news. Please check the date of the link you are submitting before submitting it. |
| "LOLRANDOM" posts | Do not submit lolrandom posts. If the only effort is you blathering on, the post is subject to being sporked by the moderators oF d00m. Sporkworthiness will be the sole discretion of the moderators. More researched and higher quality posts may be retained. |
| Posts asking about /r/CFB itself | These are often better directed to /r/CFBMeta. |
| "Please/Don't Upvote/Downvote posts | Do not include language like "please upvote," "please downvote," or "don't upvote" to your post titles. |
| TIL/ELI5/DAE posts | These posts are generally lower effort and tend to attract other posts of these kinds. DAE posts are outright not permitted as they are very low effort. TIL posts can be easily cast as history posts and we encourage you to do this. ELI5 posts can be easily cast as regular questions and we encourage you to do this. If you want to submit information about a historic event in college football, please make a self post with additional information and discussion. This includes direct links to Wikipedia and posts that simply repeat Wikipedia articles. |
| Research without Approval | If you are doing research for a university class or degree you must (1) have IRB approval or equivalent cleared with appropriate people at the university and the mod team, (2) message the mods before posting, and (3) be a regular user in good standing to avoid violating our rules on spam/self-promotion. |
| Buy/Sell/Trade Posts | Do not make posts requesting purchases, sales or trades for any goods or services. We're not Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace. This rule is to protect our users from potential scams and prevent the sub from turning into a virtual garage sale. |
