INTRODUCTION

r/California_Politics is a political discussion sub for the news and discussion about politics in the Golden State, with more politics than /r/California, and more California than /r/Politics. The Community Standards are still as always.

NEW MODERATION OPPORTUNITIES

As our community continues to grow and evolve, we want to ensure that we have a diverse and dedicated group of moderators in place to uphold our standards and foster a positive environment for discussion. At this time we're looking for individuals who are:

• Familiar with our rules and guidelines: As outlined in our Community Standards and Submissions Scope (which include rules on Civility, Topicality, Sourcing, Respect, Specificity, and Quality), we expect moderators to have a strong understanding of what constitutes appropriate content and behavior in r/California_Politics.
• Committed to our values: We value civil discourse, truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, reason, freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent. We seek moderators who actively promote these values.
• Dedicated to the community: We need moderators who are willing to dedicate time and effort to help maintain the subreddit, address user concerns, and enforce our community guidelines fairly and consistently.

If you're interested in joining our team and contributing to the continued success of r/California_Politics, we encourage you to send us a message via modmail. Please tell us a little about yourself, your experience on Reddit (especially any moderation experience), and why you'd like to be a moderator for our community.

We are currently in the process of developing a training and onboarding pathway for new moderators. We appreciate your patience as we build this framework. We anticipate reaching out to potential candidates once this process is established. This process may take many weeks before you hear back from us.

We look forward to hearing from you!

PURPOSE OF GENERAL CHAT

Normally this subreddit is setup to address the political and social issues that divide our state and dominate our social media feeds. The purpose of this very different thread is to trial a space for community members to talk about more than just our state politics.

We hope that we can help encourage community participants to find a way past the ideological differences that frequently appear in the comments and share more about the California they experience every week. For many participants, the issues that occur every week are personal, and a general chat is a space for folks to acknowledge how their lived experiences shape their points of view.

In this thread you can talk about any variety of politics, Ukraine, subreddit polls, surveys and predictions, your vacation, your pets, your latest hiking adventure, or tell us about your day, or almost anything under the overcast skies. Just have fun, be kind, remember the human and model the kind of civil, productive discussion we are hoping to have here on a regular basis.

CaliforniaPolicy

Political policy, not partisanship, should be the backbone of our states politics. With that in mind, a college student created r/CaliforniaPolicy and I was happy to help moderate their subreddit. It appears however that their school project has ended. We will continue to crosspost content we feel would be of interest to this community.

Context Added

A new report reason was added for submissions. Community members can now report submissions they feel need the "Context Added" flag added to content. In addition users can submit their own context via the existing "Message the Moderators" tool. While a report will not guarantee that context will be added to the submission it does provide for better tracking and trending of reports. With better data we can determine appropriate steps to help the community safeguard itself.

But how will it work?

When moderators add a context flair to a submission, there should be a sticky comment containing background info, sourced from independent third-party sources, to give more context on the topic. Moderators will not be endorsing any of the info shown in sticky comment, but simply relay third party information to add context and promote discussion.

Raising Unpopular Topics

The moderation team is trialing a new rule to elevate heavily downvoted but appropriate content to announcement status temporarily. By elevating heavily downvoted but appropriate content, the moderation team hopes to counteract vote manipulation and promote diverse viewpoints. Overall, this rule has the potential to be a positive force in the subreddit by ensuring that all voices are heard and that the discussion remains focused on the merits of the arguments, rather than on popularity contests.

Auto Moderator & Account / Karma Filtering

The team still strongly feels that hand crafted moderation is the ideal to shoot for, as we want a hands on approach to creating an inclusive environment where people can discuss California's political ideas. That said, we will continue focusing on using auto moderator to filter our slurs, bigoted slang, and pejorative-name calling. In addition, we'll be using it to filter out content from new accounts within 45 days and accounts with less than 100 karma.

California-Centric Content Rule

AutoModerator's will filter posts containing 'Trump' or 'President' in the title. As has been the norm, our core goal is to keep r/California_Politics focused exclusively on California's specific political landscape, citizen-level issues, and local governance. There are numerous other subreddits dedicated to national politics, and we aim to avoid duplicating those discussions here. While we acknowledge that very occasionally a national news story might have a direct and significant impact on California, these instances should be the exception, not the rule. To ensure we maintain the subreddit's focus, please ensure submissions adhere to these strict guidelines:

• Posts must demonstrate a clear and immediate impact on California state policies, California's legislation, and the daily lives of California residents.
• The primary focus must be on the state-level response or implications, not the national event, or national legislation itself.
• Broad national partisan critiques will not be allowed. The discussion must center on local solutions and policies.

We'd also like to hear your feedback on these guidelines. Do you feel they strike the right balance? Are there any specific scenarios or types of articles you think should be considered exceptions? Your input will help us refine our moderation approach and ensure we're serving the community effectively. I suspect the moderation team will be very vigilant initially and allow more grace as times goes on. Ultimately, by maintaining these high standards, we aim to preserve r/California_Politics as a dedicated space for California-specific political discussion.

POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Just a reminder that we should all advocate for truthfulness, accuracy, honesty, and reason as essential to the integrity of communication. Participants in this subreddit should be willing to endorse freedom of expression, diversity of perspective, and tolerance of dissent to achieve the informed and responsible decision making fundamental to a civil society.

Thank you again everyone.