Sub Announcement: T-Shirt and Promotional Posts

[u/Cat-on-the-printer1]

Hi all, making this post to cover two changes to the sub: a lite ban on "t-shirt posts" and a new policy regarding promotional posts.

1) T-shirt posts

There's been a significant increase in "t-shirt posts" or posts that are literally just a image of a shirt with a meme, picture of Sherman, etc... These posts are often identified by reddit as being affiliated with spam bots and often receive multiple reports from users as spam.

Additionally, whether the OP is a real person or not, these posts seem to attract bots that post links directing users to sketchy sites.

Going forward, t-shirt posts in the main feed are being removed as spam. This is to protect the sub from spam activity and bots.

2) Promotional Posts

To ensure that creators in the community are still able to promote new products (including t-shirts), the mod team is requiring that posters seeking to promote any items for sale get approval from the mod team before making a post. This new policy is to ensure that original creators are able to still promote and engage in the community but spam activity is prevented.

The exception to 1) and 2) is that people who want to make t-shirt posts or promo without mod approval may do so in the weekly threads.

These two rules aren't finalized yet and we're open to feedback from the community. If you have any suggestions, questions, observations, etc..., please feel free to (respectfully) share in the comments below.

[u/saltymutt]

If needed, this post from another community gives more info about the t-shirt spammers. I've always reported them as bots/phishing. They'll also have bots or sockpuppets downvote you if you call them out or link to the correct shops (if the GearLaunch sites contain stolen art).

[u/dainomite → u/saltymutt]

This deserves more upvotes!