A message from the mods about the sub's steady decline in quality

Hey guys, this is a message from the mod team. We've been noticing that the sub's quality has been declining, slowly but surely, with more and more low effort prompts, less good AMA's, etc. We've also been getting more and more complaints about the declining quality, both in modmail and in the thread for general feedback.<br><br>Now you may remember that we had a big problem with declining quality last year. This is what I'm talking about. The problem got so bad that we had to completely reconsider the rules for what was allowed on the sub.<br><br>Fast forward a year. We've been keeping an eye on things, and while the problem isn't quite as bad as it was, it's slowly getting worse. We've been trying to tackle it with more individual punishments, which we would prefer to do, but we're starting to worry that might not be enough.<br><br>To be frank, we're a little concerned that we might have to start cracking down harder than we did last year. But we realize that last time, we stepped too hard on the brakes, and it choked out a lot of the creative freedom and freedom of speech that we try to preserve on the sub. We're not going to do that again.<br><br>So we thought, why not ask the users for their opinions? We've done this a few times, usually in the form of a poll, but this time, we just want to have an open discussion. This thread is for that.<br><br>We'd love to know what you guys think. What can we do to help preserve the sub's quality? What is the problem in the first place? Is it something we can fix with a rule change? A change in how rules are enforced? Or is it not something that we can fix, and we just have to adapt?<br><br>We would appreciate any feedback you have. Whether you just joined or have been around for years, your opinion matters. We've always tried our best to run this place for you, not for ourselves, and that's not about to change.<br><br>So let us know.<br><br>Also, a reminder that the prompt for this thread is to be ignored, and any replies to it should be on the topic of the post from the moderators.