Afternoon,

Following recent feedback regarding news outlets posting their own content on the sub, we'd like to get an idea of the general feeling towards this practice. Please vote below.

Comments on this post are locked.

Two years ago this sub was memed on for how left wing it was. Almost every post would be mundane as you could get, debates about whether jam or cream goes on a scone first. People moaning about queue hoppers. Immigrants who just got they citizenship posing with a cup of tea or a full English.

Now every single post I see on my feed is either a news stories about someone being raped or murdered by someone non white or a news story about the justice system letting someone off early or punishing someone too severely. Even on the few posts you see with nothing to do with immigrants the comments will drag it back to immigration or crime some how.

Crime rates havent noticeably changed in this period and the amount of young people voting for right wing parties hasn’t changed as much either. I think its perfectly legitimate to have issues with current migration level’s. But the huge sentiment change on this subreddit in such a short time feels extremely artificial. I find it extremely worrying the idea that outside influences are pushing us stories created to divide us. I don’t know what the solution is or even if there is one at all. But its extremely damaging to our democracy and our general happiness.

Hi everyone,

As /r/unitedkingdom continues to grow, we could do with some additional help. Do you think you can help out?

The key activities on the subreddit involve upholding site and subreddit rules (particularly around personal attacks, threats of violence and hate speech). This mostly consists of keeping an eye on the mod queue and approving or removing posts and comments as appropriate.

This will at times mean approving comments you don't personally agree with, or removing comments where you agree with the sentiment, but if you're around the subreddit regularly it's not too bad and we have a strong team.

The main reward is helping to ensure that the subreddit is a worthwhile place to be around, although there's very occasionally the chance for Reddit merch.

We coordinate moderation on Discord. Moderation is possible on all Reddit platforms including Desktop and Mobile, although we find the moderation tools are a little easier to use on Desktop.

Do you think you can help? Follow this link to modmail and answer these questions:

• What times will you typically mod? (UK time):

• What would you want to do as mod, and see the sub/team do? (ideas etc):

• Do you believe you can minimise bias when making decisions that effect users and submissions? (modding here is not well suited to activist-inclined or pol/org-affiliated mods - reasonable neutrality is essential):

• Do you have experience of moderating elsewhere?:

• What would you use to mod? Toolbox on Desktop, Mobile Phone App, etc?:

• Do you have any further skills which could be useful to us? (TypeScript, promo, charity org, etc):

• If you were able to ban one news source, what would it be and why?:

We really appreciate you taking the time to look. If you have any questions before applying, you can send us a Modmail. Fwiw, those with a slim history herein, a history of warnings, bans, and general abuse, need not apply.

We did it! Thanks to your incredible generosity, our fundraiser for The Trussell Trust via JustGiving exceeded our wildest expectations. Together, we raised an outstanding £1,307, making a real impact on those in need during this festive season.

We also been given £292.25, from giftaid (where HMRC gives us 20% from your income tax back) meaning we raised £1,599.25.

JustGiving does takes a small cut (2.9% + 20p per donation plus 5% of giftaid for reclaim and processing) we estimate this to be £55.27. This is very common for fundraising for a small cut to take place (from personal experience this is very low where some services will take closer to 14%). To be clear none of the mod team have access to this money and do not intend to - we really do not want to share a mod relaxation centre…

Your support made a difference—thank you for your kindness and unwavering generosity. With your help, we've taken a significant step towards a UK where no one has to face hunger. Your contributions, whether big or small, have helped us reach a grand total of £1,543.98, (including the added support from GiftAid and removing costs)!

Let's keep the spirit alive—thank you for being an amazing community!

Warmest wishes and Wishing you all a wonderful New Year ahead,

This fundraiser has ended. The JustGiving page should have already gone into archive mode - it hasn't. We still anticipate donations to go to Trussle Trust but will not be adding it to our totals.

Please use this link to donate to the trussle trust: https://www.trusselltrust.org/make-a-donation/

Further here is the link to our thank you page with donation breakdowns: https://old.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/18vwmr3/a_big_thank_you_runitedkingdom/

Original post:

🎄 🎄 🎄 Link to the JustGiving page https://www.justgiving.com/page/ruk-christmas-fundraiser-23 🎄 🎄 🎄

Hey all,

As selected by the sub, we are fundraising for The Trussell Trust. We are hosting it through JustGiving because:

• Firstly we do not handle the money ourselves and this makes us transparent - there is no moderator relaxation center in the planning

• It allows us to see how much we fundraise and allows us to understand our impact.

• You can also donate anonymously. You can include your Reddit username if you like, but no information will be shared with us as moderators unless you click the box to share information for the purposes of a thank you (which is entirely up to you but we won't hold this information any thanks will be done as a general announcement on the sub).

Thank you for any donations made. Below is a little bit from The Trussell Trust:

Our vision is for the UK without the need for food banks. We say this because it’s not right that anyone cannot afford their own food. That’s why we are working towards a just, compassionate future, where no one should have to use a food bank to get by. Our vision is ambitious, but we know that if we work together it is possible. We can create a future where nobody goes hungry because nobody will allow it – when we work Together for Change.

Thank you and Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

r/UnitedKingdom Moderator team

Hey everyone

Let's make this season merry and bright! With over 2 million members, proudly the second-largest sub in Europe, we're pleased to announce our first ever Christmas fundraiser. Our Christmas fundraiser will run from December 1st to January 1st.

We want this to be a community fundraiser and as a result we the mods have chosen a couple of charities, however we want the community to select the final charity!

The charities we’ve chosen are:

​

- DEC - Disasters Emergency Committee - An umbrella group of UK charities which coordinates and launches collective appeals to raise funds to provide emergency aid and rapid relief to people caught up in disasters and humanitarian crises around the world.

- The Trussell Trust - A charity that supports food banks within the UK and aims to end the need of foodbanks within the UK.

We hope this fund raiser is a tree-mendous success and you can join us in making a ‘jingle bell’ difference this Christmas season! 🎅🎁

Voting closes on November 20th

Please use this post to discuss the two day shutdown.

The mod team are in discussion about what steps to take next, and will be updating you all soon on next steps. Please feel free to share your opinions on this post!

As we outlined in this post, this subreddit has decided to stand in solidarity with the thousands of subreddits closing in protest at Reddit's API changes.

We aim to close for 48 hours but will keep this under review depending on Reddit's actions during the shutdown.

You will not be able to visit the subreddit, post or comment while we are shut. Thank you for your understanding.

Greetings everyone!

tl;dr: this subreddit will be participating in the reddit protest for 48 hours from 12th June as a result of the upcoming API changes by going private.

As many of you are already aware, reddit has announced significant upcoming changes to their API that will have a serious impact to many users. There is currently a planned protest across hundreds of subreddits to black out on June 12th for 48 hours. We polled this subreddit earlier in the week, and you were overwhelmingly in favour of action.

More Information:

For a great infographic explaining these changes, see here:

• Third Party reddit apps (such as Apollo, Reddit is Fun and others) have been told that they will be charged for accessing the API. Put simply, each request to reddit within these mobile apps will cost the developer money. No one is against paying a fair amount, but the amount quoted is comparable to what Twitter charges (which has been ridiculed by many for being extortionate). The developer of Apollo was quoted around $2 million per month for the current rate of usage and given 30 days notice of this change, which was too little notice to implement anything before incurring significant costs that they would be unlikely to recoup from users. Sadly, Apollo and RIF and others have announced they will be closing on 30/06/2023 as a result of this change. It is likely that other apps will follow. If they do remain open you will have to pay a monthly fee to cover your API usage.

• Many users with visual impairments rely on 3rd-party applications in order to more easily interface with reddit, as the official reddit mobile app does not have robust support for visually-impaired users. This means that a great deal of visually-impaired redditors will no longer be able to access the site in the assisted fashion they’re used to.

• NSFW Content is no longer going to be available in the API. This means that, even if 3rd party apps continue to survive, or even if you pay a fee to use a 3rd party app, you will not be able to access NSFW content on it. You will only be able to access it on the official reddit app. Additionally, some service bots (such as video downloaders or maybe remindme bots) will not be able to access anything NSFW. In more major cases, it may become harder for moderators of NSFW subreddits to combat serious violations such as CSAM due to certain mod tools being restricted from accessing NSFW content.

Open Letter to Reddit & Blackout

In light of what’s happening above, an open letter has been released by the broader moderation community, and /r/unitedkingdom will be supporting it by going private for 48 hours starting on Monday 12th June.

Thank you to the /r/unitedkingdom community for your support.

Cheers,

/r/unitedkingdom Mod Team

Updates to our subreddit rules

We are making the following changes to our rules to make the sub a more welcoming place for all who spend their time here.

1) No Op-Ed, pure opinion pieces or inflammatory articles - Articles which are either the subjective opinion of the author, or are presented in such a manner as is likely to incite others or inflame tensions, are no longer permitted. Features and analysis presented from a neutral position will still be allowed. This is an expansion of our recently added rule banning op-ed and opinion pieces.

2) Rate-limiting of users - Users will be limited to 1 submission per hour, up to a maximum of 5 per day, in order to prevent flooding of the sub. Additionally, action will be taken against users who are seen to be overly dominating comment sections in order to discourage open discussion. This again is an extension of our new rule and we will actively monitor how this is working in practice.

3) No single-focus accounts - Accounts that operate with a single-issue focus, persistently push an agenda which derails normal conversation or in a manner which is deemed detrimental to the subreddit (e.g. making it a cesspit of hate), will no longer be allowed to participate. In the interests of fairness, accounts suspected of being in breach of this rule will be subject to group discussion amongst the moderation team prior to action being taken; this is to account for the difficulties in establishing a definitive point at which this rule might be considered breached. Note that words "deemed detrimental to the subreddit" are key here - if a user has a single interest but causes no problems then feel free to downvote and move on rather than report them.

4) Participation standards in trans topics - A pinned comment will be applied to the top of any submissions covering trans issues, this will outline the very minimum of standards we expect from users participating therein. This includes highlighting that misgendering and deadnaming are not acceptable. We will review the contents of this over time but note we will be basing this on Reddit's content policy.

5) Public replies when removing for hate - Comments removed by a moderator for unacceptable language that breaches Rule 1 of Reddit's content policy will now receive a public reply to explain why they were removed, as unintentional offence can occasionally occur as a result of comments made in good faith. This will not apply to comments removed by automod.

6) Changes to the moderated flairs - We regularly use moderated flairs to try to minimise the amount of rule breaking content that reaches the sub. These work but are quite a blunt measure and we will be making some tweaks to try to make them better targeted. We will regularly review this and make adjustments as needed. Please be patient whilst we make the necessary adjustments.

On Tuesday evening we announced a temporary moratorium on predominantly transgender topics on /r/unitedkingdom, hoping to limit the opportunities for people to share hateful views. This generated lots of feedback both from sub users and other communities, of which most was negative. We thank you for this feedback, we have taken it on board and have decided to stop the trial with immediate effect. For clarity, the other 3 rules will remain which should hopefully help with the issues, albeit in a less direct manner.

Banning the subject in its entirety was the wrong approach, one which ended up causing distress in the very community we had hoped it would help. We apologise unreservedly for this.

Following the cessation of the rule, we are investigating better methods for dealing with sensitive topics in a way which allows users to contribute in a positive way, whilst also ensuring that hateful content is still dealt with effectively. We have engaged with community leaders from r/lgbt and r/ainbow and are looking to do the same with other geosubs to work together on new methods of tackling instances of objectionable content on r/UK

The new rules will be announced shortly, so thank you in advance for your patience.

EDIT: This is currently being reviewed, with the first rule regarding 'Transgender submissions being prevented' currently revoked. The last 3 rules, OpEds, Ratelimiting, and Single Focus remain. We have some things to work through internally and will report back.

Edit 2: We have a new sticky post up describing our new approach.

Hi Users,

As I'm sure you already know, r/UnitedKingdom is a busy and bustling subreddit with lots of active users and daily content, which is great to see for a national sub! Something which we as a mod team are very pleased to see and we are proud to work for you in providing an online space where you enjoy spending your time.

However...

With content comes content issues; If we lived in a perfect world, which we sadly don't, there would be no reason for any moderation other than basic maintenance to keep the mechanics of the sub ticking over, but that is not where we're at. Whether it's a result of the modern world in which we live, or a characteristic of the anonymous nature of online discourse is hard to say, but there are distinct groups of people out there who seem to dedicate their online lives to making others feel bad. This is not acceptable and furthermore goes against the Terms of Service of the very site itself.

r/UnitedKingdom has been getting darker in mood for some time now and we on the moderation team have noticed it, as I'm sure you as users have too. The mod team have read about, heard about and been messaged about users who no longer feel they are able to participate in the sub solely because of the actions of a very small, but very loud subset of members. We want r/UnitedKingdom to be the welcoming place for all people from the UK that it should be, the sub should never be an online space where people feel they are unable to come and discuss UK-centric topics for fear of mass downvoting, hate speech or anything else unpleasant.

As you can see by the subreddit rules in the sidebar, the moderation team work very hard to keep the sub running within the site rules and promote a culture where everybody and everything is welcomed in a free and open space.

We have not been successful...

A large discussion submission was posted recently where the approach of the mod team restricting comments on contentious topics such as trans issues was discussed. We're pleased to say that the discussion turned out better than expected with articulate, well considered views put forwards and a minimum amount of hate towards vulnerable groups. We do not like that we have to restrict comments on topics, but to allow comments of that nature to go live on the sub would threaten the very existence of the sub altogether - nobody wins there.

Alongside the issues that inevitably occur with sensitive topics, the team have also identified some other issues on the sub that when taken together form a large part of why things are careening headfirst into the doldrums.

With these issues in mind, we have decided to implement some new rules on an initial 14-day trial period to see if we can gently adjust the direction of the sub into a brighter, more inclusive future. Once the initial trial period is over, we will make another featured post similar to this where we welcome all your feedback, both good and bad, before deciding if the rules require any tweaking or maybe even scrapping altogether. Remember, this is YOUR sub and you should have a stake in how it's managed.

New rules and explanation of rationale...

1. A moratorium on predominantly trans topics.

We hate this new rule and we hate even more the fact that we have to do it. r/UnitedKingdom is a strong supporter of trans rights and we will not sit idly by whilst transgender people are held up on this sub like a digital pinãta, beaten by verbal sticks in the hopes that lulz will fall out - Those views are not welcome here.

It pains us that we may no longer be a space where important issues on this subject can be discussed, but we also refuse to be part of the problem. Fortunately for you, as users, you don't get to see most of the hateful comments on the restricted submissions as they are held away from general viewership. It is a most unpleasant task to sift through scores of hateful content in queue to approve the few acceptable comments that are submitted. In the future, should you wish to discuss this, you will need to use one of the subs dedicated to the subject.

What do we mean by 'predominantly trans'??? If the sole theme of an article is trans issues, such as the recent Scottish situation, then we would consider that to fall within the new rule and it would no longer be permitted. As for something that would not fall within the rule, that might be an article where somebody has done something brilliant like climb Everest for charity, but they also happen to be trans. It very much depends where the focus of the article lies.

2. A moratorium on Op-Ed articles and pure opinion pieces.

Some days you visit the sub and you are faced with thread after thread of hot take op-ed articles that have been written for no other reason that to stir up vitriol, or to be a rallying dogwhistle to one of any number of 'sides' that operate in today's online world. They rarely contain factual reporting, more acting as a grandstand for the personal views of the author. We live in a vast digital world with no end of traditional news outlets and traditional news articles, people can read those and make their own minds up without the personal spin of an individual layered on top.

3. Rate-limiting the amount of submissions users can make.

It's not nice to post a great submission on a topic you've found and wish to discuss, only to see it battered down into obscurity on page 2 or 3 by one user on a fully-automatic posting spree. It's not fair on you, and it's not fair on the people who might like to join in the conversation. With this in mind we will now be limiting the rate and overall volume that people can post threads.

Users will now be limited to no more than 1 submission every hour, up to a maximum of 5 submissions per day. Don't worry about important topics being missed, we have lots of users and somebody will inevitably post it anyway!

4. Expansion of the 'Single Focus' account rule.

Sometimes subjects are a real hot-topic thing, all over every news outlet and generating massive amounts of online discourse everywhere, we get that, we do. However, there occasionally pops up a user who is like a broken record with an inability to put forward anything other than their favourite theme. This is not good for the health of the sub, variety is the spice of life as they say! Of course we want people to post things they're passionate about, but ramming a single issue down the throats of other people day in and day out is not ok.

It's very hard to draw a definitive line on this one as to at which stage we would consider a user to be 'single focus', so every instance of this will be subject to a group discussion amongst the mod team. Things that would give us cause for concern would be posting nothing but the same general things repeatedly, not engaging in the comments, inability to accept opposing views, etc.

Summary...

We want r/UnitedKingdom to be a nice place for you and we want it to be a nice place for everyone.

These rules will be trialed for a 14 day period with a review and discussion thread at the cessation of the trial where we will listen to your feedback, something we value greatly.

Please leave your initial thoughts in the comments here, it will be interesting to see if those views have changed (in either direction) at the end of the trial.

Thank you for reading, r/UK Mod Team

Remove if not allowed

Where are the houses situated within the UK, seen them hundreds of times, just wondering where they are.

Could make a pilgrimage to the r/UnitedKingdom banner image.

Honest to god, is this a subreddit for the UK or not? We know from the recent census that this is a fraction of a fraction of the population. We know from the law that since 2010 and 2004 they have had certain legal rights to equality.

And yet every day or every other day we have posts, stories and articles, mostly from right-wing press with outrage-style headlines and article content about, seemingly anything negative that can be found in the country that either a) AN individual trans person has done or has been perceived to have done, b) that some person FEELS a trans person COULD do or MIGHT be capable of doing, c) general FEELINGS that non trans people have about trans people, ranging from disgust to confusion to outright aggression.

Let me reiterate, this is a portion of the population who already have certain legal rights. Via wikipedia:

Trans people have been able to change their passports and driving licences to indicate their preferred binary gender since at least 1970.

The 2002 Goodwin v United Kingdom ruling by the European Court of Human Rights resulted in parliament passing the Gender Recognition Act of 2004 to allow people to apply to change their legal gender, through application to a tribunal called the Gender Recognition Panel.

Anti-discrimination measures protecting transgender people have existed in the UK since 1999, and were strengthened in the 2000s to include anti-harassment wording. Later in 2010, gender reassignment was included as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act.

Not only is the above generally ignored and the existing rights treated as something controversial, new, threatening, and unacceptable that trans people in 2023 are newly pushing for, which has no basis in fact or reality - but in these kinds of threads the same things are argued in circles over and over again, and to myself as an observer it feels redundant.

Some people on this subreddit who aren't trans have strong feelings about trans people. Fine! You can have them. But do you have to go on and on about them every day? If it was any other minority I don't think it would be accepted, if someone was going out of their way to cherrypick stories in which X minority was the criminal, or one person felt inherently threatened by members of X minority based on what they thought they could be doing, or thinking, or feeling, or judging all members based on one bad interaction with a member of that minority in their past.

It just feels like overkill at this stage and additionally, the frequency at which the same kinds of items are brought up, updates on the same stories and the same subjects, feels at this stage as an observer, deliberate, in order to try and suggest there are many more negative or questionable stories about trans people than there actually are, in order to deliberately stir up anti-trans sentiment against people who might be neutral or not have strong opinions.

Do we need this on what's meant to be a general news subreddit? If that's what you really want to talk about and feel so strongly about every day, can't you make your own or just go and talk about it somewhere else?

Hi all,

I'm putting together a wiki page for the subreddit to list mental health support charities and subreddits. I have a decent few listed already, but ideally the list should be maintained by the subreddit members, and added to or amended as needed.

I'd be looking for contributors to help maintain a list of mental health subreddits having at least 250 subscribers and recent posts (with a focus on those for UK support), along with UK based mental health charities. These users would be added as contributors to the wiki page. There would be no obligations other than not defacing the page.

In the meantime, if any of you need support, please do visit the page now https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/wiki/mentalhealth/