Some of you may have noticed that lately the posting traffic in
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fatshionista has become nigh-overwhelming. The mods have noticed it as well. While we are thrilled that the community is so active and vigorous, we would also like to implement some new guidelines for post approval in the hopes of cutting down the more redundant and occasionally content-free posts. We understand that often certain posts get buried or missed in the flood (for example, the Joy Nash “Fat Rant” video was submitted to the queue at least nine times that I personally saw), and we are hoping that by raising posting standards we will cut down on the number of daily posts while simultaneously improving the quality of the posts that do go up.
Lest anyone get their feelings hurt, please understand that none of the examples cited below are meant to pick on any individual posters. They’re just examples.
1)
Posts must be on-topic. We have been fairly flexible in the past in terms of drifty posts, but no longer. Your post should be relevant to fatness, fat fashion (this includes posts about hair/makeup, shoes and accessories), and/or fat politics. If your post does not involve at least one of the above, it will be rejected. Obviously, this is a subjective determination and will depend upon the opinion of the mod who happens to approve or reject your post.
2)
Posts must have content. This, again, is highly subjective, but in the interest of driving up the quality of the posts here, we’re giving it a shot. For example: We are totally thrilled when new people join, but as we get numerous new people every day, and feature a membership of 1,530 as of this post, introductory posts that simply say "hey I just found this community!" and feature no other pertinent content are not relevant. For another example: Posts that state simply “I bought a shirt!” with no other information. Tell us about the shirt. Where did you buy it? How does it fit? Do you have a picture? Obviously, this is a more flexible requirement and will depend on the post in question. Basically what we’re asking is that folks try to make their posts informative and interesting.
3)
Posts should strive to be size positive. While we recognize that many of our members are at very different places along the spectrum of body acceptance,
fatshionista is a community that endeavors to celebrate our bodies as they are. Anti-fat talk and pro-weightloss talk are not acceptable here. Instead, we strive to create an environment where our fat bodies are positive assets, and where words like "fat" and its many derivatives are not invested with negativity. Obviously, this is again a subjective concept. Fact is,
fatshionista is meant to function as a help in unpacking the years of fat- and body-hatred that many of us have suffered, so settling into body-hating language and habits in an uncritical way is counterproductive to community goals. We understand that there is no fat lexicon everyone can consult to be on the same page, nor do we expect perfect agreement, as such an expectation would be unreasonable and unrealistic. We do expect that our members will at least try to be size positive on a consistent basis.
4)
For general questions, please check the community tags first. It seems like we get multiple cases of “Where do I buy a bra?” or “How do these tights fit?” every week, when these questions have been answered really thoroughly in the past. We appreciate that they’re worthwhile questions, but they do get redundant after awhile. The mods put forth a significant effort in the truly boring task of tagging entries for easy reference; we invite members to benefit from our drudgery. If you make a very general post that has already been covered extensively in the past, chances are we will reject it while directing you to the prior conversations via the tags.
If your post is rejected, please rest assured that it is not meant as a personal slight against you. We expect that these changes will be unpopular with some, but we’re implementing them for the purposes of improving the community quality overall. We also expect that some folks may deem these very subjective decisions unfair, but we ask you all to have faith in your mods’ ability to make good choices.
There will also be a forthcoming announcement on a change in sales-post policy, possibly tomorrow.
Thanks again for making this community the great resource it is.
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