News

Trolling is also not allowed, go back to reddit for that.

Telling someone to go back to reddit to troll is itself a mild form of trolling and fails to model the behavior the rule calls for. It contributes nothing to the meaning or clarity of the rule and the rule is better without it.

Sources should be as unbiased and reliable as possible Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion.

This rule would be improved by listing media source bias/fact-checkers that the mods largely trust, even if they reserve the right to occasionally override public checkers. The ability to pre-screen a source with fair reliability is valuable to posters.

Post titles should be the same as the article used as source Posts which titles don't match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title is wrong / incorrect, the post will be deleted.

Even reliable news sources frequently editorialize their titles at this point. I'd appreciate a carve-out to de-editorialize a clickbait title, but I appreciate that title-matching is much easier to understand/enforce and that people are likely to try to abuse a de-clickbaiting clause to re-clickbait and bias their titles. If a culture where people modified titles to improve titles could be fostered, that would be neat.

Sources should be as unbiased and reliable as possible Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion.

Every source is biased.

You'll get someone telling you that mainstream newspapers are biased in favor of their country's dominant ideology, or their owner's business interests, or the cult that started them, or whatever.

However, some sources report on things that actually happened, and some sources report on rumors, fake news, speculation, and other BS.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion.

Problem with that is moderator bias. Can you list unbiased sources? Be better to just have a list of approved sources, imo.

Hmmm. For rule 4, please make sure there's leeway for site-altered headlines.

And maybe a rule against bad-faith participation, just as a catch-all for dealing with trolls, sockpuppets, bots, purveyors of disinformation...

Honestly, don't get too caught up with written rules. It's always going to come down to a judgement call and you're never going to please everyone. Having loads of rules will just lead to "well I think this violates rule 72 § 904b(3) and here's an essay on why!" Just do the best you can keeping things from becoming a Halo 2 matchmaking lobby.

These rules imply, but do not acrually require, that posts must provide a link to an authoratitive source. It is possible to interpret those new rules such that sources are optional and that the only time some of those requirements come into play is if a source was optionally included.

I think there should be an explicit requirement that all posts include a link to a source...followed by all those other requiremeents.

Agree with some of the other commenters:

Per rule 1: "Trolling" is in the eye of the beholder, but I like that you're trying to address bad faith argumentation. I'd rephrase the rule like this:

[Be civil. Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only.]

Then link to a document that details "good faith argumentation", with examples. You'll need them.

Per rule 2: A list of approved sources is better than a removal of biased sources. At least that way you can get individualized feedback on the list, rather than constantly having to address bias within each individual submission. Whitelist good/credible sources and blacklist others, and post occasional notices for feedback on each list. That way you can filter by domain and avoid most confusion.

Per rule 4: Remember that sites change headlines occasionally, so you'll likely get some reports on those.

Per rule 5: I would rephrase it like this: [Posts must be news from the most recent __ days. No opinion/editorials.]

You can specify the timeframe, but 60 or 90 days is generally pretty good.

Add a catch-all rule 6 that goes without saying but gives you clear protection if something just doesn't sit right with you: "Mods reserve the right to remove disruptive posts and comments on a case-by-case basis."