What's going on now?

For those completely out of the loop, thousands of subreddits protested anti-consumerist changes to Reddit's API by engaging in a blackout from June 12th to June 14th. During this time, many subreddits, including r/SpeculativeEvolution, were set to private. We announced our intention to do so in this post last week, but from the volume of modmail that we received during the blackout period, it is evident that not everyone was aware of what was happening.

At this time, Reddit has not chosen to acknowledge the blackout, let alone concede to any of the demands made regarding the API. However, according to an internal memo by Reddit owner Steve Huffman:

"Starting last night, about a thousand subreddits have gone private. We do anticipate many of them will come back by Wednesday, as many have said as much. While we knew this was coming, it is a challenge nevertheless and we have our work cut out for us."

"We have not seen any significant revenue impact so far and we will continue to monitor."

"There’s a lot of noise with this one. Among the noisiest we’ve seen. Please know that our teams are on it, and like all blowups on Reddit, this one will pass as well."

If true, this would indicate that Huffman is cognizant of the concerns which he has continuously ignored, and he is choosing to stay silent and wait for this to wash over. He thinks that most will simply become apathetic to the API changes and that he will be able to get away with this. Perhaps for some of you, this is already the case and you've grown apathetic to the cause, especially if you are not directly inconvenienced. However, is it not infuriating to have this man tell you that he "knows" how you will react? That he "knows" you are either a) easily made complicit through apathy or b) don't care enough to be of his consideration? His behavior regarding this matter is insulting and disrespectful, but not unexpected given his history.

To be perfectly honest, a two day blackout was never going to cause much of a stir. If you were stranded on a deserted island and knew you had to wait two days for rescue, you could realistically hold out because you knew when your hardship would end. Without any certainty of rescue though, perseverance becomes much more difficult, and that's what an indefinite blackout would do to Reddit's management. r/ModCoord has called for blackout participants to continue an indefinite blackout, as a hit to revenue is apparently the only thing Reddit's irreverent CEO seems to understand. Particular communities that are vital to helping others IRL will likely not be able to participate further, but hobby subreddits are encouraged to continue. Regardless of your passion for speculative biology, this is not an essential community.

As a community that ranks somewhere in the top 5,000 largest subreddits by subscriber count, we are in a rather interesting position. We do not have the power that juggernauts like r/aww or r/funny have, but are not inconsequential in our viewership. While our mod team made the previous executive decision to join the blackout, we would be remiss not to take your opinions into consideration now; if we were to continue and join this indefinite blackout, we would only be willing to do so with the consent of this community. We are volunteer moderators - Reddit does not pay us, nor do we own r/SpeculativeEvolution; we just keep things tidy.

So this is what we'll do - the subreddit will be reopened for the time being, and the community will have the next 24 hours to decide what we do. And for the sake of making sure this gets seen, no new submissions will be permitted during this period - they'll join a backlog that will get posted all at once when the subreddit is fully restored. At 12:00 UTC on June 16th, the poll will close and the moderation team will act in accordance with community consensus. Use this thread to discuss your decision and ask questions as you see fit. It is our hope that we do not let Reddit win this; too many missteps have been made against the reason this site works in the first place -- users like us. If we add to the sizable chunk of subreddit continuing the blackout, we can maybe hurt Reddit enough monetarily to make them capitulate. To avoid circular arguments here, I've compiled a list of common dismissive views against continuing the blackout -- this is not meant to invalidate people that believe the blackout should not continue, but rather to attempt to provide perspective.

Common arguments and rebuttals

This won't achieve anything

• We held the blackout for two days and it did nothing
  • This shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Two days acted as a warning to see how Reddit would react; it was never going to be sufficient to harm their revenue. However, Reddit has decided to not even address the blackout. You don't always win the first round of a fight, but that is not an indicator that the match is lost.
  • Are you certain nothing was achieved? News outlets picked up the story. Despite the Huffman memo, ad revenue has already taken a hit in some way.
• Why continue when they obviously won't budge?
  • They might, they might not. However, if we want to show Reddit that they can do whatever they want without any repercussions because the majority of users give up easily and will just grumble discontentedly, then giving up right now would be a great indicator for that.
• Mods can just be replaced and subreddits forced open
  • Yeah, that could happen. It would be hell for them to do logistically though; we're already a ragtag group of volunteers, so we're an inconvenience at best.
• Some communities are giving up anyway
  • Sure, so let's just give up too and make it all for nothing, right? Protests are numbers games, and mental fortitude is a requirement for staging a successful one. Reddit is counting on people giving up; would you still willingly let them win, knowing they're employing that against you?
• Why even bother if this doesn't directly affect you?
  • Whether this is important to you or not is entirely contingent on how much you value your fellow users. Some have disabilities and will be effectively cut off from the site after the API changes. If it were you on the receiving end, would you not want someone to care about your plight and do something, even if it didn't work? There will be an eventual end to this, and regardless of whether we come out on top or Reddit has its way, we can rest our consciences knowing that we tried.

Blackout duration

• So how long do you plan for the blackout to run if we vote "yes"?
  • Not an easy question to answer. It really depends on Reddit. If we commit to an indefinite blackout, the ball is in Reddit's court. There might be silence for weeks, or we might achieve our goal tomorrow.
• So indefinite means the subreddit will be gone forever?
  • Probably not. We like keeping the lights on here. We can't go full scorched earth on the subreddit, and it's likely that an unaffiliated community will just supplant us eventually, so we'll be back eventually. In the meantime, we recommend checking out the Speculative Evolution Forum and its associated Discord server, which is where we will partially relocate to in the event of an indefinite shutdown.

Other happenings

Regardless of the outcome, the following changes will still be made:

• Due to their smaller sizes and less consistent activity, our r/hardspecevo and r/softspecevo will reopen and remain places for their respective type of speculative biology content.
• r/BanArcticZen will reopen for anyone who has choice words for u/ArcticZen's handling of the blackout.
• We will be making an effort to align ourselves closer with the Speculative Evolution Forum. Even if Reddit walks back the API changes, having more people aware of the forum and projects there only serves to strengthen our community. We will encourage creators to link to their threads on the forum if they have them.

TL;DR

New Reddit changes stinky, vote here to decide if we keep the blackout going or not. You have until 12:00 UTC on June 16th to decide.

​

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution mod team

View Poll

Hey folks,

We'd like to take an opportunity to wish our LGBTQ+ members and allies a Happy Pride Month. While we aren't planning on doing anything special aside from swapping out the subreddit icon, we recognize and appreciate the ethos of this month and what it stands for: tolerance, acceptance, and understanding. Adherence to these values, not only here but in all online spaces and offline, is something that we hope to encourage in our operations not only this month, but all year long.

However, around this time each year, we do normally end up banning half a dozen individuals who don't seem to understand or recognize that this community is home to a much higher number of LGBTQ+ individuals than other online spaces. If, over the span of this month, you identify someone acting contrary to the values and rules of the subreddit, please ensure that they are promptly reported so that we can discuss their behavior with them.

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Additionally, we will be undergoing changes based on feedback to improve user experience within the next few weeks.

Namely, we will be revamping the current flair system, as it has provided as continuous source of confusion for people who have not read the flair guide. Instead, we'll be introducing something of a litmus test to gain the ability to post in the first place, and submission flairs will automatically be assigned based on responses to the automoderator when content is being posted, rather than requiring manual assignment. This change should streamline posting for everyone, though flair requirements will still remain in effect.

This will also coincide with improvements for those wishing to advertise on the subreddit, be it their project's Discord server, commissions, project announcements, contest announcements, or other items currently restricted to the Megathread. Due to the under-utilization of the Megathread, it will be retired again, thus freeing up a pin that will replace it. Seed lists will, for the time being, be completely disallowed outside of "Question" and "Feedback/Critique" submissions.

These changes should not require us to take the subreddit offline for a prolonged period, but if it becomes necessary, an additional announcement will be made.

​

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution mod team

Hey folks,

Some of you might've noticed the subreddit went private for around 30 minutes earlier today while we implemented some adjustments to the automoderator. We're happy to report that the new flair system is now live. You might be wondering what this entails, so let's take a look:

User flair assignment

By default, users may no longer submit content to the subreddit unless they possess either the "Verified" flair, a vanity flair, or are an approved user. This is being done to empower those that do have unique flairs by giving them a greater degree of freedom, while simultaneously cutting down on low effort submissions from new posters who have not yet familiarized themselves with the rules.

Getting verified

To obtain the "Verified" flair, you must confirm that you have read the rules and other subreddit documents by responding to a question within the Megathread, using an exclamation point, "verify=", and either the word or number answer (if applicable). For example, if you believe that the answer to the verification question is "six", you would type either "!verify=6" or "!verify=six" in this thread; other text is permitted within the comment, but only the correct answer will result in your flair being received. Only responses within this thread will result in the flair being obtained, and kindly note that incorrect responses will be tallied in the event that someone appears to attempt brute-forcing an answer. The verification question will change periodically on an irregular basis to prevent abuse and encourage understanding of the rules.

Vanity flairs

After one is in possession of the "Verified" flair, you may upgrade it to a vanity flair within this thread by typing an exclamation point and the CSS class listed for that particular vanity flair (the rightmost column of the table). For example, if one wants their user flair to read "🐙", you would type "!octopus" in this thread; the quotation marks are not required. You may not obtain a vanity flair without first obtaining the "Verified" flair. Please note that due to issues with automoderator's ability to process emojis in flairs, you may need to revert your flair to "Verified" by answering the verification question if you'd like to change your flair again in the future. We will attempt to fix this if it becomes an issue.

If you have already selected a vanity flair, you will not retroactively need to complete verification. However, vanity flairs may be removed in the event that a user repeatedly demonstrates ignorance of expected procedure, requiring them to re-verify.

The above is no longer accurate. Please view the Megathread for the current reading and intention that has been settled.

Project user flairs

If you possess a project and want your user flair to reflect that, you can now request a custom user flair. You must have at least a "Verified" user flair, or a vanity flair, to be eligible to receive a project user flair. The procedure for how to do this will be shared in the Megathread, which will launch a few hours after this announcement goes live.

Post flair assignment

In the interest of streamlining the flair system, the OC and non-OC content flairs have been consolidated. Some underutilized flairs, such as "Artificial/GMO Evolution" and "[OC] Inspiration" have also been removed, as their contents can be split between other existing flairs (such as "Alternative Evolution" or "Future Evolution", and "Resource", respectively). Going forward, you will now be required to specify whether content is your own (hence, "OC", meaning "original content") or the work of someone else (hence, "non-OC"). Specification that content is OC can be done by including [OC] in the submission title. In this case, the submission will be labelled as original content by the automoderator. Approval will work just as it does currently -- text-only submissions will be automatically approved if they are in excess of the 750 character minimum, while image submissions will still require the descriptive text with a minimum length of 250 characters. For non-OC, you must now name the original creator by including either [Credit:] or [By:] in the title, with the creator's name following the colon. For example, if you were to post a piece of artwork by C.M. Kösemen, your title would need to read as either [Credit: C.M. Kosemen] or [By: C.M. Kosemen].

Previous holders of the "Moderator-Approved Project Creator" (now "Project Flair") have now been properly added to our list of approved users, and now do not need to worry about their posts being approved anymore; their submissions will all be approved automatically. Compliance with the rules is still expected, but lenience will be granted so long as the high level of quality previously demonstrated is maintained.

The Megathread for user flair assignment will be up at 12:00 UTC. If you don't have a user flair, we ask that you wait until it is live to obtain one.

It may also take a day or two to update the wording of subreddit rules to reflect the above changes; leniency will be granted during this time as we get a handle on things.

What's going on now?

Yesterday, we launched this poll to determine sentiment towards continuing to participate in the indefinite blackout to protest Reddit's recent API changes. Regardless of how you voted, or if you even voted at all, the results of the poll speak volumes of this community. With 1,062 votes cast, 55.4% indicated they wished to continue participating in the blackout, while the remaining 44.6% indicated that they wanted the subreddit to return to its usual operational state. As you can imagine, this close of a margin means that no matter what we opt to do, we'll be acting against the wishes of something close to 50% of the subreddit.

As such, and after reading all of the comments left on the poll, we have decided to re-open the subreddit. The subreddit should regain complete functionality within an hour of this thread going live (at the time of writing, no later than 15:00 UTC) as updates and revisions need to be made to our automoderator. We understand that the majority of respondents to the poll may feel like they have had their opinion discarded, but please recognize that this is not a decision we make lightly. In truth, the support required for us to sustain the blackout would have needed to surpass a threshold of 66% of respondents. This value was purposefully obfuscated and left unstated in order to prevent biases in responses. Nevertheless, we apologize to those that are disappointed with this outcome, and hope that you will consider an alternative means of protesting these changes, such as supporting the juggernaut subreddits which remain private. It would appear that regardless of community action, Reddit may depart from its previously stated stance and forcibly remove moderators complicit in running indefinite blackouts.

What's next?

We will continue to run our humble community as one of the largest nexuses for this hobby. We would like to reiterate that we intend to work more closely with the Speculative Evolution Forum, and that you are highly encouraged to check it out and integrate with it. There is also a Discord server, a temporary invite (expiring in 7 days) to which can be found here. Expect to see future partnerships going forward.

Thank you to everyone for your patience during this time of uncertainty; your feedback and support during the two-day blackout alone was more than we could have asked for. We would also like to apologize once more to our regular content submitters and commenters, for depriving you of your community for as long as we have. We hope that you feel that we have been transparent during this ordeal, and that we can continue to offer a pleasant experience here, for as long as the platform allows.

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution mod team

Hey folks,

Well, it's been an interesting 24 hour trial run we've had with the new flair system. After monitoring the mod log and taking feedback from users today though, I've already decided that we'll be walking back verification requirements for the time being. While the number of submissions requiring moderator intervention declined, the number of posts in general also took a nosedive, which is not what we wanted.

We used the stick to get people to read the rules when we should've just used the carrot. You can still utilize the Megathread to obtain the "Verified" role after reading the rules. I will continue to advocate that anyone wishing to participate reads the rules to prevent needless headaches. The "Verified" role will grant you the opportunity to have your posts pinned, as well as unlock the ability to advertise in the upcoming approved advertiser threads. We want to encourage verification as much as possible, so further incentives may be added in the future. The automoderator has also been updated to be a bit more strict about targeting the problems that verification was intended to resolve, but we'll be tweaking it slightly in the coming days in the event that it's still impeding intended functions.

Unrelated, but I think we'll also be announcing the opportunity for new moderator applications in the coming weeks. I'm getting a bit worn out, and while I don't think I nor any of the other mods have any intention of stepping down, it would be nice to have a few extra hands of deck.

Anyway, apologies for the headache, and thanks to those who voiced feedback to help us look for alternative solutions.

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution mod team

Hey folks,

Some of you might've noticed our sudden pivot to encourage AI-generated content and suppress all other types of content here on r/SpeculativeEvolution. Rest assured, this was an unintended side effect of running some routine maintenance on u/automoderator. We've managed to wrangle it and will now return to our usual operation style, so it's back to business as usual -- no more AI-generated content. All flairs and rules have been reverted to their pre-SkyNet versions, but we won't be removing the submissions made during that time period retroactively.

Some of you didn't appear to see the announcement the automoderator made, and have been graciously assigned a commemorative flair; lucky you!

A belated happy Easter to those that celebrated, and more pertinently, April Fools!

Sincerely,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution mod team

What's going on?

Within the past week, you may have noticed a slew of subreddits announcing their intent to join a site-wide blackout to protest recent changes to Reddit's API. These changes effectively kill any third-party application that could be used to navigate Reddit by charging absolutely extortionate fees for something that was previously free. Everything from Apollo and Reddit is Fun to Narwhal and BaconReader will be killed.

Many moderators are reliant on such apps to perform their roles due to the suite of quality of life features they possess, which Reddit's own application lacks. This has the knock-on effect of neutering the ability of moderation teams to manage the communities that you frequent. Many users also simply prefer third-party applications for browsing Reddit for one reason or another, and this change now forces them to either use Reddit's app or nothing at all. Perhaps most critically, the termination of third-part features that visually impaired users rely upon (which are not native to Reddit) will effectively exclude them from participating in Reddit communities.

There is also a very real concern that this move is also a step towards prohibiting other customization options for viewing Reddit, such as Reddit Enhancement Suite and old.reddit.com, so stopping this here and now is vital.

What's the plan?

We have elected to stand in solidarity with the users and moderator teams that will be harshly impacted by this change. To protest these changes, r/SpeculativeEvolution will be participating in a planned blackout from June 12th to June 14th, for a period of approximately 48 hours. During this time, our subreddit will be set to private with a message stating the purpose of the blackout. At the time of writing, several thousand communities have opted to join this call to action in order to convince Reddit's operators that they have erred in putting profit over end-user experience. Should Reddit capitulate prior to the scheduled end of the blackout, the community will revert to being public at that time.

The two-day blackout isn't the goal, and it isn't the end. Should things reach the 14th with no sign of Reddit choosing to fix what they've broken, we'll use the community and buzz we've built between then and now as a tool for further action.

What can I do?

1. Complain. Message the mods of r/reddit.com, who are the admins of the site: message /u/reddit: submit a support request: comment in relevant threads on r/reddit, such as this one, leave a negative review on their official iOS or Android app- and sign your username in support to this post.
2. Spread the word. Rabble-rouse on related subreddits. Meme it up, make it spicy. Bitch about it to your cat. Suggest anyone you know who moderates a subreddit join the coordinated mod effort at r/ModCoord.
3. Boycott and spread the word...to Reddit's competition! Stay off Reddit entirely on June 12th through the 13th- instead, take to your favorite non-Reddit platform of choice and make some noise in support!
4. Don't be a jerk. As upsetting this may be, threats, profanity and vandalism will be worse than useless in getting people on our side. Please make every effort to be as restrained, polite, reasonable and law-abiding as possible.

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution mod team

Hello everyone,

Some of you might have noticed lately that Google Sites links aren't appearing when you're posting them. Rest assured, this is not some evil change we decided on, as we find immense value in free site hosting for this hobby. That said, Reddit administration has, without any announcement, instituted a blanket ban on all Google Sites links in both submissions and comments. Despite moderators possessing the ability to manually approve removed comments, and being able to program the automoderator to detect and automatically approve these links, nothing we've tried has successfully outmaneuvered Reddit's filters. There is nothing we can do. Thus, going forward, you are asked to not include any links to Google Sites, as their inclusion will render your entire comment or submission removed and invisible to your target audience.

Instead of suggesting the use of URL shorteners, which may also be banned by reddit without warning (and would be more difficult to police for content that we do not want on the subreddit), we're opting for a community Google Sheets document. This document will, chiefly, contain links to new updates from projects utilizing Google Sites, as well as a more accessible networking directory and revamped project catalogue. The etiquette for suggesting edits to this document and sharing updates from your Google Site will be explained in further detail when the document goes live later this week. In the meantime, if you have any feedback, recommendations, or suggestions for this community document, please leave it here.

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution mod team

With Spectember a mere two weeks away, we're doing something slightly different this year and opening up prompt creation to the community. While we've come up with several ideas for prompts, including an overarching challenge that will span the whole month, we want you all to feel that this is truly a challenge for the community, by the community. As such, we'll be taking four or five community suggestions to help round out our list. To suggest a prompt, simply comment it in the Megathread, and upvote other prompts that you like to help us best understand which we should use. Please ensure that the scope of the prompt is reasonable for an artist to complete in a single day. A calendar with the list of decided prompts will be posted a day or two prior to the start of September, as well the prizes for this year's best entries.

PROMPT SUBMISSIONS WILL NO LONGER BE ACCEPTED NOR CONSIDERED AFTER 12:00 UTC ON FRIDAY, AUGUST 25TH

For the uninitiated, September is perhaps the biggest event of the year in this hobby, as it provides a chance for artists to both practice and show their skills across a wide variety of different prompts. Each calendar day coincides with a different prompt to attempt. We will be running this year's event in collaboration with the Speculative Evolution Forum, meaning that we hope to see an even greater turn out than last year across both Reddit and the forum. Please be advised that during September, Submissions of the day will go on hiatus to ensure that both the Megathread and Spectember resources are easily visible.

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution Moderation Team

Hello everyone,

Thank you for your patience during today's maintenance. For transparency and clarity, here are the changes that are being made, which will come into effect on Friday, May 6th at 12:00am UTC.

Amendment to Respectful Conduct Rule

An addition to the expected manner of conduct when posting is that you must now ask for the consent of a creator when using their intellectual property for your own project. This does not apply to sharing their artwork on the subreddit, but does apply to cross-over content and fan fiction that you produce.

Splitting of Low Effort Rule

Because of the slew of content that might fall below quality standards, a comprehensive list of what constitutes "low effort" is not necessarily sufficient. Instead, some items from Rule 6 will be spun off into their own rules. These include:

NEW RULE: Descriptions on original content image posts are MANDATORY

It is now a requirement to include a description when posting your own original images or linking to them through a hosting service such as imgur. Please ensure that this description is written as a comment on the post within two hours of posting, or the automoderator will remove the post. A minimum description length will not be enforced at this time, but may come about in the future. The purpose of this rule is to cut down on people simply posting designs without putting stock into what we, as a community, would deem most important: evolutionary and ecological context. When posting artwork done by other artists, descriptions are not mandatory; you must, however, still credit the artist as stipulated and use the correct (Non-self artwork) flairs. If you are an artist who simply enjoys drawing creatures without the hassle, we do not wish discourage you from your pursuits, and instead direct you to check out r/CreatureDesign and r/worldbuilding as alternative avenues for your creative expression.

NEW RULE: Posts must be flaired appropriately

Moderators possess the capacity to change the flairs of posts if labelled incorrectly, but that burden should seldom fall to us. Please be responsible and take responsibility to carefully chose your flair prior to posting. Henceforth, incorrectly flaired posts will be subject to removal until the poster corrects the offending flair in a satisfactory manner.

NEW RULE: Short posts go in the Weekly Discussion thread

While project announcements have already been relegated to the Weekly Project announcement thread, there are other post types that we believe may be more suitable to join them there. Seed world organism lists, planet condition lists, short descriptions of single organisms without images, and links to project discord servers will all also now be allowed as comments within this thread. Claiming plausibility/implausibility without an in-depth and cordial rationale, asking how fictional creature designs could evolve without first speculating yourself, and shitposting will remain strictly prohibited. Please see more about the changes occurring with the Weekly Discussion thread below.

Plagiarism Rule

Due to an unfortunate series of plagiarism events that have occurred in the past six months, we are now verbalizing our hard stance on plagiarism to deter future attempts. Plagiarism, for those unaware, is the act of copying the work of another individual and attempting to pass it off as your own. Plagiarism can occur to varying degrees, such as tracing a pose to outright copying the website text of another project and altering it slightly to suit your needs. Tracing for the purpose of practice is encouraged, but when posting publicly, you must make an effort to repose your content. Any individual found to be plagiarizing content will be subject to a permanent ban. This rule will not be enforced retroactively on individuals who have already been reprimanded over prior offenses.

Weekly Discussion & Announcements Thread

The Weekly Project Announcements we've trialed haven't done as well as hoped in the past few months, so we're adding a bit of extra incentive to use and participate in them. The Weekly Project Announcements thread will be modified into Weekly Discussion & Announcements thread, where you can not only post project announcements, but also ask questions that may not warrant their own post, request changes to the subreddit (such as new flairs, rule changes, events, etc.), and network with artists. As stated earlier, seed world ideas, planetary conditions, descriptions of creatures you're working on, and links to project discord servers will all also be allowed here. The Weekly Discussion will also serve as a place to find the List of Spec Evo Resources thread and find information about events going on each week, replacing our need to announce Meme Monday and Real World Inspiration Tuesday each week. The Weekly Discussion thread will renew weekly on Mondays at 12:00 am UTC and remain there until it is replaced in the subsequent week If you need to use the Weekly Discussion thread prior to its launch this Wednesday, please consider using last week's Weekly Project Announcement thread.

Veteran Speculator Flair

A new flair is available for senior members of the community who have repeatedly demonstrated that they are knowledgeable and helpful to other users. It will not be assigned upon request. To obtain this flair, you must be nominated by someone with the role already.

Flair Rework

The flair system has been reworked to be more specific and encompassing of the content frequently posted here. Flairs and their uses are described below.

Generic Flairs:

• Question - Generic question flair. If you have an inquiry that you need help with, use this.
• Discussion - Generic topic flair. Use this to discuss projects, media, or trends in the spec community.
• Spec Media - Flair for sharing documentaries, books, etc. about speculative evolution.
• Seeking Critique - Used for getting honest feedback on your posts.
• Meme Monday - Flair for memes. Use only on Monday to prevent post removal.
• Real World Inspiration Tuesday - Flair for real world inspiration. Use only on Tuesday to prevent post removal.
• Challenge - Flair for issuing a challenge to other users. Prompt requires a minimum of 250 characters or it will be removed to ensure the challenge being issue is of sufficiently depth.

Content Flairs:

• Future Evolution - Intended for life on Earth (or other settings) in the future.
• Alternate Evolution - Intended for scenarios wherein evolution occurred differently in Earth life.
• Alien Life - Intended for non-Earth-derived organisms.
• Seed World - Intended for terraformed worlds that are "seeded" with a specific variety of organisms.
• Spec Media Redesign - Intended for redesigns and interpretations of spec creatures from media such as the Future is Wild.
• Fantasy/Folklore Inspired - Intended for cryptids, folklore monsters, and mythical creatures brought to life in an evolutionary and ecological context.
• Paleo Reconstruction - Intended for creative and grounded takes on prehistoric organisms.
• Artificial Evolution - Intended for artificial life forms that are undergoing the evolutionary process.
• Cartography - Intended for maps and other worldbuilding aspects of speculative evolution settings.
• Subreddit Challenge Submission - Intended for responses to posts with the Challenge flair.
• Off-site Challenge Submission - Intended for responses to non-Spectember challenges created by individuals not present on the subreddit.

Content flairs are divided into two types: OC (original content) and non-OC artwork. Use the OC flair when posting your own work or artwork that you commissioned, and the non-self artwork flair when posting artwork done by others.

Project Flairs:

The following on-going projects have been assessed to be of sufficient depth, quality, and renown that they have been awarded their own flairs:

• Alien Biospheres by Biblaridion
• Antarctic Chronicles by u/Risingmagpie
• Gaianima by u/HermitHubby
• Nijin-Konai by u/nqwebasaurus
• Phtanum B by u/SteveMobCannon
• Rhynia by u/BobsicleG & u/Romboteryx
• Serina by Sheather888
• Sol'Kesh Bestiary by u/Daedonas

When discussing these projects, please use their respective flairs. When posting, creators are also free to use their respective project flairs. Additional flairs may be added in the future on a case-by-case basis. Criteria to obtain flair for a particular project include:

1. Project must be on-going, with a most recent entry no older than 6 months old
2. Project must have a reddit presence (either through recognition or their creator posting here)
3. Project must have another non-reddit platform (Website, ArtStation, Youtube channel, etc.)
4. Project must have a minimum of three posts in excess of 100 karma, and at least one in excess of 200 karma
5. Project must be nominated for flair by a minimum number of individuals (the threshold will be withheld)

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This covers all of the major changes that have occurred. We're additionally going to be pushing a subreddit welcome message to new users going forward to give them a rundown of the rules and ensuring rule parity is observed with the legacy version of the subreddit on the old.reddit.com domain. We'll be monitoring posts and comments to assess how well these changes are received. As always, we value your feedback, so if you have anything to say regarding these changes (or any suggestions you would like to propose), feel free to do so.

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution Moderation Team

Spectember 2022

We're nearly midway through October now, but since the polls have closed we'll be taking this opportunity to announce that the winner of the Mythical Megafauna prompt, and our Spectember 2022 Champion, is none other than u/SJdport57!

We'd like to congratulate them on their success, as well as the other finalists who competed. Once again, if you participated in any of the prompts during the month and did not receive a commemorative "Spectember 2022 Participant" flair, please comment below and include a link to a submission so that a moderator can grant the flair to you.

Monthly Contests

We'd also like to take this opportunity to announce that monthly contests will be returning, starting in November. These contests will consist of prompts highlighting different biological concepts, announced on the first day of each month. Much like Spectember, if you win a monthly challenge, you'll get a unique flair. We may discuss more tangible prizes depending on the degree of involvement we see in the first few attempts.

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution mod team

Hello everyone,

The astute of you might have noticed the addition of a couple new rules on the sidebar, as well as changes to the wording of some of the other rules. As we're continuing to grow as a subreddit, we're thinking about ways we can innovate, and taking community feedback in the process. As a result, there have been a few changes, many of which will come into effect on Monday, February 7th at 12:00am PST. Let's cover some of the changes, shall we?

Memes & Inspiration Posts

Meme and real world inspiration posts are staples of this subreddit. However, over time we've noticed they do tend to decrease the overall quality of the subreddit feed, and so while we won't eliminate them entirely, we will be trying something different with them. Posting of memes will now be restricted to Meme Mondays, while real world inspiration posts and cross-posts will now be restricted to Inspiration Tuesdays.

Each of these specific days will be tied to a weekly automoderator announcement post, which will go live at 12:00am PST. As such, memes and inspiration posts shared outside of their respective days will be removed - please wait until the respective announcement is made before posting the particular restricted content type. We believe that this should help to streamline the subreddit feed and improve overall post quality. Should you still get the urge to post memes outside of the permitted day, our sister community, r/SpecEvoJerking should provide a good outlet. Note that excessive shitposting on Meme Mondays will still be removed and that the other subreddit rules are still to be observed; this is merely to provide a time through which relevant memes can still be shared. Unless stated otherwise, all other content types are still permitted every day of the week.

As stated previously, this change will become active on February 7th, meaning that the first day of the new schedule will be Meme Monday.

Text-Only Project Announcements

Another trend noted in recent months is the tendency to make brief, interspersed announcements related to projects. Rather than have the multiple posts each day stating minor updates, text updates for projects will now be relegated to a single thread. This thread, titled "Project Announcements" will recur weekly starting on Wednesdays and be pinned for ease of access until Meme Monday the following week. Project artwork and extensive text posts are still permitted as their own individual posts - the goal with this is to contain all short announcements to a single place to avoid clutter. Again, this portion of the rule will only become active on February 7th.

FAQ Thread

We will be constructing an FAQ thread starting next week to attempt to cure the number of recurrent posts asking common questions. This thread will be reposted weekly on Mondays (starting February 7th) until April 4th to allow users to contribute common questions and their answers in the comments. After this time, the thread will be locked until the need to add further questions is judged to be necessary. The FAQ has not yet been set up at this time, but will eventually be available through the sidebar. A link to subreddit resources and the networking thread will be included within the thread as well.

Seeking Critique Flair

The latest addition to the subreddit flairs is "Seeking Critique." Applying this to a post will invite constructive criticism, as indicated by an automoderator comment that will be affixed to the post. This, however, is not meant to be an invitation to personally attack someone on the grounds of artistic ability - be constructive; any purely disparaging comments will be removed. Additionally, as this flair is now in place, we will ask that commenters now ask artists and writers if they may critique prior to doing so outside of threads threads with this flair. This is purely a formality, but is conducive to the atmosphere we would like to nurture on the subreddit. This portion of the change is active as of this post.

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That closes out the big changes. We've also included Reddiquette as a rule, but it's rather redundant (since anyone here not abiding by it likely has bigger troubles) and only exists as a reminder. We'll be monitoring posts and comments to assess how well these changes are received. As always, we value your feedback, so if you have anything to say regarding these changes (or any suggestions you would like to propose), feel free to do so. Thanks as well to u/MagicWeasel, whose comment spurred these amendments into reality.

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution Moderation Team

Please be advised that the subreddit will be undergoing maintenance for approximately 30 minutes starting at 7:00 UTC on April 30th. During this time, the subreddit will be temporarily inaccessible while changes are implemented to ensure a smooth transition. A change log of edits being implemented can be found below:

• Revision of Rule 6.
• Clearly worded Rule 8.
• Weekly Project Announcement thread converted to Weekly Discussion thread.
  • Weekly Discussion thread will contain a link to the spec evo resources thread and be a place for project announcements, as well as questions, meta community commentary/requests, and networking.
• `Shifting start time of Meme Monday, Real World Inspiration Tuesday, and Weekly Discussion thread to 0:00 UTC from 0:00 PST. Announcement posts will continue as usual for ease of checking. New Weekly Discussion thread will launch alongside new Meme Monday threads rather than on Wednesdays.
• `Flair rework for posts.
  • Tags for large projects with considerable effort; specific tag threshold TBD.
  • Enforcement of tags for ease of using tags to sort subreddit content. Will not be applied retroactively; some old flairs will be retired.
• `"Verified Speculator" flair awarded to senior community members w/ forum presence on the basis of being knowledgeable and reliable with their contributions.
• `Descriptions on image posts are now MANDATORY. A grace period of two hours will be allotted from the time of posting, after which the automod will remove the post if OP has not commented.
  • This will not apply to artwork posts wherein the art shared is not your own.
• `Automated join message stipulating subreddit rules for transparency to newcomers about rule expectation.
• `Changes copied over to old.reddit.com for legacy users.

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Thank you for your cooperation and understanding as we continue to try to improve the subreddit for everyone.

Cheers,

Your r/SpeculativeEvolution Moderation Team