The Jersey City subreddit doesn't look like the Jersey City we live in
It seems that r/JerseyCity has an absolutely awful Nextdoor tone and major Karen vibes these days and I avoid reading this sub as much now because of the endless complaints about other people and the toxic undertones and racist commentary that proliferates in threads here.
I would like to see less stuff like dog leash shaming, amateur traffic cops, random Ring videos, dogwhistle commentary about "future doctors and lawyers" and more stuff like old school pictures, community events, holiday celebrations, well-moderated debates about city officials and policy, business/food/housing recommendations (to support and to avoid), thoughtful discussions on housing development, new local businesses, the kind of stuff that lifts up the whole community and isnt just people complaining about "lax policing" and neighbor behavior.
I recognize this is New Jersey and this sort of thing happens in many other cities subreddits, but as one of the most diverse cities in the country, coming here increasingly feels like stepping into a racially segregated, exclusive, privileged zone of downtown residents and various other neighborhood watch types that feels totally at odds from the diverse city we actually live in.
I blame the posters of course, but I also blame this sub's moderator team for tolerating it, and yes, even if they're volunteers because they have a primary role to play in setting the community environment. But I think the readers and participants don't have to let this sub "go to the dogs" as it were. Read on for concrete suggestions.
One big improvement to this subreddit I'd like us to try would be to move all the Karen/Nextdoor content like Ring videos of porch pirates, random parking commentary, and dog poop/leash complaints exclusively into a single, weekly NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH thread so people can post it and read it but keep it contained so it doesn't overwhelm the tone and turn the sub into Nextdoor.
The second would be to more aggressively enforce rule 6 in general, which will require more aggressively pruning the Nextdoor/mini-cop threads and dogwhistle racism. To that end, I ask the moderator team to either please put in more automation tools that ask posters to reconsider their language as they make posts or comments, or please put out a call for additional moderator help if you need more active enforcement.
EDIT: Third suggestion, based on the responses: update rule 3 to go beyond trolling and also cover deletion of snarky/heavy sarcasm responses like "get out of here then" or "TL;DR" or "I guess we shouldn't care about X then" that add nothing to the discussion on its merits and fuel the air of negativity and dismissiveness. Not necessarily as "points" toward a long-term ban, just pruning some of the typical online crappiness in general.