u/maximumice

Howdy everyone!

Recently I had the displeasure of discovering a pro-Apollo bot user in our midst, as well as a user who owns/runs a competing scooter shop posting consistently negative content here under false pretenses. Both have been removed from the sub as has their content.

I thought this would be a good time to both tune up and remind people about our rules about covert advertising/astroturfing/shilling/brigading.

This sub and myself, the sole mod, are not affiliated with Apollo Scooters in any way. This is not the official subreddit of Apollo Scooters, this is a fan-site run by a fan and comprised of content made by fans. The official Apollo subreddit can be found at r/RideApolloOfficial.

Apollo does keep a user presence here with u/apolloscooters, which has been very useful for people who have had issues and complained about them there, as u/apolloscooters has stepped in and clarified things in some cases and expedited customer service issues in others. I am grateful for their presence here. u/apolloscooters has flair which designates them as an Official Apollo user so people understand who they are dealing with.

What is not desirable here are people who are working officially or unofficially for Apollo posting content that is consistently favourable to Apollo without first disclosing that relationship.

There is nothing wrong with a fan-site for a brand letting people associated with the brand post things, but it is disingenuous for people who have connections to Apollo not to disclose this relationship first.

Positive organic experiences from users, photos of scooters and rides and such are all welcome. Repeated photo shoots that are basically advertisements for Apollo are not, unless we know that the user works for Apollo.

Likewise, while I welcome authentic criticism of Apollo and its branding/products/customer service here, deceptive posts made by people who have hidden agendas and/or something to gain by slighting Apollo are not welcome here.

Relentless negative posting is also not allowed; if you had a bad experience with Apollo, we want to hear about it, but we don't need people bashing Apollo for months afterwards. That goes beyond an authentic negative review of the company, that gets into an organized negative smear campaign. Rule 1 already handles content like this, thankfully it is rarely needed.

With all this in mind, I am amending Rule 5 - No Astroturfing / Advertising / Brigading as follows:

Rule 5 - No Covert Advertising/Astroturfing/Brigading

>Astroturfing (corporate campaigns masquerading as grassroots efforts), advertising disguised as content and brigading (organized attempts to disrupt this or any other Reddit community) will not be tolerated. Users associated with Apollo or any competitors must reveal these relationships before contributing. Mod discretion will apply as needed.

What this means in practice is that if I suspect users might be working on behalf of Apollo or a competitor, I might reach out to ask some questions and/or limit posting from users as needed to ensure r/apolloscooters remains a place where people can get authentic, trustworthy information about the company and their products.

Likewise, if a new user to Reddit posts a gushing review or a crushing critique, I might investigate to see if I think that user is a bot/acting inauthentically and I may remove their content if I believe they are not being genuine.

For the majority of users, nothing will change, but some long-time and/or prolific users may be hearing from me in the future to discuss the nature of their postings.

Will I always get it right? Probably not, but I am committed to trying my best and hopefully people will understand if I make a mistake here and there. That's how we learn.

Thank you for reading all this and thank you as well for making this a fun community for us all to get together to discuss the good/bad/ugly about our favourite scooter company.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them here or shoot me a modmail if you wish to discuss it privately.

Cheers,

Max

Welcome to the r/halifax Pet Photo Jamboree!

This monthly thread will be a place to showcase photos of your pets/animal friends for all of r/halifax to see and admire!

Is this a contest? Yes! But there's no voting, everybody wins and the only prize is knowing we all saw how cute your pet is!

Does this mean I can't post pet pics in Friday Positivity anymore? Absolutely not, we still want them there too! We just wanted a dedicated place for people to post their pets for all to enjoy.

Is it just for pets? No, if you have great wildlife photos, we want to see those too!

Show us your animals, people! 🐶😺🦜🐟🐍🐄🦂👽

We recently asked the sub how they felt about a video that was posted that most would interpret as a video designed to shame a lady who appeared to be caught shoplifting.

Based on some conversations happening on the shoplifting post before it was removed for an unrelated rule violation, there appeared to be some concern about if videos like this should be allowed in the sub at all, what purpose they served, the rights of individuals vs the rights of the public to know, etc. The mod team was also not aligned on how these should be moderated.

We received a lot of interesting feedback on the Let's Talk About It post, some of which the mod team had considered already, but lots of new ideas and perspectives that we had not thought of as well. We thank everyone who took the time of offer their opinion on the matter, it was very helpful.

After considering the feedback, and also looking at how other city subs our size handle content like this, we have decided to amend how we apply Rule 1 - Respect & Constructive Engagement as follows:

• Video or photo posts that appear to be primarily intended to shame or mock private individuals will not be permitted.

• Videos and photos that possibly do the above will be permitted when there is a legitimate public interest (help with a police matter, public safety concerns, risks to the community, etc.). Our existing "porch pirate" privacy exception remains as it was.

• Moderators will evaluate each such video or photo on a case-by-case basis; we may not always get it right the first time and our decisions may not make everyone happy.

This adjustment basically aligns with the majority sentiment on the feedback post and is a position the mod team feels comfortable adopting moving forward.

To frame this change: under this new policy, the shoplifting video mentioned above would not be allowed, but photos and (censored) videos of the racist Costco maniac would be once the police issued a call to the public to identify the individual.

We have tweaked the Rule 1 Explainer wiki with more details about this Shaming Post change and you may see a new Rule 1 Removal Reason on some posts in the future associated with this adjustment.

We understand this decision will not be unanimously welcomed amongst our members, but it does fall in line with how several other city subs in Canada moderate things like this and we feel it strikes a decent balance between allowing people to share interesting and informative media vs. the rights of private individuals to not have their worst moments shared without context to hundreds of thousands of people (there are other social media platforms that specialize in the latter).

Please feel free to message the mod team with any questions you may have on this moderation adjustment or sound off below with any thoughts or feedback you may wish to share.

Thank you!

Your r/halifax Modteam

Welcome to the second ever r/halifax Pet Photo Jamboree!

This monthly thread will be a place to showcase photos of your pets/animal friends for all of r/halifax to see and admire!

Is this a contest? Yes! But there's no voting, everybody wins and the only prize is knowing we all saw how cute your pet is!

Does this mean I can't post pet pics in Friday Positivity anymore? Absolutely not, we still want them there too! We just wanted a dedicated place for people to post their pets for all to enjoy.

Is it just for pets? No, if you have great wildlife photos, we want to see those too!

Show us your animals, people! 🐶😺🦜🐟🐍🐄🦂👽

A video was recently posted on the sub that appeared to show an older woman being physically confronted by a store security guard and having a piece of merchandise forcibly taken from her. The implication from the video was that the woman shoplifted the item and the guard was trying to get it back.

The video was removed because it was shot on a cell phone by a user while driving, which is against our rules. But it sparked some debate in the comments about whether or not videos like this serve a purpose here in our community and if they should be allowed or not.

The mod team discussed it and were not able to come to a conclusive, unanimous opinion on the utility and ethics of allowing videos like this in relation to our current rules regarding Privacy and Doxxing.

So, we decided it would be interesting to know what our members think about videos like this.

From time to time, people submit photos or videos of members of the public engaged in behaviour that appears to be illegal, dangerous, or simply inconsiderate. These posts can generate significant discussion, but they also raise questions about privacy, context, and whether it's appropriate to identify people who may never have an opportunity to tell their side of the story.

Do such videos belong in our sub, even without context? Or do they only serve as vehicles to shame people who might not have a way to explain or defend themselves?

Should we insist faces be blurred or, because it is in public, should they be allowed to be posted as-is?

What value should /r/halifax provide? Should the subreddit be a place to document incidents happening around the city, or should it avoid hosting posts that identify private individuals unless there's a clear public interest?

Let's talk about it.

Welcome to our Monthly Best Worst Parking Photo Challenge!

You have bad parking photos? We want to see them. And vote on them.

The photo with the most upvotes during the 48 hour voting period will receive bragging rights, a custom emoji flair of their choosing, our mutual admiration and entry into the hallowed halls of the r/halifax Parking Hall of Fame.

RULES

• Top level comments in this thread must be a photo of a bad parking job
• Approximate photo location must be included with photo
• Photos must be taken within the HRM
• License plates visible is fine, but obscure if desired
• One submission per user per contest
• One victory per user per calendar year
• Photos may only be submitted once for consideration
• Photos must belong to the person posting them (no stealing photos from others)
• Photos already posted in the sub more than 30 days ago are not eligible
• Photos that appear obviously staged/altered/AI infused will be rejected
• Most upvotes after 48h will decide the winner
• In the case of a tie, mod discretion will determine the winner
• Outstanding/unique photos that do not win the contest may still gain Hall of Fame entry via Mod Choice awards

Good luck!

Hi all! A couple of small Flair updates:

Happening Now

We've decided to bring the Happening Now flair out from behind Mod Only so users can apply it to posts/photos/videos of breaking/spot news they encounter in HRM.

Examples of proper application would be a post with a photo of heavy police presence asking what is happening, video of a structure fire, a photo of the aftermath of an accident, etc.

We want to encourage people to share news and emerging events with others in the community and since we all have cameras in our pockets, our members are often the first to see/hear/experience newsworthy events or things our community might want to know.

Moderator discretion will apply, anyone who has questions about why their Happening Now post was removed or reflaired is welcome to send the modteam a message to discuss it.

Traffic

We have made the automated assignment of the Traffic flair less aggressive in the hopes of reducing the number of false positives that it was incurring.

Too many posts were being labelled as Traffic by the automod in error and the associated sticky was causing confusion for users; we hope the adjustment will reduce this.

Reminder that Traffic flair should be used for actual traffic updates and situations, the Driving/Transit flair should be used for chat about non-traffic related posts. Traffic posts are typically removed after 24 hours unless they have lasting value.

If anyone has any questions, please sound off below or feel free to send the modteam a message and we'd be happy to chat about it.

Thank you!

Your r/Halifax Modteam

A short post to mark the small but notable occasion of r/ApolloScooters passing the 5,000 members milestone. 🥳🎉

We were around 4K when I took this sub over last fall as moderator, I am pleased to see it growing slowly but steadily.

Thank you to everyone who comes here to share their passion, pictures, complaints, expertise and adventures with Apollo Scooters!

Here's to the next 5,000! 🍺

I thought it might be fun to have a roundup of all the best, most useful or fun accessories or mods you guys have installed on your Apollo scooters.

Can be an official Apollo accessory or something you bought online or something you even made yourself!

Let's see what you guys have done to pimp out your rides!

Hi all!

Was curious for some advice from any mods out there who allow news articles in their communities but do not allow the same articles to be posted twice.

We have a user in our community who likes to post a lot of news articles, but they also appear to be a prolific blocker of users, far beyond what most would consider normal.

As a result, a large number of people in our community are not seeing the articles this user is posting, and since we have rules about the same article/content not being reposted, when those blocked users go to try and post the news article themselves (thinking it has not yet been posted) we are obliged to remove it since it was already shared in the community.

We have been wondering if anyone else has experienced this and what steps you took to mitigate the problem.

We are considering asking this user to unblock less troublesome people, or asking them to not share as much news in the sub, or possibly even setting up a queue so we can repost what news articles they share ourselves as mods so everyone can see them and interact with the content.

We understand some people need to be blocked, and we don't want to squelch this user needlessly, but we also have a large portion of our community unable to see or discuss these news articles.

Any suggestions or experiences you can share would be great as we debate what to do about this.

Thank you!

Edit: Appreciate all the feedback, thank you. We're going to reach out to this user, let them know they are causing an issue and see where that leads us. We may setup a "holding queue" if needed to help deter them from bogarting news articles if they persist in blocking people and we might even escalate it to preventing them from posting news links at all if needed. Have a great day all!

Just a small note from the mod team to all of you to mark our crossing of the 175,000 member count! 🎉🍻

We crossed the 150k threshold just over one year ago, so adding roughly another 25k members in that short of a span is a great accomplishment for the community. Our post, comment and engagement numbers continue to grow year over year!

Our sub would be nothing without you, our users.

You are what makes this place an informative resource, a welcoming place for our community and a fun place to hang out. You are what makes r/halifax great! 🙌💖

Thank you to everyone for all your interesting contributions, provocative debates, positive vibes, constructive feedback, not-so-constructive feedback and everything in-between. We are thrilled to see the sub thriving and heading in the right direction!

We'll see you at 200k! 🚀📈

Thank you,

Your r/halifax Mod Team

sassanix

XTC-FTW

no_dice

tylerdetox

DeathOneSix

Injustice_For_All

xpnerd

maximumice

Hi all,

Looking to upgrade my work coffee/save some $$$ by switching to some nice ground coffee to use with the Keurig K-3550 Single Serve Commercial Coffee Maker here in my office.

I could bring in a small pour-over setup if needed, but I am trying to simplify if possible.

Was wondering if anyone here has experience with using a reusable K Cup with the K-3550 and can recommend one for me.

I know that I'll have to open the pod drawer after each brew to retrieve my reusable pod, I'm more interested in performance/reliability/best extraction in terms of a recommendation.

Thank you! ☕