Can we please allow highlights?

[u/bass_voyeur]

I know that highlight/replay posts might drown out the subreddit during Saturdays. But could we please allow for them? The highlight thread each week is heavily underused. This week, Rivalry Week, had 103 comments or posts in the highlight thread. Seems like folks are just getting their highlights elsewhere or we are missing key gameplay moments collectively. I know I am.

I think some of the concerns for highlight posts is that it would generate a lot of posts to the subreddit and drown out other kinds of posts, encourage karma farming, and add to the moderators burden.

But by comparison, we now just get couching carousel posts to drown that out and almost zero talk of Rivalry Week results. There's literally dozens of posts about Lane Kiffin less than 12 hours from the end of some key games for the CFP. It's kind of wild to me that this subreddit, by design choices from the mods, has very little discussion of the sport or games itself.

Can we change that? If not, what evidence (if any) would be needed to change the mod team's minds? It seems like there is some strong appetite from at least part of the user base for this change.

[u/bakonydraco]

This has been asked before on this sub, I know there’s a passionate group that would appreciate a move in this direction. I’ll share what I know and kind of outline our general approach.

To set expectations, I think we’re very unlikely to make a change on this before the offseason. One things users have repeatedly indicated in surveys is that the highest priority in moderation is consistency, even more than where to draw the line on what’s approved and what’s removed. Some users would prefer a more permissive sub, some would like it more restrictive, but all would like the rules communicated clearly and uniformly enforced. Dramatically changing rules in the middle of the season can present challenges to that.

On the issue itself, based on the surveys we’ve done in the past, there is a fairly small subset of people who feel similarly to you and want these posts allowed. There’s a similar and slightly larger group that feel that highlights should never be allowed. On balance, in the past it’s been a mild lean towards continuing to not allow highlights. I suspect a new survey would yield the same, but it’s likely worth asking again soon, the community does evolve and grow over time.

On a more practical level, if highlight posts were approved outside the highlight thread, we likely would need to significantly expand our volunteer mod team, and that’s not really feasible in the middle of the season.

We’ll continue to look at this. I think it’s probably unlikely the policy changes, but it’s a good discussion to have.

[u/LackOfAnotherName → u/bakonydraco]

Can you give any insight why the r/CollegeBasketball is able to handle highlights there? I mean they have more games more often than CFB. People are vehemently opposed to any and all change, take old school runescape where for years they tried polling to get a new skill because a swathe would vote no matter what. Eventually it was no longer a yes/no poll but an option a or option b poll. All that is to say in a poll nothing will ever get passed. Why can a 1 year trial run not work? Allow highlights for the 2026-2027 season then revisit this discussion with real actionable data. If it does indeed turn out that having highlights are the sub is a net negative then the change can be reverted the following season, and you can use that a point of reference for the rest of time as to why no highlights are allowed. This will be a much better test run for the average user, rather than a poll only 1 percent see.