Hello, /r/Pics subscribers!

For the past several months, the moderation team has been deliberating over how the subreddit's rules should evolve. After a lot of debate, a number of votes, and at least one scene that would give most soap operas a run for their money, we have finally reached a consensus on the first topic that we wanted to address:

Henceforth, submissions featuring before-and-after depictions of personal health progress or achievement will not be featured on /r/Pics.

We know that these pictures have been contentious – many people have really enjoyed them, while others have felt that they were disproportionately represented – which is why we'd like to share some of what prompted this decision: /r/Pics is (and will continue to be) a catch-all subreddit for interesting, evocative, and entertaining images; a place where pictures that might not have a specific focus or theme can thrive. However, one of the great things about Reddit is the presence of communities with more-dedicated structures, such as /r/ProgressPics, /r/CatPictures, or /r/BreadStapledToTrees. As the frequent submissions of progress-style pictures show, there's certainly an interest in them... and fortunately, there's also a community for them.

With this change, our hope is that we'll be encouraging the submission of more-varied picture styles and subjects. We will also take steps to ensure that posters are informed of places where their content might be more at home, and keep our sidebar updated with links to suggested communities.

We will be making minor tweaks to how this new rule is approached in the days ahead, and we welcome any questions that you might have. This was not a decision that was made lightly, and – as with similar processes – we didn't want to act with anything approaching rashness. Even so, we have heard our subscribers' concerns, and we hope that taking this step has done something small to address them.

Thank you for reading, and as always, keep those pictures coming!

• The /r/Pics Moderation Team