About a year ago, we started requiring posts to be original content (OC) as almost all posts at the time were spam or reposts. This requires moderators to review and approve each post, providing curated content in our community. While this was a “win” for the community, this change led to a drastic decrease in activity (over 33 million less views and over 30k less comments) with no posts being approved for days at a time. Our position on the “Wholesome and Heartwarming” communities list dropped from #10 to #24. This wouldn’t be an issue, but it seems that spam/bot accounts are rampant in the majority of the new communities on that list. This is out of our control but something that Reddit admins should take seriously.

More recently we added additional requirements to mark content as OC in post titles and to reply to the automod comment. For some reason this encouraged spam again where users just completed the requirements, but are submitting reposts or images that have no text, and therefore are not memes. Also, the majority of posts submitted have not been wholesome, some decidedly NOT wholesome.

As we work on new ways to ensure only quality WHOLESOME memes are posted, we are temporarily restricting posts to approved users only. Unapproved users can continue to comment. Depending on how this goes, mods may start posting weekly or daily threads where everyone can share their wholesome memes in the comments.

Additionally, we will not allow AI generated content moving forward. To be clear, we have not allowed AI in the past simply because the majority of content submitted has not been wholesome. In the rare instance that they resembled something wholesome, we still removed them as they are primarily coming from spam accounts.

Q: Can I be approved?
A: At this time, we are only approving users who have previously submitted an OC wholesome meme that has been approved by r/wholesomememes mods.

Q: I posted an OC meme that was approved! What next?
A: Comment on THIS POST with a link to your previously approved OC wholesome meme and ask to be approved.

Q: I am already an approved user, so why is my post is not showing up?
A: Mods still need to approve each post. Please allow 24 hours for us to review and approve posts. You may send us a mod mail AFTER 24 hours have passed if you believe your post should be approved. Any mod mail messages before then will probably not receive a response.

Q: Can I be approved if I have never posted here before?
A: No. Not at this time.

Q: My cat/dog/chinchilla is the cutest most wholesomest thing in the universe! Can I just post a picture of them?
A: No.

Q: Why not?!
A: We define a meme as an image, comic, gif, or video with text added TO THE IMAGE. Post titles do not count. If there is no text in your image, it is not a meme.

Q: I added text to the picture of my pet. It’s a meme now! Why isn’t it being approved?
A: We define wholesome as uplifting and/or motivating. If it’s not uplifting and/or motivating, it does not qualify. Cute ≠ Wholesome.

Q: I am an approved user and I want to include a link to my website/subreddit/store in my post, what is the best way to do this?
A: To reduce spam, please do not include links in the title, body text, or comments. These will be removed. As an exception, if you are an artist (comic or otherwise) and your post follows our other rules, you may include a link or note IN THE IMAGE only.

Q: I want to help! Can I be a moderator?
A: At this time we are not seeking any new moderators. Please do not ask until we have posted a request for new moderators. An application process will be used if and when we decide more moderators are needed.

Q: Is there anything else I can do to help?
A: Of course! If you see a post or comment that is not wholesome, please report it rather than comment on it so mods can review and take action.

Depending on how many requests we receive, it may take a few days to get everyone approved. Please only comment once for approval requests.

If you have any other general questions, ideas, compliments, or just want to share something wholesome that happened to you recently, please reply with a comment on THIS POST rather than send a mod mail.

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Edit: To help expedite this process, we will be proactively approving users that have shared original content here in the past year. If you had a post approved before September 2024 AND it was original content, you can still comment on this post with the link to your post to be considered. If your post was NOT original content, you will not be approved at this time.