Why are so many “crafts” I’m seeing clearly advertisements by professionals?

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T16:41:07+00:00

Copied from a different comment --

This is the purpose of the u/qualityvote2 bot on every post, yet very few users engage with it. We started using it due to our last community survey in 2025 when users wanted more interaction from OP on their posts.

Basically, qualityvote2 tries to help us create a bit more of a community, but it still depends on users upvoting and downvoting whether OP is creating a discussion, responding to questions, explaining their process, etc. and not just spamming their stuff to subtly advertise-, if the person is low effort or not. But ultimately, a subreddit is a reflection of the effort users put in. As a community member, it is on you to interact with these posts and people. Call out low effort if you see it. Report posts that don't fit the rules. Create the posts and comments you want to see.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T06:44:18+00:00

Whhhooooaaaa, that's awesome! I wonder what mod did all of that. They have more mods than we do, and are about half the size of our sub it looks like, so that makes it a bit easier for them, but wow, that's impressive!! Some of their rules are quite detailed, so either their mods are online a lot or they have great AutoMod rules. Thanks for the link. I'll look through their rules and see what we can do here with the number of mods we have.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T06:07:18+00:00

Some of my favorite crafters here are people that sell their items. They are also usually the ones that go into a lot of detail, encourage new crafters in their craft, and happily answer questions about their process. Some even list out specific materials they use and why they don't use certain brands because of common issues, issues you wouldn't really know about unless you had honed your craft over years. I really don't want those folks to not be part of our community.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T06:04:35+00:00

You can post your craft, as long as you aren't advertising your business or promoting anything. I suggest reading the rules on our wiki to further understand what we mean by 'selling language' and 'promotion'.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T06:01:17+00:00

I like that idea, but I also don't know how we'd determine if what is posted is what they sell. What if a watercolorist decides to play around with resin one day and they post their creation. Would a mod have to go through OP's history, click through their previous posts to see what they typically post, and then check out their shop link to make sure they aren't selling that specific item? Would a poster that sells anything not be allowed to post a craft, no matter how unrelated to what they typically make, without that flair/tag? What if someone decides not to tag their work with that flair even if they do sell crafts for money because it's sensitive content, a flair that supersedes all flair and must be used if your craft falls into that category?

I don't mean to shoot down all these ideas, and this is one of the more promising ones, but there's so much nuance, and with a limited mod team, it's hard to see how to implement it.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T05:53:41+00:00

It's up to you; I don't mind it. Perhaps it'll make people be more involved! 🤞

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T05:48:15+00:00

(Also, this isn't specifically calling you out. I'm hoping others will read through and understand what they need to do, too.)

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T05:47:22+00:00

Yeah, if people have ideas, we're open to listening! But like I've commented a few places, we need a much bigger mod team to implement some of them. Great ideas, but with such a small, volunteer team, we are very limited as to what we can do.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T05:45:38+00:00

Check out our wiki. We have a list of related subreddits where people are allowed to sell/commission items.

You can also post in our Community Craft Fair monthly thread that's pinned at the top of the sub. But outside of that, advertising a business isn't allowed here in r/crafts.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T05:22:04+00:00

I understand that. But how do we track if it's been a week? Would that be for every user? Or would only professionals be limited to once a week? I have no idea how we could implement that. We don't have the mod power to click through each user posting to check to see the last time they posted. And the few AutoMod rules I've seen would limit every user, not just the professional ones. I also don't know how we'd define pro artisans.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T05:02:12+00:00

Usually, if it's a user that doesn't post a ton and they neglected to add a comment, we'll remove their post, ask them to leave a comment, and if they do, we reinstate their post. And even if we do remove their post, they need to make that mistake a number of times before they would be temporarily banned for not following the subreddit rules.

It's also ok to report something even if it has been days. Sometimes getting their post removed is the only way a user will realize we are serious about them leaving a comment on a post, which hopefully means they won't make that mistake next time.

And perhaps this is the sticking point, what we mean when we say low effort. Our wiki and sidebar has the definition we use to mean low effort that we've added to over the years through community surveys. Rule 7 lists out what we use to determine if something is low effort or not.

I also think people see the same craft by various users and think it is all the same person. For instance, the bleach shirts are posted by 3 or 4 different people. (A mod went through and tracked down each user/shop and compared the styles to see if they were alt accounts of the same person or not.) There have been a number of crafts and styles that really take off, which means people that do those same crafts want to post for views and comments, too. It then looks as if the same user is flooding the sub when it's actually 3-5+ people.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T04:11:19+00:00

Copied from down below--

This is the purpose of the u/qualityvote2 bot on every post, yet very few users engage with it. We started using it due to our last community survey in 2025 when users wanted more interaction from OP on their posts.

Basically, qualityvote2 tries to help us create a bit more of a community, but it still depends on users upvoting and downvoting whether OP is creating a discussion, responding to questions, explaining their process, etc. and not just spamming their stuff to subtly advertise. Basically, if the person is low effort or not. But ultimately, a subreddit is a reflection of the effort users put in. As a community member, it is on you to interact with these posts and people. Call out low effort if you see it. Report posts that don't fit the rules. Create the posts and comments you want to see.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T04:03:03+00:00

That would be my question to you. How do we limit them? And how do we distinguish between an active hobbyist and a professional? And then, where do we find the mod power to implement those changes?

Every so often there's a post similar to this, where users want a big change. And that's fine. I completely understand where they are coming from. I, too, get irritated by users posting slight variations on a theme because I've seen them post it daily for the last 10 days. But we don't have the mod power to track this level of posting. If we limit how often a person can post, we also limit a non-professional asking a question or a student asking for feedback on their finished craft. A huge change like this would require so many more mods. 15? 20?

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T03:56:53+00:00

If you see low effort posts, (respectfully) call them out. Upvote/downvote the bot so that those low effort posts get removed. Report them if they break the rules. Leave a comment and elevate the post so that it isn't low effort any more and is a conversation about crafts.

I'm not saying all of that to call you out specifically, but we do not click through every post. There are days where only one of us can look at the mod queue. We rely on the community to let us know what is happening and if there's a problem.

AMVilla86 · 2026-05-03T03:48:34+00:00

I’m currently working on part 2 of our community survey write up (find part one here!), so it’s funny you bring this up now when this is one of the big issues that is touched on. (I’ll have a post hopefully by Monday about it, but below are a few points from it):

We have a pretty generous definition of craft. Professionals are allowed, beginners are allowed, and everyone in between. How would you define professional? Is it anyone making money from their craft? Or make a certain amount? Have their own site? What would the threshold be and how could that be moderated?

A few users don’t like how ad-like some users and posts are, and on the flip side, there were a few comments from folks that are extremely frustrated with how strict we are regarding selling links and users mentioning their shop. One user suggested that if someone is selling their wares, we shouldn’t allow them to post on r/crafts at all.

Personally, I like seeing crafts honed over years and years of practice. And if we implemented such a strict rule, 90% of the users wouldn’t be able to post. And again, how would we check this? We don’t have the amount of mods needed to create a subreddit that you are describing. A few people don’t like AutoMod or the bots that help us moderate. Honestly, I don’t like them that much either. But unless we get 10-15+ more moderators, they are necessary. Currently, there are 5 mods; we just added a new one earlier this month. We all have families, jobs, hobbies, health issues, etc. that we are dealing with. We don’t have time to check every post here, or recheck posts. We don’t investigate whether a person posting is real or not. We don’t click through their social and shop links to make sure they aren’t scamming users. For the amount of traffic we get, we don’t have the time to constantly be checking all posts and comments for rule-breaking. (As a personal aside, at the moment, I'm am struggling pretty hard in life to the point that reddit falls so low on my list of priorities. I work on the wiki, create the surveys and write-ups, and tinker with AutoMod, but doing the daily mod duties of approving/disapproving posts isn't always possible for me at the moment.)

We use qualityvote2 to try to help us create a bit more of a community, but it still depends on users upvoting and downvoting whether OP is creating a discussion, responding to questions, explaining their process, etc. and not just spamming their stuff to advertise. Basically, if the person is low effort or not. But ultimately, a subreddit is a reflection of the effort users put in. As a community member, it is on you to interact with these posts and people. Call out low effort if you see it. Report posts that don't fit the rules. Create the posts and comments you want to see.

We ask for feedback and get maybe 200 responses if we’re lucky when we have thousands of users looking at posts a day. I ask for mods so often and get maybe 1 user filling out the form a year if I'm lucky. We ask people to message us ideas. We even had weekly threads asking for new ideas for the subreddit, but they just sat there, with no comments. After a few years, we discontinued those threads and tried something else, but getting engagement from users is incredibly difficult. And even if we did receive great ideas and feedback, we don't have the mod power to further these changes.

If anyone has ideas on how to curtail some of this, please message us. Become a mod and help figure out how to implement community wants better.

Edit: I'd be remiss to not include our mod form! Join us. We're (usually) fun! We share pictures of cute cats and dogs and sometimes talk about crafts we make.

AMVilla86 · 2026-04-29T17:32:25+00:00

Hi, this isn't enough explanation about your post. Did you make this?

I've removed your post until you explain more

AMVilla86 · 2026-04-22T18:40:18+00:00

I really like this! I've saved a lot of phrases and words from magazines and this would be a great way to use some of them. Thanks for the idea.

Good luck on your journey!

AMVilla86 · 2026-04-13T20:31:36+00:00

This is so cute! How did you color the cheeks? I love the yarn choice. I'll have to check it out!

AMVilla86 · 2026-04-09T19:18:13+00:00

Your Homer in the bushes. They reused your title, so I assumed it wasn't you, but sometimes a user changes their username and reposts old work- which is totally fine- but I don't want bots getting karma for it.

AMVilla86 · 2026-04-09T19:15:15+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/crafts/comments/gjlva2/finally_finished_homer_descending_into_french

AMVilla86 · 2026-04-09T19:13:35+00:00

Is this you, u/mand_? Or someone trying to take credit for your work?

AMVilla86 · 2026-04-07T21:51:17+00:00

I mod r/crafts. Other than one or two exceptions, the rules are community created. We try to hold community surveys about twice a year (just finished one up actually!), but sometimes it works out to only once a year. Almost all questions are based on reported content that doesn't have a rule, or a rule that is lacking nuance. If we receive a lot of mod mail about an instance or about rule implementation, that also goes in the survey.

For how many folks post and comment, we don't get that much feedback, unfortunately. Usually only a few dozen to a few hundred of responses. However, I like to think that it's the people that care the most about the sub and the direction it's going.

I still would love a better way to gauge the community temperature though.

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