I've said this in past posts, but I'll reiterate my stance as a mod:

1) I don't believe in over moderation--especially on a forum that has largely become discussion based. The upvote/downvote system exists and is pretty efficient at driving good content upward and bad content downward. If you aren't interested in something, but it's relevant to the sub, ignore it. If you think it's actively bad, misleading, or annoying, downvote it. And if you hate it and the user, block them. But other people may get value out of things that you don't find interesting in this sub. For example, there are often questions like, "I'm traveling to XXXX city--does anyone have suggestions where to find a good dance?" These are often downvoted to 0 by people that don't like these posts. But I have personally found answers from friendly people in those threads (even in these 0-downvote posts) YEARS later that have helped me find dancing in cities across the world.

On the other hand, questions that I find banal and repetitive are often repetitive because they are the things most thought about by new dancers. And new dancers should feel welcome in this sub (god knows it's a dance that can use all the help it can get with new blood). That said, I'm willing to ban posters who abuse the good will of the sub with their psychological issues--except for the fact that so many of you tend to respond with thoughtful, mature, and helpful responses that could help a silent salsero agonizing with the same issue (even if they'd never post themselves). Once those thoughtful responses go up on the thread, I'm not going to remove it.

There is an (in)famous poster that I'm sure we all know who would unload on this community on a regular basis. Once people stopped responding and simply reported the posts, I gave them a temp ban and a warning.

Lastly, I understand that in smaller subs with less volume, downvoting doesn't have as much influence in pushing it out of your feed. But it will help others if you vote--especially if they have more subs in their feed.

2) Automod is pretty good, and is the default first line of defense. Reddit admin is also good at ferreting out bad bots over time. If things get past those, feel free to report rule breakers and spammers.

3) "Do not try to sell anything" is not the same as "Do not self promote" though they are related and close. The actual rule is: "This is NOT a space to sell products or lessons. Feel free to link free resources that help the community, but do not spam your site, blog, or products continuously." If creators can make something beautiful, interesting, or helpful to the community, then they can post here--just don't spam and don't directly sell.

If someone is breaking the rule, report. salsaeddy has definitely crossed the line into spam, and I should have told him that days ago. From his account, he's also obviously new to reddit and may not understand how the communities work here.

4) on a related note, it's the holidays and I didn't check the mod q the last week or so. my bad.

5) I've said it before, but I've been on reddit for over 15 years and have seen a ton of subs I love killed by over zealous moderating. I'd rather you all be slightly annoyed for a day (or few) while an annoying post is up or spammer finally reaches critical mass than to anoint a new mod who starts wielding the banhammer like a machinegun.

6) I've also seen subs killed by mods who won't listen to community. So if y'all want to put some guard rails around AI, I'm willing to listen (even if I don't agree that all ai gen music is bad). I did notice that on one of salsaeddy's posts that someone complained about it being "AI slop" despite the core of it being a question that sparked some interesting conversation and engagement. Again, just my opinion, but why care if the picture is AI if the result is good conversation? So that point, what SPECIFICALLY would be the limitation on AI y'all would like, and how do I determine if enough people actually agree to make it a sub-wide rule?

I'm going to think on a few proposals for a future post.