Update 1: I edited the 📽️ Credit Where Credit is Due rule to be more clear about attributions, watermarks, and cropping of comics. Also I fixed some spelling mistakes.
Update 2: I edited the 🧬 Keep it Real rule for clarity. Keep it coming!
Update 3:
I edited the 🏘️ Community Standards based on user feedback.
Updated the formatting of the rules to remove spoiler tags.
Be more concise with some rules.
Good day/evening folks!
Note: Please read until the end; there is a lot here, so if you want to skip straight to business you can search for “Call to Action” and “New Rules” to get right to it. I won’t be terribly offended. 🥹
Last night (2026-04-08 America/New_York time) I was approached and asked to moderate this community. It seems our esteemed @lawrence@lemmy.world has found themselves otherwise occupied and unable to commit time necessary to maintaining the community. Whatever their reasons, we thank them for their service and wish them well in whatever they are doing now.
My name is @dohpaz42@lemmy.world. You may call me dohpaz42, dohpaz, doh!, jerkface (with love!), or whatever; just don’t call me late for dinner. I have been a Lemmy user since July 2023, and it’s been a wild ride. Love me or hate me, know that I took this post with the intention to be a fair and impartial mod. I do understand that I may will make mistakes, but I promise that if you come at me respectfully, I will listen. I may not agree with you, but I will listen. I only ask that you do the same for me and my (eventual) team.
A little about moi:
- I am a divorced father of two young boys
- I am a web developer who dabbles in devops
- I am not an arch user (sorry, not sorry 😏)
- I enjoy hobbies like: 3d-printing, household DIY, video games, woodworking
- I like to watch Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror (Stargate SG-1, Supernatural, Star Trek (TNG, DS9, etc), Night/Dawn/Day of the Living Dead, Paranormal Activity, etc)
- Cooking (Send me gluten-free recipes!)
Call to Action
If you are interested in helping to moderate this community, please let me know by DM. I will evaluate each request on the merits of the person making the request. This will mostly involve a user’s post/comment history and modlog history.
Note: Having a modlog history does not automatically exclude you from being a moderator, but I do want to make sure that whomever helps helms this community can do so in a respectful and positive manner. Mods will be held to a higher standard than regular users.
I also have a modlog history. Some of it was (in my opinion) unwarranted, and some of it (upon reflection) was very much warranted. I believe in second (and possibly third) chances. I’ve been there too, and I’ve still been given this opportunity. So to honor that opportunity, I am willing to give (almost) anybody a chance.
New Rules
I have decided to start out with a rewrite of the rules. Nothing dramatic, but I feel there are a couple of things that can be refined and improved upon. Before I make it official and update the sidebar, I am open to your feedback first (see below). Once the feedback is given, and any revisions made, I will post the new rules to the sidebar. I will accept feedback (comments in this post) until Saturday, April 11, 2026 at 3PM EDT (19:00 UTC).
Note: If you moderate a similar community, and wish to be linked in our sidebar, please leave a comment and I would be happy to add it to the list.
And without further ado, here are the new rules:
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
Rules
-
😇 Be Nice!
- Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
-
🏘️ Community Standards
- Comics should be a full story, from start to finish, in one post.
- Posts should be safe and enjoyable by the majority of community members, both here on lemmy.world and other instances.
- Any comic that would qualify as raunchy, lewd, or otherwise draw unwanted attention by nosy coworkers, spouses, or family members should be tagged as NSFW.
- Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as appropriate. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
-
🧬 Keep it Real
- Comics should be made and posted by real human beans, not by automated means like bots or AI. This is not the community for that sort of thing.
-
📽️ Credit Where Credit is Due
- Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
- Attributions include, but are not limited to, watermarks, links, or other text or imagery that artists add to their comics to use for identification purposes. If you find a comic without any such markings, it would be a good idea to see if you can find an original version. If one cannot be found, say so and ask the community for help!
-
📋 Post Formatting
- Post an image, gallery, or link to a specific comic hosted on another site; e.g., the author’s website.
- Meta posts about the community should be tagged with [Meta] either at the beginning or the end of the post title.
- When linking to a comic hosted on another site, ensure the link is to the comic itself and not just to the website; e.g.,
✅ Correct: https://xkcd.com/386/
❌ Incorrect: https://xkcd.com/
-
📬 Post Frequency/SPAM
- Each user (regardless of instance) may post up to five (5 🖐) comics a day. This can be any combination of personal comics you have written yourself, or other author’s comics. Any comics exceeding five (5 🖐) will be removed.
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🏴☠️ Internationalization (i18n)
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
Sí, por favor [Spanish/Español]
- Non-English posts are welcome. Please tag the post title with the original language, and include an English translation in the body of the post; e.g.,
-
🍿 Moderation
- We are human, just like most everybody else on Lemmy. If you feel a moderation decision was made in error, you are welcome to reach out to anybody on the moderation team for clarification. Keep in mind that moderation decisions may be final.
- When reporting posts and/or comments, quote which rule is being broken, and why you feel it broke the rules.
Web of Links
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world: “I use Arch btw”
- !memes@lemmy.world: memes (you don’t say!)
You must log in or # to comment.
In response to those who have mentioned the PG/PEGI 7 rule, how does this work for a compromise?
🏘️ Community Standards
Posts should be safe and enjoyable by the majority of community members, both here on lemmy.world and other instances. Any comic that would qualify as raunchy, lewd, or otherwise draw unwanted attention by nosy coworkers, spouses, or family members should be tagged as NSFW.
Graphic content of any kind will not be tolerated. This includes gore, pornography, or violence.
Moderators have final say on what and what does not qualify as safe and enjoyable. Use common sense, and if need be, err on the side of caution.
Let’s roll with it and then pull back if we need to. Any way to have a vote on or have visibility into some of the preliminary content removals to massage the right threshold for things like violence?
I would add a nsfw tag rule, that breaks pg/pegi7 rule. For comics like custard’s, or others.
Just an fyi that would exclude Oglaf since I would say it’s very hard to say it’s just lewd and not full on porn for a lot of it.
I’d say that oglaf is nudity, not porn - after all its not trying to be for masturbation and gratification 🤷
I think my only issue is that comedy is a form of content that pushes the boundaries. I know my personal form of comedy would have most things I enjoy broadly marked NSFW and its kind of hard to know what the future line in this community will be for graphic content.
That’s reasonable.
this seems as a fair rule ☺️
No gore or pornography is understandable but the “no violence” thing seems a bit too much.
“Violence” is such a vague term and, considering storytelling, violence is a main driver of conflict in many stories. Fights break out and being able to tell these stories of strife and conflict is something we should be encouraging, not limiting.
Graphic violence is banned not violence in general
+1 for attribution
-1 for PG. We’ve been unmoderated for probably over a year now, and it hasn’t devolved into anything. Starting to enforce a PG filter now is an active change. Not a passive continuation.
Yep that sounds good!
Welcome!
For the rules, could you use different formatting? A lot of users use mobile apps, and some of them don’t format markdown the way Lemmy does. The spoiler tag in particular doesn’t get rendered in a lot of them.
For example, this is what I see in Boost:
Perhaps you can do something like
## Rules 1: 😇 Be Nice! - Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: **friendly** 2: 👶 Keep it at PGWhich will format like this
Rules
1: 😇 Be Nice!
- Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly
2: 👶 Keep it at PG
You could also shorten some of them to make it more likely that people will read them. For example, moving this to the bottom of the rules section, or taking it out entirely:
Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanantly banned from posting.
I also liked the old sidebar’s guidance on “complete stories” because it sums up what this community is intended for and differentiates it from “comics” and “memes”. I don’t know if it needs to be stated explicitly, but you could potentially include it right at the top with the description line.
I’m also happy to help out if the moderation load gets too much to handle. Feel free to add my LW account if at any point the team could use more hands: https://lemmy.world/u/otter
Boost gang!
It looks like the asterisks in the spoiler title are messing with the spoilers.
😇 Be Nice
Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
::: spoiler 😇 Be Nice ↩️ Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: **friendly**. :::
😇 Be Nice!
Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: friendly.
::: spoiler **😇 Be Nice!** ↩️ Treat others with respect and dignity. Friendly banter is okay, as long as it is mutual; keyword: **friendly**. :::↩️= return/line break, not sure how else to show that in code block without adding an extra empty line, which would break the formatting
Great feedback! I certainly can reformat things to be more user friendly. I admit that I can be wordy, so if you have any other suggestions for making the rules more concise (while staying clear), I am happy to hear them! And I will certainly take into you into consideration for moderator.
maybe worth to name and shame those apps with lack of proper lemmy markdown support.
and ideally check if that has already been reported to their devs, and doing that if it hasn’t been done yet.
Usually it’s the ones that were once a Reddit app, modified to work with Lemmy. I’ve not seen one specifically written for Lemmy/PieFed to not support spoilers.
About credit, what if the original comic does not include watermark?
What shall be done then?
Ah new account to block. Please stay on one instance, thanks!
That is quite the loaded question coming from you.
A new upside in the rules is that there are a max of 2 posts per day per person, so beep is gonna have to find some other fucking community to haunt. Hopefully dohpaz42 doesn’t appreciate new account spam to break the rules.
2 is old rules. It is 5 now.
Sidebar should be updated, it still says 2. Unless the update hasn’t federated to me yet.
Its not updated, this whole post explains it will be updated
Thanks, OP is a little text heavy and I missed that part!
😅 You’re not the first to say that about me.
You can do a reverse image search to try to find the original comic. But, if you make your best (honest) effort to find the original comic, and still cannot, then post it and tell everyone that you tried! If somebody is kind enough to post the original, attributed, comic or tell you the artist, then you are expected to update your post accordingly. People value an honest effort.
You did not get me.
I am asking about unwatermarked comics, like my last 2 posts.
How would the credit rule be applied?
Learn to read. Better yet, learn to read the room. Your actions are not appreciated by the majority. Don’t do it just for me though, as I’m about to block your latest account.
If the watermark, or any other attribution, is a part of the original comic, then yes that counts. The idea is that a comic should be presented how the artist intended it to be presented. Posters like yourself are merely messengers working on behalf of the artists. Does that help?
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you for moderating here, dohpaz! You are aware of the recent drama surrounding watermarks, with one particular (but actively posting❤️) user cropping out artists’ watermarks posting them here? I guess beep is confusing watermarks and an attribution link.
This seems great!
I am concerned for the family friendly rule😅 Will nsfw comics be banned? will jokes that are sexual in nature be banned? There is this one comic that often just has casual nudity f.ex - would that be banned?
There might be wiggle room. It’s certainly open for discussion.
I think it would be great if adult humor comics were not allowed or at least restricted (only posted on certain days?) I used to follow r/comics, which is plagued by low-effort, repetitive content where the punchline is boobs, especially ones featuring oversexualized female characters which is really tiresome.
As a point of interest, it’s been a very long time since there was an active moderator here; anyone could have posted anything and it would have stayed up, and yet… it hasn’t happened. The sub has been fairly clean and organized, with only the occasional, I’d argue tasteful, adult-oriented comic. None of us want it to devolve into a cesspit of low-effort NSFW content; we just want the status quo that has been passively established to be maintained.
Yeah, the argument that this is some kind of problem is silly. We’ve already run the experiment to see it doesn’t happen, and if it somehow becomes a problem (seriously unlikely), jerkface is an active mod and can change in response to community feedback.
Thank you so much, jerkface! We really appreciate you stepping up.
Hopefully this puts an end to beep’s shenanigans.
<3
❤️
👶 Keep it at PG/PEGI 7
Can we add an ‘unless tagged NSFW’ addendum to this? There’s plenty of quality NSFW things that get posted here (e.g. Oglaf comics) and I for one would be sad to see them go (or to have to create a new community for those things).
Edit: To add to this, looking back at post history, it looks like we get about 1 NSFW post per week here, give or take. Have those really been problematic enough to warrant a ban (when appropriately tagged?)
Yes please, the nsfw feature is there for a reason
Excellent!
Along these lines: I have some that, while not explicit in language or violence, are phenomenally dark. Like, they wouldn’t require a “nsfw” tag, but I wouldn’t explain them to the PG audience. Is it PG in visual content/language, or in spirit?
That seems to clarify pretty well for what I had in mind for tagging something NSFW for content (esp. the nosy coworkers bit — “what are you laughing at?” And then not wanting to show them).
Did you count this one? https://lemmy.world/post/45254754
Blood is probably too graphic for a pegi 7 rating
I just quickly scanned for NSFW tags, so I’m sure I missed some that’re not pornographic but would be disallowed under the strictest interpretation of this rule.
I agree, though, that things that have been getting posted should be allowed to continue, while extreme pornography (or an excessive devolution towards being a strictly NSFW community) should not be allowed.
I’d be in favor of using PG-13 as the baseline, not PG. A lot of the stuff here I probably wouldn’t show a 7 year old. Lemmy isn’t exactly a children’s site anyway.
NSFW tags can be used for anything you wouldn’t show a minor, but keep in mind this isn’t a porn community - adult topics and suggestive content are okay, but actual porn is not (unless we do want to allow it???).
Going with the PEGI ratings for sexual content might be a bit more helpful. (There’s a bit of interpretation leeway because this is written for games not comic strips)
This [sex] content descriptor can accompany a PEGI 12 rating if the game includes sexual posturing or innuendo, a PEGI 16 rating if there is erotic nudity or sexual intercourse without visible genitals, or a PEGI 18 rating if there is explicit sexual activity in the game. Depictions of nudity in a non-sexual context do not require a specific age rating, and this descriptor would not be necessary. Wikipedia
If I’m reading this correctly, PEGI 12 is if it subtly references sex in someway, or if a character is in a “sexy” pose; a “let’s Netflix and chill” or “is that pickle in your pocket” type of thing.
PEGI 16 is the sex scene on TV that your parents always seem to be watching when you walk in. It doesn’t show main parts of the act, but you know what they’re doing.
PEGI 18 is just porn.
From those descriptions, I suggest allowing PEGI 12 with no tagging necessary, PEGI 16 must be tagged, and PEGI 18 is not allowed.
I’d get rid of the last sentence of the wiki description too to make it simple - if there’s nudity tag it as nsfw.
Or even simpler; If you’d get arrested for showing it to a 16yr old, tag it. If you’d shoot your “creepy uncle” for showing it to your 16yr old kid, tag it.
I’d apply similar rules for violence, pegi 12 is fine, pegi 16 tag it, and pegi 18 is guro/NSFL and not allowed.
Graphic content of any kind will not be tolerated. This includes gore, pornography, or violence.
This still edges out Oglaf, as well as some of the other things that have been posted even within the last few weeks. “Violence” is also extremely open-ended. Is someone slapping someone else violence? Is Lucy pulling the football out before Charlie Brown kicks it violence? Is Snoopy pretending to be the Red Baron violence? Even on a very generous interpretation, ‘violence’ edges out a lot of comics that both have historically been allowed and would by any reasonable metric be fine for anyone old enough to use Lemmy to view.
Edit: Maybe it would help if you pointed out some things that have been posted in the last month or two that you would consider to be in violation of this rule? If there are none, then we probably don’t even need to be having this discussion.
There is an episode of X Files that beautifully illustrates how even with the best of intentions, someone will always find a way to mess things up. We could go around in circles for days on what constitutes acceptable and not acceptable, and still someone somewhere will find a way to exploit whatever rule gets made. Instead of getting lost in the minutia of wording, let’s see if we can focus more on the spirit that the community has built?
I suppose that’s what I’m afraid of. We’ve done just fine without having an (enforced) rule governing it up until now, and the community hasn’t devolved into anything. I think we’ve all experienced cases in the past where a new mod has come into an existing community, started to enforce the rules in different ways, and it’s caused the dynamic of the community to change. We have a good thing here, right now; it’s (IMO) the best of the ‘Comic’ related communities on Lemmy; I just don’t want to see that change because of some overzealous censorship.
If you look back through the past few months, upvotes/downvotes are a pretty good indicator of what’s good content and what’s not. Beep’s posts that specifically omit attribution get downvoted; there’s sexist boomer humor comics that got downvoted; the few NSFW comics that got posted were upvoted. Body shaming, negativity… all downvoted. Can we perhaps just use community sentiment as the benchmark, except in cases where something is clearly an off-the-rails violation?
I get that, and that’s why I am soliciting feedback about my proposed changes BEFORE I actually put them into effect. This helps me better understand the community, and hopefully it’ll help you all better understand me. I have updated my proposed changes (and formatting).
The original rule stated:
Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
The adult content is already a rule; I was merely rewording it and trying to offer a clearer definition of “adult content”. However, if the community so desires and posts can be properly tagged NSFW, I wouldn’t be against adding onto this rule.
But, I also do not want this comm to devolve into yet another porn depot. There are instances for that already.
Hey Jerkface :)
Completely get where you’re coming from. I’ll admit I like the occasional saucy spicy comic. I’d suggest we start with the allow tagged NSFW, and then see what happens. If it gets to be too much a new community could be spun off.
I moderate a few, and I’ve seen people too eagerly try to spin off new communities like reddit, but here it takes a long time for any traction to happen. So while I’m for more communities, spinoffs should be once there is a critical mass, like a ton of NSFW comics.
It does look like the community overall enjoys the more adult themed comics sometimes splashed in here, and theyre not super frequent and we havent devolved into a porn spot yet.
Like others have said, Oglaf is fun and can be very raunchy, their site is 18+ and at times they have some safe PG13 to PG comics in their arsenal. Besides them, Cyanide and Happiness are very PG to PG13 and then on occasion they post very R rated content.
I think as a community we can generalize what we enjoy without going overboard and a NSFW provides a clear boundary to people in settings where looking at this content can get them in trouble. While I understand wanting to keep things relatively family friendly we shouldnt be the guardians over other peoples children.
Funnily I also thought of Oglaf as an example: the strips go from normal funny, to explicit sex scenes functional to the funny. As others have stated we could tag the ‘explicit for the joke’ ones, not allow the ‘explicit for the explicit’ (aka porn), and generally allow the casual boob or blood here and there. For example, the Yellow Paint strip posted in this thread shouldn’t be PG-anything IMO, being slapstick blood of little cartoony characters. (without reaching Happy Tree Friends levels, of course)
I feel like allowing tagged NSFW would work as long as it’s legitimately a comic strip, and one that isn’t exclusively porn. (So, like, that recent Jucika would be okay, an Oglaf would be barely toeing the line, and anything beyond that would belong somewhere else. Or maybe Oglaf would be on the wrong side of the line, IDK.)
I don’t follow either artist, and have only seen mentions of them like how you describe. So my thought process is likely going to be case-by-case.
I picked them as examples because both have recently been posted here.
Here’s the NSFW Jucika I mentioned (note: none of the other Jucika strips are NSFW), and I can’t find the Oglafs anymore because I think you removed them.
On a related note, it would’ve been easier for me to search (and especially, to check the modlog since the image is gone and you have to go by title alone) if the name of the strip were in the title.
‘Jucika’ comics were popular in the past week, and those are definitely adult-oriented, even without explicit nudity.
Yeah, I read that rule and was worried those would have to stop. I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve seen so far, and would like to see similar posts be allowed to continue.
Sure, but the original rule was not being enforced. Presumably given that we have an active mod, now, you’re planning to enforce the rules. Basically all I’m saying is, I’d prefer that the content that has been getting posted be allowed to continue to be posted. Nobody’s looking for hardcore pornography, but the occasional risque comic should (IMO) not cause problems, as they haven’t been for quite some time.
Except that one time my original comic got removed for having the word “balls” in it.
Woah, look at Satan over here trying to corrupt the youth with his raunchy comics. Glad we had someone on deck to remove that before anyone saw it.
See I’d have just made an anti-Beep rule and called it a day, good on you for really diving into the role o7
Best. Response. Ever!!! 🤣
Thank you!
Proposal of a new rule: Every post must have the author’s name and name of the series (if any) in the title in a given format.
Purpose: for users who want certain contents filtered out.
Example: [da Vinci][Jesus’s Delicious Meals] The Last Supper
That’s a good idea.
Typically though it seems that posters of comics are self sorting. So if I don’t want to see the anime chick I just block that one person and she goes away. It is a little heavy handed to the person who posts them though I guess…
I agree. In most cases that works.
However sometimes a poster posts more than one series, and more than one posters post one series.
To control a pollution (figurative speech) we control the source.
I’m really liking the revised rules as of this comment. Thank you for taking this on!
Finally, the beepening is over.
Good luck moderating this place, hope my provocative content doesn’t create too many moderation headaches, I’ve stirred up the userbase quite a few times in the past :)
As a former mod of some big communities, make sure to always remember it’s a volunteer task and not a job. You don’t owe anyone explanations, you’re allowed to be wrong, you can take breaks, even if you’re doing your best some people will dislike you no matter what. Keep it cool or it might affect your mental health. Remember this comment if you ever feel burnt out!
Hi Bad, please never stop stirring up the userbase :))
🫡
Should i just unsub now before i get banned for using normal adult language?
Miss me with the fuckin family friendly shit.That’s exactly what this formerly unmoderated, yet tame community needs: ti be forced into being PG. 🙄
You do whatever the fuck you feel is the best thing for you. But, before you go, feel free to check out my revisions that I’ve made. And thanks for the fucking feedback! :)
I appreciate this reply.
Hi Dohpaz42! Welcome and thank you for doing a bit of a pulse check and getting some input from the community.
I’m one of the many lurkers that typically just browses and rarely comments or posts but I wanted to post a little feedback on your proposed updated rules:
I would like to ask that you consider including something about the comics themselves being cropped/modified before posting.
I know there will be times where a person mistakenly uploads a modified one randomly found on the net, but recently there have been a ton of posts (comments as well) where the one user in particular, decided that cropping the images are justified and will link to places like Reddit or the main website for their comic (e.g. xkcd.com) without the direct link/attribution. Followed by taunting others who point it out in other threads. It is causing unnecessary drama in the community obviously.
Thank you
📽️ Credit Where Credit is Due
This is the rule that was meant to address that issue.
Comics should include the original attribution to the artist(s) involved, and be unmodified. Bonus points if you include a link back to their website. When in doubt, use a reverse image search to try to find the original version. Repeat offenders will have their posts removed, be temporarily banned from posting, or if all else fails, be permanently banned from posting.
How does this sound?
Yep, I think that covers it better and doesn’t leave any wiggle room for those in bad faith to keep saying “oops!”
Thank you!
I just updated it again with more words. :)
Nice! I really like that and I’m sure most people will too. Thank you again! :)
https://imgops.com/ this is a better reverse image search tool. It allows you to check google, bing, yandex, tineye, etc.
Please reconsider censorship of adult content. This rule is most unwelcome
The idea was never to censor adult material. But, you and a lot of other people have made your case, and I have updated the proposed rules. Hopefully it helps me more clear.
Yes, thanks!
