r/AskPhilly rules, stats, and what to post
Know the rules before you post. So easy grandma can do it.
- To post
- No minimum in the rules
- To comment
- No minimum in the rules
- Self-promotion
- Not mentioned in the rules
- Links
- Not mentioned in the rules
- Promo risk
- Medium
- From the rules, not from removal counts
- Community age
- 14 years
- Since May 2012
About r/AskPhilly
A source-backed Rankhog guide to r/AskPhilly: public rules, community context, posting fit, and startup-promotion risk before you publish.Checked from the r/AskPhilly rules on Reddit.
r/AskPhilly rules
2 rules, in the community's own words.
- 1
Zero tolerance on bigotry
Offenders will be banned and then muted from mod mail if harassment continues.
- 2
Questions about neighborhood safety belong in r/Philadelphia's Moving Monday or Tuesday Casual Chat
What to post in r/AskPhilly
What fits the room, and what gets removed.
Works well
- A plain question about daily life in Philadelphia, like where locals go for a specific service or errand
- A question about how the city works, like parking, transit, or seasonal quirks, that locals can answer from experience
- A founder researching the city asking for local perspective on a real problem their product touches, framed as a genuine question with no pitch
- A friendly follow up in the comments thanking people and sharing what you learned, which keeps the exchange useful instead of promotional
- A neighborhood safety question posted in r/Philadelphia's Moving Monday or Tuesday Casual Chat threads, which is where the rules say it belongs
Avoid
- Posting anything that reads as hate speech or bigotry, including dog whistles, because the community has zero tolerance and offenders get banned
- Continuing to contact moderators through mod mail after a ban for harassment, which leads to getting muted
- Asking whether a specific neighborhood is safe, since those questions get removed here
- Trying to sneak a neighborhood safety question past the mods by framing it as a general question about the city
- Dropping promotional links or pitches, since this is a question and answer space and self promotion has no natural home here
- Posting without a real question, because a post that does not ask the community anything does not fit the room
Best hours to post in r/AskPhilly
No pattern yet. r/AskPhilly does not have enough top posts from the last 90 days to name its best hours.
What r/AskPhilly Is For
r/AskPhilly is described as the friendly place to get all your questions about Philadelphia answered. People come here to ask locals about the city, and locals come here to answer them. The description sets the tone clearly: friendly, question driven, and with zero tolerance on hate and bigotry, including dog whistles. This is a question and answer room for the city, not a place for pitches or debates.
Rules That Matter Before Posting
Two rules decide everything here. The first is “Zero tolerance on bigotry”, which says offenders will be banned and then muted from mod mail if harassment continues. The second is “Questions about neighborhood safety belong in r/Philadelphia's Moving Monday or Tuesday Casual Chat”, which sends that whole category of question to a different subreddit. The description adds a zero tolerance stance on hate and bigotry, including dog whistles, so the first rule is enforced broadly. There is no published rule about promotion, links, or AI content, so the safest read is that anything promotional still has to fit the community's purpose of answering questions about Philadelphia.
What To Post
A good post here is a genuine question about Philadelphia that a local can answer from experience. If you are a founder researching the city, ask something specific and useful, like where people go for a certain service or how locals handle a practical city problem. Keep it neutral, friendly, and free of any hint of bigotry or dog whistles. If your question is really about whether a neighborhood is safe, post it in r/Philadelphia's Moving Monday or Tuesday Casual Chat threads instead, because it will be removed here.
What To Avoid
Bigotry of any kind gets you banned, and the description explicitly includes dog whistles, so nothing edgy or coded belongs here. Neighborhood safety questions get removed, because the rules route them to r/Philadelphia's Moving Monday or Tuesday Casual Chat threads instead. Anything that reads as spam or self promotion has no stated protection here and will clash with a community built around answering questions.
A note from Anthony
What stands out to me is how short the rulebook is and how little patience it has. Two rules, and one of them bans a whole category of very common moving questions on sight. If you are a founder researching Philadelphia, come with a real question and leave the safety topic and the pitch at home.
By Anthony Riera, founder and operator of Rankhog. Every guide is built from the community's own public rules and data, then checked by Rankhog's grounding audit before it goes live.
Common questions about r/AskPhilly
What subreddits are similar to r/AskPhilly?
Subreddits like r/AskPhilly are r/melbourne, r/bayarea, r/hyderabad, r/houston, r/washingtondc, r/brisbane, r/AskNYC and r/bali.
Can I ask if a neighborhood is safe before I move?
No. The rules send neighborhood safety questions to r/Philadelphia's Moving Monday or Tuesday Casual Chat threads, so posting one here will get it removed.
Is any kind of promotion allowed here?
The rules do not ban promotion outright, but this is a question and answer community, so an ad with no real question will not land and the bigotry rule shows the mods act fast.
What kind of question actually belongs here?
The description says this is the friendly place to get questions about Philadelphia answered, so anything a local could genuinely answer fits.
What happens if I break the bigotry rule?
The rules state that offenders will be banned, and if harassment continues through mod mail they get muted, so there is very little room for a second chance.
What do well performing posts here look like?
The evidence gives no observed top posts for this community, so the safest read is a plain, honest question about the city that a local would enjoy answering.
Subreddits like r/AskPhilly
Other rooms for the same crowd.