r/selbststaendig rules, stats, and what to post

This is a German speaking community for self employed people, freelancers, and startups in Germany, and the description says its purpose is exchanging experiences and sharing interesting things with each other. So the people posting here run their own businesses, they invoice clients, they deal with German bureaucracy, and they talk about entrepreneurship in German. The rules reinforce that focus, because contributions and discussions should center on Selbstständigkeit, Unternehmertum, and related topics. There is also room for political discussions, but only when they directly touch self employment or entrepreneurship, and only in a factual and respectful way. If your business is not somehow tied to working independently or building a company, this is probably not your room.

The first rule to understand is “Werbung und Selbstpromotion”, because it bans direct advertising and excessive self promotion, and it even calls out looking for test customers and free trial phases. The same rule allows informative content like blog articles or helpful videos to be shared in moderation, but any external blog links and affiliate links are untersagt, meaning forbidden. “Beiträge bitte auf Deutsch” decides whether your post survives at all, since posts written mostly in English get removed. “Thematische Relevanz” keeps the room on self employment and entrepreneurship, so a generic marketing post that has nothing to do with running your own business will not fit. “Qualität und Inhalt” demands real substance, so thin or purely speculative posts get removed. “Einfache Fragen und Google-Suchanfragen” allows simple questions but asks you to search Google first, so do some homework before posting. If you want to post a survey, “Nur thematisch passende Umfragen sind erlaubt” requires prior approval from the moderation team, and student surveys are only fine when they fit the topics. “Umgangston und Respekt” governs how you behave in comments, with no insults or condescension.

The door this community opens is the informative content clause in the promotion rule, which says content that offers direct value, like informative articles or videos with useful tips, can be shared in moderation when the focus is on community benefit and not on selling. So the winning shape here is a genuine write up of something you learned running your business, written in German, with the full substance in the post itself. Since external blog links are forbidden, you cannot link out, so put your actual lessons, numbers, or mistakes directly in the text. Good shapes are an honest account of a pricing decision you made, a walkthrough of how you handle a specific German freelancer problem, or a question that invites other self employed people to share their approach. Keep it high quality and informative, because the quality rule removes posts with no added value. If you want to run a survey, get moderator approval before you post it.

The fastest removal is posting in English, because the rules state that posts written mostly in English get removed, so write in German and keep only short English terms or quotes. Do not post direct advertising or pushy self promotion, and do not ask for test customers or free trial phases, because the rules name both explicitly. Do not drop links to external blogs or affiliate links, even inside a helpful article, since those are untersagt. Do not post a survey without asking the moderation team first, and know that even approved surveys are limited to two per week across the whole community. Avoid low effort posts with no real information value and avoid purely speculative content, because the quality rule flags both. Stay on topic, because off topic posts with no connection to self employment should be kept to a minimum. And keep your tone respectful in the comments, no insults, no talking down to people, no unnecessary sharpness.

This is one of the few communities I have read the rules for where the rules spell out a whole trap category for you: Testkunden and free trial offers get named directly as forbidden promotion. That tells me the moderators have seen every soft pitch in the book, so my advice is simple, give your best thinking away in German and expect nothing back on the first post. I also like that this sub allows good content to be shared in moderation, which is rare and generous, as long as you respect the no links part.