Can I promote my product or blog here?
The rules do not explicitly ban promotion, but every post must be relevant to the subreddit and must not be low-effort. If you link to an external site with a vague title, you must add a submission statement.
Subreddit guides
r/slatestarcodex rules, stats, and what to post
A source-backed Rankhog guide to r/slatestarcodex: public rules, community context, posting fit, and startup-promotion risk before you publish.
By Anthony Riera, founder and operator of Rankhog.
Subreddit guides combine public Reddit source URLs, captured rules, visible verification dates, and Rankhog's account-safety workflow.
Current public stats
- Members
- 83,528
- Verified
- September 18, 2026
- Category
- Science and research communities
Rules can change, so Rankhog keeps verification dates and the original public Reddit sources visible.
Rule summary
- Avoid culture war content: Any posts or comments related to culture wars must go in a different community. Consider themotte.org or /r/NeutralPolitics.
- Personal attack: Personal attack
- Low-effort: Low-effort comment
- Antagonizing other users: Don't post with the intention of starting flame wars or antagonizing other users. Help maintain a respectful, intellectually charitable atmosphere.
- Call for violence: Call for violence
- Not relevant to the subreddit: Use your best judgment and only create submissions that feel relevant to the subreddit.
- Provide a submission statement for any external linkpost with a non-descriptive title: Provide submission statements for any external link with a non-descriptive title
- Your comments and posts should be written by you, not by LLMs.: Your comments and posts should be written by you, not by LLMs.
Works well
- Share an original essay or analysis you wrote yourself on a topic related to cognition, medicine, or analytical reasoning, with a descriptive title.
- Link to a long-form article or study relevant to the community's interests and include a submission statement explaining what it says and why it matters.
- Ask a thoughtful question about a Scott Alexander blog post or a related idea, written in your own words and open to genuine discussion.
- Share a book review or idea breakdown that connects to rationality, cognition, or medicine, as long as it is your own writing and not AI-generated.
Avoid
- Do not post culture war content, the rules send it to other communities entirely.
- Do not use an LLM to write your posts or comments, the community bans AI-generated text.
- Do not post low-effort comments or personal attacks.
- Do not antagonize users or try to start flame wars.
- Do not post links with vague titles unless you add a submission statement explaining the link.
- Do not post anything that calls for violence.
What r/slatestarcodex Is For
This community is built around the blog formerly called Slate Star Codex, now known as Astral Codex Ten, written by Scott Alexander. The blog covers human cognition, politics, and medicine, and the subreddit serves as a discussion space for readers who care about those topics. You can expect a crowd that values long-form, intellectually careful writing and debate. The rules make clear that the atmosphere should be respectful and intellectually charitable, which tells you the community rewards substance over noise.
Rules That Matter Before Posting
The rules that matter most for anyone posting here are straightforward. The rule named 'Avoid culture war content' tells you to keep politics and culture war topics out entirely, pointing you to other communities for those discussions. The rule 'Your comments and posts should be written by you, not by LLMs.' is a hard ban on AI-generated text, which matters a lot if you are used to drafting posts with language models. The rule 'Provide a submission statement for any external linkpost with a non-descriptive title' means that if you share a link and your title does not explain what the link is about, you need to add a short statement describing it. The rule 'Not relevant to the subreddit' gives moderators broad discretion to remove anything that does not fit, so relevance is judged by them, not by you. The rules 'Personal attack', 'Low-effort', and 'Antagonizing other users' all reinforce that the community expects respectful, thoughtful participation. The rule 'Call for violence' is a standard safety rule and needs no further explanation.
What To Post
A good post here is something you wrote yourself, in your own words, that connects to the themes Scott Alexander writes about, which are human cognition, medicine, and analytical thinking about ideas. If you are a founder doing respectful Reddit marketing, the only honest path is to share something genuinely interesting to this audience and let the discussion happen naturally. If you link to an external article or tool, give it a descriptive title or add a submission statement that explains what the link contains and why it matters. Keep the tone calm, thoughtful, and free of culture war framing. Think of it as contributing to a book club for people who read long, careful arguments, not as a place to drop a pitch.
What To Avoid
Avoid anything that smells like culture war material, because the first rule sends it elsewhere and the moderators remove it. Avoid AI-generated text in any form, whether in posts or comments, because the rules explicitly ban it. Avoid personal attacks, low-effort comments, and anything designed to antagonize other users or start flame wars. Avoid calls for violence, which is a hard line. Avoid posting links with vague titles unless you attach a submission statement. And avoid anything that does not feel relevant to the subreddit, because the moderators use their judgment on that.
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Common questions about r/slatestarcodex
Can I use AI to help write my post?
No. The rule says your comments and posts should be written by you, not by LLMs.
Can I discuss politics or culture war topics?
No. The first rule says culture war content must go in a different community and suggests themotte.org or r/NeutralPolitics.
Can I share an external link?
Yes, as long as the title is descriptive. If the title is non-descriptive, you must provide a submission statement.
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