Folks,

After this discussion the other day and a couple of chats among the mod team, we're going to be tweaking a couple of rules.

First, we're reducing the 12 hour rule down to 6 hours. There wasn't really a consensus either way - some favored the current rule, others supported the change, and some had creative (if maybe impractical) ideas for a third way. Since there wasn't a clear consensus, we've decided to try this on a tentative basis - if we start hearing of this change causing problems in /r/legaladvice, we'll likely go back up to 12. We think that 6 hours is enough to make sure that OPs get good advice, and we think that shortening the waiting period will encourage folks to post and discuss the things we all love and hate.

Second, and perhaps more controversially, we are requesting that people refrain from requesting updates from the /r/legaladvice OP.

I know that update posts are among the most popular on this sub, and that there has been an awful lot of controversy around this topic recently. I hope you'll listen to our reasons for this, and that we can discuss this civilly below.

The OPs in /r/legaladvice are not there (solely) for our entertainment. They are real people with real problems. There are times when posting an update to the sub could damage OP's standing in their particular dispute. If OP decides to provide an update, great! We can all discuss it here. If they don't provide an update, there may well be a reason for that.

I've seen a handful of update posts on /r/legaladvice that start with something along the lines of "My lawyer said not to post about this anymore, but. . ." When we encourage OPs to update, we run the risk of convincing them to do something that could hurt them in a civil or criminal matter. That's not what any of us are here for.

So, going forward, we're going to be discouraging these requests, especially when OP is present in the thread. Simply mentioning that you'd like to see the end of an issue is one thing, but comments outright requesting an update will be removed.

Thank you,

/u/ramady