r/explainlikeimfive: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

The rules tell answerers to assume nothing beyond a typical secondary education and to avoid unexplained technical terms. Askers openly say they are bad at maths or do not get something, and nobody mocks them for it, because judging people is against the rules. The catch runs the other way: a question that is too simple, with a one line factual answer, gets removed for not needing an explanation.

• Curious laypeople who ran into something they do not understand: a physics idea, a money term, a bit of tech.
• Students stuck on a concept from a course, from guard cells to imaginary numbers.
• Engineers, scientists and tradespeople who answer from their own field and say so.
• People with first-hand experience of the thing asked about, such as touring musicians explaining how a small tour pays for itself.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/explainlikeimfive.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.

• Stayed up55%
• Removed by Reddit's filters6%
• Held by AutoModerator<1%
• Removed by moderators37%
• Deleted by the author1%

Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   Be Civil

   Stay respectful, polite, and friendly. ELI5 is a for requesting help understanding complex concepts and sharing explanations without fear of judgement. Don't insult people or their good intentions in a post, comment, or otherwise, even if a person seems rude or ill-informed. Remember the positive spirit of ELI5. This includes plagiarism - acknowledge your sources! Use of bigoted slurs, directed at other users or not, is uncivil.

2. 2

   All submissions must seek objective explanations

   ELI5 is not meant for any question that you may have. It is meant for simplifying complex *concepts*. Notably, posts will be immediately removed that ask for: - Information about a specific issue (personal experience, legal/relationship questions, medical questions, etc.) - Subjective/speculative replies - Straightforward answers/facts - Recent/current events - Religion/Politics - Hypotheticals - Reddit questions (itself/help). - Whole topic overviews - Business/Group/Individual motivations

3. 3

   Top-level comments must be written explanations

   Replies to OP must be written explanations or relevant follow-up questions. They may not be jokes, anecdotes, etc. Short/succinct answers are not explanations, even if factually correct. Links to outside sources are allowed and encouraged, but must include an original explanation (not just quoted text) or summary. Links to relevant previous ELI5 posts or highly relevant other subreddits may be excepted. No plagiarism. All quoted text must be cited. No Bots/GPT This list is not comprehensive

4. 4

   Explain for laypeople (but not actual 5-year-olds)

   Unless OP states otherwise, assume no knowledge beyond a typical secondary education program. Avoid unexplained technical terms. Don't condescend; "like I'm five" is a figure of speech meaning "keep it clear and simple."

5. 5

   ELI5 is for factual information, not opinions

   All comments must explain, ask about, correct or address facts. Trying to change someone's opinion or influence them with yours is not appropriate. If you are not able to submit, discuss or correct factual information without implicitly or explicitly involving your personal view on the matter, do not post.

6. 6

   Loaded questions are not allowed

   A loaded question presumes a controversial or not obviously true statement as fact. "ELI5: Why was Obama the president when he wasn't born in the US?" is loaded. "ELI5: The controversy about where Obama was born" is a non-loaded way to ask about the same topic. If your question boils down to: "Why isn't this thing I believe (or is self evidently true) the case?" your question is loaded and belongs in another subreddit.

7. 7

   Search before posting; don't repeat old posts

   To avoid repeats, search key words ("storm" for "How do Thunderstorms Form?"), not the whole title. If you found only explanations that weren't clear on your point, explain that, and state what you're still trying to understand. “Old posts” refers to questions older than six months. If there are unarchived posts on the topic you must explain why those posts do not answer the question. You can read more on our reposts policy here.

8. 8

   Don't guess

   If you don't know how to explain something, you don't need to reply. If you have a partly educated guess, only comment on the parts you are sure of.

9. 9

   Don't try to trick the bot

   If the automatic moderator removes your post, read the whole message it gives you, and follow its advice. It's there to help, not to be evaded — evasion will result in a ban.

10. 10

    Posts must begin with "ELI5:"

    This is meant to help identify ELI5 posts on the frontpage or /r/all or any other collection. --- Questions *must* be clear from the post title. If you need to explain it in the text body, you probably need to rephrase. --- Moderation decisions are ultimately left up to the discretion of the ELI5 modteam. Do not try to find loopholes in the rules and sneak through them. Above all else, respect the spirit of the subreddit.

11. 11

    Link to the Detailed Rules

    https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/wiki/detailed_rules/ Here is a link to the detailed rules which are not character constrained. The above rules are a summary.

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

r/explainlikeimfive is a question and answer room with one job: take a complicated concept and explain it so a layperson gets it. It is not for five year olds and it is not a general question board. The moderators draw a hard line between an explanation and an answer. If your question has a short factual answer, it does not belong here.

The format is fixed. Every post is text, almost every title is a question, and the body is short, around 44 words, often empty. The work happens in the comments, which run longer than most of Reddit at about 31 words and often much more. Top-level replies have to be real written explanations. Jokes, anecdotes and one line answers are against the rules at the top level, though they show up further down a thread.

The fault line is what counts as a concept. The moderators say plainly that the rules are strict because the volume is huge, and AutoModerator has canned removals for a long list of topics: current events, politics, AI, dreams, "what if" hypotheticals, why companies or people behave the way they do. A lot of ordinary curiosity lands in one of those buckets, which is why more than a third of posts in our sample were removed by moderators.

What lands

• A how-does-this-work question about something everyday, like how a tube of dough pops open or what causes waves at a beach.
• A question that shows where your understanding stops: you get that excess energy has to go somewhere, but not why it comes out as radiation.
• Economics of ordinary life, such as how a small band can afford a long tour. That one drew replies from people who had done it, with real figures.
• Technical concepts asked plainly, like how a microprocessor works. Experts reply with step by step builds from a light switch upward.

What gets removed or ignored

• Titles that do not start with "ELI5:". Several removed posts in the sample were resubmitted with the prefix and stayed up the second time.
• Anything prompted by a recent or current event, including elections and sports news. Those go to the pinned monthly megathread.
• Questions about your own body, health or experience. AutoModerator says these are never appropriate.
• Opinion, advice and how-to requests: what should happen to shoplifters, whether to buy bonds, how to get followers.
• Frequently asked topics such as AI, plus hypotheticals, dreams, and questions about Reddit itself.

The unwritten rules

• Put the whole question in the title. Many posts that stay up have no body at all, and the rules say that if you need the body to explain the question you should rephrase it.
• Ask about the general concept, not your case. "Why does this happen to me" gets removed. "Why does this happen" often stays.
• A removal is not a ban. The removal message includes a review form, and the moderators say they will not read an appeal unless you fill in all of it, including what you searched for.
• Do not reword a removed post to slip past the bot. The rules call that evasion and it is a ban.
• If you answer, write the explanation yourself. Links are welcome as support but a bare link, pasted text or AI output is removed. Only about 5% of comments carry a link.

Self-promotion

There is no self-promotion rule, because the format leaves almost no room for it. Posts are text-only questions and comments must be original explanations. The one clearly promotional post in our removed sample, an invitation to check out a debate platform, did not last. A link in a comment is allowed when it comes with your own explanation, so the only realistic way a brand shows up here is as a person with real expertise explaining something well, with a source link that backs the explanation up.

How people write here

Typical post length

44 words

Typical title length

12 words

Titles phrased as a question

77%

Typical comment length

31 words

Comments that include a link

5%

Posts that carry a flair

100%

The regulars

The accounts that showed up most in our sample. Worth reading before you post: they set the tone, and they are usually the first to reply.

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/explainlikeimfive.

• eli5 318 posts
• manchester city 6 posts
• explain 24 posts
• humans 9 posts
• tarski paradox 3 posts
• skydance 3 posts
• photons 3 posts
• higgs 3 posts
• economic system 3 posts
• diesel engine 3 posts
• banach tarski 3 posts
• death penalty 4 posts
• crimes 5 posts
• oxygen 5 posts
• cells 6 posts
• lethal 4 posts
• brain 13 posts
• sinks 3 posts
• electrons 3 posts
• botched 4 posts
• universe 5 posts
• gasoline 3 posts
• interest rates 5 posts
• water 14 posts
• evolve 4 posts
• temperature 6 posts
• pike 3 posts
• christa pike 3 posts
• body 13 posts
• earth 5 posts
• society 5 posts
• executions 3 posts
• evolution 4 posts
• physics 4 posts
• laws 4 posts
• economic 4 posts
• wondered 4 posts
• elections 3 posts
• affect 6 posts
• dominant 3 posts

Recurring topics: el, eli5, water, why, how, football, data centers, ai, time, speed.

Growth

1. 2012207k
2. 20131.4M
3. 20144.1M
4. 20157M
5. 201611.8M
6. 201715.1M
7. 201816.3M
8. 201917.4M
9. 202018.9M
10. 202120M
11. 202322.7M
12. 202423M
13. 202523.4M
14. 202623.7M

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Common questions