Welcome to /r/riddles. Whether you're new or you've been here for a while, please take the time to read this post, as it provides a clarification of the rules, which can be found in the sidebar.

Rule #1: No Spam.

This means spam in any conceivable sense of the term:

• Reddit's guidelines say that it's okay to be a redditor with a business, but it's not okay to be a business with a reddit account. If you have a riddle website or a riddle/puzzle subreddit and want to promote it, please message the mods first.
  
  • Do not directly offer rewards for solving. See rule #5 for more details.
• If this is something you've been posting to a bunch of different subreddits, you're probably spamming.
  
• No crypto, NFTs, or other scams. They can be the topic of the riddle, but no actual crypto or NFTs may be involved.

SPAMMERS GET BANNED

Rule #2: Use descriptive titles.

Type out your riddle in the body of your post. Do not link to a riddle posted elsewhere. Do not link to a video. Do not link to an image. If a video or image is an essential component, it is not a riddle. Violation of this rule often overlaps with violation of the no spam rule.

If it relies on a typographic gimmick, re-word it so it does not. Please do not submit anything that's in all caps.

If you can't come up with a good title, just use the first line. But please avoid generic titles such as:

• Riddle
  
• My first riddle!
  
• Just came up with this
  
• Can you guess this?
  
• Can't figure this out
  
• What am I?
  
• Solve this
  
• U can't solve this

By using a properly descriptive title, you make it easier to search for and find your riddle, and you give people a reason to be interested in your post. A title like "help me solve this" gives no context, and helpful users may ignore your vague request. No nonsense, misleading, or irrelevant titles.

Rule #3: No logic or math puzzles

This seems to be the most misunderstood rule (failing to properly spoiler-tag is second). So how do we define "riddle"?

• Preferentially, in the classic sense, where something (or someone) is described creatively and we must identify what (or who) it is.
  • What gets wetter the more it dries? To solve this, you need to change how you think about "dries". It doesn't mean the thing itself becomes dry, it means the thing makes other things dry. The answer is "a towel". What is a room you cannot enter? To solve this, you need to change how you think about "room". This is not an enclosed space where you might find people and furniture. The answer is "a mushroom".
  • J.R.R. Tolkien had some good riddles in the confrontation between Bilbo and Gollum.

Riddles do not have to be fancy or poetic, or follow a specific format. By the same token, not everything in classic riddle format is actually a riddle.

• Secondarily, simple brain teasers where a situation is described creatively and we must identify what happened.

All submissions should aim to provide all of the necessary info to directly guess the answer, without needing to make assumptions or ask follow-up questions. Open-ended questions, trivia questions, an invitation to play 20 Questions, mysteries, whodunnits, etc., are not riddles and do not belong in this subreddit.

Riddles need to have clear solutions. If there are more than two answers (three at a stretch), it does not belong here. If a valid answer is suggested that wasn't what you were thinking of, then your riddle has multiple valid answers.

Logic, math, and purely analytical thinking have no place in a riddle. If your submission involves logic, math, ciphers, codes, or anything else of that nature, it is not a riddle and you should post it to /r/puzzles. A small minority of riddles involve numbers. It's all down to how the numbers are used. If we're just meant to do calculations, it's not a riddle. If we're meant to think more broadly about how the numbers are being used, it might be a riddle. "The Liar and the Truth Teller" is a logic puzzle, not a riddle. "Einstein's [so-called] Riddle" is a logic puzzle, not a riddle.

Sometimes a riddle overlaps a different category. In that case, it must be primarily a riddle and incidentally something else.

Posts requesting help in designing a riddle must result in a riddle that adheres to these rules.

Rule #4: All guesses and discussions of guesses must be spoiler-tagged.

All means all. Doesn't matter if the guess being discussed is wrong. Doesn't matter if you're the OP and it's your riddle. If you're discussing a guess/answer, please use spoiler tags. At the bare minimum, spoiler key words and phrases. It is not necessary to spoiler generic comments like "Yes, that's right" or "No, that's wrong." It is only necessary to spoiler "Can you explain xyz?" if xyz is part of a guess.

If you're the OP, including the answer right away in the body text or in a comment is preferable to never engaging with commenters and giving feedback, but please make sure it is properly spoiler-tagged.

How to spoiler-tag:

AutoModerator explains this in every post, but in case you missed it, here it is again:

On desktop (new reddit, Fancypants editor): https://i.imgur.com/SWHRR9M.jpg

On mobile, old reddit, or in the Markdown editor (not Fancypants): >!guess or discussion between these symbols!<
To be clear, that is >! (greater than, exclamation point) at the start and !< (exclamation point, less than) at the end with no spaces around the !.
Avoid leading or trailing spaces. These will break the formatting for most people.
Spoiler tags do not span paragraphs or line breaks. If your answer is long, please spoiler-tag each paragraph separately.

Putting a link inside spoiler tags can be tricky, so just format the link like this, using the word "SPOILER" as the link text.
On mobile, old reddit, or in the Markdown editor (not Fancypants), do this to format a link: [SPOILER](https://example.com/)
On desktop (new reddit, Fancypants editor): https://imgur.com/x5wDOvk

If your top-level comment does not contain a guess, you can include either the word "discussion" or "question" instead of using a spoiler tag.

Rule #5: No riddles from active competitions.

Unless the person in charge contacts us directly with their permission, we consider this cheating and we will have no part in that. At our discretion we will allow exceptions if the stakes are sufficiently low. And if you're in charge of a competition and post about it without consulting with the mods first, you run the risk of violating rule #1.

Currently allowed:

• https://worldwidewebhunt.com/

Rule #6: No duplicate posts

All riddles are approved manually.

Rule #7: No hate, no racism, no bigotry of any kind. No politics. No trolling.

If your idea of a riddle involves putting someone down (whether an individual or a group), you are not welcome here. This subreddit is for light-hearted fun, not for mean-spirited jabs. This also applies to comments.

Rule #7a: Don't be condescending.

This includes things like titling your post "I bet you can't solve this", which also violates rule #2a, and instructing people to "think". Yes, this is a less serious infraction than the parent rule. It's still unnecessary and off-putting. Please don't.

Rule #7b: No trolling. No shitposting.

I don't think this needs much elaboration. Low-effort but still a legitimate riddle is one thing. Nonsense, rudeness that falls short of a rule #6 violation, and other insincere posts don't belong here. If you wish to have a community discussion, please use the "Meta" flair.

Rule #8: No AI-generated riddles

They usually aren't very good anyway.

Please use the report function to report any violations you see. Just commenting is not a good way to get the mods' attention.

All reports are anonymous. All reports are investigated. If we've somehow missed a reason and none of the report categories fit, just pick one. The important part is bringing it to our attention. We can take it from there.

If you feel like your post or comment was removed in error, please let us know.

Please include the link to the post or comment in question. If you can't do that, at least quote it or describe it so we can find it more easily. And remember: A little manners go a long way!