The main goal of a sign—any sign!—is to successfully transmit information to its intended audience. The content itself can be incredibly varied. It might be an official warning about wild bears in the area. It might be information about today’s lunch. It might be a company’s rebranded logo trying to attract new customers. Or it might be a general plea to behave like a civilized, polite, kind human being inside the shop.

No matter the content, though, what you want and need are clarity and brevity.

Broadly speaking, you want to include enough information in your sign so that your audience understands your intent, but you don’t want to overwhelm them.

So, again, clarity and brevity are key. Ideally, you’ll cut out all unnecessary info and leave what’s irreplaceable because you only have a moment or two to get your audience’s attention. It’s harder than it looks.

How much context do you want to include? How long of an explanation is too long? If you want your customers to act a certain way (e.g. to use utensils instead of their hands for the potato salad), you want your signs to be short, snappy, and direct while avoiding walls of text.

That being said, if your signs raise more questions than they answer due to their brevity, the situation might also backfire.

If you get a bunch of customers asking the staff for further explanation for the signs you’ve put up, it is a waste of everyone’s time. Sure, it might be fun to explain the context in person the first few times, but after the hundredth case, your staff will be annoyed and exhausted.

No sign or rule will cover every possible outcome, but you can at least use them to answer the most common questions or complaints.

The r/trashy subreddit has been one of the most well-known pillar communities of Reddit for more than a decade now. Even if you don’t browse Reddit, you’ve probably come across some of the viral content its members have featured in your own social media feeds at some point in time.

The sub was first created in the middle of the summer of 2012 (which feels almost like a century ago). Now, more than twelve years later, the online group boasts a massive following. Currently, nearly 3 million people from around the globe follow it for the freshest demotivating and cringy content.

If you plan on being an active participant on r/trashy, then you should put in a bit of time to get acquainted with the type of content all the other members share. Luckily, the friendly moderators who keep the entire place running smoothly have a handy list of rules in the sidebar that should help you get started.

The rules are there for a reason. When you run an online community of any size, you want to have a high bar for quality if you plan on attracting more followers. For one, any content you share on r/trashy shouldn’t have any sensitive, private information in it. For example, you should not post photos with people’s or business’s names. Vehicle license plates are also off the table.

According to the mods, the posts need to be a “celebration of trashiness.” That means that, at their core, they have to be funny. At least on some level. “If it makes you angry then it doesn’t belong here,” the moderators explain, adding that you can share that kind of rage content on other communities.

All members who post are also expected to put in some effort with their titles. Any social media screenshots that you share also have to be presented in context so that the audience doesn’t feel lost. In other words, you want to make the pics as friendly and approachable as you can. Meanwhile, the sub is no place for parody, satire, memes, or photos of literal trash.