Isn’t this what upvotes and downvotes are for? Do they only want posts about billionaire mega corporations? 10% is a really strict cutoff for people that make things as a hobby. What else am I gonna post when everything else is already posted instantly? I can’t post to r/pcgaming for the same reason.
I’m not trying to sell anything, it’s a free download, my videos aren’t monetized, I don’t accept donations. I’m an active commenter too even if I don’t make many posts there. My posts get lots of upvotes with good ratios, and I space out my posts so they’re not frequent at all.
Also the fact that they count it site-wide instead of sub-wide means if you create your own sub or use an appropriate niche sub, you’re gonna screw up your own ratio.
There are two solutions.
The first is to post to the very specific relevant forums. The niche forums want your content.
The second solution for you is to do what corporations do and create many sock puppets. When a new episode of a Disney series comes out, a post is made promoting it and no one is warned for self promotion despite the post very likely coming from Disney Marketing.
Situational. There are absolutely folks obsessed with meaningless internet points who are all too eager to get that first post about Herp Derp: The Series, a D list celeb from that show you liked dying, or crossposting a meme about birds to every bird, meme, bird meme and meme bird subreddit out there. Gallowboob got a literal job from doing it. This doesn’t mean that bots aren’t doing it as well, just that sometimes they aren’t necessary.