Vast forum site Reddit has added new policies that it hopes will help rein in harassment of its users by its other, not-so-nice, users.

The meme-trading portal said it would crack down on online harassment of individuals with the goal of ending it, for the good of the site.

"The number one reason Redditors do not recommend the site – even though they use it themselves – is because they want to avoid exposing friends to hate and offensive content," Reddit staffers said in a Thursday blog post.

According to the corgi-photo merchants, a crackdown on personal attacks and harassment is something that users have been asking to get for some time.

"We are unhappy with harassing behavior on Reddit; we have survey data that show our users are, too," the Reddit-ites said. "So we've improved our practices to better curb harassment of individuals on Reddit."

Under the new policy, targeting individuals will no longer be allowed on the site. Specifically, Reddit now defines harassment as:

Systematic and/or continued actions to torment or demean someone in a way that would make a reasonable person (1) conclude that Reddit is not a safe platform to express their ideas or participate in the conversation, or (2) fear for their safety or the safety of those around them

Reddit staff emphasized that the new rules would not have any effect on any general ideas or communities, but would only be aimed at stopping the harassment of individuals.

"This change will have no immediately noticeable impact on more than 99.99 per cent of our users," Reddit stated. "It is specifically designed to prevent attacks against people, not ideas."

Reddit prides itself on the way it looks after its users. The site said in its latest transparency report it did not hand data over to foreign governments and keeps an open line to users who would like their naked selfies scrubbed from the site. ®