>>8327
The generals rule is an handover from /v/ since all the new /v/ off-shoots share its board-specific rules. Strictly speaking a general is anything called "general" in the OP text or subject or anything referring to "editions", anything containing links to pastebins or too many links to wikis or guides or event related things within the context of it being a recurring thread and not some thread made deliberately to discuss some event or other. Backlinking to the previous thread is fine (you'd think it wouldn't be) and so is having a link or two in there as long as it isn't a pastebin. People will also often post all the links and dumps in the thread instead of the OP which also breaks the rule.
I don't think that anyone thinks that the rule is useful on these boards since people just make one after the other threads anyway without the general formatting so they don't get moderated; all it does is occasionally shit on dozens to hundreds of posters in a given thread and make them re-do the thread without the forbidden text. Mod wise the responses to generals are wide ranging, I've had someone lock a thread because it was a general which makes an example out of the practice whilst some other times I've had mods shrug because the general happened to have 200 or so posts so I should instead wait for weeks/months for it to die before enforcing the rule.
Nonetheless it's still a rule so you should enforce it, most of the threads on most boards don't break the rule despite being one after the other threads too (not even 4chan mods are draconian enough to be super strict about it) so you likely won't have to do anything for months if you properly stamp out the actual generals from the given board.