Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
There is also a dearth of cannibalistic viewpoints here. And Zoroastrians are woefully underrepresented.
I don't come here to change my views (though it happens from time to time), and neither do they. I'm not ignorant of their thoughts; I'm inundated with them every day. I don't need to interact with assholes here. I don't want to come here and watch people scream back and forth at each other, and I definitely am not interested in participating—there is a reason I've left other social media.
You don't have to subscribe to political communities if you don't want to see political discussion. But the dearth of genuine political discussion here is a problem for the people who do want it, that can't be fixed by individual action.
What is genuine political discussion? How do you moderate it? Who is going to come when it's moderated? How do you deal with both legitimate and legitimate complaints about biased moderation?
I just don't think it's a thing on social media. I think it can happen in private conversations, but as soon as it becomes more about winning an argument or posturing for readers, I think any hope of earnest discourse is lost. The more public a conversation, the worse it is. It's like trying to argue with a bully in front of their friends. You might be able to reach the humanity in them, but not in that moment.
It used to be, in the early days of mass social media (and it was widespread on forums)
Moderation isn't easy but it also needn't be fraught - set standards of civility (strict or loose) and basic rules about hate speech, and let people take themselves out of discussions that are within the rules that they nevertheless don't like.
It works a lot better in small communities where you talk to the same people - you can ignore people you don't like and not have the same conversation over and over.