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Why is the /s necessary here as well? (feddit.uk)

submitted 7 months ago by sirico@feddit.uk to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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One of my most hated things in the dying days of Reddit is people having to put the /s because of all the mass down voting from users that didn't get a post was a joke.

When I came here it seemed that wasn't the case but I've noticed over the last month a lot of users using it or having -28 points for an off the cuff comment.

I might be just be a bit too bothered by the need to use it.

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[-] vk6flab@lemmy.radio 53 points 7 months ago

The voting behaviour around here is .. interesting.

As for the /s, that's because of how humans communicate. Most of our context cues are subliminal, facial expression, tone of voice, body language, eye movement, etc. These account for the bulk of the actual message.

In text based communication like this, those cues are missing entirely. We use emojis and smiley face brackets to give a clue to what is going on.

Then there's the language barrier, people come from different countries with different languages, but also different cultural ideas of what's funny and what isn't. You can tell when you start looking into swearing for example. The Dutch hurl contagious diseases at each other, the Italians diss each others mother, Australians use body parts.

Sarcasm is a special form of interaction, straddling truth and disbelief in some way. It's not universally recognised in the same way since it often triggers off cultural beliefs which vary across the world.

So, to bring all that together, the simple "/s" shows the reader that sarcasm is intended in a more or less universal way. Of course that too has a cultural impact, but that's a rabbit hole I'm not going down today.

[-] KillingAndKindess@lemmy.blahaj.zone 24 points 7 months ago

Also, I'd venture to guess that a higher concentration of neurospicy individuals exist here than other forums, which may make markup of nonverbal communication more regular.

Just a hunch though.

[-] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago

neurospicy

if i was drinking something id have done a spit take

[-] NaClKnight@kbin.run 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Increased rates of neurodivergence on a leftist founded Reddit alternative?

It's less "venture to guess" and more "I'd bet my life savings on that being true."

Shit. I'm here with ADHD.

[-] nickwitha_k 0 points 7 months ago

And I'm here with ADHD and likely somewhere on the to autistic spectrum (not directly diagnosed with the later but have a sibling who is, making it all but certain), along with early childhood trauma fun. And I'm likely one of the less "neurospicy" about.

[-] nickwitha_k 2 points 7 months ago

neurospicy

I love that term.

[-] rufus@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Completely agree. First of all the voting behaviour. To me it looks completely like a score if a specific opinion is popular. I see lots of valid arguments (in friendly words) against a popular opinion getting downvoted. Urban legends getting upvoted while the correct answer has 2 upvotes... Things that are the first thing that comes to mind after reading the headline, but not part of the article at all getting a good amount of upvotes...

And with the sarcasm, innuendo, emotions, playing devils advocate... It's a long tradition on the internet to add hints to the text to make that clear. It's not mandatory in any way, but the subtext, verbal clues and facial expressions are definitely missing. Reddit folks have their own jargon with the '/s' etc. Other people use emojis. But even before emojis were a thing, people added ;-) :'-) or XD or other clues.

Sarcasm just doesn't work that well in text comments and it never has.

[-] thejoker954@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

I'm not liking the voting system so far on lemmy. I've seen too many comments downvoted just because people disagree with the poster's opinion and not because they are trolling or off topic.

I've see it happen on reddit of course but it seems more prevalent here in the short time I've been using it.

this post was submitted on 02 May 2024

-26 points (32.9% liked)

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