Hello users of hexbear after some discussion we mainly wanted to get your thoughts on the two pinned megathreads, one general and one news.
We've noticed that the news mega has basically become the general mega and the general mega has kinda slowed. Some are thinking that it might be time to tell people to stop posting random shit to the news mega because some appreciate the ever so slightly more serious, focused tone of the news mega
As of now there is not much of a standard for comments however we wanted to discuss with you regarding making a change. Where the news megathread is for discussion on current events and their history/implications for future while the general megathread is for commenting on one's life, interests, or for shit-posting.
This would result in the news megathread being more heavily moderated to actively remove comments that are a better fit for the general megathread or off topic.
Please comment with any thoughts, opinions, comments, questions, or concerns.
Removing posts for reasons other than breaking site rules is kind of a lose lose IMO. More modding effort, more frustration for everyone involved. If people dont want to see non-news stuff in the general mega, stop upvoting it … many may be unaware that the news one is meant to be more news focused, so a PSA may suffice.
Yeah I think a lot of newbies probably didn't get it, it took me a second to differentiate I think, or I'd forget I was on the News thread bc I'd see shitposting and add to the shitposting....
That’s a good point in favor actually moderating.
Without it the news mega could enter its eternal autumn
Yeah I think moderating but allowing news-focused shitposting would be a good middle ground. The mods already seem to do a ton around here though so wonder if it would be much more stressful?
My point was allowing the shitposting led to people shitposting more which in turn leads to more new users….
Oh lol my bad
No worries, I think with moderation and user driven education there’s a middle ground, but everyone here is so nice mostly that calling people out for being off topic would be seen as rude so idk the answers.
Maybe add a short thing people read when they make an account that lets them know it’s important to read sidebars.
Subreddits that do this heavy moderation tend to devolve into an annoying clusterfuck of drama when someone thinks their post was wrongly removed. Non mods become hall monitors in an attempt to "help" the mods. Just seems unnecessary and trades one problem for another. I like the free posting style of this site and would prefer moderation to only apply at a site level. I.e. a post is removed for its content and not where it is posted.
Any examples? Askhistorians has a very firm hand and it work(ed) excellently. People who use that subreddit get exactly what it says on the tin: reliably sourced answers.
Wait do people actually check how many updoots they get on a comment? For me updoots are not a measure of approval so much as a mark that I have read it.
I do think a PSA will do a lot of the work to bring the news mega back into alignment. I also think its good to have mods step in a bit and talk to users who aren't getting the message. But that could also be something users of the news mega involve themselves in a bit too. We should be saying "Wrong mega, comrade" instead of "No big deal... [continued input on non news topic]"
Upvotes are supposed to improve upon the traditional forum model by providing a way for the community to endorse the best posts for visibility. If a user doesn't care about that, they can always sort by new/old. Either way, it's up to the reader to decide how posts are presented on their end, not up to the posters to modify their behavior to produce a convenient feed for readers.
The issue of non-news posts in the news mega is an issue of efficiency for readers. If the site had better features for filtering comments, then it wouldn't be necessary to impose rules on how people post because the burden of filtering comments would be put on the reader.
Perhaps a tag system would be nice to add to Lemmy, with a way to filter comments by tags. That way users could tag their posts as sarcastic or serious or shitpost.
we consistently have to remind people to put content warnings on their posts and that policy has been in place for at least two years
Instead of tags, maybe FB-style reacts would work better... some way that the community does the tagging, not the poster. Perhaps the issue is that the upvote is a single number without info about why it's upvoted (e.g. because it's funny or because it's informative)
The issue of people posting in the wrong thread is pretty much the same issue as not tagging their posts properly