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This weekly thread will focus on debate, discussion, and the lack thereof on social media (including Lemmy).
My apologies for "leading" a bit more than I try to normally in these weekly threads, however this is a topic that pisses me off in particular. Not only as a mod of a discussion-based community, but as someone who loves it when someone challenges me and proves me wrong / disproves my logic so I'd very much like to hear outside opinions on the topic. I can't even partially understand how people don't want to have a more cohesive / logically sound opinion.
Some Starters (and don’t feel you have to speak on all or any of them if you don’t care to):
- Do you feel that discussion is worse now? If so, what caused it? If not, where may others get this feeling from?
- Is it potentially a platform issue, or does it happen everywhere?
- Does discussion even matter any longer? Why or why not?
- Do you feel that more could be done to encourage discussion with outside views or are we better off just "bubble"-ing ourselves and blocking everyone we disagree with?
Figured I'd make a new reply in hopes the system notifies of a response.
It'd be cool to do an instance, but I don't have the time (or maybe resources) to manage such a thing. Even getting help to manage one Community is hard. We have had two mods vanish, and I can only imagine running an instance being much harder. Our largest issue is actually getting replies instead of drive-by-downvotes. New threads that aren't pretty obviously tuned to the attitudes of Lemmy at large get buried quickly in no-discussion downvotes. For example, the thread about overpopulation was insanely downvoted, with very little actual discussion occurring. It was reported to admins, and I was told multiple times that it was a fascist dogwhistle. I have no idea how or why this is, because nobody explained it or responded to questions. I replied with data, and was told in no uncertain terms to fuck off in PMs. People don't respond because they don't see the thread due to downvoting, won't reply if they do see it due to dogpiling, or can't back up their opinions and stop responding after making insults. This has been my experience of trying to discuss anything of substance on Lemmy. It's a huge problem. I would absolutely help run a new instance, but I couldn't spearhead the effort.
I like the multiple vote system, but my preference would be to simply disable downvotes altogether and leave it at "upvote only." I don't think we'll ever get through to users that a downvote isn't a "disagree button" to many people. Disabling downvotes would have to be done instance-side, or so I've been told. I don't think the entire instance wishes to do that however. I've requested more Community controls, but there's been a distinct lack of them at present.
I'm totally open to any ideas to help though!