Huge lemmy instances/communities (think hundreds of thousands) could definitely become very Reddit like… take a look at Mastodon though (which exists a little longer) and you’ll see that mainly smaller communities thrive there. I have a feeling lemmy will stay small scale like that too.
A lot of rules, no easy way to post without getting downvoted, removed or criticized.
I want to zoom in on this for a second. One problem is that the behavior of mobs is complex. But you can’t talk about it at all, because conversations cater to extremely short attention spans.
But part of the problem with mobs of mass downvoters is that they steer entire conversations toward supporting mass downvoting. They don’t just downvote what they don’t like, they downvote questions about why they are downvoting. They downvote arguments that say it’s fair to ask questions. They downvote observations that it’s healthy to ask. The whole logical foundation that would lead you to question downvotes itself gets downvoted. And then they argue against it, and then you have a series of arguments that becomes an alternative reality that normalizes, accepts downvoting.
So a lot of it turns into norms. And I don’t think reddit has the sophistication to understand how that’s happening. A lot is at stake in trying to set the right cultural norms on lemmy, and I guess I hope that part of it is the ability to think and talk about these things in a conscious way, and part isn’t just talking about it, but settling on a better system of values than what reddit had.
to be frank, I don’t see why it’s healthy for /u/testuser1 to expect to be able to express views without people criticizing them. I don’t see how you know that other people are being irrational when they have different judgments of what is healthy to bring up. and I feel overall like it’s rather odd that… “that normalizes downvoting”… downvoting is normal! it’s how the platform exposes a way to surface what is “good” and bury what is “bad”, and while that has all the problems you’d expect from any democratic mechanism, it’s not a personal attack or an invitation to debate.
I don’t see why it’s healthy for /u/testuser1 to expect to be able to express views without people criticizing them.
I don’t know how you got that out of what I said. I am not saying, and did not say, that they should expect to be able to express views without people criticizing them.
I don’t see how you know that other people are being irrational when they have different judgments of what is healthy to bring up.
This one is actually pretty easy, extremely easy, I would say, to settle. Look at screenshots posted on /r/FragileWhiteRedditor or actual threads at /r/TheDonald, and look at how perfectly reasonable statements get mass downvoted by irrational mobs. I completely, and boy do I mean completely, reject the idea that it’s too hard to tell whether or not people are being irrational. There may be edge cases where it’s hard to tell, but there are obvious cases too. If we disagree on the basic concept of whether it’s even possible to tell whether any downvoting is ever irrational, then we have a pretty fundamental disagreement.
and I feel overall like it’s rather odd that… “that normalizes downvoting”… downvoting is normal!
There was a lot of qualification and characterization of a specific kind of behavior leading up to that sentence. Mass irrational mobs that downvote reasonable comments and that downvote any request for explanation and that go on to enforce community norms that you’re not even allowed to ask, that is a bad thing. I was trying to open a conversation about the complex set of ripple effects that start with swarming irrational behavior of mobs and translates itself into baked-in community norms. If you’re going to respond to that with ‘gee, why’s he saying downvoting is not normal?! that sure is strange!’ that makes me feel that 90% of what I was saying was just glazed over.
I didn’t get it from what you said, I got it from the OP:
no easy way to post without getting downvoted, removed or criticized
no, you can’t tell whether downvoting is irrational, because it doesn’t provide its rationales for scrutiny. claiming that a down vote is “irrational” when you don’t know someone’s thought process means you’re saying that there is no way anyone could have any rational belief that the comment in question shouldn’t be surfaced or should be buried. you’re talking about “mobs” (a very emotive term) when there’s very little group dynamic to justify it. also, I think Reddit at-large is trash, but even I wouldn’t claim that TheDonald is representative.
this conversation is sort of an example. I disagree with you and I think your arguments are bad. but you’re saying that I must have “glazed” over what you said, as if there’s no possible way that someone could reasonably come to my position rather than yours.
when I get down voted, there’s ambiguity I have to accept. maybe it’s because people don’t like what I said, maybe it’s because they don’t like the tone in which I said it. maybe they have good objections that I haven’t thought through. maybe they have bad ones. maybe they know I’m right and they don’t want to have to confront it! maybe I’m just hanging around a group of assholes. maybe I’m the asshole. maybe they read my username wrong and it sounds offensive to them. it doesn’t really matter. there isn’t a neutral standard of “people should agree with me and surface my opinions by default”.
when I get down voted, there’s ambiguity I have to accept. maybe it’s because people don’t like what I said, maybe it’s because they don’t like the tone in which I said it. maybe they have good objections that I haven’t thought through. maybe they have bad ones. maybe they know I’m right and they don’t want to have to confront it! maybe I’m just hanging around a group of assholes. maybe I’m the asshole. maybe they read my username wrong and it sounds offensive to them. it doesn’t really matter.
I disagree that this is an ambiguity you have to accept. problems are easier to solve when they are known to everybody. And this is easier when they are explained properly.
I understand that it is sometimes hard to invest the time to explain these things, but i think it is worth it.
deleted by creator
Huge lemmy instances/communities (think hundreds of thousands) could definitely become very Reddit like… take a look at Mastodon though (which exists a little longer) and you’ll see that mainly smaller communities thrive there. I have a feeling lemmy will stay small scale like that too.
I want to zoom in on this for a second. One problem is that the behavior of mobs is complex. But you can’t talk about it at all, because conversations cater to extremely short attention spans.
But part of the problem with mobs of mass downvoters is that they steer entire conversations toward supporting mass downvoting. They don’t just downvote what they don’t like, they downvote questions about why they are downvoting. They downvote arguments that say it’s fair to ask questions. They downvote observations that it’s healthy to ask. The whole logical foundation that would lead you to question downvotes itself gets downvoted. And then they argue against it, and then you have a series of arguments that becomes an alternative reality that normalizes, accepts downvoting.
So a lot of it turns into norms. And I don’t think reddit has the sophistication to understand how that’s happening. A lot is at stake in trying to set the right cultural norms on lemmy, and I guess I hope that part of it is the ability to think and talk about these things in a conscious way, and part isn’t just talking about it, but settling on a better system of values than what reddit had.
to be frank, I don’t see why it’s healthy for /u/testuser1 to expect to be able to express views without people criticizing them. I don’t see how you know that other people are being irrational when they have different judgments of what is healthy to bring up. and I feel overall like it’s rather odd that… “that normalizes downvoting”… downvoting is normal! it’s how the platform exposes a way to surface what is “good” and bury what is “bad”, and while that has all the problems you’d expect from any democratic mechanism, it’s not a personal attack or an invitation to debate.
I don’t know how you got that out of what I said. I am not saying, and did not say, that they should expect to be able to express views without people criticizing them.
This one is actually pretty easy, extremely easy, I would say, to settle. Look at screenshots posted on /r/FragileWhiteRedditor or actual threads at /r/TheDonald, and look at how perfectly reasonable statements get mass downvoted by irrational mobs. I completely, and boy do I mean completely, reject the idea that it’s too hard to tell whether or not people are being irrational. There may be edge cases where it’s hard to tell, but there are obvious cases too. If we disagree on the basic concept of whether it’s even possible to tell whether any downvoting is ever irrational, then we have a pretty fundamental disagreement.
There was a lot of qualification and characterization of a specific kind of behavior leading up to that sentence. Mass irrational mobs that downvote reasonable comments and that downvote any request for explanation and that go on to enforce community norms that you’re not even allowed to ask, that is a bad thing. I was trying to open a conversation about the complex set of ripple effects that start with swarming irrational behavior of mobs and translates itself into baked-in community norms. If you’re going to respond to that with ‘gee, why’s he saying downvoting is not normal?! that sure is strange!’ that makes me feel that 90% of what I was saying was just glazed over.
I didn’t get it from what you said, I got it from the OP:
no, you can’t tell whether downvoting is irrational, because it doesn’t provide its rationales for scrutiny. claiming that a down vote is “irrational” when you don’t know someone’s thought process means you’re saying that there is no way anyone could have any rational belief that the comment in question shouldn’t be surfaced or should be buried. you’re talking about “mobs” (a very emotive term) when there’s very little group dynamic to justify it. also, I think Reddit at-large is trash, but even I wouldn’t claim that TheDonald is representative.
this conversation is sort of an example. I disagree with you and I think your arguments are bad. but you’re saying that I must have “glazed” over what you said, as if there’s no possible way that someone could reasonably come to my position rather than yours.
when I get down voted, there’s ambiguity I have to accept. maybe it’s because people don’t like what I said, maybe it’s because they don’t like the tone in which I said it. maybe they have good objections that I haven’t thought through. maybe they have bad ones. maybe they know I’m right and they don’t want to have to confront it! maybe I’m just hanging around a group of assholes. maybe I’m the asshole. maybe they read my username wrong and it sounds offensive to them. it doesn’t really matter. there isn’t a neutral standard of “people should agree with me and surface my opinions by default”.
I disagree that this is an ambiguity you have to accept. problems are easier to solve when they are known to everybody. And this is easier when they are explained properly.
I understand that it is sometimes hard to invest the time to explain these things, but i think it is worth it.
The community swarming the downvote is i agree with.
i have trouble to undetstand what you mean here.
i completely aggree with that. And i like downvotes, i have no problems with them. But i want to know the reason for people to downvote.