Hi all,
I am noticing that a lot of what is being posted is the same outrage clickbait articles on crime and poverty that have overrun other Portland centric communities. These are absolutely important topics, and something I hope everyone is thinking about and involved with advocating for improved policy around. However, I do question the usefulness of a constant deluge of these types of articles.
When we go to a space like the local coffee shop, pub, or bookstore, a place where we immediately feel the "Portland vibes", we usually aren't met with a non-stop stream of poverty, drug, and crime news. If I we were, then we would probably leave (or at least I would). Similarly, I feel like our online space can be so much more than just the same daily rehash of divisive arguments that don't go anywhere.
This is especially true on our Lemmy community, where we are small and still developing a culture. There are not many other types of posts here yet, so the click-bait outrage headlines dominate. Personally, I would love to see more events, reviews of concerts, pictures, slice of life stories, and other things that make this feel like the "Portland vibes".
This isn't a moderation decision. It's more of an appeal. I haven't removed any links or banned anyone (other than some obvious malicious spam), and I don't plan to. I haven't even been down voting.
IDK ... what do you think about the future of this space and how we might build a community space that isn't just local doom scrolling?
Great perspective, I felt the same. Maybe some sort of "official content" filter rule that says any discussion is open/welcome from any perspective, and you're welcome to cute any source, but posting an article from a news source isn't, in and of itself somehow creating value in the sub. I'm fact, IMO, just reposting for-profit media articles that have all sorts of narratives and motives behind them is the death of conversation among real people.
I think it's important to place actual individual opinions equally if not above "official" content. As an example, I remember an awfully written article on a major finance site(fortune, MSNBC, WSJ, etc.) that explained young folks should be grateful for their enormous college debt as they wouldn't know what to do with the money they were making if they had it. Sarcasm and satire were the only things that could communicate how awful the article was. I posted it on finance subreddit for exposure of the author and website propagating such muck as well as discussion and it was immediately removed as I had altered the headline in my sarcasm and satire. I guess it's a fine line to walk if you don't want deliberately misleading links but I feel like reasonable rules and mods should have allowed that.
Based on the above, I say we don't get valuable, independent, complex, educational dialogue from just reposting a news article, there should be context given by a poster and some effort put in to how they want to further the conversation rather than just a race to post O-live articles.
Cheers!