this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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No such thing. Ask away!

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[Meta] Could we consider avoiding US election questions in this community? (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/nostupidquestions
20 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Hello everyone,

This community regularly gets questions about the US elections.

This is an important topic, but if there is something that does not lack on Lemmy, it's communities to discuss about politics:

And many others: https://lemmyverse.net/communities?query=politics

I am personally subscribed to this community to learn general things (the question about the viking funeral legal aspect is a good example), and US elections questions seems to always bring more political debate than knowledge sharing.

What do you all think?

See you in the comments.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't actually see that many political questions in this comm but maybe that's just me. Looking at the top of all time, I mostly notice this one, which honestly is more like a rant than a question (I dislike Trump as much as the next guy but this is clearly not a neutrally stated/good faith question and just a way for the OP to vent their frustration) and should probably be removed on that basis rather than it being a political question.

Honestly looking further, a lot of the political "questions" in this comm are just rants disguised as questions. I think it would make sense to disallow rants. You could say it's already included under the "all posts must be legitimate questions" part of rule 1 but explicitly calling it out and enforcing it would be nice.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

I made a list below.

I agree with your statement that some of those are definitely rant.

[–] 9point6 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Has it been much of a problem? I wouldn't say I've personally seen many at all, at least not enough to consider it an issue anyway. Personally I'd be against such a restriction unless it was dominating all discussion on the community and crowding out other discussion.

I think with political literacy generally being pretty low in the majority of people and the impending American election, there will be people that feel like they have "stupid" questions, and they might not feel comfortable asking in one of the more general politics communities. It does no good to keep people in the dark, especially about politics which pretty much affects everything.

Then the mods would have the messy job of determining what constitutes "political" topics, where no one will draw the same lines as another. What is a fact of life for one person might be an incredibly political topic for another.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

To be fair, I thought there were more, probably because some similar questions are posted to [email protected] as well.

what constitutes “political” topics

I was mostly targeting "US elections", I'll rephrase my post to make it more clear.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

So 6 examples over 20 days.

I'd say the answer to "Has it been much of a problem?" would be a clear "No" then.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I just posted a question about poop, hopefully you find it makes a good palate cleanser.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

I'm kinda torn.

On one hand, I actually fucking despise politics in non politically focused communities. It's a personal peeve.

But. This is one of the types of general communities where it's not disruptive when the questions are in good faith. The reddit sub was prone to bad faith political posts. This one, so far, hasn't been. The ones I've seen have mostly been genuine questions with few attempts to beat a drum. I've even engaged on a few, and I usually avoid politics outside of dedicated spaces.

But damn, I do get tired of the glut of them everywhere as the election gets closer and closer. So if the mods here temporarily banned it, I would not object.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Genuine good faith questions about election rules, voting procedures, and candidate policies & positions. Are all things that should be encouraged regardless of country or region.

Bad faith rants or indictments of candidates or parties posing as questions are annoying everywhere.

Discouraging people from seeking information about elections is dangerous and morally dubious at best.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

I frankly don't think that's a good time to make such a change. People need to be as well-informed as possible, and if allowing questions pertaining to the election brings just one more vote, directly or indirectly, it'll be worth it.

This is a defining election, possibly a matter of life and death for many people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

IIRC most of those communities are for political news and NOT discussion.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

I agree, Lemmy as a whole is rammed full of bullshit US politics and I'm tired of reading about it. The fewer, relevant communities this shit gets posted to, the better IMO.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

OneStupidQuestion

[–] vxx 5 points 2 months ago

It's less than 3 weeks to go.

[–] HootinNHollerin 3 points 2 months ago

Agree

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Yea good luck with that one lol

[–] Artisian 1 points 2 months ago

As one of the few folks who have asked such questions, I obviously am against. I don't think the dedicated pol communities are particularly good for honest questions about platforms/political figures; everything in those spaces feels like it's being intentionally spun (even in discussions) in a way that this community does not. (Also, several of the communities you suggest as pol discussion places are... just not? Extremely few questions, most the posts are headlines, discussions don't seem to happen much. Some feel closer to a curated feed of cringe.)

I do agree it could become an issue, and that would justify some division, perhaps tags? But I don't think it is currently very unpleasant, and it will almost certainly get better in 2 months (at least short term).