Manticore

Thanks for sharing your perspective with me, I really enjoyed reading it!

You raised an interesting point, the polarising of r/AITA, and its something I've noticed a few times... I now have a theory:

Personal experiences are far more likely to move towards emotional extremes.

Emotionally-invested people reach points of 'black and white morality' as they get larger, labelled as moral or immoral based on each viewer's personal perspective.

I'm not saying our emotions are bad - if anything, many people are martyrs from their own emotional neglect - rather that many of us have not learned how to feel emotion authentically without treating them as objective judgements that justify action. (eg: this happened, I feel angry, therefore you wronged me, therefore I can defend myself, etc)

Humans are empathetic, which is truly wonderful. But we have two types of empathy:

• affective empathy is our brain's mirror neurons, feeling emotion in response to others' visible feelings. I see you feel sad, so I feel sad for you. It's innate.
• cognitive empathy is a social skill, one facet of emotional maturity. I recognise that if this were to happen, then somebody in your situation may feel sad, and I understand why. It's learned, primarily in childhood as modelled by our parents.

So, back to your example of r/AITA - the NAH and ESH ratings are likely only being used by those engaging with cognitive empathy, (hopefully) recognising possible biases and advocating for communication that will satisfy both, as if they are a third party observing.

But for those who engage with their affective empathy, they project themselves into the story - if the story is evocative, they'll readily side with OP. If the other's experience angers them, they'll readily call them out. They're not here to offer perspective - only judgement.

So what does that mean for communities that want to prevent polarisation?

Haha, fuck if I know, I mostly just find the topic interesting and enjoy having a space to explore it. But I have a couple ideas, and would be curious to hear yours?

On Reddit, we see this black/white emotional judgement in upvotes/downvotes - though they are intended for whether a comment contributes something, they're often used to define whether a comment is moral according to the voter's values. Without downvotes, a comment that is bigoted can still be blocked/reported; but with them, a comment that says I think Witcher 3 is boring because- can be buried.

r/AITA also encourages a degree of absolutism by boiling down rulings to three letters, and groupthink by drawing an ultimate conclusion based on which one is most popular rather than presenting a table graph. Users can feel just and righteous - standing up for victim OP, or standing up for their victim.

So I don't know if the problem is preventable, it's a humanities issue; but I would consider some of the following:

• no downvoting system. It's rarely used in good faith; comments that don't contribute that be reported instead. Comments that are engaging will still rise over comments that are not.
• active diverse moderation. Hopefully with a diverse enough mod team it will slow homogenisation. eg: a mod that likes children will push for rules that discourage/ban anti-child language; a mod that doesn't like children will push for a platform that encourages/allows those struggling to vent. Together they may find guidelines that emotionally validates struggle without perpetuating hate.
• smaller communities, like you said. Subs like r/childfree are trying to be resource communities (the list of doctors, advice, etc) and have good reason for being large, but social communities are probably better off kept smaller. eg: if they made a r/childfreesupport for venting and emotional validation.

Also, for those of you who read to the end, I really appreciate it. I know I ramble about stuff I find interesting, and despite editing out a bunch of waffle I know this is still really long. Would enjoy reading your equally long responses lol

That seems like a good idea for users in your situation. What do you choose to replace them with? Are they simply removed, text-descriptions...? Do you know why you dislike emojis (I'm curious!), or is it simply something to you know to be true of yourself?

I personally like them as tone indicators, because so little of communication is technically the words we say (~4%). I know my writing looks quite formal and so it's easy for people to think I'm 'cold' or unapproachable; I don't know how to make it read more casually while still being accurate. But I can put little emojis next to some of the sentences if it helps 👍

I'm curious about it, yes. I think it's easy for older users to claim their version was somehow 'superior' but all humans have their own perspective; it's when we cease sharing those perspectives as respectful equals that I think we lose something.

To clarify I don't equate being smug with being knowledgeable. I know people can struggle with feeling self-conscious in that respect and feel that they are somehow being judged if somebody talks about information as though they 'should' know it, and that's not what I'm talking about.

No, I'm talking about when the discussion of ideas stops being about shared perspectives, and starts being about winning. When you don't share knowledge because you love learning and want to share what you've learned, but because knowledge gives you status over the person you're 'teaching'.

So many questions that aren't asked for fear we'd 'look dumb', so many ideas resistant to new evidence for fear we'd seem foolish, discussions not had because 'they'll assume I think they're stupid'.

Learning is so wonderful! There's so much to learn, a human is not capable of learning everything. There should never be shame in somebody knowing something you don't know, and therefore there should never be superiority in sharing something you do know!

I celebrate a system that includes specialised people sharing their specialisations. My interest is in sociology and psychology; but I know very little about gardening or machinery for example, I would enjoy a person in those fields to share what they know about them.

Let me share with you what I'm thinking of when I talk about 'true' subs, as I understand it's a broad statement. I can offer a perspective that is more nuanced, if longer to read. I'll bold the key statements.

I understand that when subs get large enough, groupthink emerges; people voting up/down not based on whether a comment contributes meaningfully, but whether or not they agree or feel good about it. Thus even constructive minority voices are drowned out.

The reason the splintered subs could be a problem is that it often left the disruptive people to represent entire ideas, for better or for worse. It fractures movements that should otherwise have common goals into smaller and smaller slices that are unwilling to co-operate towards otherwise shared goals.

The one that comes to mind for me is r/childfree. It started out as a resource for those who'd chosen a child-free life to find support, collate a list of recommended doctors that recognised body autonomy (its often very difficult to get sterilised, especially if you're younger and/or don't already have several children), how the workforce treated them differently for being child-free (such as expecting them to cancel their plans and sacrifice their time off for parents on short notice), impact on their social lives, etc.'

However, over time it stopped being pro childfree lifestyle choices, and support for a group that is often seen as 'selfish'; and started becoming anti child lifestyle choices. The frontpage became mostly rants, filled with terms like 'crotchfruit', 'breeder', etc. What was once a community of a minority lifestyle trying to find support and legitimacy gave way to anger and tribalism.

Eventually enough of the users that consider choosing to have children to be an equally valid lifestyle choice - merely one they'd chosen not to live - slowly started lurking, unsubbing, or otherwise becoming invisible. Anti-child/'breeder' rhetoric became more and more prevalent. Eventually, r/truechildfree was founded to do what r/childfree used to - collate resources and support for those who have chosen a child-free life in a world where children are considered 'opt out'. Thus childfree users split into pro-child and anti-child tribes.

Which is lovely for r/truechildfree and its users (I am child-free, but I like children; I just recognise I am not equipped to raise them). But it meant that the largest and most visible sub, r/childfree, became almost only child-haters, and an already maligned community often considered 'selfish' is now represented by absolutists that are no longer willing to respect people who disagree.

I understand that it is the nature of humanity, once pushed, to push back. I understand why those who see mistreatment in the workplace or socially for their choice to be child free would be upset, same as anything we hold close to our hearts. That pain is why the r/childfree support group came to exist in the first place.

But it is diversity of opinion that makes discussion so interesting, that allows us opportunity for growth, that has us looking at the ways we are similar instead of fighting over the ways we are different.

I think the anger of those in the new r/childfree is real, valid, legitimate.
I think the users of r/truechildfree's discomfort with how that anger was displayed is also real, valid, legitimate.

I wish we'd looked for a better way to handle it than for letting communities devolve into absolutism, though. Whatever your reasons for not choosing to have children, you still deal with the same stigma; it's a shame to have people who are struggling against the same chains to schism over the metal they're made of.

This is why I'm hoping Lemmy can resist against some of the Reddit-specific culture that I think would dampen the experience here. Animosity towards emojis, creating echo-chamber communities/subreddits, the air of smug self-righteousness, discussion as something one can 'win' etc.

Redditors in general aren't bad, but a lot of vocal users had it in their heads that they were somehow better than people who used other platforms, and staked lines to maintain that cultural divide. Some of them concluded they were better than other redditors; turning communities into Us vs Them tribalism, until they would fracture into r/subreddit and r/truesubreddit.

Lemmy is not Reddit. It had a culture and it had users before the API shuffle; it's an opportunity to start fresh. It's not appropriate to expect Lemmy turn into Reddit, with all the unpleasantness that entails, and at the expense of the lemmings that were already here.

I'm quite honest about it; I spent years on Reddit too. I'm a redditor. But being here on Lemmy has been such a wonderful breath of fresh air, the 'I disagree but I'll respectfully explain why' that Reddit was missing for years. I can feel how miserable modern Reddit is in comparison and I really hope we don't recreate it.

😎🤏 🤨🕶🤏

No, thanks. Emojis can still communicate in ways pure text doesn't, or provide humour, or imply tone on text that is otherwise ambiguous. That last point in particular would probably defuse a lot of misunderstandings.

Reddit's obsession with emoji being universally bad feels like a kneejerk reaction to me: they associate excessive emoji with young people, tiktok, or insta; and therefore emojis are bad because being associated with young/tiktok/insta people makes them feel yucky.

But then Reddit does things like 👉😎👉 ZOOP and now its acceptable because that's a Reddit thing so we can make an exception. The emojis themselves aren't the issue, the other online cultures Reddit is trying to segregate itself from are.

Banning entire dialects of online communication out of a superiority complex - no, not here on Lemmy thank you. There's no reason we can't use both together, so long as your intent is communicated who cares if you put emojis in it. 👍

The blackout won't, but surely the lack of porn on mobile after June 30th is going to cause a major shake-up. Reddit's mobile app is really unpopular, even among casual users. You can't view it in browser reddit (popover tells you to either use the app, or back out the page). Literally the only way to view it on mobile is in their shitty app, which is horribly optimised and chews data like nobody's business.

Humans are creatures of habit, they'll struggle to change or move on without sufficient deterrent. The announcement was deterrent for the principled, the blackout is deterrent for the casual consumer without their content; the lose of 3P apps will be the deterrent for the visually-impaired...
...but the June 30th NSFW changes will be the deterrent for the horny, and Reddit is nothing if not unrelentingly horny.

It's probably even more than that. reddark is only measuring which subs are marked as private; subs like r/ELI5 have instead blocked posting and made sticky posts about the blackout. reddark will show them as public because, for those announcements to be visible, they have to be.

Ecosia. It's not a great search engine, but it's good enough most of the time, and it plants trees.

It doesn't necessarily return the results I want, though. Possibly because it isn't tailored to me like Google is (thanks, data-scraping!) so sometimes I use Google if I want a search engine to use context.

For example, I couldn't remember the name of the show 'Voltron'. If I search Ecosia for 'cartoon show giant robots made of smaller robots' then I get pictures, or snippets of the phrase 'giant robot' or 'show giant' or whatever, literally looking for it. But then I swap to Google and it uses context to show me Voltron stuff among the results so I can be like YEAH THAT'S IT NOW I can make my extremely topical joke to my friend, thanks

I hear good thinks about Duck Duck Go, it may even use Google's search indexing but it protects your privacy and doesn't track what you're searching. Which is both 'bad' (your results are harder to narrow down obscure searches) and good (general searches aren't contaminated by obscure guesses).

Awesome to see, thanks for this! I like that beehaw uses community umbrellas to group people of similar interests (if not necessarily similar opinion) together. It looks like a great way for users to find content relevant to them while still preventing micro-communities and echo chambers.

Which means users will log out if they want to use reddit that way, and they'll get even less traffic and data from them then before. The user-generated content they want to sell to AI training models or advertisers will just be less and less and less...

This just further incentivises my intend to delete my accounts and leave Reddit entirely if literally no account is more useable than having one.

After how pleasant I'm finding Lemmy, if I ever get the urge to join a short-form social site I'll use Mastodon.

Facebook is literally the last company I would join for this.