What were some "bad habits" on reddit that we should try to avoid bringing over here?
As the fediverse continues to grow, let's reflect on some of the things that we disliked most about posting/lurking on reddit and what we can do differently now that we have a chance to build something new.
downvoting for disagreement. people on reddit treat upvotes/downvotes as agree/disagree, when they really should be used to promote thoughtful and good content, not necessarily what you agree with. If you think someone is participating in a thread properly, and promoting and inviting discussion and making the place better (even if you disagree with them) you should upvote instead.
reddit all too often let "lazy" comments float to the top because they were agreeable with the masses, but low effort.
For this to work, the upvote would likewise have to cease meaning "agree" and instead mean "good answer." Unfortunately that'd be a step too far for most people. At the end of the day, entertainment, not edification, is the primary driver for most people to be on social media. So they need a way to express favor for answers that are enjoyed even if they don't lead to deeper discussion.
Perhaps a three button system would work.
All that said, I also would love there to be less lazy comments.
I always commented way more than I voted. When I was like, wow, this post is great and useful to me. It got an upvoate. Conversely when someone just made no sense or seemed to be trolling then it got the downvote. If I simply disagree I just comment to say so.
Since "approving" can be done with both voting and boosting, I feel like the context of the vote is different. It's more like something I'd want to see implemented as "drag and drop the posts to help rank them". You would still have people who try to bury things by moving them to the bottom of the thread, but the additional friction of ranking high-to-low would turn the reaction into a more complex "but which one of these is actually the Best Comment". Like, you'd automatically bias towards putting the best at the top, not burying the worst.
I'm doing my part. It's a hard habit to break, but it'll be worth it. If this interpretation of the system catches on, then there should be less echo chambers as a result, because different perspectives will be accepted and not shunned.
It's a good point, but very difficult (maybe even impossible) to achieve. Downvoting to disagree is a kneejerk reaction that is very easy to do, so it's going to require a lot of self discipline to avoid - and I don't think you can expect that from most people.
okay, but in a social environment like the fediverse it kinda doesn’t matter what your instance does: up and down votes are entirely to do with other people, and their instances still show all your down votes
disabling downvotes on your instance just means your local communities don’t have down votes: your posts on other instances still do!
Not quite. What it means is that people on my instance don't have the same view as people on other instances. When we visit a community or look at a post, we see it as if downvotes don't exist, wherever those downvotes come from. You seem them with downvotes included.
How you see my post doesn't bother me. How I see other posts is what I'm interested in, and for me, downvotes don't influence ranking
I wonder about repurposing a shitty thing from reddit into a good thing: the classic but annoying 'this' reply. Suppose someone posts something you disagree with rather than just hitting the downvote type a 'disagree' as a reply. Then like minded people can upvote or downvote the 'disagree' as its own thing leaving the original post to be judged or interacted with on its merits.
I don't even really think that there should be downvotes. Just different categories of votes, kinda like how Fark does comments with 'Smart' and 'Funny' votes.
While a better system might be one where you can apply a range of reactions to a post, that would probably make things look cluttered and spammy (if a post has a dozen different reactions on it)
The upvote/downvote system seems like the most useful one, at least right now while people are migrating over and these sites are in the expansion phase
@AnonymousLlama I like forum software that offers a range of reactions (ala vBulletin / XenForo). The default reaction could be a simple "Like" with an additional click or two required to change the reaction to Informative, Agree, Funny, Sad etc. Two of these reactions (probably positioned last to add that extra little bit of friction) might be Disagree and Off-Topic.
But if this is too convoluted, maybe just cap the number of downvotes a post/thread can get. So if a post gets 5 (or whatever the cap number is) downvotes, additional downvotes do not change the downvote counter. This would discourage "piling on" but there'd still be an indicator that a post might be poor quality or contentious. On the other hand, upvotes should probably be unlimited (or have a higher cap number) to encourage positive feedback.
Generally, shifting away from a binary system could be beneficial. What would be the options? What's enough but not too many options to cover the gamut? Maybe two types of positive ("I agree" and "This is quality") and two types of critical options ("I don't agree" and "This is poor quality") ?
Granted, you could easily replace the two arrows with a four-part diamond (❖) with those two axes .... but I have a strong suspicion that nearly everyone who's going to vote "I don't agree" will also vote "This is poor quality" except in extraordinary cases. It's just human nature: one would be disinclined to explicitly acknowledge the quality of one's antagonist.
That sounds nice on the surface, but without downvotes we turn into Usenet, where the top posts are inevitably the trolls and flame wars. "Downvotes to express disagreement" may not be ideal, but it's way better than the alternative: post personal attacks to express disagreement. In a downvotes environment, trolls and flames alike quickly lose visibility.
I like how wiki tribune is doing it where you can set trust levels for users. Hey this person comments are always intelligent and useful. I set the trust value to 100. This other guy is always trying to promote some wierd conspiracy. Set trust level to 0. Now I see way more posts and comment from user 1 and way less from user 2.
Your expectation of what upvoting and downvoting represents does not match up with the most intuitive psychological interpretations are - and therefore, it is unrealistic.
However, I will also state that while the problem you perceive is more relevant for comments, having up/downvotes represent Like/Dislike is more appropriate at the Thread/Post level - as the idea for a subreddit is that content users like should be promoted and content they don't want to see should be demoted.
That makes it even more difficult because now you want the arrows to mean different things depending on the area they are used.
You will never break the link between voting and Like/Dislike. However, what you can do is have a separate control to indicate whether a comment is appropriate or not.
Yeah this is why I'm not a big fan of sites that have "Free Speech" as their number one thing. You can't tolerate the intolerant and freedom from hate speech is more important than unchecked free speech.
Hear hear. Zero tolerance for intolerance. And none of that "hiding behind ignorance, culture or tradition" either. Being hateful is not a cultural value.
Somewhat related to modding, but we should discourage "supermods" who attempt to be in control of many subs/mags. Somewhat inevitable as part of the migration but we should let those who can better manage their community have the helm of the mags when the dust settles
"funny" bots
Like haiku bot, "all words are in alphabetical order", And character bots (think kenobi or vader bots in sw subs) that add nothing of value to the actual discussion.
reddit sings / ask oija
Posting song lyrics line by line is kinda fun,
But it also doesn't add anything of value.
this is the way / catchphrase spam
Also void of any actual discussion.
Just blind repetition.
negative subs
This one is probably controversial but, Stuff like gamingcirclejerk, nicegirls/guys, gamingcirclejerk, enoughmuskspam.
When you actually like the subject you just get the worst parts of it / its community rubbed in your face,
If you dislike it, its just the worsts part of a thing you hate hilghted daily pissing you off.
And imo if these subs lack an influx of "natural content", it becomes zealous, seething and unfair.
Also the peak of irony always was, whenever enoughmuskspam was the only musk related post on r/all
"EDIT: Wow, didn't expect this to blow up"
"edit2: hahaha, my most liked post is now about <insert completely harmless topic here>"
"final edit: Thanks for the gold kind stranger :))"
avoiding "self promotion" by posting links to your own blog. we should be moving away from information consolidation. if an instance goes down, you don't want all the quality content on it to disappear as well.
I think self promotion is alright sometimes like in the case where someone writes a really detailed technical breakdown of something. It's easier to format complex subjects on your own blog than in a thread. I totally agree if the entire purpose of someone's account is to boost their own website though
that begs the question, though: what is the purpose of having an account on the fediverse? if there is a wrong answer (self promotion) what is the right answer?
Probably impossible to implement but, man, just way less reposting of the same stuff. I'm hoping a system that places less emphasis on "karma" will help?
I doubt the fediverse ecology will be any better (and maybe even worse) at (a) helping people prior content that, e.g., will answer a question they have and (b) have a system that encourages the reviving of prior posts rather then the propagation of the same content as a new post.
Nothing's going to stop that, unfortunately. It requires people to do some research first, and most just want to share whatever they found, or ask the question, etc.
I don’t mind reposts depending on how it’s reposted:
A repost from a few weeks ago acknowledging the original post? New people will see it and I don’t mind.
Karma bots taking the top post of the day and spamming it every 10 minutes across multiple subs for 3 days because users keep upvoting them causing a feedback loop of top posts becoming more identical top posts? That’s annoying.
Well usually the people who get mad about it are the exact same people who want to participate in these communities. "Free speech" to them just means being a racist shithead on the internet without consequences and there is no reason that should be tolerated. Quite the opposite, we should strive to make these people feel as unwelcome as possible.
If you are outraged by the request to not user the term "master race", I am not sure I'd want you on the instance. It implies one race is greater than another. Even in "humor" it's weird as fuck.
Probably habits will get imported, maybe isn't even such a bad thing, at the end of the day, a reddit alternative is what you want, a reddit alternative is what you will get.
Obviously we should seek towards creating healthier and way less toxic communities anyways.
...seek towards creating healthier and way less toxic communities anyways
this is the main thing I want from a "reddit alternative", but since all the kbins/lemmys are being treated as "reddit alternatives" I really don't see this happening
I think it could happen. Everything being federated means it gets spread out a hell of a lot more, so it may make it more difficult for such stuff to gain traction
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