There’s probably a better community for asking this, but I haven’t been able to find that one either.
What I’m looking for is a place to discuss ideas that encourages good-faith conversation, staying on topic, and being decent to one another - while actively discouraging mean-spirited, facetious, or bad-faith responses that focus on criticizing the person asking the question rather than engaging with the substance of it. And by “discouraging,” I mean active moderation with very low tolerance for that kind of commentary.
Anytime this vague question is asked we find it’s because the OP has bad takes then gets hurt.
ding ding ding
It’s not criticism of my takes that hurts me, but the mean-spirited responses when they target me personally rather than my ideas - especially considering the effort I personally put into being fair and decent, even toward those I disagree with but then seem to get next to none of it in return.
You’re right about me getting hurt, though. I’m a real person with real feelings, and I’m not immune to cruelty. Dealing with rude, indecent people here does make me feel pretty bad on a regular basis.
Each type of topic needs a different style, tolerance and shape of moderation for this, so it’s more effective to look for this per topic instead of a general solution.
E.g. transgender discussion has different problems than russian aggression discussion, different problem actors using different strategies, and are solved by very different types of moderation.
Discussing which language should take precedence in schools, in countries with multiple official languages, needs a wildly different set of rules, moderation, tolerances and even moderator knowledge.
I’m not sure I get what you mean. I don’t see why one community couldn’t cover all these topics under the same set of moderation principles. I’m imagining something like a philosophers’ conference, where you can seriously discuss even seemingly ridiculous topics - like “why can’t we eat unwanted babies?” - and no one would be tempted to accuse the person of actually advocating for such a thing. We’re just playing with ideas.
You make it, and now it’s a somewhat safe place for people to form discussions that validate pedophilia. Several discussions now are adjacent to that topic, via adoption discussion, sneakernet dissemination, countries with lax laws, discussions around age of consent, definitions of nudity, what is considered public spaces for photography…
At some point it is no longer pure philosophical discussions in neutral faith, but a breeding ground for pure shit. How do you determine if that point is reached? How do you decide where the line goes? How do you adjust the rules to adjust for this?
The above is not hypothetical. It specifically has ruined a few online spaces. Other topics like the Trump cult has a different pattern.
This looks promising. Funnily enough I’m even subscribed to it.
Extremely Polite Politics
It’s not really politics I’m looking to discuss. At least not exclusively.
If you start such a community, I’ll subscribe. What topics would you want this community to address?
*crickets*
I think OP is fighting windmills here. They want to keep this discussion completely theoretical, probably so they don’t have to get off their high horse, make themselves vulnerable. I doubt they’ll ever come up with anything constructive 🤷
What exactly is your problem here? Do you not have even a drop of self-awareness to realize that you’re now acting exactly like the kind of person that made me want to find a community free of people like you in the first place? You’re being a textbook example of someone who just can’t stay on topic and insists on making it about the person asking the question rather than addressing the question itself.
My comment history is open for anyone to see what kinds of topics I like to explore. I’m not going to start listing them here, because that’s not relevant to my question.
I don’t think crickets really means a lot when your commenting 1 hour after someone else…
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I haven’t found any. Anything of that sort would need heavy handed and laborious moderation and would lend itself to quite a lot of bias from moderators. Your best bet is to do this sort of thing locally with a small group of friends (or internet friends).
Based on my experience trying to have deep and sometimes difficult conversations here, I’ve come to believe that if such a community did exist and gained even a bit of popularity, it would likely result in a large number of the currently active users here getting themselves banned from it. In the end, it might just be a small group of users left - the ones actually interested in playing fair. I don’t necessarily see that as a bad thing, though. You really don’t need that many people to have insightful discussions. Often, even one person is enough, as long as they’re approaching it in good faith.
Moderation would definitely be an issue, though. Dealing with the worst offenders is easy - it’s the gray areas that are challenging. The space wouldn’t just need to be heavily moderated; that same standard would also need to apply to the moderators themselves.
There were these subs on reddit. I’d actually love some of that here as well; but otoh what you describe is the (dream of the) fediverse anyhow, and so far it really is a much nicer place to be than reddit, so the need is small.
That said, you can look up what these subs were called on reddit, then search for communities of the same name here.
edit: I think OP is fighting windmills here. They want to keep this discussion completely theoretical, probably so they don’t have to get off their high horse. I see this a lot with so-called centrists who turn out to be fascists, but a quick glance at OP’s posting history does not confirm that. I doubt they’ll ever come up with anything constructive concerning the point of this post 🤷
Exactly my thoughts
it really is a much nicer place to be than reddit
I can see how that would be the case for a certain type of person - perhaps even the majority - but interestingly, my personal experience has been almost the opposite. The people here tend to lean in the same political or ideological direction, and they’ve become extremely sensitive to any ideas that seem to go against their worldview. They’ve dealt with so many bad actors in the past that the moment someone starts making the kind of noises that trigger their alarms, it becomes almost impossible to engage with them meaningfully. You quickly end up having to defend yourself against preconceptions formed simply because you’re willing to touch on a sensitive topic.
I think the contrast within the userbase here is actually sharper than on Reddit. There’s a large number of incredibly decent, mature, and thoughtful people - likely due to the higher average age - but there’s also a surprisingly large group of extremely vicious activist types who will dogpile on you the moment you say anything even halfway critical of their cause, or not critical enough of what they oppose.
They’ve dealt with so many bad actors in the past
This is for sure part of it. Remember that most of us fled here from reddit, and many made a clean break. For me, that includes avoiding political discussion communities. I actively moderated two conservative political communities for years (r/AskConservatives and r/Tuesday) and also r/As an American, where political discussions often came up. I’m just exhausted by it. I’ve seen every bad argument under the sun from and towards every major political position.
When I spooled down reddit, resigned my modship in r/AskConservatives, and came to lemmy, I resolved to a) never mod a discussion community again and 2] never sub a political discussion community. And my life became so much better! I still engage with politics IRL, with real people in my community, but have zero interest in seeking out the same here.
So yes, if you want to discuss certain topics here you’ve got an uphill slog. And if you don’t want to be treated like a bad-faith actor you’ve got to put in the work to build a reputation as a good-faith one. There’s no shortcut for that; users recognize each other here.
I not only block political communities here, but I also filter out every post containing terms related to current political events or specific political figures. While I might touch on topics that are political by nature - like the Israel-Palestine conflict - I rarely engage directly with politics in a broad sense.
For example, yesterday I tried making a post about the concept of “sigma males,” where I even preemptively acknowledged my doubts about its scientific validity and criticized how it tends to frame even negative traits in a positive light. Yet all the responses I received were ridicule, personal attacks, and accusations. Apparently, I overlooked the fact that the term “sigma male” acts like a lightning rod for a certain kind of person - people who completely disregard the actual question and just start spewing hatred and negativity.
I’d really just like a place where I can indulge in my cold and analytical, autistic topics of interest with other like-minded people. I don’t even mind disagreement - on the contrary, I enjoy it, as long as it’s done in good faith.
Have you entertained the notion that the term “sigma male” is also a lightning rod for people who have specific ideas about masculinity and, by extension, its relationship to women?
What I am getting from your incredibly vague post is that the topics you are interested in have connotations that would imply to others that your interest isn’t entirely academic, and so they become wary of your motives/beliefs.
Let me frame it more hyperbolically: having an autistic special interest in Nazi memorabilia raises a lot of questions to other people about whether you are interested in more than just the memorabilia.
The people here tend to lean in the same political or ideological direction, and they’ve become extremely sensitive to any ideas that seem to go against their worldview.
And there it is. I wonder what really triggered your post?
Even taking all that you wrote into account I still think feddit deals with this better than reddit.
Which btw is also a problem in those subs you describe. No mod can afford to be that strict.
Anyhow, be the change you want to see. I’m sure you performed your searches by now and haven’t found anything suitable, so start your own and moderate it the way you see fit!
Or at least tell us which subs you miss.
And another thing that goes for reddit as well as feddit: downvotes by themselves don’t mean that you’re being dogpiled or silenced or whatever. Controversial takes always attract - well, controversy. Deal with it, discuss your way through it, after all that’s what you want, no? I still say the percentage of reasonable people here is far larger than on reddit.
And there it is. I wonder what really triggered your post?
This is exactly why I’d like to find - or create - the kind of community I described above. These kinds of accusations, even when implicit, don’t bring any value to a conversation. I’m looking for a place to discuss ideas - not people or tribes.
I see you are unwilling to answer that or any other question I posed. You want a completely theoretical discussion where people cannot point out to you that you aren’t flawless either.
FWIW I had a look at your posting history and I think you’re fighting windmills here.
You want a completely theoretical discussion where people cannot point out to you that you aren’t flawless either.
This is just yet another completely baseless ad hominem accusation which both isn’t true nor in any way related to the topic at hand. I don’t understand your insistence on making this about me. Like I said: I’m not interested in discussing people.
r/samharris, r/zombiesurvivaltactics and r/suomi are the subs I miss from reddit. I’m not aware of not having addressed any other questions you’ve posed to me.
I, too, am interested in having serious good faith discussions, and will not become shrill if you present nuanced views, or criticism of mine.
There’s always
