When I first joined this community I saw it as a respite from reddit where I was free to chill with people without being constantly expected to debate or defend arguments or anything. Just a forum where people are nice.
Lately though it seems every active comment section is filled to the brim with, to be frank, obnoxious people who want nothing more than to fight with you about everything you say. I think they’re known as “debate bros.”
I’m not saying debate shouldn’t be happening but to be honest it’s disappointing seeing it be the only thing occurring. I’ve tried contributing in other fashions but have been met multiple times with people trying to start arguments with me about things or get me to defend “points” that I didn’t make. This in particular has been very annoying. I’ve reported every instance of this due to it not contributing but I feel as if that’s not helping.
I like talking to people I disagree with. I like conversing with differing opinions. But I feel alone in that this isn’t the only thing I want to do on a forum.
Again, I’m not trying to definitively say we shouldn’t debate at all, but just pointing out how prevalent it seems to be. Id like to just converse with people without being expected to make and defend points. I feel like that’s a major thing we should’ve left on Reddit.
If people want to debate then they can do that. I just dislike that it appears to become the base-level expectation for the instance.
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I’ve been on the internet long enough to know that any argument that goes on for long enough is going to get uncivil. You’re also very unlikely to convince someone who feel threatened by your point.
So I’ve got a soft ‘respond once’ policy. if someone replies to one of my comments, I respond once to clarify my position and address anything important. If I have failed to make my point by then, then my writing ability will continue to be insufficient in
n > 2comments, and I am adult enough to let them have the last word.deleted by creator
Yes. This is really just the standard internet policy of “do not feed the trolls”. This goes way back. Nicely said though.
People have different opinions on what an argument is too and what is civil. Not sure what OP is seeing. I have not seen much for issues myself. The then again I choose when and how I engage and most of what I follow is not that political.
Yeah this how I operate now. It’s not worth my time to argue with people. I don’t even post a second response a lot of the time, especially when the interjection is obnoxious.
Great policy, thanks for sharing!
Ohhh, this is a good policy. I’m taking this!
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Yes. Lemmy/kbin/etc as well. I was just thinking to myself idk why I’m even on here. It feels like every comment I make, I end up having to defend myself, no matter how innocuous the comment.
I said it would be funny if the next elder scrolls games smashed expectations and was good, in an ironic kind of funny. I mentioned baldurs gate 3 due to it being also incredibly well received and was immediately met with a person who wanted to argue that the two games aren’t comparable.
I agree with them but I wasn’t even trying to make that argument in the first place. Just mentioned BG3 because it released like two weeks ago. Was very disappointing to see such a misrepresentation of what I said.
I saw that comment and literally thought to myself “Wow they are getting the same nerd hate that I keep getting. Is this everywhere?!”
I think that might have been a thread I called someone out for being unkind. They jumped to ad hominem in response to a really innocuous comment
Someone I called out recently for being unkind replied essentially saying that all of Beehaw are snowflakes for wanting to eliminate vitriol. That comment was deleted, I assume by a mod/admin, very quickly, so kudos to whoever was watching that thread/report!
I am very thankful to the volunteers trying to keep Beehaw true to its mandate. Hence why I’m trying to do my part by calling people out when they break the only rule here.
TL;DR:
Maybe that’s what will move the needle? If we, as non-mods, normalize calling out unkind behaviour then it derails the “performance snark” and ruins the “fun” of trolling.This is it and don’t forget it! Keeping Beehaw a nice place to be relies on people first reminding people who are verging on not nice behaviour, then reporting them if they continue or get worse. Have the pulse on your own emotions too, sometimes the answer to disengage and leave it be if you find yourself worked up by something.
For the newer Beehaw users, don’t be afraid to use the report button if talking it out doesn’t appear to fix unkind behaviour. Beehaw mods and admins can’t scan every single thread at this point.
Yes, I think some of it is Beehaw-specific because everyone flocked to Beehaw with the idea of building a better community and being better then slowly reverted back to their Reddit-arguing selves.
Lemmy/kbin/Fediverse was also very bubbled to Linux and privacy-focused people, now it’s grown and keeps growing and that original bubble is very closed-minded. I’ve found a few times where I’ve mentioned some generally obvious things like “deleting Facebook means that a lot of people can’t talk to the elder folk in their family.” a common thought that is generally agreed upon but yet I got a bunch of people saying that was bullshit. A phrase I’ve started to like is “terminally online” which Lemmy seemed to be filled with. People who refuse to see there is another opinion out there and that even their opinion isn’t common. Even when their opinion is refuted by statistics. They seem to just press on.
So I see more arguing on two levels. 1) Beehaws NRE has worn off. 2) Fediverse got an influx of more people bringing in a more common mindset that the old Fediverse crowd was generally against because they lived in a bubble. (which I know I’ll get a lot of hate and arguments of “no, we didn’t”, “Linux is clearly the best OS”, “Microsoft is literally Nazis!”, “Privacy isn’t dead yet!”
Just in my experience a lot of people on the Fediverse seem to have the attitude of “my opinion is the facts” or “the one thing I read on the corner of the internet with no cites is the definitive fact!”. They are more closed off than Redditors. It’s been surprising how many posts I see saying “We don’t need to be like Reddit!” To then discover they aren’t like Reddit, they are far worse.
Frankly, this whole thing has made me second-guess trying to leave Reddit behind. The only thing stopping me is a decent phone app to it. I could see myself somehow trying to set up a PWA with RES built into it if that’s even possible. I see far more decent conversations (and open-minded people) on Reddit than here at this point and it’s a huge shame.
I’ve done a lot of reading since I joined here, and not much replying or posting. What I have noticed is that there does seem to be a certain number of people replying in different threads with similar arguments which end up getting people riled up. I am starting to recognize some of the user names, and I confess that when I see one now I tend to just drop the thread and stop reading.
I am not suggesting that what you are noticing in only due to that, since obviously there are a ton of people coming and going, but there are definitely “regular players” who seem to not know how to engage in a positive way - no matter what the topic. In some ways, I also think it’s likely to always be an inevitable issue here specifically since Beehaw has made its goals as a site quite clear. I think it just urks some people coming here that this site strives to be a positive, welcoming space and so the idea of compromising that is likely part of the appeal for the behaviour.
No, it hasn’t.
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From my perspective specifically as a Canadian, it seems that it’s an American/North American thing. Some threads I was in on reddit would be full of vitriol and hate until the Europeans woke up; then I would have some actual conversations. Of course, this is just what I think. May be other reasons for that.
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That’s one of the reasons I block every community/magazine focused on politics, no matter the country they’re related on. Although European politics tend to be more civil than US politics. But I’m tired of too much polarization and lack of civil discourse. Tankies don’t help either, and luckily for us, exploding-heads is leaving Lemmy.
I read an interesting thread about “I hate politics” being an inherently anti-minority/anti-oppressed stance. Because to the majority, “politics” is often anything related to race/gender/social-status/etc. so it’s a disservice to those causes to ignore them.
And while I belong to a couple of minority/oppressed groups, I also get the idea of wanting to not be constantly inundated with those debates.
I’ve got no answers other than it’s complicated and something worth thinking about.
It’s well-docmented in Aotearoa, Australia, and the UK that low turnout favours the right so some centre-right parties - advised by Crosby Textor - try to create divisive issues because it puts voters off politics and voting altogether.
But, I think there’s often a big difference between engaging politically in your community and society, and debating strangers on social media.
Like @Ignacio@beehaw.org, I block things called “politics” on the lemmy and kbin sites because they are mostly catch-alls for well rehearsed/rehashed arguments relevant to America.
I think it’s possible for us to stand in solidarity with Americans without resorting to that, and in other countries their causes tend to come up in social media news so I try to take real world actions based on that, for example writing to our minister of foreign affairs to ask that NZ takes a particular stance or action.
I’ve felt that lemmy.world has. It feels much more like vintage Reddit.
Beehaw I haven’t experienced quite as much of the arguing for arguing’s sake. If someone’s arguing with me, they’re usually doing so in good faith.
This is what I think too. Lemmy.world also have a strong downvote culture, which seems to encourage them to pile on to each other.
I see tons of people across the threadiverse arguing that any community missing downvotes lacks any curation, which I find odd. Only upvotes tends to still propogate the best of what the zeitgeist to the top and inspire meaningful feedback when there’s a disagreement rather than just clicking on the “I don’t like this” button
I agree. If the downvote button really was used for sinking content like spam and trolling, that’s a point but it’s something that can be done with active moderation.
But since it’s used for disagreement, I don’t see the value.
Yes, and I’ve been using beehaw less and less because of it.
The more people in a public place, the more likely you are to get argumentative people in the mix. There’s going to be someone who throws the first punch.
In my experience this has happened most strongly with topics relating to LLMs. Ive had good discussions on the topic too, but ive also seen lots of “BOOM I just shut down your argument!!” at any mention of negative impacts LLMs may have on society.
Your father smelt of elderberries. :p
I havent noticed too much of an uptick but admittedly Ive also been using the site less and the articles I do click on are either dead or ones with civil discourse so I may have just been lucky.
I’m marginally attached to beehaw so maybe I’m not the best gauge to read, but I haven’t really noticed what you describe.
Enjoy your weekend!
