We don’t have enough good content to be worried about it being drowned out by shitposting.
Heavy handed moderation only makes sense when post volume gets too high for people to just downvote and move on.
this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
56 points (100.0% liked)
Unpopular Opinion
6975 readers
5 users here now
Welcome to the Unpopular Opinion community!
How voting works:
Vote the opposite of the norm.
If you agree that the opinion is unpopular give it an arrow up. If it's something that's widely accepted, give it an arrow down.
Guidelines:
Tag your post, if possible (not required)
- If your post is a "General" unpopular opinion, start the subject with [GENERAL].
- If it is a Lemmy-specific unpopular opinion, start it with [LEMMY].
Rules:
1. NO POLITICS
Politics is everywhere. Let's make this about [general] and [lemmy] - specific topics, and keep politics out of it.
2. Be civil.
Disagreements happen, but that doesn’t provide the right to personally attack others. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Please also refrain from gatekeeping others' opinions.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Shitposts and memes are allowed but...
Only until they prove to be a problem. They can and will be removed at moderator discretion.
5. No trolling.
This shouldn't need an explanation. If your post or comment is made just to get a rise with no real value, it will be removed. You do this too often, you will get a vacation to touch grass, away from this community for 1 or more days. Repeat offenses will result in a perma-ban.
Instance-wide rules always apply. https://legal.lemmy.world/tos/
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
I completely disagree. A well-moderated community is a good community no matter the size.
And high volume is extremely overrated.
I feel like more moderation might not be a bad thing. The community can downvote whatever and block users who post it but it still sits out there festering for people who visit the community or sort by new. Sure it adds content but does it benefit the community? I don't really think so. A bot that reposts Fox news articles here would have the same impact.
i hear you. for sure not calling for heavy handed moderation tho. specifically want trolls to be actually dealt with. if that means losing that 15% of post volume i personally am fine with this because it means 100% fewer gross bad faith debates going on in my feed.
And the alternative to not getting rid of the bad posts is getting rid of followers. I am about to unsubscribe here due to the volume of posts that aren’t discussing true unpopular opinions. Until then, I will keep downvoting the shitposts
I don't know if a simple ban on politics would work if shitposts weren't banned "Christopher Columbus discovered and saved America" or "Stoners smell like ass" aren't political but they are bait.
I really just think communities like this are pointless. I feel like there's a reason so many people have been making posts here talking about how people aren't actually voting for unpopular opinions.
i agree with your assessment. the unpopular opinion brand has always been fairly cursed due to its paradoxical nature and an “impossible” subject to properly moderate. it would be easier if the sub vanished, but here we are.
the community here is in the top 15 on lemmmy.world and the mods need to learn how to wield that power or risk losing it to the trolls. r/unpopularopinion does not experience such obvious bait as the examples you noted, and i believe it is because of its more attentive stance on rules and enforcement.
i agree with your assessment. the unpopular opinion brand has always been fairly cursed due to its paradoxical nature and an “impossible” subject to properly moderate. it would be easier if the sub vanished, but here we are.
Even on Reddit the premise doesn't work. One popular post from today says ""time theft" isn't a real crime" and I'd say a majority of people agree with that. The posts are only unpopular with a minority of people.
It's basically a shower thoughts community with posts phrased in a way where they are statements instead of opinions.
the community here is in the top 15 on lemmmy.world and the mods need to learn how to wield that power or risk losing it to the trolls. r/unpopularopinion does not experience such obvious bait as the examples you noted, and i believe it is because of its more attentive stance on rules and enforcement.
I agree. I feel like the only reason this community is so popular is because of people migrating from Reddit
thanks for your insight.
i think the tldr of my position is i don’t really care about making c/unpopularopinion “work” so much as i want smarmy, debate-lord, (for somereason often vaguely genocide-denial?) shit off my timeline. there are other instances and communities to host that bile, which i have preemptively blocked lol
How about you link some examples?
Two examples from today are "Gaza war is a lie" and "Christopher Columbus discovered and saved America"
If you report those posts then your instance admins will decide if they want to keep the posts. It's not just up to the mods on lemmy.world, it's your instance admins who are also letting it happen.
Is that how it works? It doesn't go to the owners of the instance where the community exists but to where ever my home port is so to speak?
I think it goes to both?
That doesn't seem right. I could host my own instance and if someone was posting extreme content on Lemmy.World I don't think a report would bounce back to me.
If I reported content from exploding-heads for being alt-right because it was against my instance's rules but it was fine on their instance it might make sense but that kind of seems like it's going in circles. Especially when I don't think you can report specific communities. You'd need to either report users or individual posts at that point.
+1 for a very good question we all seem iffy on. is there documentation on the process and channels for what reporting does on lemmy?
I made a post on !lemmy_support@lemmy.ml about this you can find here if you want to find out with me. Tagging @rimu@piefed.social in case they want to hear from the Lemmy masters too.
They sound like unpopular opinions to me.
You do realize the average American is MUCH dumber than you think, right?
Could be or they could be posts to troll users. I am giving examples of what OP probably saw when they made their post in order to answer your question.
(edit: other users have correctly identified the posts i am referring to.)
i elected not to link posts because that will bring the drama here which is exactly what they want.
you can identify them because there will be one or several comments beneath calling out the OP as a troll. it’s not like they are hard to find.
Troll accounts are pretty easy to spot, especially if it's always by the same group. Block and move on.
so true. since they are so easy to spot i vote that the mods block them and move on as well.
who cares. using a website is far shittier if half the posts get removed for spurious, transient reasons. just let people post and use the voting system already built in for content regulation
Clearly the majority of people don't upvote things because it fits the community.
have you tried leaving ?
i prefer to voice my opinions before i go scorched earth and block the community. :) i like to hope that others will have the same opinions and maybe something can be changed so no one has to disaspora.
Why not apply as a mod if it bothers you that much?
Get your hands dirty and improve the parts of Lemmy that you think are lacking, which in turn improves it for many other people. That's my favorite part of the FOSS community <3
not a bad idea. if i do so, this post is certainly a good first step, sort of getting a temperature reading of if the community even wants the change.
several posts per day here are a clear troll posts and bids for drama
Isn't this the point of this ~~subreddit~~ community? Like, what else do you imagine would people post on a forum called "unpopular opinion"? It will have the same fate as its Reddit counterpart.
There are a few community archetypes that will always gradually, but inevitably, cease to offer anything of substance without a strong understanding of moderation. Unpopular opinions, communities built around making fun of [topic], any communities that can be used for creative writing, etc.. This community is a step further than most in that its subject matter is actively antagonistic in addition to being a potential space for creative writing. It’s doomed to fail without bizarrely dedicated mods or a queue of posts pending approval.
You need several posts a day for there to be several posts that are poor quality. There aren't that many posts.
This community has too many unpopular opinions. please remove 3. I am not a crackpot.
I got your Grandpa Simpson reference. lol
And all the opinions are normal and popular.