As I’m sure you’ve already memorized the community rules as if it was your moms birthday, I probably need not post it, but here is rule 6 anyway:
- No US Politics.
Please don’t post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected] or [email protected]
I am writing this post in an effort to gather feedback on how the community feels about this rule. In short, keep it as it is, or revise it.
It is my personal belief that the main purpose it serves is to avoid the community from mainly revolving around whatever daft thing the orange lardsack last said or did. And while it serves that purpose well, I think it also inhibits some potentially interesting discussions.
For example, one possible revision could be to allow for questions regarding US politics, but with a requirement that the topic has to be regarding issues 25 years ago (that may or may not be relevant today).
Alternatively, would it be useful/entertaining to occasionally have a “Contemporary US politics question megathread” as a contained outlet?
Please let me hear your thunks. This post will stay stickied for “a while”.
UPDATE: There seems to be overwhelming majority in keeping r6 as is, at minimum. Thank you for your input, and stay classy.
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I’d like to add this:
If you are a chronic political poster, please think of yourself as someone who crates ads. We currently live in a world where ad creators think they have a god given right to shove ads into every square inch of our existence. And naturally, this is universally hated and people go to great lengths to block as many ads as they can because the ad makers won’t stop and think they have to do this.
That’s you. You’re the ad maker. And that’s how you’re perceived.
I know where I stand politically. I’ve known my entire adult life and I won’t be changing. I also know where to go to update myself on what’s going on politically, both locally and globally. I like having the option of going to it voluntarily and not having it imposed on me involuntarily. I like having the option of turning it off when I want/need to. I’d imagine a lot of people agree with that sentiment.
That all being said, keep the rule. There are people who will still post political shit here because they can’t help themselves, regardless of what gets said in this thread.
Maybe you could have one day a week where it’s allowed? The constant barrage of US politics can be exhausting, but there can definitely be some interesting questions about it.
I like the principle, but I think posts from that day would crowd the front page or the top section for too long agter the day is over.
I guess you could close the threads after the day is over. For me personally, it wouldn’t matter either way, as I never use the active/top feeds to browse. They don’t seem too useful on a “small” platform like Lemmy, where they’ll remain static for quite a long time.
100% keen on keeping it. Expanding it to keep all political discussions out would be nice but I know that won’t happen.
Expanding it to keep all political discussions out would be nice
Not even possible. Every post would devolve into a discussion of what’s political.
The rule is currently US politics, where I would like to expand it to other countries because /r/Europe turns into US politics because “it effects Europe”
It seems that the rule seems to work well enough here as is. In addition to the rule, how you enforce it is equally (if not more) important too.
Just narrow the definition of politics to party politics plus named subjects.
It’s possible to imagine people having good questions about US politics, e.g. something like “I’m considering running for this public office in this state, what do I need to know about x?” but good luck crafting a rule that allows that and not the worthless noise.
For the love of god, keep it as it is!
eyyyyy, shameless self-promo, but i made a community a couple days ago called [email protected]
i’m a little nervous about bringing this up since i’m the one of the only people active there right now, but we have a “Seeking Optimism” flair for people who are concerned about things and want assurance for the most sensational narratives over what’s happening.
Well, I just subbed! I think it’ll be good for my mental health.
Subbed.
PieFed has already implemented a feature which allows mods to move posts from one community to another. Lemmy and NodeBB are also working on this feature.
Ideally we choose a community where these posts are moved to, that way any great discussions aren’t lost and they can carry on in the proper community.
So. In my experience, places with a generic “No politics” rule tend to become Nazi bars very quickly. That’s not the case here, partly (I think) because it specifies US politics. Makes it more clear that this isn’t a place where the only genders are “Male” and “Political,” even if that kind of is the case here.
I think something akin to “Nothing about any current or former politician, or government entity” could be a way to allow discussions about certain parts of politics without others. In the communities (non-lemmy) I’ve run that’s the usual rule I have alongside some others that aren’t relevant here.
I would mention that word filters exist, but this post is a great example of why those don’t work very well in a lot of cases. “The daft orange lardsack” is a case where self-censorship ends up leading to word filters being less effective. It’s also a great way to showcase that you think body shaming is fine in certain circumstances. I, personally, disagree, and think that we can talk about his actions without mentioning his weight, but y’know. What do I know
As a US citizen, keep the rule. As laid out in the text of the rule, there are already communities where questions of that nature can be asked.
Agreed here. People should wonder what normal life like can be in the USA than our politics. Not saying it’s great, but I think it gives better insight than who people voted for.
Please please pleeeease keep it.
Edit: If possible, disallow politics in general.
I think it should be expanded into a rule of no politics in general. While the us politcs have the most effect(are most know worldwide) EU poltics and so on should also not be discussed here imo
I don’t see a problem with a bunch of European-specific questions being asked, so I question the need for an expanded rule.
If you broaden the rule, you run at risk of banning or discouraging desirable questions. Stuff about economics or lifestyle. Those are “political” too, after all.
I mean yo run the risk of banning some stuff regardless of if you only ban us politcs or eu politcs. What would be a reason why questions about european politcs would be any different than us politcs. best would be to just ban polutics in general, while keeping lifestyle/economical stuff etc, this would however require some nuance
Edit: to specify i don’t mean to ban European specific questions, just eu-poltics.
Fair, but nuanced rules are difficult to enforce, and somewhat open to interpretation. This leads to people trying to skirt the rules and also good faith posts which break the rules which leads to conflict also.
I think it’s better to keep things as simple as possible, as long as the rule is good enough.
Totally agree. But let’s for example say someone asks a question about something related to economics. I think it would be unfair if Europeans could answer a lot of stuff about politics, while Americans are pretty limited.
Imo It already requires nuance at the moment, the only thing that would change is that all users would be treated the same
Keep.
Political questions are almost always either bait or pure laziness
I really like how this rule turned out on UK subreddits like r/casualUK. It makes for a much more relaxing community.
Everything is politics and anyone who thinks it isn’t needs to check their privilege.
“But I don’t want to question my own beliefs and test my moral fiber, I just wanna have fun online!!!” - average netizen
Keep it. There’s more than enough places to discuss politics.
