Reddit refugees: let's be mindful of the culture here so we don't change everything with the influx (or at least, change responsibly). Snapzu original users: what should we know?
It seems like Snapzu has created a great wee community here, and it would really suck for us all to sweep in and change the nature of it before getting to know it. I think we should hang back for a little bit and observe in tribes or threads which have the possibility for contention, and comment on existing, more neutral ones. Just til we get the lay of the land. Reddit culture could be pretty toxic in some ways, and I'd hate to see us unconsciously infect Snapzu with that kind of interaction.
So, original Snapzu users, what do you love about the community here, what should we be careful if, what are the unwritten rules of etiquette here? Help us not just recreate Reddit in your home.
8 years ago by Strangequark
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37 comments
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- If you post a snap, make sure to make it interesting, add modules and always add the source.
- Don't be a dick for the sake of being a dick / pedantry
- Use the downvote button sparingly (so far I've never used it here)
- Make sure your snaps follow the rules of the tribe you're posting into
- If a post is interesting and you make a comment, remember to upvote the post as well
- The /t/lounge guidelines will indeed work on most if not all other tribes on the site
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Also,I don't think even engaging in any form of bigotry(ranging from outright racist slurs to Stormfront style factoids(the latter which is often becoming alarmingly common on certain parts of reddit) should recieve the slightest amount of encouragement;it should be heavily discouraged. And 'free speech' is not an argument for bigotry.
(Although,I think this could be included in the first point of yours).
I'm generally of the unpopular-on-Reddit opinion that active moderation is more 'free' than just free-for-all speech. Communities which allow things like heavily racist or misogynist rhetoric automatically make that a place where marginalised groups do not feel welcome, and are therefore much less likely to post in. So it's free only in technicality, not in practice. Active moderation, which accounts for these trends by editing or removing content which violates a set of rules of conduct, provides a space where you are much more likely to get a diverse range of insight and experience simply because it isn't just the shoutiest, most persistent people who get the platform.
I think those should be challenged, not banned.
That sounds like a weird thing to say. Free speech is....free. It can be bigotry, it can be anything.
Yes, free speech protects your right to say offensive and otherwise hurtful things. However, that dosn't mean that it should be encouraged in this type of platform. Whether you are conservative or liberal, man or woman, we should all try our best to keep a friendly community. I am not saying to ban hurtful speech but it should not be encouraged.
I'm going to raise the point that challenging their stance leads nowhere, citing personal experience. When it comes to the Stormfront "facts" they cite, in many cases they're ignoring huge swaths of the sources they cite, because it has a relevant statistic to their point, but disregard the entire premise of the paper as "excuse making." The stretch they go to present a fake group bias on the issue as well as in general spreading disinformation leads to toxicity when left unchecked. The downvoting system at Reddit wasn't able to handle the surge of Stormfront users, resulting in a large swath of Reddit looking racist. In reality, it was just a very vocal minority spurred on by the new users who thought that was the norm. They got exactly what they wanted, a fake group bias and a few misinformed facts leading people on the road to sharing that same Stormfront dribble elsewhere. It's toxic, unintelligent, and overall a blight that needs to be taken care of instead of allowing it to fester.
I understand your point on the basis of principle, but in practice it leads things open for growing a toxic and misinformed community, that takes people giving up on replying as a sign of victory versus someone being tired of wasting their time arguing with a brick wall.
You honestly end up having to treat it like trolling to make it go away, by ignoring and downvoting it instead of challenging it. It's a lot harder for them to spread misinformation when the community can silently disregard them all together.
That's at least my feeling on it.
Would you mind explaining what modules are? Or is there maybe a wiki somewhere? Also, what are some of the most active parts of the site? I've looked around for a bit, many subject seem to have no comments.
Still trying to find my way around here, sorry if I'm asking the dumb questions.
When you make a snap, on the right sidebar if you scroll down, you can modules i.e "text", "link", "map", "picture gallery" etc. This means that if you submit a video, you can still add links or pictures that are related to it. It's a great way to customise.
Not too sure where Snapzu is most active, apart from /t/lounge . /t/worldnews /t/pics /t/interesting are quite good, but people don't always comment which was mostly because we did not have a huge user base. Now things should evolve on that front and I would expect to see more comments on snaps.
Since you seem like a helpful person, can I ask where it is possible/if it is possible to view the description for a tribe? When creating a tribe there are boxes for name, description, rules/etiquette etc. but when viewing a tribe I can't see any descriptions, just the name and rules.
If you go to the main page of the tribe, you should see a sidebar on the right with the description. If you don't see any sidebar try switching to a different browser.
+1 Sammy... I've clicked on a few more obscure tribes and have had to Google whatever acronym they were using to find out exactly what it was.
Great information, thanks! Just added some modules to the snap I posted yesterday. :)
Don't downvote for disagreeing with the premise of a snap, just don't upvote it. I've seen a significant increase in downvotes over the last few days.
I'm new and I really like that this site is more positive than reddit. I'm hoping it will stay that way.
I agree, the positivity is one of the reasons I started coming consistently, and lack of pedantry, as well as a number of other things I was tired of in other sites such as reddit. And in general, everyone here has been considerably more mature so far. Hope you enjoy you stay!
That was a part I hope never will follow over from Reddit. Reddiquette was similar to this site's Etiquette on downvoting, yet people didn't follow the suggestion and buried you to oblivion when your opinion diverged from the hivemind's. I'm at the opposite all for diverging opinions, as I think they make for interesting discussions.
The etiquette seems like a good balance : upvotes to show agreement, ignoring to show disagreement, downvote to remove unnecessary/undesirable content.
I dunno. It's hard not to think of upvote / downvote as agree / disagree. The way Boardgamegeek does it is have two icons: a thumbs-up and a red X. The thumbs-up is for agreement / a quality post. The red X is for reporting. In other words, it doesn't imply that you disagree or think that it's just a bad post, it implies that the post offended you and you want it hidden. That's actually what happens, too...just like on reddit, if your post gets too many red Xs it is collapsed, and people who want to read it have to un-collapse it first. I find that people are quick to use the thumbs-up, but use the red X very sparingly. I think the red X would be used entirely differently if it was a thumbs-down.
Thing is, that precisely how it should be used, according to both the reddiquette and Snapzu's etiquette... Hmm...
Exactly, but once a community turns toxic its difficult to use anything correctly.
This is true. I do hope that does not happen here,that's for sure.
It doesn't have anything to do with "turning toxic". It's only natural to think of a downvote as the opposite of an upvote. So, if upvote = "I like this", then downvote = "I don't like this"...whatever the reason is. It takes a lot of work to change something like that, and even then you'll get newbies doing it wrong. It's a lot easier to just change the interface.
The real key, I think, is to have reports seen by a human. It's easy to abuse downvotes, because there's no accountability for it. When you report something, you know that a mod or admin is going to look at it, so it's not very likely you're going to report a comment just because you didn't like an opinion.
It's interesting, I was considering mentioning exactly that as a suggestion (not having been privy to Boardgamegeek).
I think the issue with up/down votes (on any site) is that a lot of people use the upvote for 'agree' as well as 'good quality', which doesn't really damage things and is generally accepted by the admins. Because the the downvote icon is the exact converse of the upvote, it almost suggests to users that disagreement is part of what it's for. Having rules around it do help, but people don't always read them, and in the heat of the moment, there's still that 'suggestion' of "click here to disagree" staring them in the face.
A cross (or similar) button perhaps suggests a less regularly used function and might be more akin in a user's mind to a 'report this post' style interaction. The issue I can see with this however, is that up and down votes directly affect the score as advertised, so they do make sense for the sake of consistency.
It's a really difficult issue to get to the bottom of.
Perhaps, if the admins were interested in looking at something like this, some research would be the first step, i.e. 'how does changing the icon with little explanation affect user behaviour'. But this would probably involve setting up a relatively small sample group who would see the new icon instead and analysing the results. As well as the extra work for a small team, there would be unavoidable amount of confusion, which is likely inappropriate during a period of growth like this.
TL;DR - I talk too much.
Maybe, but it seems like people are making it more difficult than it needs to be. Reddit popularized the upvote / downvote system, so now users expect it, and it's really hard to think outside that box.
That was also a part of reddiquette, though everyone seems to have forgotten that over the years.
But what about link snaps? If there's a problem with the linked article (clickbait, poorly written, uninteresting, etc.) I use to downvote it, so that other posts can climb higher on the frontpage. I think the main rule should be: if the snap is opinion, comment instead of downvote.
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I think the following the lounge rules will go pretty far for the entire site.
As a reddfugee, I will try my best to follow all the customs and rules here!
Thank you very much for the consideration. I really believe that the new users have come here with the same mindset that we initially have, to find a place where we can be together in solidarity and understanding, having productive conversations together.
It's really the only rule which governs the way I post - don't be a jerk.
I'm very afraid of this exactly. By no means am I one to say I'm any better (I'm coming over from reddit myself), but I don't want to be anyone toxic or harmful to the communities or the people. Especially when it's been so welcoming thus far.