A Proposal: A ban of bullying tribes
These haven't shown up, thank god, but I have no doubt in my mind that they will. For this, I'm talking about the equivalent of reddit's /r/cringe, /r/cringepics, possibly the circlejerk subs. I think we should ban this type of thing before they even show up. I have a few reasons:
1) I think these are killing/killed the reddit community. Over there now, there is no room to socially mess up. Yes, people will downvote you, but it has become acceptable now to witchhunt/bully/etc. Anything not in the mainstream is considered cringe. For those who have spent any time on the subs know that it has diverted from its original purpose. It has now become just a place to make fun of people who aren't like you. Its been a long time sense I've actually cringed on those subs.
2) Bullying shouldn't be acceptable. I don't know why the admins don't care about the incessant bullying that comes from their website. Its ridiculous. I'd even argue that its one worse than most websites out there who troll because, at least in trolling communities, its just trolling. However, with these type of subreddits, the intent seems to be real. They are there to actually emotionally attack the person. Its cyber-bullying in its purest form.
3)Image. This one is a bit more petty but very important for the website. I have a lot of friends who use the website and a lot who know about it. For the ones who know and don't use it they all give me the same type of reasons. "Because redditors are assholes" "Because they are all so mean" "Because they bully people" or my favorite "Because they are a bunch of nerds who like to make fun of other nerds to make themselves feel better". Thats what reddit has become known as, and frankly, because of those subs, its kind of true.
I guess thats it. We don't have to ban them. Just giving my 2 cents. Its not like I'm not for free speech (which is the reason people give for not banning the bad subs over on reddit). But, I'm definitely not for bullying.
Join the Discussion
One thing that I noticed on Reddit was just how easy it was to get downvoted. I remember getting badly downvoted just because I voiced an unpopular opinion (I was basically just talking about how I didn't understand why people take sport so seriously). I think people should be very careful with their downvotes. I think good Snapzu etiquette should be that you shouldn't downvote something just because you disagree with it. We need differences of opinion, otherwise discussion cannot happen, and you just get the only most popular opinions showing up.
I think voting etiquette should be conducted in the following manner: If you like something, you vote it up. If you don't like something, you simply don't vote. You only vote something down if it's really bad, like if the person is being really nasty or if the content is really poor quality.
I'll give you an example. Let's say you posted a music video for some jazz. Now, I'm not particularly a fan of jazz, but that's no reason to downvote it, I just won't upvote it. However, if the link was to a YouTube video that had since been taken down, or if the video quality was poor, or if the video featured footage of a child being abused, those would be situations where I would downvote it.
There may even be instances where I want to actually upvote a comment I disagree with, to keep alive the chance to debate the topic with them. I have done this with content too. I see something and really have an opinion against it, so I upvote it to keep the discussion alive .
As for the whole Cringepics issue, would the simplest thing be to just have a rule that you can't mock anyone else on Snapzu? It has to be people from other sites, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. I agree that people should refrain from bullying behaviour, but I think you do have to be careful about rules regarding what tribes should be available, because that's dictating what people are allowed to be entertained by. I think it's a tricky area. If you let the bu...
... Read FullI really like the idea behind this.. but it might be impossible to draw the line between true trolling and just joking around. Hmm, a subject that is definitely not a black and white matter.
Of course. Of course. And I'm not saying we can't dick around a little, troll a little, or even fight with each other. Thats natural in websites and in life. However, I don't think the website should allow communities to be created CENTERED around bullying. Its like this. Imagine at a school there is a fighting problem. There are three ways to go around this. 1)Zero Tolerance. 2)Cracking down on the bullies 3)Allow the students to create a bullying club. What we don't want to happen is 1. Because then innocent people are caught up in the drama, or fights with actual reason behind it get treated like your average bullying case. 2 is ideal. Things are dealed with case to case. Of course fights will happen, but because not all fights are the same, they get treated at the level they actually are. And then you have 3. Which is what the reddit community is now. They have taken a hands off approach from the bullies and what has happened? They have created an area to learn how to bully better, learn what to bully, and plan out attacks.
Wow... that school example really fit better than I thought it would. Anyways, I guess thats just it. We need to take it case by case for the differences.
I saw someone created /t/snapzudrama and cringed a little myself. We need to take the best aspects of reddit and expand them with creativity. Leave the cesspools where they are.
I like your idea. But like DN said, I'm not sure how you would enforce it.
Really, I think we just need to have admins/moderators who take a hands on approach. Over and reddit, they don't want to get involved. They are all about letting the community evolve. The problem is that the bad parts (like the bullying subs) have evolved with it. Its probably not going to be an easy thing to enforce, but I think its important.