Ask Lemmy is a place to ask thought provoking questions. The mods have been lenient with some of the recent posts on the basis that they must provoke thought for some people, but after seeing two posts essentially saying “what do you think of my stick?”, I believe we can raise the bar a bit on what kind of thoughts we want to provoke here.

No more low effort posts please.

  • Otter@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    Repetitive meme posts can get annoying, and mods should intervene in some cases, but I’d prefer if the rules were more open. It’s hard to determine what is “low effort” and “thought-provoking”, and Lemmy is small so further limiting content isn’t that productive

    Was this the post? https://lemmy.ca/post/9681692

    I think people using this community are looking for something similar to AskReddit, and it’s totally ok if you want to be different from that since the Fediverse allows for more communities to be made.

    Personally, (and you don’t need to run the community like this), I’m looking for a community for open-ended and discussion provoking questions, not necessarily thought-provoking questions. The stick one was fun and lead to fun discussion

    • ALostInquirer@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      I sort of agree, mainly with the lower population of Lemmy concern, albeit I’ve also seen other questions that, while not low effort necessarily, have made me wonder, “Wouldn’t this perhaps be better in a more specific community, or in a different style, like NoStupidQuestions?”

      However, low population, not a moderator, so the mixed thoughts have left me refraining from asking or saying anything as I kinda think we already have an abundance of communities sparsely populated as-is and I’m not into backseat moderating. Still, the thoughts have been there and this thread’s given a nice opportunity to voice them.

      • Otter@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        I’ve also seen other questions that, while not low effort necessarily, have made me wonder, “Wouldn’t this perhaps be better in a more specific community, or in a different style, like NoStupidQuestions?”

        Yea I’ve seen a few of those too. Questions that are too specific to a particular app/program or a specific personal problem. Those don’t really belong here

        • “How do I do X on program Y” (bad) vs. “What’s your favourite program that does Z” (good)
        • Treczoks@kbin.social
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          7 months ago

          Wouldn’t the charter not be more appropriate for a “DiscussOnLemmy” group? And leave “AskLemmy” for proper, answerable questions? That mistake was made on reddit before.

    • Nobody@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      The most fun part of the early internet was the feeling that it was the Wild West. Lawlessness and fun. Obviously, rules are needed to keep things under control, but I agree that erring on the side of having fun isn’t a bad thing. It’s more inclusive and it lets people express themselves.

      One of my favorite things to see on Lemmy is people who lurked on Reddit but feel free to talk here. Being too heavy-handed with rules might discourage those people from contributing.

    • Bluetreefrog@lemmy.worldOPM
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      7 months ago

      This is a really good point. Should the community be for thought provoking questions or discussion provoking questions?

      • FireTower@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Both should be welcome. Especially with the current state of Lemmy (low user base), over moderation can be a real thing.

        More narrowly tailored communities have narrower appeal and Q&A communities function off of their number of users.

        This is one reason why on Reddit r/AskReddit (44M) has more users than r/AskMen (5.8M). And why r/AskMen has more users than r/AskMenOverThirty (458K).

      • Otter@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Appreciate your team being open to thinking about it :)

        You could even ask it as a meta askLemmy question