There needs to be actual content rules. TIL worked best when the mods actually adhered to those content rules. Otherwise you just have people posting all kinds of nonsense. Quality is better than quantity

    • crossmr@kbin.runOP
      3·
      4 days ago

      @[email protected] These all amount to nothing more than, TIL X exists. The problem with posts like these, is that if you can sit there and write endless posts just like it, it’s not really a good post. TIL about fir trees, TIL about car tires, TIL about weed trimmers, TIL about Disney land, etc. etc. etc. etc.

      TIL about the TRAPPIST-1 Star System TIL that there is a global, time traveling radio (sort of) TIL norway has a homocide map with exact locations of murders.

      This doesn’t start with TIL and doesn’t really sound like a TIL at all:

      https://kbin.run/m/[email protected]/t/492996/What-Do-Neural-Networks-Really-Learn-Exploring-the-Brain-of#comments

      We then have topics which are vague and don’t really tell us anything.

      TIL: How Henry Ford’s Strange Social Program Aimed to Control The Personal Lives Of Workers TIL: How The IMF and World Bank Debt Trap Countries and Force them into Austerity

      This is just presented in non-neutral way, and has been posted dozens or even hundreds of times over at reddit, so much so that it’s on their repost list:

      TIL this Fun Fact: Unfortunately, Chainsaws Were Invented for Childbirth

      Clickbait style submissions like this:

      TIL that in 2014, a photographer tried to copyright a monkey’s selfie and sue Wikipedia for it.

      In this kind of submission the user is telling us about an event, without actually telling us the outcome of that event. It’s unclear exactly what ‘fact’ it is they’ve learned, beyond ‘an event happened’, it’s delayed news at best. A much better TIL would be about the outcome of the trial and what legal implications that has.

      Topics like this are just written to say LOL These people are stupid:

      TIL the US government once banned sliced bread

      and are missing crucial context in the title like the fact that it happened during WW2 when there were shortages.

      TIL Most Explosives used by Hamas Are Unexploded Israeli Bombs Dropped on Palestine

      This is literally related to a current on-going international conflict and politics and seems to be written to support an agenda. There are reasons they have a rule about no news, and no political posts.

      At least this place isn’t as bad as a TIL I saw on another instance that seems to do little more run a bot to repost submissions from Reddit