Exactly. There isn’t anything about this that is actually news or noteworthy. A low enrollment club with the goal of making waves isn’t being endorsed by a faculty member that doesn’t want to deal with the headache for a club that’s going to die again in two years.
This is just normal University administration and operation and yet here we are reading an article about it from a major news outlet.
Is Lemmy even a good platform for discussion to begin with?
I also am going to have to say no to this question. Reddit style forum threads don’t do a good job of promoting legitimate discussion in general. The simple like/dislike voting system encourages users to vote emotionally and your community-specific rules for voting aren’t going to do very much to change user behavior in that regard. As you’ve already found out, that is going to make having a discussion about any topic that’s controversial or requires an amount of nuance or flexibility of thought to approach nearly impossible. However, these are the topics that tend to have the most value as a discussion and not being able to adequately have them is a disservice to the community.
Maybe this gripe is also specific to me, but I would guess it’s not. I exclusively use Lemmy on a mobile device. This makes crafting a lengthy, well formatted, and coherant response quite a bit more difficult than if I were to use a non-mobile device. Constantly fighting autocorrect, needing to break a train of thought to scroll up and down to see what point I’m responding to, and managing links and sources by swapping apps don’t make for an enjoyable experience.
Do you ever feel that Lemmy is a more aggressive form of social media and therefore limit your discussion? Does the activist nature of Lemmy help or hurt further adoption?
The population of the platform is relatively small, with 50,000 monthly active users compared to Reddit’s 250,000,000 million (I’m pulling these number roughly and from memory based on a recent thread) it’s a fraction of a percentage the size of a platform that also would struggle with this style of a community. This at its core is going to limit the number of possible discussion participants who are passionate and knowledgeable enough to reply to only a very few and that’s if they even manage to see the thread because anyone who doesn’t actively check or subscribe to the community is only going to see the post in the algorithms within about three hours after its posted. This is a low volume community in terms of votes and engagement so it will get buried by memes very quickly. Maybe consider posting the weekly during a higher volume time for users like on the weekends to help a little.
The population around here is both diverse and homogenous at the same time. There is a large enough amount of cultural diversity, but the type of user who is actively on a platform like this tends to be of a similar personality. I would argue that tech and privacy focused users actually don’t make great candidates for academic discussions. I know this is a strong generalization, but these people tend to be, and excuse the idioms, the “I’m the king of my castle” or “My way or the highway” type of people. Because of this, in conjunction with the voting system, almost every thread ultimately feels more like a loud argument in a bar rather than a conversation. Everyone just wants to say their piece to be heard and then move on.
The occasions that I type half of an entire thoughtful response about a topic that I’m knowledgable about only to delete it halfway through are numerous. In fact, I did that for this specific post yesterday 15 minutes after you posted this topic. Commenting on a new topic is always a huge gamble because it feels like a shocking amount of users on the platform are only here because they’re having a bad day and want to be a jerk to someone and argue for the sake of arguing.
Edit: I guess this turned into a bit more of a rant than I had intended rather than constructive feedback. I guess some of my own platform frustrations are mirrored with yours.
You don’t need to have a perfect body; lighting, indicating soft power through angles, and imagination are your friends. A lot of the best male nudes are the ones where the dick isn’t the focus(or even shown at all).
What part of ribbed for her pleasure don’t you understand?!
Ah, thanks for the correction I’ll edit the comment. I always think NC for some reason, but both Carolinas are pretty interchangable in my mind.
Huh, that’s somehow way worse. I always was under the impression that it was only Myrtle Beach.
I’ll copy my response to the other person who was also confused by the reference:
In America, there’s a very popular car windshield decal sticker that people put on that says “Salt Life.” It specifically just means someone visited a popular beach vacation spot called Myrtle Beach, SC. The people who put it on tend to being almost exclusively sporty douchebags and suburban moms.
That’s about it.
Edit: changed NC to SC
In America, there’s a very popular car windshield decal sticker that people put on that says “Salt Life.” It specifically just means someone visited a popular beach vacation spot called Myrtle Beach, SC. The people who put it on tend to being almost exclusively sporty douchebags and suburban moms.
That’s about it.
Edit: changed NC to SC
I’ll never not read those stickers as “Slut Life” because of the idiotic font they chose.
Hahahah yeeeah. I’m technically a slow reader too, but it’s more because I have to keep rereading paragraphs when I stop paying attention, so I’d be more like you probably.
My gf is a completely different brand of neurospicy and she just could not grasp that not only do I have to read the words but I have to actively make sure my brain is trying to comprehend them too or I just go on autopilot.
Hello fellow ADHD adult! I’ve heard the advice about using the double medium before but never given it a shot. Honestly it would probably work great, but I’ve just never committed to it.
With children’s books most of the page count will be in illustrations. You’ll go through them very quickly.
I’m always jealous of people who can listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I genuinely can’t listen to them and do something else at the same time so I have to sit twiddling my thumbs the entire time and get antsy. If I try listen and maybe do the dishes or something, I’ll blink and have no idea what’s been said for the past 15 minutes and have to go back anyway. It kind of sucks.
Yeah that’s definitely where that amount is coming from if it’s been well over a decade. Books are actually really fricken expensive!
Yeah she easily reads into the 200+ range which is about the same pace as you. A lot her non-work related books end up being audiobooks though. I personally need to feel paper in my hands or I have trouble focusing, but I also almost exclusively read high fantasy for fiction and philosophy for non-fiction. I’m lucky to finish half a dozen books a year on a good year!
My partner is in the Lit world and you drastically underestimate how much some people can read. If they are an avid reader and a long-standing member I can see it. Especially If they’re using the retail price to calculate that it adds up quick. hardcovers can easily be $40-60.
That’s a shame, but I’m glad Roo is still leading a happy, loving, and healthy life! ☺️ Tiny dogs do have a certain reputation for ego though, there’s a whole syndrome named after them!
Yeah, without context the phrasing is kind of weird. Rep is short for Replika, a paid personal chatbot service. Most times I see it come up people use it as a psuedo-romantic relationship.
They are both very handsome!
Not to say it’s not possible to successfully run the type of community you’re seeking, but fostering it is going to feel like an uphill battle for a very long time.
Beehaw has tried to promote a similar moderation heavy and discussion based platform and also ran into issues with Lemmy as a whole. Last I knew they were creating their own platform rather than staying, but that was because of ideological differences with the developers and lack of moderation tools.