When I first joined this community I saw it as a respite from reddit where I was free to chill with people without being constantly expected to debate or defend arguments or anything. Just a forum where people are nice.
Lately though it seems every active comment section is filled to the brim with, to be frank, obnoxious people who want nothing more than to fight with you about everything you say. I think they’re known as “debate bros.”
I’m not saying debate shouldn’t be happening but to be honest it’s disappointing seeing it be the only thing occurring. I’ve tried contributing in other fashions but have been met multiple times with people trying to start arguments with me about things or get me to defend “points” that I didn’t make. This in particular has been very annoying. I’ve reported every instance of this due to it not contributing but I feel as if that’s not helping.
I like talking to people I disagree with. I like conversing with differing opinions. But I feel alone in that this isn’t the only thing I want to do on a forum.
Again, I’m not trying to definitively say we shouldn’t debate at all, but just pointing out how prevalent it seems to be. Id like to just converse with people without being expected to make and defend points. I feel like that’s a major thing we should’ve left on Reddit.
If people want to debate then they can do that. I just dislike that it appears to become the base-level expectation for the instance.
I’ve been on the internet long enough to know that any argument that goes on for long enough is going to get uncivil. You’re also very unlikely to convince someone who feel threatened by your point.
So I’ve got a soft ‘respond once’ policy. if someone replies to one of my comments, I respond once to clarify my position and address anything important. If I have failed to make my point by then, then my writing ability will continue to be insufficient in
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Yeah this how I operate now. It’s not worth my time to argue with people. I don’t even post a second response a lot of the time, especially when the interjection is obnoxious.
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From my perspective specifically as a Canadian, it seems that it’s an American/North American thing. Some threads I was in on reddit would be full of vitriol and hate until the Europeans woke up; then I would have some actual conversations. Of course, this is just what I think. May be other reasons for that.
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I can’t comment on beehaw specifically, but I do know I’ve seen it rise in popularity on Lemmy / The Fediverse, just as its generally prevalent on the internet itself (that’s the core of the problem, its not really a Reddit thing as much as it is an “internet” thing from what I’ve found).
Like you, I don’t mind debating something with someone when they attempt to do so in good faith - or if I post something incorrect then I’m happy to be corrected if someone isn’t rude about it. I do also try to make sure that if I post something, that I’m either sure its correct, or I provide some sort of hint that I’m not 100% sure about it.
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Yes. Lemmy/kbin/etc as well. I was just thinking to myself idk why I’m even on here. It feels like every comment I make, I end up having to defend myself, no matter how innocuous the comment.
I said it would be funny if the next elder scrolls games smashed expectations and was good, in an ironic kind of funny. I mentioned baldurs gate 3 due to it being also incredibly well received and was immediately met with a person who wanted to argue that the two games aren’t comparable.
I agree with them but I wasn’t even trying to make that argument in the first place. Just mentioned BG3 because it released like two weeks ago. Was very disappointing to see such a misrepresentation of what I said.
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I think that might have been a thread I called someone out for being unkind. They jumped to ad hominem in response to a really innocuous comment
Someone I called out recently for being unkind replied essentially saying that all of Beehaw are snowflakes for wanting to eliminate vitriol. That comment was deleted, I assume by a mod/admin, very quickly, so kudos to whoever was watching that thread/report!
I am very thankful to the volunteers trying to keep Beehaw true to its mandate. Hence why I’m trying to do my part by calling people out when they break the only rule here.
TL;DR:
Maybe that’s what will move the needle? If we, as non-mods, normalize calling out unkind behaviour then it derails the “performance snark” and ruins the “fun” of trolling.
Can’t say I’ve noticed it on Beehaw but I have on some other instances. Just posted in one actually - was an interesting discussion on the nature of violence in media. One person immediately lashed out at the person and I’m struggling to see why as they were being civil and were just exploring ideas.
I think it’s a wider thing than Lemmy or even the internet. It feels like some kind of way of getting control over something for people who lack any control in other aspects of their lives. They can have it if they’re ‘right’ even if they have to attack people for it.
It happens when you get more users, always. There are people who just wants to argue as some form of entertainment.
Precisely this. 100 users can come across a comment and think nothing of it, when 1000 users or more come across it, one is likely to get ticked off by some part of it and be willing to write a response.
No, it hasn’t.
Yes, it has.
You’re wrong.
I think you’re both wrong.
I think I am always right!
I’m humble enough to know I’m not always right, but in this instance I can most definitely assure you that you are wrong.
I’ve felt that lemmy.world has. It feels much more like vintage Reddit.
Beehaw I haven’t experienced quite as much of the arguing for arguing’s sake. If someone’s arguing with me, they’re usually doing so in good faith.
This is what I think too. Lemmy.world also have a strong downvote culture, which seems to encourage them to pile on to each other.
I see tons of people across the threadiverse arguing that any community missing downvotes lacks any curation, which I find odd. Only upvotes tends to still propogate the best of what the zeitgeist to the top and inspire meaningful feedback when there’s a disagreement rather than just clicking on the “I don’t like this” button
I agree. If the downvote button really was used for sinking content like spam and trolling, that’s a point but it’s something that can be done with active moderation.
But since it’s used for disagreement, I don’t see the value.
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I’ve done a lot of reading since I joined here, and not much replying or posting. What I have noticed is that there does seem to be a certain number of people replying in different threads with similar arguments which end up getting people riled up. I am starting to recognize some of the user names, and I confess that when I see one now I tend to just drop the thread and stop reading.
I am not suggesting that what you are noticing in only due to that, since obviously there are a ton of people coming and going, but there are definitely “regular players” who seem to not know how to engage in a positive way - no matter what the topic. In some ways, I also think it’s likely to always be an inevitable issue here specifically since Beehaw has made its goals as a site quite clear. I think it just urks some people coming here that this site strives to be a positive, welcoming space and so the idea of compromising that is likely part of the appeal for the behaviour.
The more people in a public place, the more likely you are to get argumentative people in the mix. There’s going to be someone who throws the first punch.
I think part of this also stems from there being a lot of strong takes on certain subjects that appear in comments. Thinking of just the past few posts I’ve been through, I’ve seen statements (which i’m intentionally paraphrasing here, just using them as examples) like “all information should be free”, " is better than fad languages and all opinions to the contrary are completely unbacked" (different instance to be fair), “X service should be provided for free by Y private company”, etc. That’s not to say that any of these takes (except the language one, in my opinion) were intentionally inviting people to debate them, but making strong claims like these does invite debate.
That being said, I think the purpose of a lot of posts is to invite discussion, and within those discussions I’ve often seen people agreeing with each other. From my experience, it tends to be more of an outlier when there are argumentative posts being made, but I think it stands out a bit more as well.
Also, I think that how the opposing view is presented is important. For example, I’d rather see a response that opposes an initial view to provide more discussion around the matter than “no you’re wrong and a bad person”-style responses. Generally speaking, I’ve seen more discussion-oriented replies, but occasionally I do see the latter-style response as well, and even saw one (which I’m not pointing to) in the discussion for this post.
Edit: I should also clarify that first paragraph. Opinions to the contrary of what I listed can also be strong takes. Generally any opinion in which there is a significant population of people that disagree with it can invite discussion. The discussion itself isn’t the issue in my opinion, what is the issue is how that discussion is held.
I joined Beehaw almost 3 months ago because I saw it as a place that it was possible to have an opposing or differing opinion and discuss it without being mean or hurtful. Beeple talked, Beeple listened, they had fun and maybe most importantly, Beeple knew where to draw the line when things were getting out of hand and it was time to end the discussion.
Be sure to report any hurtful, mean, unnecessarily argumentative and inappropriate behaviour. I know I have had reports made against me that mods have contacted me about. I do my best to heed them and improve my own behaviour as well to best fit each community.
Certain topics, like politics are meant to attract discussion and debate. Many headlines are specifically crafted to spark arguments and debate. If there was anything I could ask from Beeple and Beehaw visitors at large, it is to keep a cool head when discussing, think of the other person while you talk and report if you see “not nice” conduct.
I think the honey moon period is over for all instances and communities when people were motivated to comment with the goal of trying to encourage user growth by being nicer than they usually are.
Now that people are settling in they are more comfortable using the fediverse like they’ve done on social media. Which does change the type of posts and comments that now come out.
So arguments are expected for even trivial topics like games. It’s good or bad thing depending on the viewpoint, but was expected outcome since motivations for posting was much different in the earlier days.
I think that it wasn’t a honey moon period, but more so people are getting settled in and attempting to bring in toxicity because some people just crave toxicity for no logical reason…
While I’m not a psychologist, I read far too much crap online, so take this as a layman’s view.
There’s been a lot of research around the dopamine feedback loop around social media, as well as the fact that arguing and “winning” is a major dopamine hit, so I wouldn’t be the least bit shocked that a lot of the more toxic people are literally addicted to the dopamine that social networks give you that they’re arguing and posting for no other reason than their next hit.
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