I started my own server to get out of reddit. I didn’t like the feed and felt like it was being dishonest with me, so I came to this protocol and set up a server with a feed I control… work in progress TBH. We exploit the algorithms for small hits of dopamine and pick me ups … but its not a very evolved state of being.

What you’re asking for, I think, is to use these systems for something other than a feed. You want a community…connection… I appreciate you pointing that out… I do want the community. It also feels like maybe more than what people want to give … so a small corner of your world makes sense. I see that it may be busted as you say… hrm. Or I’m busted? We’re busted?

On the url requirement, those of us who control the ranking on our own instances … could look at ways to surface content that doesn’t have a link attached. If its already running with mass links… a bolt on mechanism to analyze posts for original thought, empathy, kindness, connection, …ick, maybe even run that through a decision model to bring those posts forward. I don’t know what that would do to the fediverse as a whole. Another simple option is channels or servers that don’t allow urls at all, just text…just talk.

Thanks for getting the wheels turning on this.

I strongly agree.

I find personal viewpoints way more interesting to read and easier to relate to. And I’d also like to post more of my own, but it doesn’t seem to be the ‘done thing’ for some reason, which is off-putting. I don’t know if there is a genuine thought-out reason for this on the part of moderators, or whether it’s some kind of unconscious internet tradition 🤷

It’s a missed opportunity for connection between people.

Original content is good, but something I see sometimes and really dislike is unsourced screenshots of text, or otherwise something that contains factual claims that do not point you to a way to read more and verify them. Even if it happens to be true, normalizing that increases our susceptibility to misinformation by making it more difficult to detect and call out.

It bothers me about how news/article-centric Lemmy is in general.

The comment section is a great place to post your well thought out and sourced opinions. I’d rather read the source up front in the post and then get opinions from strangers in the comments than the other way around.

Most of the ones with article requirements also have rules about source reliability/reputation so your idea about making a new site to post your thoughts and linking to that wouldn’t work for long.

I got chastised on /news when I posted about an ABC article being censored and removed, because there wasn’t an article about it being censored and removed.

I included original links and archive links and articles talking about abc facing ongoing censorship. But no news source had written an article about this particular act of censorship.

I respectfully disagree.

If you want a place to discuss opinions, that’s what comments sections are for. Or communities dedicated to discussion.

But news communities are generally rooted in facts. For current news, that means sourced, methodological journalism. Discussion stems from facts

I can make a website right now and call it “The Daily Pragmatist” or some shit and people won’t bat an eye.

This is one of the worst issues plaguing Lemmy, IMO. People post stuff from outright tabloids, random Tweet screenshots, and those kind of websites Wikipedia will outright reject as a source. This is a huge problem, but it means that communities should be more rigorous about information hygiene, TBH. They need to be stricter about what is allowed as source.

Reality also is that many reach conclusions based on titles alone anyhow.

I hate this too. But to fight it, I think Lemmy needs to steal the “community correction” thing Twitter does, so people would see community consensus right below the headline.

And I am very serious about this. I will die on this hill.

I’m not saying more discussion spaces shouldn’t exist, that’s great; but news communities should be for news.

Honestly… I have gotten close to deleting my Lemmy account and leaving, because the information hygiene is getting as bad as Reddit here. I did not come to Lemmy to engage in conspiracies and misinformation.

And the community feeling the opposite is not making me feel any better. I’ve seen other Reddit clones do down like this.

i have no problem with posting news article provided you copy and paste the content or at least summarize what you as the poster thought about it. Like you read and what about it made you want to share it and what insights did you get from it. don’t just hand me a leaflet about a place I could visit though. eff that. im here to interact here and don’t intend to go to those other places on the internet that I avoid.

Posting news articles is low effort and just perpetuates the propaganda game. I would be supportive of pushing news to their own communities, or even a toggle to hide all common ‘news’ site links, to help get back to dialogue about topics not defined by a newscycle.

Link aggregators and short form text platforms have been displacing forums for decades. Probably because we are more receptive towards being advertised to than being mused / argued to.

I never really thought about this. What are some examples of communities that require an article that you think would be better if they didn’t?

I don’t think that it’s a problem to have news-only communities. It’s easy enough to create communities that do do original content, and if people want that, then they can subscribe to it.

The arbitrary and subjective restriction of alternative content helps maintain the hegemonic narrative.

That’s what requiring articles from the NYTimes, NPR, etc. is really about.

Liberalism 101.

I feel like if the rules say only articles, then a screenshot of a tweet is breaking the rules. Just sub to different communities if full discourse is what you’re interested in. It’s out there.