Hi all,
I am noticing that a lot of what is being posted is the same outrage clickbait articles on crime and poverty that have overrun other Portland centric communities. These are absolutely important topics, and something I hope everyone is thinking about and involved with advocating for improved policy around. However, I do question the usefulness of a constant deluge of these types of articles.
When we go to a space like the local coffee shop, pub, or bookstore, a place where we immediately feel the "Portland vibes", we usually aren't met with a non-stop stream of poverty, drug, and crime news. If I we were, then we would probably leave (or at least I would). Similarly, I feel like our online space can be so much more than just the same daily rehash of divisive arguments that don't go anywhere.
This is especially true on our Lemmy community, where we are small and still developing a culture. There are not many other types of posts here yet, so the click-bait outrage headlines dominate. Personally, I would love to see more events, reviews of concerts, pictures, slice of life stories, and other things that make this feel like the "Portland vibes".
This isn't a moderation decision. It's more of an appeal. I haven't removed any links or banned anyone (other than some obvious malicious spam), and I don't plan to. I haven't even been down voting.
IDK ... what do you think about the future of this space and how we might build a community space that isn't just local doom scrolling?
Would definitely love to see less of the doom and gloom porn that has been so prevalent Portland Reddit. I think there’s certain a time and place for discussing significant news events that happen in town, but I was really really sick of seeing all the doom and gloom porn of Portland Reddit.
I stopped going to Reddit at the start protest and haven’t been back, and while I’m definitely feeling pretty out of touch on local goings on and Timbers news, it’s been refreshing to not have my day filled with the endless negative posts about our current ills.
Definitely not saying I want to ignore what’s been going on, it’s pretty hard to ignore, but if/when I need to know about that stuff I’ll seek that news out.
I don’t know the right answer to make that happen without some more heavy handed moderating (which I am not advocating for either), as at least some of the folks posting that stuff have a clear agenda and will swayed by appeals to out better nature like this. But I am definitely in favor of this place becoming a more positive place for community engagement and not another next door or battle ground for political/ideological troll warfare.
In short, I am emphatic YES to everything you said!