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c/aussocialism · by eureka@aussie.zone · 180d

Let's all have a quick meta discussion to get this place set up properly!

I think it's worth having a small conversation about setting up this place properly. I've been in a few socialist chat rooms, forums, and more, many turning out great, but a lot of the ones that failed or devolved into drama did so because there was just an impulsive decision it should exist, and then reacting to problems after they've arisen.

Now obviously aussie.zone is casual and light, don't even bother writing a manifesto no visitors will read before posting. This is about the basics. In fact, even this OP might be too long.

Because this community is still small, we can have a go at discussing and reaching a consensus on fundamental ideas, like:

  • Why we should exist: what usefulness this community serves for aussie.zone and other Aussie Lemmy users (who already have access to general socialist comms on other instances, and who doesn't want political drama pushed upon this lovely place)
  • What kind of content and discussion we want to see here, and what we don't want to see
  • Community rules to push us in that direction
  • Other mechanical and cultural elements to promote these, like avatar and banner choice, choice of pinned threads (perhaps a reading list?), automoderation ideas.
  • Other?

I also encourage discussion on what you don't want to see from moderators. The bottom line is, on everywhere from Lemmy, reddit, Discord and any other place with staff, most are there to fill a position and aren't given any training or briefing on expectations. I've seen some communities wait until they get a flood of unexpected attention, bring on new moderators without any instruction, then the new moderators start micromanaging discussion, banning people for flimsy or unclear reasons, or adding personal insults in bans, and other negligent or abusive behaviour. For that reason, I would like for us to also consider setting up some basic expectations for moderators. (Honestly I think all the volunteers so far seem chill, and moderation will be pretty minimal, but this is so much easier to figure out before any drama hits.)

2 points · 7 comments · view on lemmy.world

7 Comments

arbilp3@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 166d

I'm so glad to see this new community and the thoughtful way in which its set up is being discussed. Thank you. Great that there are experienced people moderating. Respectful discussion is my main want.

eureka@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 180d (3 replies)

We've already got some meta discussion over in https://aussie.zone/post/29514850 so I'll copy it here, I think it's a great example:

Update: I think this kinda stuff could also be posted to broader comms like Brisbane (in lieu of a Qld comm) or Aus Pol. Otherwise everything coming from this or similar sites could end up being siloed in this comm. It’ll get more traction in those comms too.

Yeah, makes sense. As we don’t have a rule set yet I just thought I’d put something into the good to get things rolling.

I wholeheartedly agree. I believe this community should try it's hardest not to be a silo, and if possible we should shape the user experience to encourage sharing.

For example, we could add a sidebar guideline to say something like, "When posting images and links, consider whether if they're relevant to other communities too. If so, crosspost to them, that way you can include the aussies who aren't subscribed to this comm yet." In fact, if we can get an automod, this would be a fine thing to auto-reply on new link and image posts, because I don't think Lemmy's design really encourages those making new posts to actually read the sidebar, and people can just grow numb to it.

star@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 180d

Agreed. Siloing would be worse than not having the place at all.

MisterFrog@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 179d (1 reply)

Thanks for making this post comrade. I'd like to propose you also come on board as a moderator because you seem to have experience I, at least, don't.

These are my personal opinions for the group's consideration

  • Why we should exist:

    • To share content relating to the Australian context. To have discussion with fellow socialists from Australia. To (hopefully) provide a space of discussion for non-socialists to engage with. Also while I don't believe we'll need to exclude anyone, I do think Australian socialists skew toward the opinion that imperialism is bad, even when it's from a group opposed to the US. (the ones I've met at rallies and such anyway). Lemmy.ml puts people off because a large number (not all, they're not a monolith) of users do a lot of apology for authoritarian or imperialist groups. And that grows tiring.

  • What kind of content and discussion we want to see here, and what we don't want to see

    • Want:
      • respectful discussion of various societal/economic models
      • Posts of relevant news (to then be cross posted to other relevant communities for reach and encouraging the community to be a broad church)
      • discussion of different points of view, without attacking each other
      • Posts of local events with a socialist agenda/involvement
    • Don't want:
      • Leftwing infighting (we should agree to disagree as much as possible, as we agree on a lot)
      • excessive defence of non-democratic viewpoints, though not sure how you'd achieve this, probably better to just debate people with those views

  • Community rules to push us in that direction:

    • TBD

  • Other mechanical and cultural elements to promote these,

    • like avatar and banner choice:
      • I like your logo from the other thread, depending on what the source is:
    • choice of pinned threads (perhaps a reading list?):
      • I'm not sure
    • automoderation ideas:
      • Probably when there's more content to moderate

  • Other?:

    • voting rules on major decisions (including non-moderators) - i.e. @aussie.zone users who have been subscribers for x days or months (though not a big deal while it's still small)

  • I also encourage discussion on what you *don't* want to see from moderators:

    • Deleting comments because it goes against socialist views. Better to just respond imo

  • The bottom line is, on everywhere from Lemmy, reddit, Discord and any other place with staff, most are there to fill a position and aren't given any training or briefing on expectations:

    • myself, and I'm sure others, would appreciate you experience on this matter. As I only moderate a tiny community I decided to port from Reddit (!engineeringmemes@lemmy.world)
eureka@aussie.zone · 1 pts · 179d

I’d like to propose you also come on board as a moderator because you seem to have experience

Yeah I'd love to. Since you're already a moderator, this page shows how to add the rest of us to the team: https://join-lemmy.org/docs/users/04-moderation.html#how-to-moderate

Voting rules

Excellent point, I've seen a couple of (large) communities where the moderators see themselves as a vanguard, vote internally, make major changes and immediately get told off by all the regular users. In a place like this, I see no reason why moderators shouldn't consult the whole comm about big decisions and put it to a vote if there are any objections.

Good point with checks to counter voting fraud. I'm not sure if we can see how long someone has been a subscriber, or even if they are subscribed, but we can check when accounts have commented or posted before if there's a need to check that they're not recent throwaways and sock puppets. And that way, we can included any non @aussie.zone active regulars.

  • Deleting comments because it goes against socialist views. Better to just respond imo

Agreed, and I want to emphasise it. If someone wants a strict chatroom where they never have to see a liberal, there are plenty around. This place serves as a way for people to discover Australia's socialist community.

On that topic, if we want to serve as a place where non-socialists are welcome to discuss, I suspect it might be effective to have a rule against rude or troll replies, including pro-socialism trolling. On one hand, there are things which are completely fair to be hostile towards (such as racist perspectives, or dishonest argument-baiting), and I can see someone feeling wronged if we warn them against telling a smug anti-socialist to gtfo. On the other, I believe constructive, low-effort-but-high-value replies are a very useful community skill to build. That means, if it's a basic argument like "no one will work if you tax billionaires", there's no point re-inventing the wheel with a 500 word reply - link to an article, book extract, video or prior post: if it's a sincere argument then the poster gets a chance to look deeper and answer their own further questions, and if it's a shitpost, troll or apathetic competitive argument, then we're not wasting time or feeding the troll with anger, and they usually won't even bother checking the source if they aren't engaging sincerely.

But I completely understand if what I described is too restrictive, in that case I'd do my best as a subscriber to lead by example, not by rule.

eureka@aussie.zone · 0 pts · 178d (1 reply)

What about the display name: "Australian Socialism"? "AusSocialism" "Socialism in Australia", "aussocialism"?

Almost all except for "ausmemes" and "AusFinance" are written as separate words..

"Australian Socialism" is the same as an existing reddit community, so we might want to add a disclaimer in the sidebar that we're unaffiliated.

MisterFrog@aussie.zone · 2 pts · 178d

I think AusSocialism is good. It's close enough to the url with better differentiation from the capitals