has beehaw gotten more argumentative as of late?
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
n > 2comments, and I am adult enough to let them have the last word.I really love the idea of this policy and I'm gonna have to steal it, thank you so much. 😄 I've been struggling to choose when and how much to respond to certain things but this will certainly help.
Yes. This is really just the standard internet policy of "do not feed the trolls". This goes way back. Nicely said though.
People have different opinions on what an argument is too and what is civil. Not sure what OP is seeing. I have not seen much for issues myself. The then again I choose when and how I engage and most of what I follow is not that political.
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.
Great policy, thanks for sharing!
Ohhh, this is a good policy. I'm taking this!
I've noticed this everywhere on Lemmy - I don't think this is a Beehaw exclusive. My guess is that as Lemmy grows, more and more people are lurking and reading every post/comment you make. Most people will pass by without a debate, but if 1000 people read your post all it takes is one person to decide they want to start an argument.
Absence of disable inbox setting for comments or threads like on Reddit is also a contributor I think, since if you are the type to have to defend your comment then it leads to a back and forth that can go longer than on reddit since you will be made aware of the reply with no ability to turn it off for either party.
A block will turn it off.
I love your mindset
Same here. And it's been wave after wave of negativity of outside events flocking people. June Reddit API change, then Zuck @ Threads hate, Twitter to X shockwaves, and now Trump back on Twitter. It hasn't been people seeking out positive as much as it's been world wide web of anger.
Nuh-uh.
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.
I saw that comment and literally thought to myself "Wow they are getting the same nerd hate that I keep getting. Is this everywhere?!"
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.
This is it and don't forget it! Keeping Beehaw a nice place to be relies on people first reminding people who are verging on not nice behaviour, then reporting them if they continue or get worse. Have the pulse on your own emotions too, sometimes the answer to disengage and leave it be if you find yourself worked up by something.
For the newer Beehaw users, don't be afraid to use the report button if talking it out doesn't appear to fix unkind behaviour. Beehaw mods and admins can't scan every single thread at this point.
Yes, I think some of it is Beehaw-specific because everyone flocked to Beehaw with the idea of building a better community and being better then slowly reverted back to their Reddit-arguing selves.
Lemmy/kbin/Fediverse was also very bubbled to Linux and privacy-focused people, now it's grown and keeps growing and that original bubble is very closed-minded. I've found a few times where I've mentioned some generally obvious things like "deleting Facebook means that a lot of people can't talk to the elder folk in their family." a common thought that is generally agreed upon but yet I got a bunch of people saying that was bullshit. A phrase I've started to like is "terminally online" which Lemmy seemed to be filled with. People who refuse to see there is another opinion out there and that even their opinion isn't common. Even when their opinion is refuted by statistics. They seem to just press on.
So I see more arguing on two levels. 1) Beehaws NRE has worn off. 2) Fediverse got an influx of more people bringing in a more common mindset that the old Fediverse crowd was generally against because they lived in a bubble. (which I know I'll get a lot of hate and arguments of "no, we didn't", "Linux is clearly the best OS", "Microsoft is literally Nazis!", "Privacy isn't dead yet!"
Just in my experience a lot of people on the Fediverse seem to have the attitude of "my opinion is the facts" or "the one thing I read on the corner of the internet with no cites is the definitive fact!". They are more closed off than Redditors. It's been surprising how many posts I see saying "We don't need to be like Reddit!" To then discover they aren't like Reddit, they are far worse.
Frankly, this whole thing has made me second-guess trying to leave Reddit behind. The only thing stopping me is a decent phone app to it. I could see myself somehow trying to set up a PWA with RES built into it if that's even possible. I see far more decent conversations (and open-minded people) on Reddit than here at this point and it's a huge shame.
A lot of it is very black and white thinking/refusal to see nuance...
It's getting harder to see nuance especially in the US when it generally means the argument of one side is fighting against your life, rights, or ability to stay safe. That definitely isn't helping at all.
Absolutely agree! There is no wiggle room. These arguments are usually someone saying something definitive and someone else saying "No, it's directly this way and always this way. There are no alternatives!" or "The alternatives are unethical, and if you use them your entire existence is unethical!" or worse "I am superior to you if you use these unethical alternatives because I can get by without them!"
I block them all. Honestly I like it here, but if it gets too frustrating, then I might contemplate going back.
There's a lot of that here, I block more than a few each day.
The generalization.
From capitalism, landlords, privacy, microsoft, non FOSS apps.
If you even post something positive about these things, they'll pile up on you. It's sof the real world is a simple binary thing where there's nothing in between and all people are one dimensional.
Some days are more frustrating than others.
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 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.
I don't know if this is a direct answer to what you said exactly but over the last decade give or take the whole of the internet has seemingly been getting more toxic, argumentative, unable to have a back and forth discussion, and it seems like it's happening out in the world in society more too. I think things are getting to a breaking point in a lot of different places and I wonder if that has anything to do with some of it. There's a lot of people who can't manage to simply be nice to each other, so it's kind of disheartening at times.
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.
I'm in the US and elections coming up next year isn't helping, but politics wise without getting into it, there are massive issues all over, as far as I know right now especially in Canada, the UK, Australia and I think Italy too. I'm sure there's more than that. We're all on the edge of our seats especially folks in any minority groups waiting to see what happens and it's a lot of constant stress. I think it causes people to be more likely to snap and argue as well, not to excuse it but I dunno. I'm sure there's a lot of things going on all at once too.
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.
Oh no, they quite literally are. You pretty much nailed the root of it, and also brought up a good point as to why for profit social media tends to become so harmful. Engagement is prioritized, and "winning" and arguing with people drives engagement due to the dopamine hit. That's why you will constantly see rage bait promoted across social media. It makes money.
I guess the real question, ultimately, is how do you deprogram the worst elements of this cohort so that they can like.... respond and converse like a normal human without having to argue every single thing and go on and on and on until they "win"? (Which, IMO, means the other person has just gotten tired of dealing with them more than anything else.)
I will happily admit I have absolutely no idea, and will also admit that I have on more than one occasion been That Guy Posting but I really really try to not let myself be.
I think it's a matter of being mindful of it, creating an environment where it isn't acceptable, as well as making sure that the algorithms that tend to generate the most toxicity don't get added in.
To add on I think it is also a thing of social norms. So if a plurality in a post starts being argumentative then it can become the default way others talk in other parts of the post.
So it sort of is an "Embody the change you want to see" thing.
Absolutely. I am not perfect whatsoever, no one is but I try my best personally to make lemmy a nice place and as a community it's our collective responsibility to at the very least try
I think people crave drama. If you solved the world's problems, people would go nuts over the smallest things. You see this with HOAs and rich neighborhoods where people literally have their lives solved so they go out and make more problems for themselves. Local problems that only they can solve. People are problem solvers and when you take their problems away, they start breaking stuff.
I don't think this is just some people, I think everyone has this on some level. Some are better at finding problems to solve rather than making them. Some people start looking externally to their lives to find problems to solve and some people immediately create problems in their own life to solve. This is how you get volunteers and people contributing to society and also people complaining your lawn is too long or too brown.
That's one of the reasons I block every community/magazine focused on politics, no matter the country they're related on. Although European politics tend to be more civil than US politics. But I'm tired of too much polarization and lack of civil discourse. Tankies don't help either, and luckily for us, exploding-heads is leaving Lemmy.
I read an interesting thread about “I hate politics” being an inherently anti-minority/anti-oppressed stance. Because to the majority, “politics” is often anything related to race/gender/social-status/etc. so it’s a disservice to those causes to ignore them.
And while I belong to a couple of minority/oppressed groups, I also get the idea of wanting to not be constantly inundated with those debates.
I’ve got no answers other than it’s complicated and something worth thinking about.
It's well-docmented in Aotearoa, Australia, and the UK that low turnout favours the right so some centre-right parties - advised by Crosby Textor - try to create divisive issues because it puts voters off politics and voting altogether.
But, I think there's often a big difference between engaging politically in your community and society, and debating strangers on social media.
Like @Ignacio@beehaw.org, I block things called "politics" on the lemmy and kbin sites because they are mostly catch-alls for well rehearsed/rehashed arguments relevant to America.
I think it's possible for us to stand in solidarity with Americans without resorting to that, and in other countries their causes tend to come up in social media news so I try to take real world actions based on that, for example writing to our minister of foreign affairs to ask that NZ takes a particular stance or action.
Someone else where tried to tell me that I was "privileged" for not wanting to discuss politics - I told them that if they knew me (which isn't that hard to do, I'm pretty transparent on the internet...) then the idea of calling me "privileged" is an absolute joke.
There's definitely a huge difference between "I don't want to discuss politics [with people who are most likely not going to discuss it in good faith with you and will only scream at you]" versus "I don't want to ever be involved or know about politics whatsoever". I don't even discuss politics with friends because the potential consequences are... bad, to say the least. If I don't discuss it with friends, then I'm certainly not going to discuss it with people I have no connection to (for lack of a better phrase, I don't mean that in a harsh manner of course) on the internet. I too also tend to block any political discussion from any feeds I take part in because it also, tends to not go well.
Heck, I usually don't even go into the "why" all that often either, because of what I mentioned in my first sentence.
Politics seem more exhausting than on reddit, since there's entire instances that exist soley for the purpose of spreading their beliefs. Which is a pro for them with instances helping to foster a stronger community, but then they seem so much more present every where too. /c/all can be flooded with the topics they want to push if there's a mass submission. And new instances pop up if defederated with the main goal seeming to be not just a community for themselves, but evangelizing. And lemmy isn't at a stage yet where subscribed feeds can provide enough content to avoid /c/all like back on reddit.
Connect for lemmy with keyword filtering and instance blocking has really helped though to reduce the frequency of manual community blocking. Didn't block during the first few weeks though, which was a nice period before it became necessary to curate personal feeds.
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.
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.
Argument Clinic https://youtu.be/uLlv_aZjHXc?si=TPn9cjOH1UUOmIvC
Yes, and I've been using beehaw less and less because of it.
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.
Your father smelt of elderberries. :p
I'm marginally attached to beehaw so maybe I'm not the best gauge to read, but I haven't really noticed what you describe.
Enjoy your weekend!
In my experience this has happened most strongly with topics relating to LLMs. Ive had good discussions on the topic too, but ive also seen lots of "BOOM I just shut down your argument!!" at any mention of negative impacts LLMs may have on society.
I'm sorry but what is a LLM? A quick search didn't do anything
Learned Language Model, a form of machine learning that people tend to call "AI". ChatGPT is an LLM
It's actually "Large Language Model."
Whooooops, that's what I get for not verifying things sitting in my brain for a long time
No worries, I wrote an article about them recently, so it was on the top of my mind.
Unfortunately most places have "reply guys" in some capacity. I may have my own qualms with lemmy as a platform, but a lot of it is algorithmic and the lemmy devs are being mindful of making sure not to add the most toxic aspects of social media algorithms to lemmy. There's always those people seeking out toxicity and crave an argument on every platform. With platforms like this it's important to recognize that you curate your experience. Mute and block often. You aren't missing out on clout, or anything really. If there's anything that's hindering you from having a good time here then get rid of it. There's a lot of FOMO people have especially with browsing /all but the fediverse thrives when you curate what you want to see carefully.
It should also be noted that there's quite a few people on reddit determined to come here and try and start shit for no reason other than they find it to be fun. There's a pretty big post on reddit that I saw about lemmy being "too civil" and how the fact that there isn't a controversial sorting option, it's too boring for them to use. Some people crave conflict. Don't satisfy their craving.
Yeah, I've memorized what to click to block people in lemmy, an option that I have rarely used during my 13 years in reddit.
I don't know, my communities are fairly similar on reddit and in lemmy, but I've blocked more often here.
I wonder why.
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 havent noticed too much of an uptick but admittedly Ive also been using the site less and the articles I do click on are either dead or ones with civil discourse so I may have just been lucky.
I wonder how much of this may relate to some folks not really knowing how else to try to interact online...? Maybe even offline as well?
Some seem primed to take any opportunity to argue, and for them I don't think it registers negatively so much as simply how one discusses stuff. A sort of playfighting if you will, worrisome & exhausting if you're not interested, but a joy (up to a point) to those that are.
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.
A lot of this is why I have the policy I do with regards to just blocking debate-heads. If someone replies with something lacking civility, consideration of nuance, or is just plain simple old POV pushing; I'm just going to shut them down and block their nonsense. They can go rant at the wall for all I care.
::: spoiler As for LLMs... LLMs are not alive, not sentient and they're definitely going to have an impact on society that is not strictly a net positive. :::
When I experience an argumentative back and forth where it gets increasingly clear that the opposite person is arguing just to have a fight or is unable to see simple logic, I just stop responding. This has always been the best option for my mental health. Oops I didn't realise this is quite an old post!
I have the same feeling and the toxicity even gets over me sometimes, but that's more of an Internet issue that just arrived when Lemmy got more popular. For example, I saw your comment regarding ES6 and that user that replied to you isn't from Beehaw.
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.
If you post something you should expect a reply, and you definitely should not expect it to be a yes, man type reply. It would also depend on what you’re commenting on. All in all it’s to be expected as things grow. Sounds like what you would like to have is in all of the communities that have been defederated from the major instances. A hive mind type experience.
I literally explained in my post multiple times that I'm not looking for people to agree with everything I say.
If you couldn't get that the multiple times I said it than I see no point in continuing it here because I don't think it would work. My post was pretty clearly about obnoxious people that want to argue about everything so I find it almost funny that you would just... do that.
Yeah, I did it on purpose cause you seem to wanna say shit and not have a response. That’s not what this is for. Create a blog and turn off comments. You can’t cover all your bases in a post. What you’re saying is contradictory throughout your post. You want this and you want that but you want a perfectly level line of it somehow.
You can be a contrarian troll all you want but not to me. I'm not entertaining this further. Blocked and reported.
Hey man, I see his reply, I have blocked him. Contrarian people do not want discussion, they only want to be opposition, forever.
That's very destructive and also a waste of time.