Schadenfreude is now banned. And many other political posts of similar nature are banned too. Low quality and fake news is also banned.
It has been 15 days since the post about future of politics in this community was made, and results are somewhat clear - 35 (39 - 4) in favor of no poltics vs 4 (7 - 3) in favor of poltical natured posts.
If I use politcal lingo, this would be a landslide victory of no politics faction.
"What does this mean"?
Who is "We"?
I am speakinng currently for collective group of moderators, and also the community itself (as in, we do not do that here).
We are banning schadenfreude - which roughly translates to feeling joy at someone else's misfortune. What that means is, if there is someone who you (or a lot of people) do not like gets some disease which they could not have planned for (for example cancer), then this is not a uplifting news. If they are making losses, that is not uplifting. If they are depressed, that is not uplifting. We will not be retroactively actively removing posts, but future posts of this nature will be deleted as per understanding of moderators or community (by means of votes or reports).
We are also banning politics. That by itself is a statement political in nature. Everything is political but what we are banning is the more clearer mainstream politics. We do not really want to know if this group we do not like lost/won somewhere. But what is acceptable is, for example, some good person (good because other things they have done in life) is awarded something. This can be political in nature (example, a nobel prize), and there is no clear way to put in words what is and is not allowed. If yoou have a better method to express this, then please add in comments.
More clarification - we are not banning news which maybe political in nature, but which is toxic politics. if there is a news which is political, lets say some marginalised group got better rights, that is allowed, or even welcomed. Think simple - if you can tell some small kid the news, and they feel good, then it is uplifting. It should not require you to know what the person has done in past. If something bad happens to a bad person, then that is still bad, it does not become uplifting for a kid. this example by itself also has flaws, and I am still unable to word it well. But I hope the spirit of rule is clearer. no toxicity.
We are also banning low effort news or fake news. This could be news which is not adding anything new at all or is a copy of a copy of a copy (and bad one). Please try to fetch original sources. This is just to maintain a standard. This does not restrict you from posting a news which is targeted at a small group, or is published by a small group which may not be publishing a very fancy, furnished looking posts. Essentially - a no fluff rule.
78 replies
Glad to see some great improvements. I always felt weird whenever schadenfreude posts were posted in this community and banning political posts are just the cream on top. Keep on going!
Totally agree. Seeing someone diagnosed with cancer shared as uplifting news just felt off and not in the spirit of what this community should be about.
I missed the voting but I’m happy at the result. These are good rules for this community.
I also missed it. Which is disappointing because I had brought up this subject a few times and at least wanted to take part in the discussions (luckily it went as I had hoped it would). Unfortunately, keeping a post on a Lemmy feed visible long enough for everybody to see it is kinda hard to do right now. Especially for those of us who primarily browse from our main feed pages, and not directly on the community where stickied threads can be seen.
It would be nice to have a way to view all currently stickied posts of communities you’re subbed to all in one place. Like another feed in addition to Home / Local / All for Community Announcements.
this could be a good thing, i will try to make a feature issue for it
Delighted to hear this. I subbed for actually uplifting news and the schadenfreude political posts were becoming tiresome.
I agree, and that disagreement might've created a rival community just to stop this and add it as a rule if it didn't pass as a rule here
Thank you. Communities like this are one of the few places left where I can just read something that makes me feel good without it coming at the expense of someone else's misfortune (even IF they're shitty people). Sometimes I need that little bit of escape during my day; more and more often lately, in fact. So I'm glad to see this enforced.
It's hard to believe people find schandenfraude to be uplifting.
I don't often agree with mods banning shit. But this I can get by.
It's 100% about being on topic. It's especially important when most people see the content in the context of a mixed feed where they might upvote a news story that they like without noticing which community it was posted in.
Sadly yes. It is about maintaining the community standard this way. When I think of uplifting news, I'm thinking more on something like the progress in science than the Republicans getting what they finally deserve.
thank you. If you check in past (maybe go 2 weeks or more back) you will see what regular hunk was posted
I watch YouTube for the endless stream of accidental amateur slapstick; you'd call it dashcam or parkour.
This is, I think, schadenfreude. And I find people ignoring safety signs and common sense swiftly awarded with a teachable moment to be spit-takingly funny at times.
I'm sorry. But this rule applies to me and I own that fault, and it's sensible to exclude that here since it's so well-covered elsewhere in a sub where I can be with my own cruel kind.
Your phone and browser and app and ; well, everything, really, should help with this.
I wouldn't call slapstick schadenfreude. Schadenfreude specifically applies to people you hate getting hurt. I'm sure you don't hate the random people operating the GoPros.
Only God can help me and he may not even exist.
Question about this decision, would for example a news article about a commonly marginalised group getting rights considered political?
An example would be for example last year's news about Thailand becoming the first southeast Asian country to legalise gay marriage. Or the news from 2023 about how transgender people in the US were since then allowed at that time to select a non-binary mark on their passports.
Some people could consider those political posts to not be included under the new rules, but they are very much good news and I would like to know.
they are accepted. as i said, everything is political, and we can not ban everything. if a marginalised group gets better rights, that is absolutely a uplifting news. we want to ban stupid news, like so and so leader lost/imposed so anad so orders.
That is excellent news! Thank you for the clarification 😄
Would you even call it…. uplifting?
^(I’ll see myself out.)^
Screenshot and post
A good community is a well-moderated community.
"Close enough" posts have killed countless subreddits. Glad to see the mods here have their shit together!
Now this is Uplifting News.
careful, you sound like you're enjoying this a bit too much and that could be considered schadenfreude...
Can I crosspost this to [email protected] ;) ;)
I will allow it
Praise be
I agree with banning misinformation and low effort.
But you can't ban politics. Everything is politics
Excuse me, they said no politics and this is clearly a political comment you just made.
Great rules
Thank you
Excellent! Glad to see them go.
For the wording of the new ban -- you are not banning politics, you are banning party politics. For example, stories about better distribution of food is political but acceptable. Stories about Labour winning an election is party politics and unacceptable (even though the assumed readers of Lemmy would find it to be positive).
I think I've understood correctly and I hope that helps. That's the wording we use where I volunteer and it works well for us.
well this depends on definition of party. if my group wants to ban cars in certain regions of city, and we somehow win, then this was some party winning. I am still not sure what is the best wording for this.
Since "everything is politics" it seems impossible to ever word a rule is a way that an obnoxious wannabe rules lawyer won't argue, but the plain intent of the rule seems clear enough. Enforcement will normalize the tone, and if a post is removed and the poster reacts will outsized outrage, in my observation, it was probably because they were emotionally invested in the politics of the post.
that is why i left it. i hope spirit of law is clear enough
You can choose to interpret everything you see through a political filter, doesn't make it universal.
I don't support using it as a basis to shove politics into everything, I was just following that this is a common trope of people who do, which leans on semantics while ignoring the spirit of people not wanting everything to be a political debate.
For such people, there's no way to word a rule ironclad enough, and you simply have to make judgement calls at some point.
but i love Schadenfreude. its one of the few joys left in this world
Then make a community for it.
(please be sattire, please be sattire)
You might want to check out this community then.
edit: for joy
Man, this was really weird to read at first.
"Schadenfreude is banned" by itself is a strange statement, but posts that are just schadenfreude is a great ban for this community. Thanks mods!
Isn't this TECHNICALLY a schadenfreude post? If you were on the side of not having such posts you'd be reading this with a sense of schadenfreude towards those who DID want the posts.
lol so meta 🤣
rule was enacted after this was published and i said i am not going to enact retroactively. i am from the side not wanting these posts, but maybe not as strongly worded
Just joking my guy, I don't have a horse in this race
Now, this is the kind of uplifting news I like to read here :)
People do have a habit of redefining "uplifting" in their own terms, such as how uplifting it is when a public figure they hate suffers.
I like the sound of this.
couldn't this post be considered schadenfreude for the users who didn't enjoy the schadenfreude posts?
thank god :)
thank you!
schadenfreude was pasted all the times, i am a terrible typist. and you do not deserve downvotes
While we're at it, then, "targeted" only has two T's, not three.
^(Ducks.)^
throws a heavy tee-shirt in duck's general direction
will fix it, thanks
Proffesionel anoncamints vrry inporrent yes!
I would love if we disallowed negative and cynical comments, too.
they are fine. they also help bring me back from going full delulu, and sometimes are funny
The banning will continue until morale improves!
Agree with everything but "banning politics" - so some new green policy cannot be posted here? Those are the best uplifting news!
they can be posted. as i said - everything is politics, and we can not ban politics. for more details (there were similar queries before) please read other comments. (or just search politics)
Apart from the very last paragraph these seem like really good changes. It's fun to see your enemies suffer from time to time, but it's certainly not uplifting.
why is the last paragraph weird? I genuinely want to know. This rule is mostly to keep in theory. For example, somebody posts some place is very happy, but it is a fake news (for example, they recently got some tragedy) and the person was either trolling, then we should have some rule to delete this news. And most of the time, mods do not flag this, but the people commenting do. Similar is for low effort (read ai generated bullshit).
If you don't want fake news and AI generated news just say that. "Low effort" is a strange qualifier for news to me. Stories can be real uplifting, and also "low effort."
Is low value a better wording?
This post doesn't seem like uplifting news.
sorry, sometimes we have to be the bearer of the bad news too
the sub of the same thing on reddit did the same. kinda wierd it was part of the community
To all the people who enjoyed the schadenfraud and now can't — lol
Alright, well, this Community is now banned.
Political: Anything pushing a political agenda or sway political opinion. Example: Making commentary about Obama winning a novel Peace prize isn't political in itself. Saying Obama won the nobel prize because he was a president is political, the statement uses the Nobel award to sway opinion about politics.
I think it's a simple enough definition, it is consistently drawing the line that's difficult.
Lol, more of Lemmy trynna hide from reality? Bunch of cowards
sorry, but i am widdle baby, not weady fow weal wowld
heeeeeeres the airplane
BWWWWWWWWW
Reality doesn't actually consist of an unending torrent of bullshit drowning people in misery, that's just what sells in the media and outrage algorithms.
Sometimes people like to see a win in their life rather than be told it's all going to hell.
I'm sorry it hurt your feelings.