Why are most of the posts here heavily downvoted?
Why are most of the posts here heavily downvoted?
Why would you visit the "conservative" section just to downvote everything? I don't get it.
You're viewing a single thread.
I think it has to do with the fact that most of the activity comes from non-conservatives, but mods have enacted a rule that all posts must be conservative with a pro-conservative bias and conservative source.
This means dissent can only happen in the form of downvotes/comments. IMO it’s a deliberate way of structuring the community to have this exact view to newcomers, anything not conservative is framed as reactionary.
I would much rather an askaconservative-like place where good faith discussions are more prevalent, but alas that is asking too much.
Yeah, it's deliberate. On the lemmy.world version of this sub, every time I would post a conservative story, another user would post something progressive, and then my post would get buried and no one would ever see it or interact with it. Why post if no one ever sees it?
I started this sub to get around that, literally so people would see the conservative posts and talk about them. Sometimes you learn something, sometimes it forces you to actually research your position, sometimes you see another slapfight. Much better than nothing.
If you want to start a sub of your own, just be warned, modding is filled with horrible judgement calls, and until you figure it out, you will fuck it up constantly.
every time I would post a conservative story, another user would post something progressive, and then my post would get buried…
That’s because it’s an unpopular post. Rather than focus on the visibility of your content, maybe the problem is the content itself?
Why post if no one ever sees it?
Considering lemmy consists of forums with posts and comments under those posts, I understand that it seems there is no point in posting if no one ever sees it. But remember:
- anything posted can still be searched
- posts can be indexed by other tools and recorded for posterity
Also the point of a platform like lemmy is inherently designed to facilitate conversation. If your posts aren’t getting traction it’s because nobody is interested in conversing about the content you posted.
Again, the problem isn’t the visibility of the content, it’s the content itself.
I totally understand the desire to have your own space and that’s why I’m trying my hardest to adhere to the rules of the community, and appreciate not getting permabanned yet. But you’ve gotta see all you’ve done is create an echo chamber for content people aren’t actually interested in or aren’t buying. Yes, there are conversations happening in the community off those posts, but the majority of those conversations aren’t productive, generally veer off the posted content and still mostly people who aren’t even conservative or aren’t buying what’s being sold. And now with this root post the effect it has on outsiders is obvious. It’s painting a narrative that isn’t real due to the way the community is structured. That makes new users uninterested in participating.
In effect this community only really achieves 2 things:
- prevents conservative posts from being buried (because no other types are allowed)
- allows you to have a place where you make the rules.
Those are two valid reasons for having a community and I’m glad you have a space, but I don’t see how it accomplishes anything besides appease your desire to see your posts stay elevated in thread.
Maybe rather than being worried about how your posts stack up against others, you should be worried about why so many people disagree with the content you’re posting.
If I post an article from a pro-conservative site that can be easily disproven as either lies or misinformation, what’s the conversation of value to be had there?
I appreciate the warning, but I don’t think I’m cut out for it. I just want to make existing places a better place to engage. Unfortunately that comes down to the users more than the mods, or communities themselves, which is the only reason I’m here. I want to have a space to debate differing opinions, but they seem to break down when one party refuses to admit there’s a flaw in their way of thinking.
Rather than focus on the visibility of your content, maybe the problem is the content itself?
Oh I'm sure it's the content and the community. Some communities don't like certain types of content, and I knew this coming in. I don't mind the downvotes.
I’m trying my hardest to adhere to the rules of the community, and appreciate not getting permabanned yet
I appreciate that. We try to not to perma ban unless you evade another ban, most everything else is a shorter ban, one week to a month sort of bans.
But you’ve gotta see all you’ve done is create an echo chamber for content people aren’t actually interested in or aren’t buying.
I'm aware, but at the same time, lemmy as a whole is a big echo chamber, just in the other direction. By adding another echo going the other way, it helps dilute both echo chambers.
Those are two valid reasons for having a community and I’m glad you have a space, but I don’t see how it accomplishes anything besides appease your desire to see your posts stay elevated in thread.
Not going to lie, that's was the primary reason, but now we have multiple regular posters, Neuromancer, kaboom, among with a few others, and we have regular commenters like Boba and Satan that show up fairly often. It's no longer my personal blog anymore, it's grown into a tiny little community of it's own. I think that's worth something at least.
If I post an article from a pro-conservative site that can be easily disproven as either lies or misinformation, what’s the conversation of value to be had there?
You can prove it wrong in the comments, and it allows any conservatives to look at the proof, and maybe think to themselves "Hey, I was lied to about this, what else was I lied to about?" And the same thing goes for progressives, everyone gets lied to and mislead.
Hell, the main thing that lead me becoming a conservative was me finding out I was lied to by the news, and I started looking for primary sources, recordings, photos, studies, a bit of history, that sort of thing.
Damn, thanks for taking the time to write this. I’m genuinely glad you see the community this way, for better or worse you care about it and that’s more than many :)
In what ways or what's considered, "fucking it up" ? Agree with your comment btw
When I first started, I was really anxious about not being a power tripping mod that I basically didn't mod. It got to the point admins from other instances were stepping in, and that just wasn't a good thing. The slap-fights were always an escalating thing, with no clear instigator, and I never did figure out if I should ban and who to ban. That was more of me specific issue, trying way too hard to be a good mod and making it worse.
Another thing was trying to figure out what actually counted as a conservative post, turns out theres a lot of gray area, and I fucked it up a couple times. That gray area killed me.
An easily avoidable mistake I made was the nazi ban. I should have banned name calling in general, but I wanted a clear keyword ban with zero gray area.
Those are the big three mistakes I made.
Understandable
What is conservative is a hard one since it’s varied. Personally the culture war isn’t that interesting to me but may conservatives are interested in it. I find the fiscal policies more interesting but many conservatives are less interested in those.
Why don't you make that community?
I would love to! But I don’t know where to start hahaha
Click on the hamburger and click create community.
You can do it on our instance if you want.
Don't have to, just saying invitations open if you're interested
I’ll keep it in mind.
💯