Hi there.

A short introduction: This is an alt account. I’m a moderator here who has been unhappy with the state of news/political discussions here for a long time. The admins have kindly given me the opportunity to see if we can make some improvement the community here.

We will be doing some major revision of the rules left by the previous moderators and will use discussions in this thread as feedback on the direction we should take our community.

This will be an open discussion on the state of our community, the rules and our moderation practices. Feel free to give your inputs.

  • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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    11 months ago

    Everything is up for discussion, while we will still take a hardline against hateful rhetorics. I think the rules can be simplified and made easier to understand and follow, instead of feeling arbitrary.

    The top items that I feel should be discussed:

    1. Title must match headline. Unnecessary on Lemmy since preview already includes titles, and titles are editable on Lemmy.
    2. Restriction on US internal news. I don’t think it has overwhelmed this community Lemmy in the same way that it has reddit, so I would like to see the effects of removing this rule.
    3. Better definition of what count as opinion articles. I feel that with the removal of !politics@lemmy.world being US only, this should help the two communities complement each other and not step on each other’s toes.
    4. Reliance on MBFC as an objective measure of objectivity.
    5. Roles and involvement of moderators in the community.
    • Rikudou_Sage@lemmings.world
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      11 months ago

      So you wish to turn this into another US news community? Not interested, there’s way too much US-centric stuff online already.

      The first rule could be improved as well, demanding non-clickbaity titles instead.

      • Might Be@lemmy.worldOP
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        11 months ago

        https://lemmy.world/post/10066374

        This article which is US news has been here for a day. I don’t really see the reasoning for the restriction to US News away from World News on Lemmy, since lemmy.ml allows US News on !worldnews@lemmy.ml, and the community was not overran by US news.

        Non-clickbait title is harder to enforce, because it is very much a “know it when you see it” type. I’m thinking that we will ask submitters to modify their titles first in these situations instead.

    • Spuddlesv2@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      If you’re going to allow US news then for the love of puppies include a rule that requires the subject to include the country.

    • wahming@monyet.cc
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      11 months ago
      1. Depending on how you access lemmy, this may not be the case. It certainly isn’t for me.

      That said, I would rather have titles be non-clickbaity. Maybe require titles to be non-clickbait and without commentary.

      1. Pass. There’s a ton of US news communities already. If it doesn’t affect the rest of the world, it’s not world news.

      2. MBFC is… Meh? Their definitions of left / right bias seem to be very American and could probably use some adjusting. It’s useful but shouldn’t be the golden rule.

      • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        MBFC doesn’t even match the other media bias/credibility sites like Ad Fontes. It’s a crapshoot because the person running that site is basically a nobody with zero credibility themselves.

    • where_am_i@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      it’s already a “us perspective on the world”. And half of it is “biden says middel east X”. Allow US internal news in an election year and murder the sub.

    • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      I think title should approximately match headline, or at least text in the article. Additional commentary is a little annoying to moderate.

      US internal news was a bigger problem for Reddit, but I think this community is a bit more international. Maybe blocking US news from US sources? If something is big enough to hit international headlines, it’s probably important.

      The current mods are strongly against op-eds, so …

      MBFC is really not that great a measure of objectivity, but really I think there is no good measure of objectivity given that the “truth” (e.g. Iraq had WMDs and thus the invasion of Iraq is justified) is fluid.

      I don’t think moderators should be the arbitrator of truth in a community, but an arbitrator of what’s offensive/hate speech.

    • intelshill@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Half the articles here are already “what does the US think about the world?”

      I don’t think the restriction on US internal news is actually accomplishing anything useful

    • gedaliyah@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      It seems that leaving the title free will only open the door for posters to title it with their opinion on the news article. The usefulness of this sub as a news aggregator will degrade into yet another source of punditry.

      It makes sense to have some kind of accountability for the quality of the source as well. MBFC is imperfect, but I’m not sure what other metric you would use in disputes. What do you suggest as a replacement?

    • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      One consideration: what about reporting on international relations involving the US?

      If the US does/doesn’t fund military aid for Ukraine, is that about Ukraine or the US?