1) Be nice and; have fun
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2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
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6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
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Why is rule 6 specifically targeted at US politics?
Enough people have given good answers to this question, so I won't bother repeating their explanations. It came about after a trial following the last US election and a community discussion led to the trial becoming permanent.
I'm going to leave this post up as it's not actually about US politics, but about how the asklemmy community wants it to work.
If you have used Reddit for some time, you'll have noticed an interesting trend: any large space where general content is allowed to be posted and which does not prohibit US politics, will generally become saturated with US politics.
This happens to some degree on Lemmy as well. It's because Americans are the largest national demographic group on the English-speaking portion of the Internet, and because American politics in general is extreme and garners a lot of attention from others. So if talking about it is allowed, it will usually become all that anyone ever wants to talk about, or at least it will appear that way in a space where popularity determines visibility.
Thanks. That makes a lot of sense
I haven't used Reddit for years but I could see what you mean from Lemmy too. I just hadn't noticed such a specific targeting of limitations in rules before.
Now that I think about it, I honestly think that Lemmy has suffered this more than Reddit. Reddit has a lot of various non-politics related content but Lemmy seems to be filled a lot more with political posts. I get that many people find that content interesting, but after a while, one tires of it.
I think we'd all like to go back to the days when politics was only occasionally interesting.
Shit, I want news to be boring again. I remember when there was just thirty minutes of national news power day from 6 to 6:30. Then local news, and then The Muppet Show to put the world back into proper context.
'May you live in interesting times'...Old Chinese Curse.
Shit, I want news to be boring again.
The news has been full of wars, drugs, and domestic unrest since at least the 60s. In the 70s we added rank political malfeasance and conspiracy theories and here in the 2020s its more of the same. The big difference makers are the 24 hours news cycle and the rise of social media.
If you limit your social media time and stay off aggregators like Lemmy and Reddit you'll find that it's possible to (mostly) go back to the way it was.
but after a while, one tires of it.
You won't believe this conspiracy
true, I'm sick of hearing and reading about the orange man's tales, but no matter how much I try to filter that shit out, it still pops up everywhere
You can filter most US politics out, especially with Piefed and still have other content at least.
This was not my experience with Bluesky or Mastodon.
reddit is way worst lol, every news article is almost related to trump, or israel
I'm oversaturated with US politics.
As an American I too am oversaturated with US politics. It's been this way for a decade now and I fear its never going to end.
So say we all.
Sounds like my keyword filters and blocks are having a good effect, because I thankfully can't say I see the same on Lemmy
Probably because we want somewhere that isn't flooded with whatever detestable thing trump last did or said. I've been meaning to put out feelers about revising the rule to "No current/recent politics", but I've never gotten around to it.
Yeah, that's completely reasonable. Is it worth updating the community about page for the rule to add a line or two about why the rule exists?
Maybe something like:
""" The motivation here is to avoid the channel becoming a stream of questions about US politics and to provide a space to avoid US politics. """
It might save the mods time in the future if it comes up again.
That would make more sense imo. Even though American politics have a long reach it seems a bit strange to limit it to that
It's just really fucking annoying. In England 50% of news articles is about US. We just want local or even other countries
its probably the fact that most MSMs in the usa is owned by trumper/conservatives, and many other syndications see DRAMA is a good driver for thier news site.
The text in the about page for rule six currently shows some alternatives for posting questions for US politics, if the rule was extended to current / recent politics, does anyone know good channels for questions about global politics?
Because Lemmy is already full with murican politics.
Any place that permits American politics quickly becomes only American politics.
Because its everywhere all the time. And I get it, its interesting and never ending and affects the whole world and theres a bottomless well of drama and comedy and horror especially with orange man in charge, but its everywhere all the time.
To stop the stupid posts after they voted for fascism, instead of a female president, again.
I wish more communities implemented this rule.
Sorry as an American, I can't read.
Anyways. Something something Venezuela US Invasion something something US Middle East Oil something something US something Donald Trump
(I mean seriously tho, there's been like 5 rule violators and it gets kinda annoying)
Most discussion about US politics isn't discussion sadly so it just turns into either arguing or a circle jerk of hating a specific person/place/thing. Most "news" isn't even news here, it's opinion segments. I agree it should stay in its own section to an extent since people can't tell the difference of what's news and what's opinion when reacting.
A while ago, we made rule 6 a temporary rule that was initially meant to last until the US elections. Later, through a community vote, it was made permanent.
Community vote: https://lemmy.world/post/23032034
Temporary rule 6 announcement: https://programming.dev/post/21409464
Hol' up, does that mean Venezuelan politics is mighty fine?
Yes. The rule is "no US politics", not "no politics".
As long as discussion of Venezuelan politics does not turn into or knowingly cause US political discussion, it will be fine. Let's be honest here though. Given the current events, it will surely turn into one.
Thanks! Very informative!
I guess this sub doesn't want to smell as bad as the rest of the "international subs" that are flooded with US crap.
the tankie ones are the worst, and they try disguise or infiltrate the non-tankie communities.
If you had to guess, what would you say is the reason?
I don't want to guess, this is why I ask
But I am curious to hear why it is specific to US politics. The world is a big place and although politics have a long reach I find it strange that it is targeted at specifically the US.
One thing I think other's haven't mentioned yet: US internal politics specifically make headlines worldwide, certainly in the western world. That's not true of German, Swedish, Israeli, or any other country's internal politics. This is probably because USA is arguably the only real remaining superpower, or something close to it. Regardless of the reason, US politics are uniquely loud and everpresent, which I guess is why they were singled out.
Edit: I once saw a subreddit's mod post explaining this better than I did, but I can't find it at the moment.
FYI:
US Domestic news also makes headlines.
My dad saw 9/11 on TV when he was in China.
Like everyone in the world knows major events involving the US
its also more clicks for websites too.
Internet users are 90% Americans on Lemmy or on the technical forums. It's to prevent being flooded with US stuff.
I assume it's to preserve the community's identity. The fear might be that if US politics was allowed, then questions on that topic would oversaturate the questions in the community, turning it into a de facto politics discussion community.
The reason why it's specifically US politics is then one about whether politics from other countries would lead to the same effect. Which the mods probably deemed unlikely.
Rule 2
