this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Technology
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Great, a megathread, let's bring over one of the worst parts of Reddit and moderation 😒
I'm sorry if it's frustrating to you to have megathreads like this. I'm not enthused about the extra effort in redirecting posts to the Megathread, either, but I'm not aware of a better way to handle topics that are flooding a community other than gathering them up in a thread like this. It annoys users (and mods) when dozens of articles about the same topic are dominating a community, so we'd like to do something to alleviate that when possible. I've seen similar concepts used in a number of different places (old-school forums, reddit alternatives like Tildes) because, as far as I've seen, there's not a better alternative for wrangling topics that might otherwise clutter the feed.
If you have any ideas about better ways to handle this type of thing in the future, I'd love to hear them (and I genuinely mean that - I think we're open to suggestions if a better way exists).
Seems to me that these threads keep coming up and rising up because people want to talk about them.
The better solution reddit had was to let posts be sorted by tags so that people who don't want to see a certain topic can turn it off, rather than that decision being made for everyone else.
Unfortunately tags are not currently a Lemmy feature, so this isn't an option
So despite the fact that a ton of current tech news revolves around Elon musk and his companies, the solution is to bury any and all discussion about him in a megathread we all know people will never read or comment on?
News about the companies that don't involve him are still allowed outside the thread. The idea here is more to contain stuff about the man himself, as it gets spammy and repetitive after a while
That is not entirely correct.
So 1) ALL things X/Twitter/Musk, 2) you can only talk about his other companies if it doesn't involve him (which are the vast majority of stories about his companies).
This is functionally banning Musk and his companies from being discussed. No one will check the megathread. We both know this.
I hope you can appreciate and understand that the decision was made, in part, because we had users asking for it. I recognize the shortcomings of a megathread. However it won't be possible to make every user here happy. We've taken the actions that we thought were best based on the desires of some of our users.
We appreciate feedback, and are welcoming any suggestions on how this could be handled better
So the squeaky wheel gets the oil it sounds like. I see a bunch of people in this thread saying it's a terrible idea. What's the bar for action?
I understand but there are other solutions besides banning incredibly relevant topics.
As a former mod I respect this, truly, and I'm not going to go on crusade here I'm keeping my thoughts here for now. But the fact is we both know megathreads do not stay active and no one likes to participate in them because they know no one sees them. At the bare minimum you need this to be a weekly megathread you post. This is way too broad to just entirely prohibit outside of a single thread no one will see. If you're taking suggestions, that's my slightly-less-crappy solution.
At the very least I'd respect this a lot more if we didn't pretend this didn't end these topics for good.
So the squeaky wheel gets the oil it sounds like. I see a bunch of people in this thread saying it’s a terrible idea. What’s the bar for action?
This, there are more upvotes complaining about the megathred being bad than upvotes supporting it. Either people for it don't care enough to interact or have just ignored the entire thread.
This is a stifling thread, there will be nothing Elon related posted here (and hasn't been yet, everything is about megathred) if there is it will not be read. As of my posting the next newest post I see is 17 hours ago. This thread is effectively dead.
You know you're commenting on it now though right?
Day 3 and not a single post/comment about Musk, just you taking a needless jab at me because it's funny to you. This thread is dead except for you and me right now.
Y’all have functionally banned all news related to Elon musk, Twitter, Tesla, and SpaceX.
Some see this as a feature, not a bug.
Whether you do or don't, it's a flagrant attempt to end the topics without owning up to it. It's window dressing.
As others have suggested maybe having a sub for trending news, that might be good actually. That way people can easily sub and unsub to this stuff without having to worry. (An on-going catch all for this kind of news, I think it would be better than focussing on a single current topic)
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Well it depends on your goals with the platform. If you want a one stop shop to get all the necessary information in an efficient time then megathreads are great. It's also good at stopping a specific type of content from taking over a forum while still providing an outlet for people to discuss.
If your goal is to idly consume content, then a megathread probably sucks. Same if you want to be an influencer, it'll cut down on your exposure. Megathreads also can hide major developments that can hide behind a thread that people should be notified about. And if there wasn't much content on a platform to begin with... A megathread can force a ghost town.
There are definitely both good and bad things about Megathreads and there's a ton of depth and nuance that could be had.
In this case, I'm not sure whether a megathread was warranted or not though
Nobody on Reddit, Lemmy, etc. behaves that way. Nobody checks megathreads unless it’s an ongoing, high profile situation. I guarantee you this megathread is going to get essentially no engagement within 48 hours and now for some odd reason all news about SpaceX, Twitter, and Tesla is functionally banned.
Strong disagree. My experience with megathreads is primarily being full of memes and puns, with so many hundreds of root comments that even using extra tools it was impossible to follow any real conversation or updates.
That is the only thing megathreads accomplish, IMO.