Do you check what community you're about to participate in before participating?

Do you check what community you're about to participate in before participating? - StrawPoll

I assumed that this was standard behaviour/etiquette, though I'm realizing maybe it's actually not so common, and I want to know if I'm the weird one

If you don't- why not?

(VPN voting enabled at the expense of allowing multiple votes per user- pls don't abuse this for shits and giggles)

45 comments

I usually don't know the rules of the communities I participate in. But I do check what community a post is in.
- I think that's reasonable
  I have run into users not being aware of which community a post is in a few times. Two recent examples
  We were discussing whether we should remove a post from !canada@lemmy.ca and if it was relevant to Canada. Two users may have misunderstood it as trying to defend trump
  I posted a study comparing the efficacy of a particular vaccine regiment in !medicine@mander.xyz, which is intended for medical professionals, and someone thought I was posting antivax disinfo. Studies on vaccine efficacy are common, and that's how we decide on schedules and develop better ones
  I get it, times are stressful. I left polite comments pointing out the community, and in both cases it would have been smoother if the person checked what the community is about before making assumptions.
"If you do, why" is a better question. And frankly, neither version really tells anyone anything.
People don't check largely because Lemmy UI isn't designed for the community to be a prominent thing, and being a member isn't required by the app for someone to reply.
I assume this is being asked because of the earlier thread about "read the community rules before posting"... As someone else already said, make it private if you don't want the public responding.
- I literally cannot comprehend why you wouldn't look at the community name before commenting. Do you not read titles either? What kind of life are you people living- it genuinely baffles me
  
  I'm reading the post and looking at the pretty image if there is one.
  If the post sounds like a shit post, I do check the community to see if it is likely to be ironic, but otherwise no.
  
  STFU.
  I see a title that I may have an opinion or quip to leave in comments.
  I do NOT care what community/group it belongs in.
- Why even have communities if nobody is going to respect the individual culture and purpose of them?
  
  Content filtering.
No, now are we going to discuss Laezel hentai or what?
Yes, because I like to know that my post will be a good fit for the community that I'm posting it in.
The results of this are horrifying me
- Are they surprising?
- This does explain why a lot of subreddits had the pinned comment be the automod telling people to follow the rules.
Is this because yesterday?
No, I only check before posting. Comments shouldn't need more rules beyond common rules unless it is some sort of role playing.
- What happened yesterday?
  
  All my troubles seemed so far away.
  
  There was post expressing frustration with men (post|comment)ing in women-only community , surprise surprise that threads immediately infested with (misogyn|cissex)ists
If I'm making a post I make sure it's relevant to the community I'm posting to, but just commenting on posts that show up in my feed I dont bother most of the time. Most message board rules boil down to "stay roughly on topic and dont be a dick to the other people here" anyway; you probably dont need to know most message board rules if youre adhering to that.
- There are some women only communities, like WomensStuff. I respect that women want to have their safe spaces without men inserting themselves into the conversation.
  ”But what about us??? Men have it difficult to!”
  But usually it’s obvious from the title alone that it’s about woman subject.
  
  I dont have a ton of respect for people making or enforcing exclusionary spaces on public message boards like that. If they really wanted a separate safe space they'd have something like beehaw with moderated sign-ups and a closed door policy to people who dont go through the verification. I dont care about it enough to argue and I go with a "block and let live" strategy regarding those kind of places, but im also not about to spend time or energy policing myself beyond the aforementioned "on topic, dont be a dick" because a bunch of people intentionally chose the wrong hosting tool for an exclusionary community so they can (in my opinion) performatively other people they dont like in a public space.
Half the time I don't even spell check my comment and hit post, then edit the incompetence out 5 times.
Yeah, I check that it's not .ml first.
Nope. Why would I?
I usually intend to...
But I also usually intend to wake up a half hour early to do yoga before getting ready for work which has happened... Well... I really considered it one morning.
- 🤓 Actually it's better to do yoga/stretching when you get home or after you finish exercising.
  
  Probably! But schedule-wise, that's rarely feasible or desirable for me. (I swim a lot on my lunch break so can't do yoga after, and after soccer, well a lot of the time that's time for our well earned beer!)
  But I'll keep that in mind!
Only to check if it's the onion or not, if my brain tells me, "that can't be true".
Of course I do. It's just basic nettiquette.
Absolutely not
Of course I do. Mostly because I avoid communities that I know will be toxic as hell and full of chuds
This seems to be the opposite experience for many who have expressed that they don't check—they feel entitled to be present and post in every space regardless of any context
Generally yes. It provides context for the posts, which is important, and while not as prominent as the post title and image in the main feed, it's still listed right above those on the app I use.
Sometimes. The community name can give me some context before I participate, if it’s not already obvious from the title. For example, I try to avoid commenting in ADHD communities because I don’t have ADHD.
But in most cases I don’t care. If I see a post I want to participate in, I participate. Lemmy is too small to be segregated into sub communities. Lemmy itself is the community.
- Fr this is such a weird thing to even care about when there's like 15,000 people using this site. There's not any niche communities bc theres no user base for them but op wants to make sure nobody cross pollinates the fediverse, get over yourself. Make your comm private if you care so much about people interacting with your posts on the internet
No, I'm lazy and only really care about the topic.
Depends on post topic. If it's about gender then I'll check the community just to understand the local rules but otherwise no.
Yes. I also check the instance just in case.
I don't, but I also only post to communities I'm subscribed to so I already know what I should/shouldn't post. Rarely I might go onto all, but not often at all.
- This. Are people so thirsty for content they spend all their time in all?
This poll needs a "depends" option.
I don't, but if something in the comments seem off (or the title of the post does) then I do. So it's about 50/50. I also usually browse All though.
That's why I think exclusionary communities should have their own instance - makes it easier to control postings and such. Especially since seeing the rules isn't always intuitive in GUIs such as Voyager.
No because I'm not subbed to anything on ml. Took Lemmy a while to migrate the right communities off, but things are better now.
I do, but just because I see it, I don't make a concerted effort to.
@TherapyGary@lemmy.blahaj.zone !asklemmy@lemmy.world
The questionnaire is missing a third option: it depends/sometimes.
While I comment on Lemmy threads aware of the community's name (it's right there, near where I clicked to access the thread), I rarely go to the sidebar in order to know more about the given community.
This is exacerbated by how there are many homonym communities across different instances (e.g. Ask Lemmy, memes, Technology, etc), some of which even use a similar avatar/icon.
But there are times and situations where I double-check the rules before commenting something that I perceive as potentially controversial.
So, it's neither "no" nor "yes": "it depends".

45 comments