Community update, plus new rule: advertising is now banned
Community update, plus new rule: advertising is now banned
In the beginning, it was just me. When I joined Lemmy what I really missed about reddit was the 'curated twitter' subs where every post was just a nice little thought someone had had. There were meme communities already but nothing quite right, it was mostly deep-fried shitposting. I think this was even before the new WhitePeopleTwitter started on sh.itjust.works but I'm not sure.
I didn't want to start a new WhitePeopleTwitter, for three reasons - it wasn't my sub on reddit so it didn't feel appropriate to stage a "take over" of that name here; I didn't want to specify "white people" in the title, and I also didn't want to reference "twitter" because microblogging is bigger than twitter now and I didn't want to contribute at all (even if a little bit) to the idea that twitter is the default option for microblogging.
So MicroblogMemes was born! In the early days it was just me posting a bunch of screenshots every day and we didn't need any rules. I didn't want to act like this was some big formal endevour and add a ton of detailed rules for everyone to follow, and since then I've only added rules when I've had to moderate something and someone complained.
The reason I'm making this post is because we have a new rule - no advertising. I personally am not interested in seeing posts from brands pretending to be people. The likes of Wendy's, KFC, Microsoft, etc have advertising budgets that run collectively into the billions and I just don't want adverts disguised as content here.
Yesterday someone posted this:
To me this is pretty much just advertising. A member of the community reported it, and I removed the post with the comment 'hail corporate'.
For fully transparency this exchange then occured (read from the bottom):
I've basically explained my reasoning for this approach already but, in short, I have tiny, tiny amount of power on the internet to create a space with fewer adverts and that's what I'm going to do. Be the change and all that.
I often think about this quote from Banksy:
Not really sure why I felt the need to post all this but there you go. If anyone disagrees with any of this please let me know in the comments and we can work it out :)
Just to say, I massively prefer the name 'microblogmemes' over 'whitepeopletwitter'. That was always a weird one - posts didn't always involve white people, didn't always come from Twitter (which - technically - doesn't even exist anymore) and seemed based on a petty misunderstanding of what Black People Twitter was.
FWIW, I agree with you about the Denny's post. I'm also the moderator of a community that Stamets has quit, so I know that losing him is a blow, because he posts a lot of content. But I also know that he's a complicated human.
Is it that much of a blow to lose someone who rage quits over a teeny sub on a half empty website slowly growing its ruleset?
Not really the kind of guy I want to see content from, given how quickly he moved to trying to strongarm the mod
huge agree, having racially segregated subs is something we should leave on That Old Website
We are all complicated humans. It's the time we give each other that is the courtesy and it's a shame to see anyone leave. Hopefully this change will show others the joy of interacting with media without someone suggesting you buy something.
I'm also the moderator of a community that Stamets has quit, so I know that losing him is a blow, because he posts a lot of content
Eh no worries, not really a loss when most of the posts were a deluge of low quality content. My feed instantly got better after that block..
That Banksy quote really is just utterly and thoroughly fantastic.
I was hoping to find it as a microblog post somewhere and actually post it to the community but couldn't. This will do!
I found it as a microblog post somewhere
There should be no small number of people here who escaped Reddit because they didn’t want ads in their face. I appreciate the blanket statement calling them out and banning them.
We did a bunch of research into alternative toilet paper when we leaned about how it's usually cut from old-growth trees. Looked at a bunch of brands, compared recycled benefits to bamboo, and price compared to find one that was actually cheaper than the Charmin at Walmart if bought in bulk.
I posted my resulting find in TIL on Lemmy.world, and it was deleted as an ad. I only ask you be careful with this one.
You can let us all know the results of your TP research here in this thread but please don't post any tweets from the brand :) that is the line!
Deets pls
See other comment ;)
Which brand?
I use a bidet, so I use a roll a month (2 person house), but every bit helps.See other comment ;)
I’m legitimately interested. Some time ago my wife started buying Plant Paper (I think that’s the name), and like.. it’s whatever. I think it’s a bit scratchy, but our water is too cold to install an unheated bidet, and our house is too old to make doing electrical work worth it.
An alternative would be rad.Thats because world doesnt have consistent or quality moderation. Lemmy as a whole will do better when world has higher competition for community space
Can you share the brand name?
See other comment ;)
I don't think you did anything wrong, and I probably would have done the same thing, but in retrospect (of reading those DMs), it might have been better to let that one post naturally fade away and apply the rule to future posts after publically setting the rule.
I dunno, maybe not... I'm pretty against seeing ads on here too. I'm more of a commenter than a poster, so maybe it's nothing to do with me.
Appreciate your taking the time to do all this work out in the open! I don't think you're running a fiefdom.
What constitutes advertising in your view should be further clarified in the community rules, or perhaps you should include brand promotion in that rule as well. If this said 'Advertisement' or 'Sponsored' I'd call it an ad for sure, but this is just a post, which qualifies as brand promotion, but most people wouldn't call it an advertisement. Regardless, I agree with your decision to remove it as it is certainly the kind of low-effort content we should strive to avoid.
Thanks! I'll change the rule to also specify no brand promotion.
Good policy. That's me subscribed.
Thank you! Please consider posting as well if you stumble across any nice little microblog memes if your own.
Same
Your stance is great. I'm very glad you're taking the liberty to remove posts, moderated spaces who are strict about what kinda content is allowed are just more pleasant. Hackernews, lobste.rs and me_irl come to mind. Unsure why the poster in the picture reacted so dramatically lol
I fully support your position.
Just noticed that said user had posted numerous memes here, and now they added a post description complaining about this to each and every one of them
To be fair to him, he didn't get the benefit of the explanation that we have received here. It's pretty frustrating to have a highly upvoted post in a community removed when it doesn't break any rules. As he explains, power-tripping mods are the biggest reason he left reddit, and he naturally assumed it was more of the same.
I think this post does a great deal to clarify the rules and motivations behind them, and also demonstrates that the community seems to be supportive of such rules. Most Lemmings surely agree that corporations and advertising are extremely unwelcome on this platform. I think there was just a misunderstanding on why the post had been removed that was hopefully cleared up with this additional context.
Yeah I can see that he was frustrated and that makes sense. I was also frustrated, however, to see 2019-era brand promotion from Denny's on this community. It's not even new content!
Hopefully now I've clarified things we can all move on with our lives, and once that happens the guy is very welcome to post here again.
I get being frustrated, but this site is very obviously new, young, and actively trying to figure out its own established rules and expectations.
Having one single post removed because the mod realized they needed to clarify more about the content is not that big of a deal. This place is small and loosely established. The rules are not fully figured out yet.
Big overreaction to ragequit and leave salty messages on all your former posts
That Dennys ad was pretty aggressive as far as marketting goes. Im curious where you draw the line, are all corporate accounts out, or only if they are doing very obvious "Checkout the new McFatty"?
In fairness, i cant find any good examples of less aggressive marketting, once you start looking at them for more than 2 seconds the subtlety wears off pretty quick :/
I am minded to lean much more towards banning all corporate accounts. They get enough airtime already, if you want to see that stuff you'll find it easily enough elsewhere.
It was funny for a year or two when the Wendy's account was pure rude to everyone but that time has passed.
Very valid. Wendys was what i had in mind, but when i went hunting all the examples were fairly obvious marketting.
If you wanted a little more wiggle room for content, you could always have "Corporate Mondays", but this is your fiefdom, rule it as you please :)
Nah fuck that guy, the new rule belongs.
That makes sense to me, thank you for putting in the time. A lot of ads these days are more "you know it when you see it", so it's good that you're taking the time to check for it
This is one of my favorite communities on Lemmy. Thank you!
This is a good decision, thanks for making it and for sharing your reasoning here.