If people have feelings they should be able to prove it by expressing themselves. Demonstrate that they aren’t just bots that press ctrl+c and ctrl+v reflexively when some seratonin/dopamine/whatever tickles their nerves.
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I’m definitely on the fence about making it a formal rule. I think the discussion is good and many good points have been brought up. If nothing else I would hope we can encourage a culture of discussion/context sharing related to shared content as there are lots of places online I can simply be provided more links to click on.
There are definitely situations where the lack of addition context is a missed opportunity for self-expression and other times when it is unnecessary or superfluous. There are individuals who post and build a consistent expectation of quality and there are times when people who tend to post content that I am not interested in post something that breaks that pattern, and others who are hit & miss.
I find the value of this forum as a bit of a bridge between the overwhelming deluge and lack of known community that is Reddit and the intimate but limited topics and reach of a small circle of friends.
Example is arbitrary, feel free to write your own example where it’s an annoying and redundant requirement, because the point is not the thread, the point is the high likelihood of it being annoying and redundant.
Everybody values their time differently. The extra nothingth of a second I have to take to figure out from context - or to just read the headline - why a link is being posted is simply not of sufficient value to me to care. If they have thoughts on the matter, I will read them. If they don’t have something further to say, I trust that they felt the thing speaks for itself. You have created a community that is largely intelligent and thoughtful - have some trust in what you have built, and the people you have gathered here. While moderation is always necessary, micromanagement isn’t.
This really is an interesting question, philosophically, though I suspect inadvertently. After all, who is to say what that value is? I believe there to be value in a naked link, because it tells me these people here, many of whom I consider friends, thought it was interesting or otherwise worth sharing, and they shared it with us.
I watch the videos in the forum, and read the posts in the kpop thread which not only indicates in the title that only you find it has worth, but where you also hold the overwhelming majority of posts - I don’t give a fuck about Kpop, but value it because I care about my friend and their expression of their interest in it, and hey, some of the ARE bangers, and they’d still be bangers without any accompanying text. And this is no less valid than the person who never reads the thread, because they have no interest, and will interact with the forum in other ways.
Realistically, I don’t think we can’t make rules based on the value of these things, because it’s a fool’s game. It is to pretend there is some universal quantification of value to these things, when in reality they are all - each and every single one - absolutely valueless without what we each bring to that post ourselves when we see it. I don’t think there is any amount of effort that will universally cause someone to put value on a post, nor any lack of effort that will automatically cause it to be universally discarded.
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It seems like a lot of people other than me are looking for the text accompanying a link for information as to whether the link itself is worth following. That’s not really something that occurred to me because the way I Internet, the answer is almost always no. Sorry to break it to everyone, I don’t click your links.
This isn’t because they aren’t any good. It’s because I read lots and lots of Internet using RSS, Reddit, Google News, etc. It’s exceedingly rare that someone posts something I haven’t already seen.
So from my use case, the accompanying text that someone writes is the content. If there is no text, then for me it might as well be a blank post. I would rather see someone post a link to some low quality content, but also write something meaningful next to it than someone post a link to the greatest thing ever, but not say anything else.
At this point I think it’s pretty clear it’s probably not the best idea to make a rule or technical measure to eliminate or reduce naked link posts. Instead maybe there are ways we can do some design stuff to encourage and reward those who post content of substance? I really don’t want to do the gamified stuff that other sites do with upvotes and awards and little tiny icons and such. I’m going to try to think of something else, and am very open to any ideas anyone else has to offer.
Is there some way to just have a filter/checkbox/etc that would just auto-hide posts that are just a link?
I definitely enjoy seeing links from people who are ‘plugged in’ to channels I have no ambition to explore as a daily feed. So a link with or without elaboration is fine.
But I can see where if there are members who never contribute other than to post links would get awkward. I’d focus on maybe filtering tools and just elaborate on guidelines that suggest adding some context to a link post as a good idea.
The question is, if the only thing a person has to contribute besides the URL itself is annoying and redundant, should they be sharing it in the first place? Would it be better if they didn’t post at all?
There’s another line of thinking that has come to mind.
I had the belief that when people post things on the Internet, and they aren’t looking for money, the biggest thing they are looking for is replies. Replies are like the XP and loot you get from an RPG encounter. Likes and other things are nice, but replies, as long as they aren’t negative, are really what people are looking for. To talk to another human.
I’ve also believed, despite not looking at any data, that posts with real meaningful content are going to get more replies than naked link shares.
Well, now I’m questioning these beliefs, and not just because they are founded on nothing empirical. It’s just that I noticed some people have particular posting patterns, and they don’t seem to change at all. Some people are the kind who post lots of naked links, and some people write big long things. People don’t seem to be changing their posting habits to try to seek replies.
All I really want is for people to think before posting. If someone is going to make a post, it should be something that was carefully considered and deliberate. Whether it’s a huge essay or just a URL, the person sharing it should have put some amount of thought and care into it. They should know in their own mind the reason they are making the post, even if they don’t share that reason like I wish they would.
How to specifically encourage that behavior is clearly a huge challenge.
I already addressed that in the rest of the post.